Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter not enough power

Just purchased imac (late 2012) along with Thunderbolt to FW adapter. When connecting to My Book Studio 2 to iMac with FW/Thunderbolt connector, the drive WILL NOT mount. Contacted WD, they advised firmare update is not necessary given FW800 cable connection worked fine on previous machin (PowerMac G5). Referred me back to Apple to get cable and adapter tested.

Contacted Applecare and whilst drive connection appears as connected in iMac hardware system report, the drive will still not mount on the desktop.

Took drive and cable into Apple store, and Genius could not get the drive to mount on a MacBook Pro despite changing the cable and adapters.

Conclusion - it doesn't work. Not technically qualified to say why but my hunch is it's something to do with inadequate power output from the Mac. The iMac will wake up the drive but it just won't mount.

Hope this helps.

Does the MY Book Studion 2 have a Power Adapter or is it "FireWire Bus Powered"?

When using the Thunderbolt to FW Adapter my experience has been that it must be powered by additional A/C power becuase the FireWire Bus Power is not enough.

DavidH

Mr. Peebly. Any solutions to this issue with the MyBook Studio 2? I've got a new iMac on the way with no native Firewire. Frankly I've always had issues with the MyBook Studio 2 regarding "sleep", but Thunderbolt to Firewire sounds like I'll be having additional problems.

I also have a Firewire Lacie2big. I hope that works!

Applecare were unable to resolve the problem and Apple customer services gave me a refund for the adapter.

Applestore did (in fairness) test the connection when I took my drive into the Manchester store. They tested another Thunderbolt adapter and the problem still persists. Applestore felt the problem resides with WD and felt I should demand a refund under terms of the drives 3 year warranty.

On contacting WD, they advised given the drive worked perfectly on a PowerMac G5 FW800 port, no firmware update was required (not recommended, potential risk of data loss) and the problem must therefore be with the Thunderbolt adapter.

In conclusion classic case of neither vendor accepting liability despite Apple's refund policy (which is not an admission of fault), hence caveat emptor.

I have now decided to use the drive on USB2 which mounts and works perfectly. I plan to buy a new WD 3GB which will serve as my main backup drive (using USB3) and demote my exisiting drive as an additional USB2 backup dive.

It would appear FW800 is a dying connection type and there are little speed differences between FW800 & USB3.

I use the Thunderbolt connector to connect a Sony TRV30E camcorder with FW cable sourced from:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002S4OHOG/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8 &psc=1

This means I can still import DV footage into iMovie.

Three is a huge difference between Firewire 800 and USB 3.0.

Firewire 800 offers up to 800Mbps while USP 3.0 offers up to 5Gbps. For a 5400RPm drive like the Western Digital, this is the difference between capping the speed at around 60-80MB/s and the drive maxing out at around 95-105MB/s. Obviously for a faster drive, the difference would be even more. My 7200RPM G-Drive Mini caps at around 120-130 MB/s and my G-RAID taps out at over 300MB/s.

Thanks for the backround. I've always had trouble with my WD MyBook II on Firewire to a now three year old iMac I was having WD HD waking from sleep unless it was second in line to a Lacie2big Firewire external HD.

I actually have third and fourth Firewire devices in the chain sometimes. I'm really dreading to see what will happen when I upgrade to a 2012 iMac with no Firewire and use the Thunderbot adapter. As you know Thunderbolt external devices are pretty pricey. Maybe I'll "downgrade" and use the USB 2.0 on my Firewire devices, but of course I don't want to use up all my USB ports. I know there are add on externally powered USB port multipliers, but the two I've tried don't work well either. I've seen recently a all in one (Thunderbolt, USB) port multipliers but it was $300.00 and I don't know if that would only cause more issues between my devices.

Upgading hard drives or computers can really be expensive. I may sell my old hard drives as I can afford to upgrade to Thunderbolt external hard drives.

I've concluded that success is entirely up to the enclosure. I have two different FW 400/800 enclosures from OWC, a LaCie drive and an IcyDock FW 800 enclosure all which work with the ThunderBolt adaptor. I can daisy chain them in any order and they work. I no name generic FW enclosures that work perfectly well connected to my older Macs but not so well with the adaptor. One intermittently loses connection while the other is fine until the computer sleeps.

I've swapped drives around and that made no difference with the two cheap generics. That's why I've concluded it is the enclosure/chipset.

I would like to extend your warning to Macbook Air 2011 users. (Macbook Air 4,2)

I have a G-Drive Mini with Firewire 800, 400 and a usb 2.0 mini port. Usb drives get powered with ONLY the usb cable (without the round DC power connection) while Firewire 800 over the Thunderbolt port makes the drive click.

VERY ANNOYING APPLE!

G-Drives are not cheap.

By the look of this post, apple's thunderbolt to firewire adapter has many an unhappy customer.

Im hoping to receive some insight from the forum re: my Presonus Firebox, which is firewire powered and unable to run while connected to my brand new iMac using the TB adapter.

The Firebox works perfectly while plugged in to my macbook pro using the 6 pin to 9 in cable alone, but when I attempt to use the thunderbolt adapter with the same cable on either computer (new iMac and the 2 year old macbook pro)... well, no dice. Im trying to get my home studio upgrade off the ground and this is causing some headaches.

Bottom line: is it likely that I am experiencing an issue (similar to others on the forum) that will be corrected with the use of an external power supply (not relying on the cable alone)? I plan to pick one up at radio shack tomorrow.

Thanks in advance for the help.

I have had to reformat a 500 GB Iomega bus powered external drive after connected via an Apple thunderbolt to Firewire converter. The slightest movement of the Thunderbolt connection on my MacBook Pro Retina causes the drive to unmount. A LaCie bus powered drive has had similar problems including very slow backup over Time Machine.

I have had reliable results with a couple self-powered LaCie external Firewire 800 drives going through the adapter, but even these get unmounted if the Thunderbolt adapter connection gets bumped. So far I would rate this adapter as flakey.

I'll give tech support a try, but after the experience of the last week, I simply cannot trust the Thunderbolt-Firewire adapter.

Sounds like a defective adaptor or port. I've used the adaptor successfully on two computers and I've frequently done more than bumped it - I've moved the drive and computer from one location to another while still connected and the drive hasn't dismounted.

Bad experiences with Edirol FA-101 for recording instruments : grind sound, hicup, no sound for seconds... The imac seems lost sync. This interface had know four mac before with no problems. But thunderbolt - Firewire on iMac 2013 don't do the job anymore. What a pity.

Does not work for me either on the G-Raid Mini. The 7w of power is insufficient to drive the two-drive mechanism. Works fine with single drives.

yep same problem as well. But, I lost the power adaptor so I can't test if it work on my macbook at all. The G-raid mini drive works fine on my wifes macbook pro. Is there a fix?

Does this mean the G-Drive mini works with this adapter?