Daisy-Chaining USB/Firewire Combination

I am growing out of the 2TB iOmega external HD I use for Time Machine and am looking to buy a 3TB or 4TB drive to do the job. In the process I would like to use the existing 2TB drive as storage for iTunes media. The trouble is, the iOmega device runs only on FW800 or USB2 and nowadays, most HD connections are USB3 or Thunderbolt.


I am wondering, therfore, can I buy a USB3 device and daisy-chain that with my iOmega device that's connected to my iMac via FireWire800?


Speed is not reall an issue with the new storage device as it would be dedicated to Time Machine.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Apr 17, 2014 12:36 PM

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7 replies

Apr 17, 2014 12:40 PM in response to Mark McCord

You cannot daisy-chain USB. You can only connect the new drive through the Iomega if that unit also acts as a USB hub, and I've not heard of any drive acting as such. If you meant that you wanted to connect the Iomega via Firewire and then the new drive to the Iomega via USB, that won't work.


Your best option is to connect both drives directly to the Mac. You can still use a USB 3 device with a Mac with USB 2 ports; the device will just run at USB 3 speeds. Or there are still a number of drives available with Firewire, and that can be daisychained assuming one of the drives has dual Firewire ports.


Regards.

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Daisy-Chaining USB/Firewire Combination

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