New iMac firewire connection question

[petestuff]

Hello all,
I am interested in getting one of the new iMacs. I have a firewire interface- TC Konnekt 24D- and a firewire external hard drive. Is it OK to daisy chain them? Does anyone have experience of doing this?

It would have to be: iMac>Konnekt24D>HDD as the HDD only has one firewire port & the Konnekt has 2.

I will also need to get a firewire 800 to 400 cable. Seems odd that Apple have removed the 400 firewire ports on the new macs, not helpful.

Thanks for any responses
Pete

[SubFunk]

i had never problems daisy chaining an external drive with my firebox via firewire on a MBP.

the only thing that happens is that i get a little crackling click sound and ultra short dropout of sound when i switch the drive on/off
it's not a problem, thou... you just need to know it and avoid switching the drive on/off during a performance or recording

my chain is usually MBP -> firebox -> ext HD

also the 400 to 800 cable is not a problem.

the chaining also works flawless with my scratchamp2 i use for DJ-ing / Live performances

[ashtonron]

been chaining from my IMacs FW800 with no problems. Just buy a FW 800 --> FW 400 adaptor then you can use a FW400 cable. (They cost very little)

[Hidden Driveways]

Nice to hear people are getting by with one FW port. If anyone has had problems, please report here.

On a side note, pete, has the 24D given you any trouble? There have been postings here with people saying the drivers have been sketchy. Has your experience been good? I'm trying to talk myself out of an RME and into a 24D. Thanks...

Oh, by the way, I think Apple is opting to put a FW 800 port on their computers because it's the faster of the two. If you're only going to have one FW port, it may as well be an 800.

[petestuff]

Thanks for the replies people.

Mr Driveways: I am very pleased with the 24D. There were some new drivers when Snow Leopard came out. I have not had any problems with the older or new drivers.

I record guitar & vocals and get very low latency. The inbuilt reverb & compressor are excellent. It has a couple of quirks such as having to switch from plugin mode to record mode mode for the effects which seems a bit unnecessary. Overall though it is a high quality unit & seems well built & well supported by TC Electronics.
Cheers
Pete

[Locktopus]

Great I've been wanting to know this too, thanks.

I heard that the faster device should be first, e.g. put the FW800 hard drive direct to the Mac and the FW400 soundcard daisy chain from that. Otherwise your HD is limited to 400 speed

[mohler]

Great I've been wanting to know this too, thanks.

I heard that the faster device should be first, e.g. put the FW800 hard drive direct to the Mac and the FW400 soundcard daisy chain from that. Otherwise your HD is limited to 400 speed

I heard that too but it conflicts with the general wisdom that it will step down to the lowest common speed. I think everyone is getting confused with USB, a little trawling shows that the IEEE1394 standard does allow for devices to run at their optimum speeds.

I did find this on 1394ta.org:

FireWire 800 is completely compatible with older FireWire devices. You just need a widely-available and inexpensive cable or adapter that has a FireWire 800 connector on one end, and the appropriate (6-pin or 4-pin) FireWire 400 connector on the other end. If you daisy chain your devices, be sure to put your FireWire 800 devices closest to your FireWire 800 port to maintain their speed.

And this is from firstglimpsemag
If you have only FireWire 800 devices connected, the devices will operate in beta mode, at the new specification's higher speeds. In legacy mode, a group of FireWire 400 devices will still operate (at the same speed as they did before), even on an 800 bus. Finally, bilingual mode permits a mixed environment of FireWire 400 and 800 devices, while ensuring that each runs at its optimal speed.

[SubFunk]

^^^ oh yeah man, i hate USB so much and USB 3.0 is dealing with the same problems... it's rotten in it's core, no matter how much they try to bump up the artificial speed. hate! and apple the f-kers start to support that shite more and more, they should be tortured for that.