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View Full Version : firewire hub: need recommendation please

malcolm
2008-01-17, 12:17
Hi there,
I have about seven external firewire hard drives, and I'm constantly plugging them in and unplugging them to connect one of the others.
Should I get a firewire hub? With one of these, can I then leave five or six fw hard drives connected at all times, and can I have a number of them running (or do they interfere with one another)?
If a fw hub is what I need, can you recommend one?
Thanks,
Malcolm
SKMDC
2008-01-17, 12:39
All my FW are piggy-backable, you just plug one FW drive into another one that's hooked to your computer. I've done it with 5 drives daisy chained.
kretara
2008-01-17, 12:58
I have 9 FW devices daisy chained together and it works OK.
Just make sure that the devices use an oxford chipset when you buy them. I have had issues with 'cheap' firewire chipsets causing issues when daisy chaining.

I have also used a few firewire hubs and have not found one that I can recommend yet. What I ended up using for a hub was a firewire HD that has multiple firewire ports. Of course, you will only get 2 firewire ports to plug devices into, so it is not much of a hub.
Taskiss
2008-01-17, 13:24
Well, if you wanted to remove the first drive in the chain that could be problematic...

There is a Belkin 6 port firewire hub I found on-line, but I've never used it so ... caveat emptor.
Xaqtly
2008-01-17, 13:49
http://www.raidtoolbox.com/products/firedino.html

http://www.raidtoolbox.com/images/hubzilla.jpg
malcolm
2008-01-17, 13:49
Thanks everyone. Yes, I've been using the extra fw port on my hds, but need more. I'll check out the Belkin.
Cheers,
Malcolm
kretara
2008-01-17, 14:15
Thanks everyone. Yes, I've been using the extra fw port on my hds, but need more. I'll check out the Belkin.
Cheers,
Malcolm

I have a 2 year old Belkin FW hub and I am not so happy with it.
It seems to really dislike having oxford and non-oxford chipsets mixed and it also tends to drop drives occasionally.
Maybe they have improved. At least I hope they have.
malcolm
2008-01-17, 14:27
That's interesting kretara. Kind of defeats the purpose if a hub like this doesn't work dependably. I'll wait to see if anyone else chimes in on the subject... maybe Belkin, or another company, has come up with something better since you got yours a couple years ago. Thanks for the warning.
Malcolm