Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

0 points

Firewire 800 and mbp 2011

I have a new macbook pro 2011 15" i7 2.3, i'am also using a western digital USB 2.0 & FW800 external 2.5" drive that works without problems with my previous macbook pro (early 2007) and with my current iMac (2010) using the fw800 port.

Now every time i try to transfer large files to the external drive connected to the fw800 port the drive stalls during the transfer and after a while also the finder go in a loop and i have to unplug the drive to resume "normal" operation....

Using the drive with the USB 2.0 port works, also works a fw400 2.5" external drive and an external 3.5" fw800 wd drive, with its own power adapter.

Maybe a problem with the power supplied from the port to bus powered fw800 drives ?

M.

Macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Mar 8, 2011 12:16 AM

43 replies

blotti Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 27, 2011 3:22 AM in response to lysander-spooner

I have only the goflex adapter, and my test was with a 7200rpm 160Gb Seagate Momentus 7200.2 drive.
I have to add that yesterday that drive connected with the goflex adapter stopped working while i was transferring files...... This morning i have powered off the mbp, restarted it and tried again (same drive, same adapter) and it works.....
Yesterday and today the mbp was connected to the power adapter, yesterday i have several programs opened during the test and the mbp was on from several days, as normally i put it to sleep when i'm not using it for a while.
The WD drive instead worked yesterday and today, i have tested it too when the seagate drive failed.
M.

Apr 3, 2011 6:58 AM in response to blotti

Ok, so the issue is intermittent, and seems to have no clear triggering. So many different drives from different manufacturers, means that it isn't drive quality. It is possibly an inconsistency or bug in the bridge chip or in Apple's driver.

Where do we report this so that Apple knows about it?

Ken1161

Level 1

0 points

Apr 4, 2011 3:30 PM in response to blotti

I have the same problem with my new MBP 13" and a Buffalo Dualie 500GB External Drive. The Dualie also has a fw400 port which works fine on my old iBook. I only have the problem using fw800 and large files.

Apr 5, 2011 3:18 PM in response to blotti

I tried to get new drives from WD, they sent me the same exact drives. Not the new passport with the digital readout. Fail. Same problem. Sending the new drives back. This firewire issue is growing from annoying to frustrating.

Apr 6, 2011 1:50 PM in response to bmartin9678

Given the nature of the problem (works fine for awhile then quits) and the fact that the issue shows up with drives from a variety of manufacturers, and that these drives work ok with other computers, including past macbooks, the problem is not in the drives.

It is either a problem with the hardware in the new MacBook Pro, or with the driver for that new hardware.

Apr 7, 2011 3:26 AM in response to blotti

between office and home I use WD "not portable" LaCies "all type and sizes" and one G-Drive, no problem here

Apr 9, 2011 9:00 AM in response to lysander-spooner

I just copied 150+ GB of data off of another Macbook Pro using Firewire 800 and Target Disk Mode. So whatever the problem is, it doesn't appear when the "external drive" is another Macbook.

Apr 14, 2011 10:22 PM in response to blotti

Installing the "Turbo Drivers" listed here seems to have solved this problem for me:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=205&sid=108&lang=en

fr8tdog

Level 1

13 points

Apr 17, 2011 10:24 AM in response to lysander-spooner

You mean to say I just spent all this money on an iPad charger?

Apr 24, 2011 3:18 PM in response to lysander-spooner

I have some of same problems and dont think its software, would really appreciate your assessment. I use my new MacBook pro 2011, 13", i7, 8GB, 500 SSD, with 20" external monitor, in my editing bay for FCP projects. Prior to buying new MBP, I had 4 external HDs (3 La Cie, 1 Western Dig), and a NEC DVD burner and a Sony Blu-Ray, connected through 2 FireWire 400 hubs to my 2008 15" Intel MCP. All worked fine, using Toast to burn the Blu-ray disks for video projects. After making the transition to FireWire 800 on the new MCP (using adapters to link 400 hubs to 800 port in new MCP 2011), ALL external devices were still working fine. After successfully completing an FCP video project requiring burning about 15 DVDs and 5 Blu-ray disks, using Toast 10, about a week ago, my NEC DVD and Sony Blu-Ray are now longer found in About this Mac or recognized in Toast, only the MBP super drive is found and/or recognized. I thought it might be a PRAM problem, and reset that, but to no avail: no external burners, just the 4 HDs. Any help appreciated.

May 5, 2011 5:18 AM in response to lysander-spooner

I installed the MBP 2011 software updates released on 5/5/2011. This seems to have fixed the problem.

I was able to copy over 60GB to my Seagate GoFlex drive using the Seagate Firewire 800 adapter that previously exhibited the problem.

I did this by several tests involving 11GB disk images and one test with 14GB of disk images. For almost all the tests the entire copy completed at 50GB/s.

However, when trying to copy 14GB, after about 11GB had been copied the transfer slowed to 4GB/s. It continued to copy, but much slower. At the same time, CPU utilization went up dramatically, to where finder was using a complete core, and the machine got warmer. At this point the destination drive was nearly completely full (less than 5GB free on a TB drive) so fragmentation may be the cause of the dramatic slowdown.

I think this confirms my hypothesis that it was a bug in interfacing with some FW800 controller chips and has been fixed by the software update or the firmware update that was released today.

Notably, the FW adapter was quite warm, and the issue may be due to it overheating, and apple has simply put in a work around to detect this.

May 7, 2011 8:41 PM in response to blotti

I have a 17" 2011 MBP and have had the exact same issue with my Seagate GoFlex 1TB drive...after copying 0.3-1GB via Firewire, the copy stalls. I do not think the latest update has fixed this issue, although I HAVE had the drive overheating since the update while unsuccessfully trying to copy over files.

I have no issues using this computer with the external drive when copying via USB.

Also, I have no issues copying files from my 15" 2009 MBP to the Seagate external via Firewire.

In addition, I have no issues when copying large files from my 15" 2009 MBP to and from my 17" 2011 MBP via Firewire (both network and startup).

abross86

Level 1

20 points

May 16, 2011 11:46 AM in response to blotti

I'm having the same issue with my 2011 15" mbp and a 500gb western digital passport studio. I can transfer files up to ~200mb before the transfer stalls and I have to unplug the drive (this doesnt happen when I connect via USB). As far as I can tell, this is a firewire problem with the new macbooks and I will be pretty ticked off if apple blames this on the hard drive manufacturers. This drive works on every other mac ive tried including a 2010 MBP with the exact same osx version.

Aug 10, 2011 10:53 AM in response to blotti

I, too, have the same problem with my WD Passport (USB/FW800). Copying large amounts of data occasionally results in a stalled copy process. Unplugging the drive helped under OS 10.6. Now, under 10.7, I even had to reboot the computer.

I have had the drive replaced under warranty but the problem remains with the new drive. I have installed the WD “Turbo” driver but it did not change anything. So if I want to copy large data amount I have to use the drive via USB2.

I have a second Firewire 800 drive (LaCie) and it works flawlessly.

Personally, I just never will buy a WD drive again.

Aug 15, 2011 4:29 AM in response to blotti

same problem with me: MBP 15" 2,3 i7 8GB and a my passport studio 500 gb via fw800. when i backup with superduper the process suddenly stops. superduper backup with usb2 works.

with my MBP late 2007 i had no problems at all.

Firewire 800 and mbp 2011