• Registered: 2008-01-23
  • Posts: 14

Topic: FF400 & GTech 750G/ 7200 rpm Bus Power

Hi all,

For years, I've been happily using the FW bus to power both my lovely FF400 and a GTech Mini 500G/ 5400 rpm drive (samples and such).  I've run out of room, and upgraded to a 750G/ 7200 rpm version of the drive, and begun having problems.

All is fine until the drive starts working.  Then the FF400 starts going on and offline.  The lights stay on, but the HOST light starts going on and off, and the unit seems to disconnect.

Does this sound like a FW problem, or is it that when the drive is accessed, it's taking too much power, and the FF can't maintain itself?  Does it sound like a faulty drive/ FW port?  The new drive was also not terribly happy when I hooked up the old drive as well for transferring information.

Does anyone else have a 750G/ 7200rpm bus powered drive that coexists happily with the FF400?  How much power does the FF400 need from the bus?  Is there any way to get more power into it from a MacBook Pro?

Thanks all!

Jeremy

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,558

Re: FF400 & GTech 750G/ 7200 rpm Bus Power

You can easily find out whether the issue is power related by connecting the supplied PSU to the FF400...


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2008-01-23
  • Posts: 14

Re: FF400 & GTech 750G/ 7200 rpm Bus Power

Daniel-

Sorry to not mention it- I did that, and it all works fine.  It's just terribly hard to get specs on how much power both the FF400 and the drive need.  It seems that the MBP supplies 7W of power over the FW800 port.  It just was sort of odd since the FF400 worked perfectly well when the drive was idle.  Could the small amount of power that the drive needs when it's reading/ writing data really push the FF400 over the edge?

So, it does seem like a power issue.  Is there another bus powered FW800 drive 750G/ 7200 rpm that will coexist with the FF400?  This has been ideal for a number of years, but my sample library has just gotten too large.

Thanks!