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Xyphoid Process · Nov 12, 2009, 06:14 PM

Hello,

I just picked up a 1.5TB SATA drive and external enclosure to act as my new Time Machine drive. I picked up a case that has both FW 400 and USB, with the intention of using the faster FW connection. However, when I hook it up to my C2D iMac via FW the write speed is terrible - worse than 15 minutes per MB (that's MB, not GB). The same drive hooked up via USB2 works fine.

Is this a known problem with SATA drives? Did I neglect to set a jumper (no jumpers currently)? This is my first experience with SATA so it's possible that I missed something.

I've been using an external 500MB IDE drive this way for years with no issues - generally saw about a 30% speed advantage using FW over USB.

Here's the case (Bytecc HD-35SU2FW):
Welcome to BYTECC
Here's the drive (WD 1.5TB Caviar Green):
WD Caviar Green 1.5 TB SATA Hard Drives ( WD15EADS )

Can't see what the chipset is on the drive. Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated!

mduell · Nov 12, 2009, 07:05 PM

The problem isn't related to the drive; it doesn't know/care what's upstream of it.

I suspect it's just a shitty or defective Firewire chipset. For a backup drive (especially with Time Machine) I'd just use USB.

reader50 · Nov 12, 2009, 07:23 PM

FW hardware problem inside the enclosure. Could be a firmware issue, could be something like a damaged capacitor or wire connection internally muffing up the connection (high packet loss).

I'd contact customer support or the web store where you bought it. Support might have a firmware update not shown on the Bytecc site yet, either may offer to RMA the enclosure.

USB will do for most Time Machine applications, like mduell suggests. But I'd be ticked off if I paid extra for a FW/USB enclosure, and only got a USB enclosure. They owe you the product that you paid for.

ghporter · Nov 12, 2009, 10:32 PM

One possibility is a crappy FW chipset in the enclosure. But more likely with that horrible a speed it's a component failure. Customer support is the best option for you to start with.

Xyphoid Process · Nov 16, 2009, 02:09 PM

Thanks for the input - tried re-seating the drive in the case, swapping with a known good FW cable, using the other port and setting the 150MB jumper - all to no effect. Don't have another Mac on hand to test, but other cases work fine. Case was $30 so not the end of the world, but still annoying. At least the USB works ok...

ghporter · Nov 16, 2009, 04:45 PM

I've used Bytecc enclosures before, and had mixed to moderate success with them. But most of what I've read about any brand of units with both Firewire and USB has been not-so-glowing about the FW capabilities; it's like it's an afterthought that's supposed to sucker in users. On the other hand, such units tend to have fairly good USB throughput-not a great replacement for FW, but not horrible either.

reader50 · Nov 16, 2009, 06:44 PM

I have the AZiO ENC311-C41 with FW400 + USB2. The Firewire performance is excellent, the FW chip is labeled as an Oxford FW911PLUS, which is the fixed 911 version. But this enclosure is only for PATA drives.