Daisy-chained LaCie drives won't mount on new iMac

No, I brought up unpluging the power as an example to illustrate that the data passthrough on the older drives is passive, not active (as it appears to be on LaCie drives.) Ideally I'd like to have them all plugged in, chained together and not requre them to all power on when I start my computer only to have them sleep when idle. Because having them turn on every time your computer turns on and then go to sleep would wear them out and unplugging and plugging data cables in and out would wear out the connetors. If one drive is a weekly Super Duper backup, turning it on every day and having it to go to sleep right after would not be smart because you'd be putting more stress on it than the system drive you are backing up.

f1.4 wrote:

No, I brought up unpluging the power as an example to illustrate that the data passthrough on the older drives is passive, not active (as it appears to be on LaCie drives.) Ideally I'd like to have them all plugged in, chained together and not requre them to all power on when I start my computer only to have them sleep when idle. ...

So, help me understand, ideally - and lets say it is a LaCie I'm using, since it is, my drives should be sleeping but attached to power with the power brick on. When I wake up the computer (I only turn it off if we are to be away from it for a few days as Apple suggests) the drives should NOT come on - but should only come on when I want to use them.

Now - how do I make that happen? With the 2 LaCies that have an auto button on the rear - and these are the 2 I'd like to use SuperDuper to back up to most often (say once a day) they probably wake up when I wake up the computer if I leave them on auto all the time. The alternative is to turn them off - on the rear with the on/off button and turn them on the one time/day that I am going to do a quickie backup. Do I also need to mount and unmount them each time?

Drive number 3 - I will use to back up once a week - same procedure? But can it be connected to the other 2 and so I'd do the backup for it after I've done the other 2?

And now, for the 64 thousand dollar question - #3 I'd just like to use once a week to backup to the MBP. If I have one of its FW ports connected to the daisy chain to the iMac, but not mounted at the same time, could I use the other FW port to connect to the MBP to do a backup from it - I know you can't connect a drive to 2 computers - but if its unmounted from one, can it be connected to another?

Or - would it all be easier if I found a hub with 2 or 3 FW ports??

Help - I am really confused.

Thanks,

Mrs H

I'm not sure, you should test it out to see how it works.

but for your third question, I don't understand why you would have the backup to your laptop hooked up to your iMac at all if it is going to be a backup for the laptop only. Why not keep it separate from your iMac drives in a drawer with a label so you don't accidentally erase one of your iMac external drives?

f1.4 wrote:

I'm not sure, you should test it out to see how it works.

but for your third question, I don't understand why you would have the backup to your laptop hooked up to your iMac at all if it is going to be a backup for the laptop only. Why not keep it separate from your iMac drives in a drawer with a label so you don't accidentally erase one of your iMac external drives?

Test it out? Yes, of course, I should but before I hooked everything up I'd get what advice I could about what to expect. Right now - the HDs are not attached to anything and I've just connected them as I need and then disconnected - except for the one for daily copies of the iMac.

First the on/off issue - I assume you are saying it is NOT good to have the LaCies turn on and off when I wake up the iMac several times a day - so if I can't make it so they stay asleep, using the on/off switch is the way to go with that issue? The on/off switch is less likely to die the drive itself from going on and off several times a day before idling...if not in use but on...

To answer your other question - I have one HD backup dedicated to the MBP, and Mr H makes copies of all th new work he does on 2 flash drives as well. (We have another mobile, mini HD in the safe deposit box that I update occasionally for each computer - along with another partition for photos and one for the installer of SL and Lion which I don't use!)

I have 2 HDs dedicated to the iMac. And one is a shared backup - partitioned to have copies for each computer with the volumes boldly named - I can't make a mistake by overwriting the wrong one. I know if that one fails I've lost backups for both computers, but having those other copies of each computer as well, even if that one fails I'm still protected.

I had the LaCies connected to my G4 without all this fuss - but having only one FW port is giving me fits trying to learn how to daisychain (in the midst of setting up the new iMac). And your point about not having them power up all the time really makes sense - I just don't know how to make that happen.

Mrs H

I have a number of 3TB laCie 2d Quadra drives. THEY ARE A COMPLETE DISASTER!!! You can look at my support forum item at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3933487?start=0&tstart=0 .Basically, the 3TB version 3 d2 Quadra drives are not compatible with certain Macs. They will sporadically lock up your finder (and applications that then try to access the file system). It can take from hours to a week or more for this to happen. When it does, you will lose (or have corrupted) all files that are open on the LaCie drive!