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Mac Forum / Country Specific / Australian Mac Group / December 2007MacPro and LaCie Big Disk
I haven't done the homework on this yet but I am hoping someone with experience might point me in the right direction and save me time. I have a MacPro on OSX.4.11 with a 2 x 3 gHz Quad Core processor and 4 gigs of RAM. I also have an ethernet LaCie 1000 gig external drive. At present the only way to connect to this drive is to plug it into the router I use for internet stuff via the ethernet cable and network it. The LaCie is supposed to be capable of gigabit transmission speeds, but the data transfer rate via the router is simply painful. I seem to recall when I had a PC networked to the Mac system I had, I could get data through the same network I'm using now from that old PC laptop a hundred times faster than the MacPro can talk to this drive via the router. Any ideas on how I can get the data transfer speed to an acceptable level? I have HDV movie files of up to 80 gigs each, and I don't want to spend 10 hours transferring each of them to a drive that is supposed to be really fast! Is there a way to connect the MacPro via one of its ethernet ports directly to the ethernet port of the drive, without a router to negotiate between them? I can't make them talk to each other doing that. Rifty  Signatureriftynet - put a dot after rifty > I haven't done the homework on this yet but I am hoping someone with > experience might point me in the right direction and save me time. [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Rifty Hi Rifty Firstly, the router will not likely be 1000base Tx but either 10 or 100 so that is the first bottleneck I would imagine. You can check by going to the network system, pref panel, click on the advanced tab of the ethernet and look at the ethernet tab (far right). It will tell you what it is. And yes, plug them in via ethernet - the mac is auto negotiating and there is no need fro cross over cables and the like. The drive is DHCP compatible. Of course by far the fastest would be firewire 800 but I presume you didn't get that particular disk. Nigel > > I haven't done the homework on this yet but I am hoping someone with > > experience might point me in the right direction and save me time. [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > Rifty > Hi Rifty Nigel - very much appreciate your response, and also personal assistance via email from Ken who gave me this very useful link: http://netgear.com.au/Products/Switches/DesktopSwitches/GS105.aspx > Firstly, the router will not likely be 1000base Tx but either 10 or 100 so > that is the first bottleneck I would imagine. You can check by going to the > network system, pref panel, click on the advanced tab of the ethernet and > look at the ethernet tab (far right). It will tell you what it is. Now just bear with me as I must be having a senior moment, but I am intepreting your instructions re going to the network system etc as going to System Prefs, clicking on Network and choosing Built-In Ethernet, and then selecting Ethernet on the far right. But I don't see any Advanced tab on the way to that point - just a Configure option. Am I not looking in the right place? > And > yes, plug them in via ethernet - the mac is auto negotiating and there is no [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Nigel When you say, plug them in via ethernet, do you mean directly one of the ethernet ports of the MacPro to the LaCie drive? I couldn't see any response from the MacPro anywhere to indicate it had been plugged into an external drive while attempting that. Sorry to sound dumb, but these things always look ridiculously easy once you've done them right the first time and understand what you've done! Rifty Signatureriftynet - put a dot after rifty >>> I haven't done the homework on this yet but I am hoping someone with >>> experience might point me in the right direction and save me time. [quoted text clipped - 57 lines] > > Rifty Sorry Rifty - been away so a slow reply. Its my senior moment (and im not senior yet!) - I was looking at my Leopard OS with those instructions. However, an easier way to check your network connection speed is using the network utility in the utilities folder - the first tab pane is info and it should tell you what the current speed is (you might have to toggle the connection it reports on by switching from ew0 to ew1 - youll see what I mean). As to the plugging directly into each other that is what I suggested. It was more of a way to see if giabit ethernet was working so what does the speed link say now (100 or 1000?). I suppose you could use it that way but that would take a bit of working out - I would have thought the drive would now appear on your network as a server but these things are not certain- look in the finder. Nigel > Sorry Rifty - been away so a slow reply. Its my senior moment (and im not > senior yet!) - I was looking at my Leopard OS with those instructions. Whew! Given that I am in the zone, I'm glad it was as simple as that. :) > However, an easier way to check your network connection speed is using the > network utility in the utilities folder - the first tab pane is info and it > should tell you what the current speed is (you might have to toggle the > connection it reports on by switching from ew0 to ew1 - youll see what I > mean). Yeah - great! Thanks so much for that. The connection at en1 (which is the LaCie) is 100Mb. I have actually networked a separate dlink router with the dlink switch and I am getting faster speeds than I was, but still nothing like what I expected or hoped. When I had the old PC laptop connected via the router to my MacMini, I am sure I was getting 400Mb through that link. So it is still slower than my slowest USB2 drive, which is very frustrating, because this LaCie when checked through the web admin page claims to be available at 1000Mb. > As to the plugging directly into each other that is what I suggested. It > was more of a way to see if giabit ethernet was working so what does the > speed link say now (100 or 1000?). 100. But 25 gig files take an hour to upload. Too slow as far as I am concerned. Yes, I did connect through this separate router to the MacPro's Ethernet 2 port, and has no other hardware connected. Nothing else to slow it down as far as I can see. > I suppose you could use it that way but > that would take a bit of working out - I would have thought the drive would > now appear on your network as a server but these things are not certain- > look in the finder. No problem getting the drive to appear on the network once connected through the router. If I just plug the drive direct to the ethernet port on the MacPro, is can be seen as an alias but says it has a different version of the AFP and can't be connected directly (is there a clue in that somewhere for direct connection?) I can only bring it up as a server via the network with the intercession of a router, which obviously has the right transfer protocol. I just can't believe that an ethernetted machine can't be made to transfer data at a speed lower than the slowest USB2 machine. I would love to know how to alter the settings to somehow release that bottleneck. Thanks for the info so far. Very helpful. Rifty Signatureriftynet - put a dot after rifty > I just can't believe that an ethernetted machine can't be made to > transfer data at a speed lower than the slowest USB2 machine. For 'lower' there, read 'higher'! Rifty Signatureriftynet - put a dot after rifty USB2 is faster than gig ethernet Sorry You can experiment with dual channel gig ethernet if you want, but only between 2 computers On 29/11/07 9:00 AM, in article 1i8bz6h.12uxoy31plxqauN%rifty@tpg.com.au, >> I just can't believe that an ethernetted machine can't be made to >> transfer data at a speed lower than the slowest USB2 machine. > > For 'lower' there, read 'higher'! > > Rifty > USB2 is faster than gig ethernet > > Sorry Thanks. Andrew. After trying just about everything, I discovered that, so you are confirming it. That's a pity because I paid a good deal more for it than for a USB device of the same capacity. > You can experiment with dual channel gig ethernet if you want, but only > between 2 computers Not sure how that works and haven't done any reading on it, but I am guessing that the dual ethernet ports on the MacPro have something to do with it. In my situation I have only one computer with two ethernet ports (if that's what you mean!) Rifty Signatureriftynet - put a dot after rifty If you have a home network you could use it as a backup drive for several computers And get a firwire drive for fast copies On 2/12/07 11:39 PM, in article 1i8in55.sszjra1n097u2N%rifty@tpg.com.au, >> USB2 is faster than gig ethernet >> [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Rifty > If you have a home network you could use it as a backup drive for several > computers I do an I can do that. My intention was to have a fast backup for very large iMovie files (up to 100 gigs or so) but I don't think I can afford 24 hours each time I want to back them up! But at least I did put on the original footage and can always get it back through the LaCie server. > And get a firwire drive for fast copies I have a couple of firewire drives and about 5 USB2 ones up to 500mb. They are all networkable I find. My mistake was to assume that ethernet was going to be very very fast and I could use it like I do my main hard drive. I now know I should have got another large internal drive instead. I was thinking of portability. I keep hoping someone will come up with a breakthrough and allow me to use it at something like its potential gigabit speed! The LaCie tells me it's capable of that speed, and the link speed at en0 on my MacMini and on en1 on my MacPro Fatboy, why can't they talk to each other at that speed and bypass the router altogether??? Isn't there some protocol that would connect them at a much faster speed than the router and network switch allow? Live and learn I guess.... Rifty Signatureriftynet - put a dot after rifty >> If you have a home network you could use it as a backup drive for several >> computers [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > Rifty Rifty It occurred to me that what you need with speed and portability is this beast here http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2en2/ A portable SATA enclosure for the mac. It goes at 3.6Gbps so its even faster than FW800. Even better its hot swapable. This beast is for a desktop (I cant remember what computer you wanted to use) but they have laptop versions (via expresscards) as well Nigel Your backup drive is designed for network backups of data, and quantity, but not for speed. Sadly, gig ethernet is not 10x faster than 100tx, but it is faster (2-3x) To get this, plug your gig devices into a gig switch and connect the switch to the router. Your external packets are 100tx but local traffic will be at gig speeds, which is what you want. One limitation I have found is that these drives are usually FAT32 formatted and have some restrictions about name length, path length and character choice in filenames, which is annoying for mac people. For better speed you need a fw400, fw800 or USB2 backup drive. All are pretty good, with fw800 the best > I haven't done the homework on this yet but I am hoping someone with > experience might point me in the right direction and save me time. [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Rifty > One limitation I have found is that these drives are usually FAT32 formatted > and have some restrictions about name length, path length and character > choice in filenames, which is annoying for mac people. That's interesting - I had thought of getting one. Is it possible to partition the drive, and/or reformat with mac format? I need Mac and PC backup John No, not on the ones I have tried. They are only FAT32 because of the interface card firmware, and heaps of files would not copy from a mac volume because of the reasons I outlined. I have tried about 3 fdifferent ones and they had similar problems There is a rack mountable lacie model with windows embedded. It might be better than the others but its expensive. I have not tested it. It different to the one referred to in this posting ie the bigger disk model. You are better off with an old mac as a network backup. Preferably running osx server but osx will do if its just macs On 21/11/07 8:31 AM, in article 4743521c$0$10313$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au, "John Bennett" <john439@optusnet.com.au> wrote: >> One limitation I have found is that these drives are usually FAT32 formatted >> and have some restrictions about name length, path length and character [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > John > > One limitation I have found is that these drives are usually FAT32 formatted > > and have some restrictions about name length, path length and character [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > John For the record, the USB drives I have attached directly to the MacPro spat the dummy on some IMovieHD files, because they have odd characters and hidden files with odd characters, but the networked LaCie FAT32 formatted accepted them via the network with no problem. I just tested by sending it a folder of about 50 characters in the filename and it was perfectly happy to accept it too. I was not expecting it to do this As soon as I get the desktop switch box to speed up the transmission process, I feel that it will all work out just fine. Rifty Signatureriftynet - put a dot after rifty |
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