Daisy chained Firewire 800 LaCie d2 Quadras - iMac Finder Locks up

Thanks, RRFS, but that thread dealt with 3TB drives that work on USB and not on Firewire 800 due to a file system issue. My problem is 3TB drives that work okay when individually connected by Firewire800, but when daisy chained, cause intermittant problems for Finder, Aperture and other applications. That thread doesn't address any daisy chaining at all.

It sounds as though you have the same problem that I have. I initially thought that this happened only when two or more 3TB LaCie d2 Quadra drives were daisy-chained to a single Firewire port, but I later determined that this can happen with just a single 3TB d2 Quadra -- but it just takes longer to happen. I have a trouble ticket open with Apple Support to attempt to address this issue. Once I get a resolution, I will most likely post it here. Have you complained to Apple Support and opened a trouble ticket about this problem? You will need to be persistent, because they'll walk you through running all sorts of diagnostics and then ask you to erase your disk and re-install OSX. But, it doesn't help. I have re-loaded OSX four times. I have also opened trouble tickets with LaCie. Of the six d2 Quadras that I purchased when I purchased my 27" iMac, in October of 2011, I have sent back two for replacement. I have yet to receive the replacements, though I have emails that they are enroute to me. (If the new drives behave differently I'll post about it, here.) LaCie support told me that they do not test their Firewire drives on the iMacs - only on Mac Book Pro and Mac Pro.

When you get into the finder lockup situation, you may find that you can turn off or disconnect the power from the LaCie d2 Quadra to end the lockup of the finder. Though this will, sadly, still result in loss of data from any files that are open on the drive, this will at least keep you from needing to crash your iMac with the power button and lose data in other applications or files that are open on other drives.

I ran the LaCie updater on my 3TB d2 Quadras back in October of 2011. It did not clear up the problem of the finder hanging at random intervals. The only computer to which I've connected the 3TB d2 Quadras by Firewire 800 is my iMac. I have used eSATA on my lab PCs (Dell PCs, not Macs), and USB to my MacBook Air without incident.

My iMac was brand new out-of-the-box on April 11, 2012 and suffers intermittent finder lockups with the updated 3TB LaCie d2 Quadras.

Are they 3TB d2 Quadras? Or some smaller size? What vintage is your iMac? The iMacs with which I have had problems include a 27" 2TB 2.7GHz i5 8GB iMac from October 2011, and an identically configured iMac from April 2012. I have reset the PRAM repeatedly, I have repeatedly reset the SMC more times than I can count. I have erased the hard drive and re-installed Mac OSX four times. I have taken my iMac to the Apple store four times. I have had an on-site Apple repair technician replace the hard drive and memory. I have nothing but the default Apple applications on my iMac. I have opened over a dozen Apple Care support tickets about this issue or issues that are related to or precipitated by it. Not one of these things, or any combination of them have kept my iMac from repeated intermittant lockups of the finder. You may view videos of my lockups at http://www.CapturedAmbiance.com/imac. If there is some way to thwart such lockups, I would dearly like to know about it. This situation is driving my nuts and sucking up a good portion of my spare time: I purchased a new iMac in October, and I still do not have a reliable computer to which I can reliably attach the multiple LaCie Firewire drives that I purchased at the same time that I purchased my iMac, in October of 2011.

I began complaining to LaCie months ago. So far, I have sent back four of my six 3TB d2 Quadras for warranty repair/replacement. I have received back two of them, but I have not yet connected them to my iMac (due to other time commitments.) LaCie admits that they do not test the 3TB d2 Quardas with the iMac; they only test these drives with the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro. Apple support believes that the problem is the cables. My feeling is that even if the LaCie drive is a bad actor, the iMac should not lock up!

Owen-b, do you have the Apple Data Capture tool? It's the one that Apple Support will email to you for you to log strange behavior and return the log to them. They sent a copy of it to me and asked me to try to get the lockup to happen while the tool was running with the box checked to log file system activity. I have only tried a few times, but the lockups don't seem to happen when the tool is running! If you don't have the tool, but would be willing to try to log this lockup behavior, let me know and I'll see if I can get a copy of it to you. I would think that it would be very helpful to the Apple Support folks working on my case to see a data capture of the lockup happening.

Update: I sent four drives back to LaCie for "repair". I have finally tested the drives that were then sent back to me. * * They all cause the same lockup problem. * * I eventually ended up speaking with a LaCie rep named "Gary". He explained that the newest (version 3) 3TB d2 Quadra drives are well known to cause some iMacs to lock up, apparently due to "chip set incompatibilities". He explained that "some Macs have the problem; and some don't". He gave me the impression that he believes that Macs are assembled with various different external drive interface chip sets. If you're lucky, you get a chip set that won't cause this lockup problem. But, if you're like me, you could get two iMacs in a row that both have the chip sets that cause the lockup. There is no fix. LaCie is now sending me four prior version d2 Quadra drives. These are the v2.1 drives that have Firewire 400, Firewire 800, USB 2.0 and eSATA. (They lack the USB 3.0 ports that the current version, v3, has, but they have Firewire 400 ports.). We'll see how that works out. This also means that if I accept these drives, that they won't have an 800 mbps or better interface with any future Mac that lacks a Firewire port... which is where they seem to be heading.