File Transfer via Firewire

turkey boy

Similar topic, but I've got a Tangerine iMac and a new iMac SD and a firewire cable. Not being technical, can I just hook the old iMac into the new one via Firewire and transfer files that way? Will an icon for the old iMac automatically appear on the desktop of the new iMac? The old iMac is still running OS 9.2. Do I need to turn on file sharing or anything? Thanks.

dartblazer

i believe what you want is firewire target disk mode. Startup your imac SD and plugin the firewire cable to both machines. Now startup the tangerine guy and hold down the letter T on the keyboard. The tangerine hard drive should show up on your imacSD.



I believe this is the way you do it, never done it myself.

gobble gobble

Dart Blazer - thanks. I'll try that. Unfortunately I discovered that the Firewire cable which links a dv camcorder to the iMac is not the same to run comp-to-comp. My Firewire is 6 pin to 4 pin. I think I need 6 pin to 6 pin. I'll stop by the Apple Store this weekend. Thanks again.

ghost_user_name

Tangerine iMac? Does that have firewire?

dartblazer

Scott H.



you are correct, according to the apple website the tangerine iMac doesnt have firewire.

sockboy

[quote]Originally posted by dartblazer:

<strong>Scott H.



you are correct, according to the apple website the tangerine iMac doesnt have firewire.</strong><hr></blockquote>



There are two tangetine imacs. One tray loading (no FW) and one slot loading (FW). I have a slot loading DVDROM FW tangerine imac myself and transfer files to my powerbook all the time using the method outlined above. Works like a charm.

randycat99

Sorry for bouncing up an old topic, but I still have a burning question about firewire. Why is it so fast in target disk mode, but slows down to 1 MB/s-ish speeds when used in TCP/IP networking mode?

karl kuehn

The FireWire protocols (a variant on the SCSI protocols) is not really IP friendly, and absolutely abhors TCP... they tend to fight alot about how to control bandwidth, as a result you don't get great performance. Without modifying TCP/IP a lot there is not a great solution.



As an image it is sort of like trying to cram rush hour traffic onto a train. One is optimized for getting large quantities of things from point A to point B all together, the other is optimized for getting lots a smaller packets to lots of smaller points. There are plenty of places where my analogy breaks down, but I hope it gets the message across.

randycat99

Naw, that makes a lot of sense. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing it wrong or something wasn't working properly.

ebby

1 MB/s does seem awfully slow.



Try closing processor-hungry programs and unmounting other firewire devices if you have them. A restart also helps it you haven't for a long time. I have a 400Mhz Pismo that I use for TCP/IP firewire transfers and usually get 8-10MB/s. Also, "pulling" files from a computer is faster than "pushing" them.

costique

Quote:

Originally posted by Ebby

<snip/> usually get 8-10MB/s. Also, "pulling" files from a computer is faster than "pushing" them.

My personal experience confirms it. Networking through a direct FW connection has always been much faster for me than 100Mb Ethernet. I've never had any problems with it: pure plug'n'play.

jeremiah rich

I just got a 17" Powerbook and had to transfer my files from my Quicksilver. I had the OS on a 250 gig harddrive on a PCI controller card I had installed, and quickly realized that target disk mode would not work with the drive. So, I set up networking via firewire and found it to be very fast. (This was OSX 10.3.5 on both machines). Didn't think it would go as fast as it did, so 1 mb/s seems pretty slow to me...

randycat99

Well, I want some fast firewire filesharing, too! Should I have that passive FTP mode thing on or off? What else?



I'm really terrible at this networking stuff! They say you should be able to just plug 2 Macs together, and they will DCHP the appropriate addresses and just start talking, right? ...but that never works for me. They always seem to end up picking up adresses in entirely different networks IDs, and entirely not seeing each other (which you would expect if they are on different ID's, but why don't they ever pick the addresses in the same network then?). So I always end up plugging in a number myself to make it work (same network ID, different host ID). I just don't get why this is so difficult (for me).



FWIW, ethernet connection always seems about 1 MB/s-ish for me, as well. What do you suppose could effect both of those similarly, or is that just a coincidence? Maybe there is some clue to this issue suggested by my computer defaulting to a 1 Mb/s mode for either firewire or ethernet? What could cause this?

costique

This article titled Using IP over FireWire says:

Quote:

You can set up your computer to connect to other computers over FireWire, using the Internet Protocol (IP).



Connect a FireWire cable to the FireWire ports on the computers you want to connect.

1. Open System Preferences and click Network.

2. Choose Network Port Configurations from the Show pop-up menu.

3. Click New, and then choose FireWire from the Port pop-up menu. You can give the new port configuration a name, such as FireWire.

4. Drag the port configuration to the top of the Port Configuration list. This ensures the port is assigned an IP address using DHCP.

5. Click Apply Now.



If you don't drag the FireWire port configuration to the top of the Port Configuration list, you need to choose Manually (or "Using DHCP with manual address") from the Configure IPv4 pop-up menu, and then enter an IP address.

Just follow these instructions.

randycat99

Ahhhh, I guess I missed that dragging to the top part. Good find!