Jump to content

Is there such a thing as a Hard Drive Hub?


Ernest Buckley

Recommended Posts

  • Members

I have 5 external HDs all with Firewire 800 ports... I`d like to be able to access them all and copy files from one to the other... however, my iMac only has one Firewire 800 port. So I have to constantly shut down one HD, disconnect, connect another HD and start it up, etc... its annoying.

 

I need a workaround... is there such a thing as Firewire hub? If not, any solutions you can think of?

 

Thanks,

E

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • CMS Author

You don't heed a hard drive hub (and as far as I know there really isn't such a thing), you need a Firewire hub. NitroAV has one with 8 ports for $160, about the price of a decent packaged Firewire drive. If the drives were in USB cases, you could do the job with a $15 powered USB hub, and if they were raw drives, you could get a multi-drive enclosure.

 

NItroAV8PortHubFrontViewCrop.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
You don't heed a hard drive hub (and as far as I know there really isn't such a thing)' date=' you need a Firewire hub. NitroAV has one with 8 ports for $160, about the price of a decent packaged Firewire drive. If the drives were in USB cases, you could do the job with a $15 powered USB hub, and if they were raw drives, you could get a multi-drive enclosure.

 

NItroAV8PortHubFrontViewCrop.jpg

 

Thanks Mike. That may be the way to go. Just read through the reviews, some good some bad... I may have to bite because right now the current workflow is suffering for it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • CMS Author

 

Thanks Mike. That [Nitro Firewire hub] may be the way to go. Just read through the reviews, some good some bad... I may have to bite because right now the current workflow is suffering for it.

 

That's typical of reviews.

 

Now that I think of it, it used to be that Firewire drive cases had two ports, specifically for the purpose of daisy-chaining multiple drives. It's a bus, and you can have eight devices on the bus. Your computer counts as one, so you could hook up seven drives. Take another look at your drives and see if they have two ports. I'm not sure if they did this with Firewire 800, but If so, all you need is cables.

 

s-l1600.jpg

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I've daisy-chained external FW hard drives together before and it's worked perfectly fine, although I would prefer a hub.

 

Read this about the order that one daisy-chains the devices in the event that it applies to you: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/46231/does-daisy-chaining-firewire-800-and-400-cause-all-devices-to-use-400-speeds

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...