Firewire to (S)ATA bridge board

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NoSp - 07 Sep 2007 23:05 GMT

I want to make my own external hard drive enclosure which will house
two hard drives and connect to my Powerbook via Firewire 800. I need a
"Firewire bridge board" though I'm not entirely sure which one to get.

1) Is the "JBOD" mode the way to go if I don't want to configure my
drives for RAID, but rather as two individual and separate drives
(that just happen to be in the same box)?

2) I already have an ATA drive which I want to put in the external
enclosure.
If I get a Firewire 800 to ATA bridge-board I can just plug in my
existing ATA drive and buy another ATA drive to put in the box.
But if I get a Firewire 800 to SATA bridge-board I need to buy
additional hardware; an ATA to SATA adapter board, and the second
drive will of course be a SATA drive.
Which one should I get? I've heard that even though SATA is faster
than ATA it doesn't make any difference (compared to ATA drives) when
you connect it via Firewire 800, but I've also heard that SATA drives
via a Firewire 800 does indeed make a difference. I'm confused.

3) Since I'll be using the two drives individually I'll also want to
individually power them up/down (no need to spin a drive and wear it
out when I'm not actually using it), but don't want too many switches.
The enclosure will have an internal power supply, so I would really
need 3 switches:

- power supply on/off
- drive 1 on/off
- drive 2 on/off

To make it a little more elegant, is there a way I could do with just
two or even one switch?

>From my own experience with an external Firewire drive I know that I

can easily spin down a drive from the Mac (when I unmount it), but is
there a way that a hard drive can be spun up/mounted manually as well,
from the Mac?
If it's possible for the drives to *not* spin up when power is
applied, but only spin up via a software command from the Mac I could
do with a single power supply switch in the enclosure and leave the
individual mounting/unmounting to the Mac. Is this possible?

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Niels Jørgen Kruse - 09 Sep 2007 19:10 GMT

> >From my own experience with an external Firewire drive I know that I
> can easily spin down a drive from the Mac (when I unmount it), but is
> there a way that a hard drive can be spun up/mounted manually as well,
> from the Mac?

Spin down often doesn't work with bridgeboards and generic drives.
Chances are better with complete external drives.

Signature

Mvh./Regards, Niels Jørgen Kruse, Vanløse, Denmark

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NoSp - 10 Sep 2007 19:01 GMT

On Sep 9, 8:10 pm, nos...@ab-katrinedal.dk (Niels J?rgen Kruse) wrote:

> > >From my own experience with an external Firewire drive I know that I
> > can easily spin down a drive from the Mac (when I unmount it), but is
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> Spin down often doesn't work with bridgeboards and generic drives.
> Chances are better with complete external drives.

What do you mean by generic drives?
Ready-to-use external drive enclosures also come with bridge-boards.

I'm considering getting the following Firewire 800/USB 2.0 bridge-
board which has connectors for two SATA drives:
http://www.span.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1308&products_id=7656

It says that it's compatible with MacOS 9.1 and higher.

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Niels Jørgen Kruse - 10 Sep 2007 21:01 GMT

> > > >From my own experience with an external Firewire drive I know that I
> > > can easily spin down a drive from the Mac (when I unmount it), but is
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> What do you mean by generic drives?

The usual internal drives.

> Ready-to-use external drive enclosures also come with bridge-boards.
>
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> It says that it's compatible with MacOS 9.1 and higher.

It doesn't say anything about spin down though.

Looks like an interesting option for upgrading an old enclosure.

Signature

Mvh./Regards, Niels Jørgen Kruse, Vanløse, Denmark

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Mac Forum / General / Hardware / September 2007

Firewire to (S)ATA bridge board