[Art Vandelay]

This will be a nice alternative to TDM, since you'll no longer have to shutdown a Mac to connect over FireWire.

I'll give it a try when my new PowerBook arrives this morning.

[ZackS]

Can anyone say FireWire networking? Pinch me.

[Art Vandelay]

Apparently, it's available to non-ADC members, too. It just requires an email address and first and last name to download. It's available at http://developer.apple.com/firewire/..._FireWire.html

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by ZackS:
Can anyone say FireWire networking? Pinch me.

FireWire Networking.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:


FireWire Networking.

You forgot to pinch him...

/me piches ZackS

[ShotgunEd]

my dad was asking about this last week, good feature, can't wait to try it out this weekend, far handier than Firewire Disk Mode.

[Guy Incognito]

What does this mean? Does this mean you can connect two computers together...and they can share, say, a cable modem connection to the internet without the use of hubs?

If so...I'll have lots of cleaning to do this week because I may soil my pants.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
What does this mean? Does this mean you can connect two computers together...and they can share, say, a cable modem connection to the internet without the use of hubs?

If so...I'll have lots of cleaning to do this week because I may soil my pants.

Yep. It adds FireWire as a networkconnection to the Network pane in System Preferences. You can connect two Macs directly or via a FireWire hub and use Internet Sharing to access the Internet.

What's that awful smell?

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:


What's that awful smell?

Yeah...I'll have to leave the windows open all week to get rid of it.

[mikerally]

Windows XP has had the ability to do this for a while now, I hope the Mac OS X implementation of this allows Macs to network with PCs over firewire.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by mikerally:
Windows XP has had the ability to do this for a while now, I hope the Mac OS X implementation of this allows Macs to network with PCs over firewire.

It should if both companies did it right. It shouldn't matter what on the other end as long as it understands IP over FireWire.

[Eug]

Originally posted by mikerally:
Windows XP has had the ability to do this for a while now, I hope the Mac OS X implementation of this allows Macs to network with PCs over firewire.

I will have to try this. I hope it works. I have a DVD-RAM camcorder but the DVD-RAM discs are only readable in Windows. OS X does not understand the UDF 2.0 format the discs use. So I rip the files to .mpg on the PC and if I want to use them on the Mac I have to Ethernet them over.

BTW, Firewire networking exists in Win 2000 too.

[Socially Awkward Solo]

Originally posted by mikerally:
Windows XP has had the ability to do this for a while now, I hope the Mac OS X implementation of this allows Macs to network with PCs over firewire.

Shame next to no PC's have firewire though

[Terri]

So lets say you have a Firewire drive connected to a Mac and then you take a FireWire cable and then connect that drive to another Mac as well. Now you have two Macs connected to the same FireWire drive, how does this work?

Does the first Mac to have the drive connected end up sharing it over file sharing or do they both see it as a local drive. What happens if you shut down both Macs and then boot them both at the same time?

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Terri:
So lets say you have a Firewire drive connected to a Mac and then you take a FireWire cable and then connect that drive to another Mac as well. Now you have two Macs connected to the same FireWire drive, how does this work?

Does the first Mac to have the drive connected end up sharing it over file sharing or do they both see it as a local drive. What happens if you shut down both Macs and then boot them both at the same time?

Don't think you can do that. You'd have two Macs trying to mount the same disk. However, you could connect the drive to one Mac on one port and connect the two Macs together on the other port. Then via file sharing access the drive from the other Mac.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Terri:
So lets say you have a Firewire drive connected to a Mac and then you take a FireWire cable and then connect that drive to another Mac as well. Now you have two Macs connected to the same FireWire drive, how does this work?

That behavior is "undefined". In other words, generally one of two things will happen:
1) One or both computers will be unable to see the drive.
2) One or more of the pieces of equipment involved (the drive and the two Macs) is fried.

FireWire is not made to connect a single peripheral to multiple devices at once. While a few products specially made for this -notably the SANCube line- do exist, ordinary drives can't do it. The same is true of USB and USB2, as well as SCSI, IDE, and most other peripheral-interconnect interfaces devised at this point.

[Terri]

Originally posted by Millennium:

That behavior is "undefined". In other words, generally one of two things will happen:
1) One or both computers will be unable to see the drive.
2) One or more of the pieces of equipment involved (the drive and the two Macs) is fried.

FireWire is not made to connect a single peripheral to multiple devices at once. While a few products specially made for this -notably the SANCube line- do exist, ordinary drives can't do it. The same is true of USB and USB2, as well as SCSI, IDE, and most other peripheral-interconnect interfaces devised at this point.

This is how it works in System 9, I know I've tried when FireWire first came out, but did fry anything.

FireWire devices can be daisy chained and once this is installed you get a FireWire port in Network confutations, doesn't make any distinction about what FireWire port is connected to what so you should be able to daisy chain a drive and then another Mac.

My guess is whatever Mac sees the drive first wins and then you can access that Mac to see the drive across the network, but I can't find any info from Apple about this.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Terri:


This is how it works in System 9, I know I've tried when FireWire first came out, but did fry anything.

FireWire devices can be daisy chained and once this is installed you get a FireWire port in Network confutations, doesn't make any distinction about what FireWire port is connected to what so you should be able to daisy chain a drive and then another Mac.

My guess is whatever Mac sees the drive first wins and then you can access that Mac to see the drive across the network, but I can't find any info from Apple about this.

Yes, you can daisy-chain FireWire devices. However, that does not include another computer.

Like I said before, you can connect the drive to one Mac on one FireWire port then connect the Macs to each other on the other FireWire port. Then you'd access the drive from the other Mac via file sharing. I would not try what you originally suggested which was connect both Macs to the drive.

[Terri]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:


Yes, you can daisy-chain FireWire devices. However, that does not include another computer.

Like I said before, you can connect the drive to one Mac on one FireWire port then connect the Macs to each other on the other FireWire port. Then you'd access the drive from the other Mac via file sharing. I would not try what you originally suggested which was connect both Macs to the drive.

That would make it work like the old serial ports and LocalTalk, but then we had to select what port was going to be used for what.

Are you saying that if we use a FireWire port for file sharing then we can not use that port for connecting drives?

[Art Vandelay]

So far, it works very well. I think it is a little slower than TDM, which is probably due to the overhead of TCP/IP.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:
Yes, you can daisy-chain FireWire devices. However, that does not include another computer.

Exactly. This is not a limitation of OS9; it's a limitation of FireWire itself. You can't do it on Windows, either.

I mentioned certain slecially-built devices, like the SANCube. These things are more than just big hard drives with a zillion FireWire ports. They have to have a whole bunch of extra hardware, to manage the connected machines and what each one wants to do. Essentially, there's a small computer in each one, dedicated to managing the connections not unlike a file server (in fact, SAN stands for Storage Area Network). End result: SANCubes cost several thousand bucks apiece. That's why this sort of thing is not a feature of most FireWire products.

Yes, it's possible to hook two Macs together over FireWire. You can even hook a FireWire drive into one Mac, then hook that Mac up to another Mac on a different port. This is manageable, because it's still clear who "owns" the drive. But when two Macs are hooked up to the same drive, they compete for ownership, and that's where the problem is

[benbargagliotti]

How does IPoFW stack up against Gigabit Ethernet that comes standard on all new towers and TiPB. When my roommate and it connect with it, its pretty fast. Also, does this release need 10.2? thanks

ben

[Eug]

But when two Macs are hooked up to the same drive, they compete for ownership, and that's where the problem is

Yes. Same thing with PC and Macs connected to the same drive via Firewire. If one has "ownership" it's invisible to the other, for the same reasons. (And that's a good thing IMO.)

[voodoo]

Originally posted by Terri:


This is how it works in System 9 (snip)

Yeah! That is *so* old-school! Cool!!

(I am using System 10, btw)

[JB72]

So what advantages would firewire have over ethernet for TCP/IP?

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by benbargagliotti:
How does IPoFW stack up against Gigabit Ethernet that comes standard on all new towers and TiPB. When my roommate and it connect with it, its pretty fast. Also, does this release need 10.2? thanks

ben

FireWire currently peaks at 400Mb/s. Gigabit ethernet peaks at 1000Mb/s (1Gb/s). So Gigabit is the faster option for now.

It requires 10.2.2.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by JB72:
So what advantages would firewire have over ethernet for TCP/IP?

It's faster than 10/100Mb Ethernet.

[Simon X]

Is this not the same as this?:
FireNet

May not be free and from Apple but has been out for quite a while now.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Simon X:
Is this not the same as this?:
FireNet

May not be free and from Apple but has been out for quite a while now.

It's the same except free and from Apple and just came out.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:


FireWire currently peaks at 400Mb/s. Gigabit ethernet peaks at 1000Mb/s (1Gb/s). So Gigabit is the faster option for now.

It requires 10.2.2.

Two things:

One: on my iBook I have a FireWire and 10/100 ethernet. FireWire is much faster.

Two: Gigabit ethernet rarely peaks at 1000Mb. It is a theoretical peak. In reality, it is slower, and likely closer to being on par with FireWire. I just have not tried it... (see point one)

[JB72]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:


It's faster than 10/100Mb Ethernet.

Oh yeah (*smacks head*.) I suppose it might allow lower latencies as well. I've been wanting to go to gigabit ethernet on my little home net for a while, but the routers still cost a bundle. Maybe I would consider doing firewire. Hrmmm...

I could see this being pushed as a rendezvous thing since a FW connection would automagically "pop up."

[dawho9]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Two things:

One: on my iBook I have a FireWire and 10/100 ethernet. FireWire is much faster.

Two: Gigabit ethernet rarely peaks at 1000Mb. It is a theoretical peak. In reality, it is slower, and likely closer to being on par with FireWire. I just have not tried it... (see point one)

I think Gigabit is still faster than 400Mb. All of our servers at work run Gigabit over Fiber and I believe that our speeds are well over 400Mb. I would need to check with the wire guys, but if I remember, we were getting in the 750 to 800 ballpark and these are with NetWare servers.

dw9

[Cipher13]

Whether the peak speed of 1000Mb/s is theoretical or not, in reality, Gigabit ethernet is still MUCH faster than FireWire. The average speed is well over 400 Mb/sec.

Either way, this will be good for 'quick and dirty' low-scale networks.

The range is too short (~15M before signal repeating is required); the cables are too expensive; you can't crimp them yourself; and good luck finding a FireWire switch.

This is nothing amazing.

The only people who use this over ethernet (even base 100) will be those with only two systems, or those looking for a quick-and-dirty solution to moving a large file or two.

The major implications for this are for IP-capable peripheral devices - burners, hard drives/enclosures, cameras and iPods - being able to communicate over IP.

------

This also highlights a major flaw with the Titanium Powerbooks, which I complained about at their debut; the move from two FireWire ports (a la Pismo) to one, on all Ti models.

To everyone who defended the move:

[voodoo]

I never said Gbit ethernet was slower than FireWire, now did I? All I said is that it delivers speeds closer to 400Mbits than 1000Mbits. I'd be surprised if that is not true.

Also, this may be only good for q & d networking, but that is the only networking I'll need.

This is great for normal people, not some net-nerds. Obviously.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by voodoo:
I never said Gbit ethernet was slower than FireWire, now did I? All I said is that it delivers speeds closer to 400Mbits than 1000Mbits. I'd be surprised if that is not true.

Also, this may be only good for q & d networking, but that is the only networking I'll need.

This is great for normal people, not some net-nerds. Obviously.

I never said you said that, now did I?

And from what I've experienced, it is far closer to 1000 Mb/s than 400 Mb/s...

"Normal" people don't network.

[jwblase]

Quote: So what advantages would firewire have over ethernet for TCP/IP?

Oh my. I could potentially see my iPod linking to my online mac and retreiving things online without going through iTunes.

I could also see a potential FireWire DLD (Digital Lifestyle Device) that would talk to something online and a TV/Mac at the same time (TiVO like device?)

Bwah-hah-hah... This opens much more possibilities than just replacing ethernet

JB

[voodoo]

Originally posted by Cipher13:


I never said you said that, now did I?

And from what I've experienced, it is far closer to 1000 Mb/s than 400 Mb/s...

"Normal" people don't network.

No you didn't, dawho9 did (that comment was supposed to reach him.. sorry for the misuderstanding)

I don't know about Gbit ethernet from personal experience, but I do know 100Mbit ethernet, and it rarely reaches 70Mbps. Most of the time it hangs in 40Mbps to 60Mbps. So judging from that, I doubted that 1Gbit ethernet would pass 700Mbps often. But if you say so.. I have as I said before no experience with 1Gbit ethernet.

You'd be amazed at what "normal" people are attempting these days

Basic networking and $hit...

[Cipher13]

No prob, gotcha

I suppose, this does mean more people can try it, without having to get the right kind of cable, blah blah, etc... it could be a good step to simplifying networking, even if it hasn't directly changed anything.

IME, 1000 Mb/s ethernet lives up to its theoretical peak comparably well.

[Art Vandelay]

Keep in mind that FireWire 2 is coming soon. It starts at 800Mb/s and scales up to 3.2Gb/s. It also will feature full duplex communciation and extended maximum cable lengths.

[Eug]

So, this works with Windows. Well sorta.

I set this up on my iBook, and was able to transfer files via Firewire from my Windows XP box. To do this, I used the Finder's Go -->Connect To Server function to search the local network. It found my PC and I just connected to it directly like I normally do via Ethernet and 802.11b.

I was not however, able to share an internet connection from the PC --> iBook or from the iBook --> PC. Mind you, for the latter, I didn't try very hard because there are a host of IP settings that are supposed to be done manually. No DHCP? Forget that. I wasn't able to get Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection working either, but again, I didn't try very hard.

As far as transferring files, all is not rosy however.

Real life Firewire transfer speed:

463 MB file: 99 seconds = 4.7 MB/s = 37 Mbps
196 MB file: 45 seconds = 4.4 MB/s = 35 Mbps

ie. This is what I'd expect from 100 Mbps Ethernet.

Thus the only benefit I can see from this is being able to use Firewire when ones doesn't happen to have a crossover cable for Ethernet handy. Mind you that assumes one happens to have a Firewire cable handy.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:
Keep in mind that FireWire 2 is coming soon. It starts at 800Mb/s and scales up to 3.2Gb/s. It also will feature full duplex communciation and extended maximum cable lengths.

Do you know what the maximum before major signal deterioration is, for FW2?

That's a very good thing, but every Mac available right now has FW1. It'll take a long time for FW2 to filter down to everybody - as it did for FW1.

----

Eug: slower than I'd accept for 100Mb/s ethernet.

However, this is only PR3... so we've gotta give it a chance.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Cipher13:


Do you know what the maximum before major signal deterioration is, for FW2?

100 meters

[Coxy]

Despite theoretical limits, if you're running 1000Base-T over Cat 5 cable, you'll never see anywhere near 1000 Mb/s. I wouldn't be suprised if 1000Base-T on Cat 5 was roughly equal to FWIP over 1394 cable, when they release the final version of course.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Eug:
So, this works with Windows. Well sorta.

I set this up on my iBook, and was able to transfer files via Firewire from my Windows XP box. To do this, I used the Finder's Go -->Connect To Server function to search the local network. It found my PC and I just connected to it directly like I normally do via Ethernet and 802.11b.

I was not however, able to share an internet connection from the PC --> iBook or from the iBook --> PC. Mind you, for the latter, I didn't try very hard because there are a host of IP settings that are supposed to be done manually. No DHCP? Forget that. I wasn't able to get Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection working either, but again, I didn't try very hard.

As far as transferring files, all is not rosy however.

Real life Firewire transfer speed:

463 MB file: 99 seconds = 4.7 MB/s = 37 Mbps
196 MB file: 45 seconds = 4.4 MB/s = 35 Mbps

ie. This is what I'd expect from 100 Mbps Ethernet.

Thus the only benefit I can see from this is being able to use Firewire when ones doesn't happen to have a crossover cable for Ethernet handy. Mind you that assumes one happens to have a Firewire cable handy.

I didn't do any precise measurements, but I could barely detect a speed difference between TDM and IPoFW when I moved files between my iBook and new PowerBook. I moved my 2Gb VPC image in about 3 minutes.

[Eug]

Originally posted by Cipher13:

Eug: slower than I'd accept for 100Mb/s ethernet.

However, this is only PR3... so we've gotta give it a chance.

Yeah, 37 Mbps is a bit slow for Ethernet even.

Well, I've seen a post from one user on the PC boards that says with PCs he was only able to get around 7 MB/s (<60 Mbps) via Firewire networking. I wonder if this is typical. Also, I wonder in my test if the Windows side or the Mac side is the bottleneck, or if the bottleneck is just because of the current state of the technology in general.

What are people getting with Mac-->Mac connections?

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Eug:
Yeah, 37 Mbps is a bit slow for Ethernet even.

Well, I've seen a post from one user on the PC boards that says with PCs he was only able to get around 7 MB/s (<60 Mbps) via Firewire networking. I wonder if this is typical. Also, I wonder in my test if the Windows side or the Mac side is the bottleneck, or if the bottleneck is just because of the current state of the technology in general.

What are people getting with Mac-->Mac connections?

Interesting result. It wasn't designed for this - there'd be a lot of software interpertation and overhead, I'd imagine, so I'd blame it largely on drivers and other software issues.

I need to go buy a 6-to-6 FireWire cable, then I'll try it out.

[Eug]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:


I didn't do any precise measurements, but I could barely detect a speed difference between TDM and IPoFW when I moved files between my iBook and new PowerBook. I moved my 2Gb VPC image in about 3 minutes.

So perhaps my PC is the bottleneck. Hmmm...

Assuming it's a 2048 MB image that took 180 seconds, that would be 11.4 MB/s or 91 Mbps. Target mode should be faster (hopefully), but 91 Mbps is nothing to sneeze at. That's certainly noticeably faster than standard Ethernet.

[JB72]

A lot of "normies" don't have a router, but have their ethernet port tied up to broadband. This would make a nice temp Rendezvous network.

Originally posted by jwblase:
Oh my. I could potentially see my iPod linking to my online mac and retreiving things online without going through iTunes.

I smell a .Mac feature for iPods.

[Surfer]

WARNING!!!!

Read this before you attempt this!!!!!

http://www.macgo.net/forum/showthrea...2582#post12582

[biscuit]

Just a quickie, slightly off-topic:

Can I use a standard cross-over cable to link two Macs with Gbit ethernet? What sort of speeds would one expect then?

biscuit