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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Macbook Pro firewire 800 + Red Drive = Nothing.

Jim. Yeah, I believe the drives we're using are also from very early on. Maybe there's some incompatibility there, but if they've modified the drives in newer batches, I would expect the problem won't get patched any time soon.

Peter. Yeah, I'm doing a similiar thing with the ExpressCard, dumping through R3D Data Manager to 2 ESata drives for my initial copy off the Red Drive (which is why the firewire on the new macbook pro not working is a problem.) It's a great setup, except the enclosures I bought (acommdata) have a very deeply recessed esata port, so I had to hack the enclosures up and put the drives in different ones. Interesting that your situation changed in the last bit. I do have experience with the LaCie drives flaking out over time...

-Patrick.
 
nomad said:
Same here.
Click to expand...

My only suggestion is don't cheap out on drives and adapters. I've heard lots of bad things about LaCie. And buying a $40 ExpressCard because it is the cheapest isn't a good idea. I would recommend the CalDigit ExpressCard unless you absolutely need two eSATA ports.

http://www.CalDigit.com/FASTA-1ex.asp
 
I need to contradict on that one:
We have no trouble whatsoever with the express cards from Sonnettech, neither in our laptops nor in MacPros. And two eSATa ports on your laptop are quite nice for a simple RAID0…
 
Well,

First off, you should use the drives in a powered config when ever possible and especially when using the express cards. The red raid is just that a raid. The power off of the ports is often under-volting the two drives in there and will contribute to the slow downfall of your red raid.

Secondly, I have found in the past that two red drives on the same port makes it so that neither will mount. I have not tested this again recently but at the time of my findings I tried it on three different laptops and two towers all with the same result. Two red raids, same bus, neither will mount.
 
Do the drives spin up when plugged into the computer? They should spin up regardless if you plug in the AC adapter. DO NOT daisy-chain the RED drives! There is not enough bus power to operate more than one drive and connecting AC adapters in a daisy-chain configuration can cause damage to the drives and/or other components.

On a Macbook Pro, you will want to connect the AC adapter in most situations. It also helps to run the Macbook Pro off AC power too. Occasional power fall-offs can cause the drive to lose connection. The RED Drive draws right at the maximum power off the FW bus.

Assuming the drive is connected and spins up so it's properly powered, if it still does not come up, have you looked in disk utility to see if a drive is there? Have you tried to mount it manually from the terminal?
 
Peter Strietmann said:
You may want to check out what others say about the Sonnet on Amazon. Maybe not so good.
Click to expand...

Uli doesn't seem to have any problems with his Sonnet card. Anyway, I wouldn't normally recommend Sonnet, it is just that CalDigit doesn't have a two-port eSATA card.

Sorry about dissing your Dynex. It is just that I saw both you and Patrick were having similar problems, and both using the same ExpressCard. Maybe it is just a coincidence.
 
I know that CalDigit is making excellent products, I would always recommend their RAID card for a MacPro.
 
Hmm... don't know if this is related or not, but I'm having trouble connecting two different Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5 drives in a Vantec NexStar enclosure through FireWire 800 on a 17" MacBook Pro. NO problem when connecting to a 17" Power Book G4, a 15" Power Book G4, or my Mac Pro (early 2008).
 
$460.

Hurts.
 
we found this solution for RED drives that don't mount on the new macbookpro unibody with firewire800 : use a Lexar FW800 Compact flash cardreader in the middle of the firewire800 cabling ! very strange, but it works...
We have 3 RED drives that work perfectly with our alu macbookpro 17", but on the new unibody, we could only get them to work with a firewire800-400 cable before finding this trick.
-- and always try to use a external powersupply for the RED drive.
 
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