External HD problem

[GoldShadow]

I've owned a Western Digital MyBook Home 1TB for a little over 6 months now and recently got a SimpleTech ProDrive 1TB to back it up.

The problem is it won't work when I daisy chain them with firewire cables; ie I connect the MyBook to my laptop with a firewire cable, and then connect the ProDrive to the MyBook with another firewire cable. Whenever I tried to copy any files from the MyBook to the ProDrive, it would stall after about 30 seconds and give me an error (the first few times it was something about the device not being ready or valid, and when I'd look in My Computer the ProDrive would be gone; I had to unplug and reconnect the ProDrive for it to appear again). The fifth time I tried, I got this error:
Error Copying File or Folder

Cannot copy Sorry: Cannot find the specified file.

Make sure you specify the correct path and file name.

and both the MyBook and the ProDrive had disappeared from My Computer. I had to disconnect and reconnect both drives to make them appear again.

Then I disconnected the ProDrive from the MyBook and attached it directly to my computer via USB cable (since my computer only has one firewire port and that was connected to the MyBook). I tried copying files from the MyBook to the ProDrive again and this time it worked like a charm.

So does anybody know why the firewire daisy chain didn't work? I was kind of hoping to use firewire cables for the whole thing to quicken the large amounts of data transfer.

Also, does anybody have experience with either of this external hard drives? Anything I should be wary of?

 

[GOTM]

Honestly I've never heard of anyone using your "chain" theory to transfer files. As far as I know, everything has to be hooked directly up to your computer in order to transfer files between the devices.

You might have "fooled" the system for a little bit, but it's definitely going to run into errors as I doubt anyone put this kind of support into the OS. It's a small hack that probably would work for something exactly that, small. Backing up a 1TB HD? Doubt it.

Honestly as far as I know, firewire speeds are not too much greater than USB 2.0 speeds. I think their max transfer rate has a higher possible outcome, but on average I believe USB 2.0 beats it. That being said, it's probably not worth your trouble to connect things using your "chain" theory, just hook them both up separately and do it that way. You might also run into the position of some of your files being corrupt or something. Just go with what works.

 

[Kirby King]

Hmm? Daisy chaining isn't a theory, it's supposed to work. I have two Firewire hard drives and they work fine daisy chained (that is, one connected to the other connected to a Firewire port).

 

[CT Chia]

i used to connect my firewire drives together and they worked no probs. i believe i also copied data between the two of them no problem

 

[noradseven]

Honestly I've never heard of anyone using your "chain" theory to transfer files. As far as I know, everything has to be hooked directly up to your computer in order to transfer files between the devices.

You might have "fooled" the system for a little bit, but it's definitely going to run into errors as I doubt anyone put this kind of support into the OS. It's a small hack that probably would work for something exactly that, small. Backing up a 1TB HD? Doubt it.

Honestly as far as I know, firewire speeds are not too much greater than USB 2.0 speeds. I think their max transfer rate has a higher possible outcome, but on average I believe USB 2.0 beats it. That being said, it's probably not worth your trouble to connect things using your "chain" theory, just hook them both up separately and do it that way. You might also run into the position of some of your files being corrupt or something. Just go with what works.

actually theory wise USB is faster, however in practice firewire 400 is over twice as fast on average, and firewire 800 is around 5 times faster