1. What is FireWire?
2. How fast is FireWire?
3. Is FireWire faster than USB 2.0?
4. Will my computer have enough power to operate the 2.5" FireWire drive without the need for a power supply?
5. My computer only has a 4-pin mini FireWire port. Is the 2.5" portable FireWire drive compatible?
6. When I connect the drive to the computer, it appears that the computer recognizes the drive, but the drive is not available in 'My Computer' (PC) or the 'Desktop' (MAC). Why?
7. How do I format the external hard drive on a Macintosh Computer?
8. Can I share my external hard drive between a MAC and PC?
9. How do I format the external hard drive on a Windows computer?
10. Why does my computer show that the external hard drive has less capacity than advertised?
11. How do I use the external FireWire hard drive to boot in Mac OS X?
12. What are some care and maintenance tips I can follow when using my external hard drive?
13. I don't have a FireWire 800 port. Can I use your FireWire 800 drive with the FireWire 400 port on my computer?
14. Can I use bus power with an eSATA hard drive?
15. How must the drive be formatted in order to use it with Digidesign Pro Tools?

FireWire (also known as iLink or IEEE 1394) is a computer connection that provides high-speed data transfer. The majority of digital camcorders have a FireWire connection as well as most computers including Macintosh, Dell and Sony computers. Due to its robust communication and isochronous real-time data transfer, FireWire has become the standard for professional audio/video applications.

FireWire supports the following transfer speeds:

• FireWire 400 supports a speed of 400 Mbit/s (48 MB/s).
• FireWire 800 supports a speed of 786 Mbit/s (95 MB/s).

USB 2.0 supports a speed of 480 Mbit/s and FireWire 400 supports a speed of 400 Mbit/s. This would seem to indicate that USB is faster than FireWire, right? Actually, the opposite is often true. Differences in the architecture of the two interfaces affect the actual sustained throughput (reading and writing files). FireWire uses a "Peer-to-Peer" architecture that is intelligent and negotiates bus conflicts to determine the sustained data transfer speed. USB 2.0 uses a "Master-Slave" architecture in which the computer's resources dictate data flow and the sustained transfer speed. Therefore, USB is dependent on your available system resources to determine the transfer speed. Multiple applications that are open and using system resources can slow down the data transfer speed of USB drives. Therefore, for the most reliable and consistent transfer speed, FireWire is often the best option.

The available power from a FireWire or USB port may vary slightly from computer to computer. In most cases, desktop and laptop computers will be able to provide adequate power to the drive.

• The power options for the Oyen Digital FA2 2.5" FireWire drive are as follows:
  • The drive can connect to a standard 6-pin FireWire port and receive power and data from this single connection.
  • If a 4-pin FireWire port is the only available port on your computer, the drive connects to two USB ports (via the included DC to USB y-cable) or the optional AC power adapter.
• The power options for the Oyen Digital EB2 2.5" FireWire 800/400, eSATA, USB drive are as follows:
  • The drive can connect to a standard 9-pin FireWire 800 port and receive power and data from this single connection.
  • A 6-pin to 9-pin FireWire cable is included, allowing the drive to be connected to a standard FireWire 400 port. The unit will receive power and data from this single connection.
  • If connecting via USB or eSATA, the unit uses either the included 'DC to USB y-cable' (provides USB bus power), or AC power adapter.

The 2.5" portable FireWire drive is fully compatible with your computer; however, you will need to connect the drive to two USB ports or a USB power adapter in order to provide power to the drive. Another option for desktop computers is to add a FireWire PCI card.

The drive is shipped preformatted, so it should be recognized by your operating system. If  your operating system is not recognizing the drive, it may need to be reformatted. Please refer to user guide shipped with the drive or questions 7 or 9 in this FAQ section.

To format a hard drive using MAC 9.X

1. Connect the drive to your computer as explained in the user guide.
2. From the Apple menu, select Control Panels > Extensions Manager.
3. From the list that appears, uncheck the check box next to the File Exchange control panel. Click Restart. Note: This extension may already by disabled; therefore, you do not need to restart.
4. After restart, a message appears asking you to initialize the drive. Enter a name for the drive and select MAC OS Extended * from the drop-down list and click Initialize.
5. Click Continue to confirm drive initialization.
6. After the formatting process is completed, the drive will appear on the desktop.
7. Re-enable File Exchange by selecting the Apple menu -> Control Panels -> Extensions Manager.
8. Select the check box next to the File Exchange control panel and click Restart.
9. Upon restart, your external drive is ready for use.

   Note: OS 9 cannot recognize a volume larger than about 200GB. This is a volume size limit, not a drive size limit, so partitioning a larger drive into volumes that each are more than 200GB will allow the entire drive to be accessible in OS 9.

To format a hard drive using MAC OSX

1. Connect the drive to your computer as explained in the user guide.
2. Open Disk Utility. (Applications folder > Utilities folder > Disk Utility). Select the hard drive in the left hand column and click on the Erase tab.
3. In the Volume Format drop-down menu, select Mac OS Extended *.
4. Once you have selected the format and have named the drive, click on Erase. You will be presented with a 'Are you Sure' dialog.
5. The drive will format and upon completion will be available for use.

Note: * For the best performance, we recommend using Mac OS Extended format. However, if you will be transferring files between a Windows system and a Macintosh, format the drive as MS-DOS (FAT32) or view FAQ #8.

If you intend to share files between a Windows and MAC computer, the easiest option is to format the drive as MS-DOS using the MAC computer. This will create a FAT32 partition, which is compatible with both Windows and MAC.

The best option may be to use a 3rd party software product that allows hard drives formatted in the Macintosh file system (Mac OS Extended, HFS+) to be used on Windows computers. The following are two programs that allow this capability:

MacDrive from MediaFour

To format the drive using Windows XP/2000/ME/2003

1. Connect the drive to your computer as explained in the user guide.
2. Right-click on My Computer and select Manage. Click Disk Management in the left menu under Storage. The new drive will appear as Unallocated in the display window on the right.
3. Right-click the Unallocated drive and select 'New Partition' to start the New Partition Wizard. If the drive is already formatted, you will first need to click on 'Delete Parition.'  If 'New Partition' or 'Delete Partition' is unavailable, you will first need to right-click on the disk name and select 'Initialize Disk' (XP) or 'Write Signature' (2000).
4. Click Next and select Primary partition and click Next. If you want to use the entire hard disk for one or more logical drives, click Next without specifying a size, and the entire free space will be converted into a single drive letter.
5. By default, Windows assigns the next available drive letter; click Next to accept it, or use the pull-down menu to choose a different drive letter and then click Next.
6. Select a format option. It is recommended to use the defaults of NTFS and default size. Change New Volume to a name you prefer.
7. Click Finish to perform the listed operations. The format operation can take several minutes to complete depending on the drive size and speed of the computer.
8. When the format process is completed, the drive is identified with a drive letter and its status should be displayed as Healthy. Exit Computer Management. You can now use the new drive.

To format the drive using Windows Vista

1. Connect the drive to your computer as explained in the user guide.
2. Open Computer Management by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Computer Management. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation..
3. Click Disk Management in the left menu under Storage.
4. Right-click the Unallocated drive and select 'New Simple Volume' to start the New Partition Wizard. If the drive is already formatted, you will first need to click 'Delete Parition.'
5. In the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next.
6. Type the size of the volume you want to create in megabytes (MB) or accept the maximum default size, and then click Next.
7. Accept the default drive letter or choose a different drive letter to identify the partition, and then click Next.
8. In the Format Partition dialog box, do one of the following: a) If you don't want to format the volume right now, click 'Do not format this volume,' and then click Next. b) To format the volume with the default settings, click Next.
9. Review your choices, and then click Finish. The format operation can take several minutes to complete depending on the drive size and speed of the computer.
10. When the format process is completed, the drive is identified with a drive letter and its status should be displayed as Healthy. Exit Computer Management. You can now use the new drive.

The unformatted capacity of any hard drive will always be greater than the formatted capacity. In the hard drive industry the partitioned size will be less than the printed capacity on the label. This is consistent whether it is Western Digital, Seagate, Samsung, etc. For example, a 160GB hard drive will have a formatted capacity of approximately 149-150GB. This is due to the fact that computers calculate capacity based on 1024 bytes/kilobyte, while the hard drive calculation is based on 1000 instead of 1024. Hard drive manufacturers define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, which is a decimal (base 10) measurement. Computers define a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes. These are binary (base 2) measurements. This is why the two different industries will report different capacities for the same drive. The number of bytes is the same, but a different number of bytes is used to make a megabyte and a gigabyte.

For more information, we recommend the following resources:
Wikipedia
Acronis

To use any of our hard drives as boot drive for Mac OSX, perform the following steps:

1. Open Disk Utility
2. In the left panel, click the external FireWIre drive and select "Partition" in menu on the right. Choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and name the drive.
3. Click "Options" at the bottom of the window. If you have an Intel Mac, select "GUID" as the partition scheme. If you have a Power PC Mac, select “Apple Partition Map."
4. Click "Partition." It will ask to confirm, click "Partition" again and the partitioning process will begin.
5. Upon completion, you can now install the Operating System. Insert the DVD/CD and start the install. When you start the install, choose the external FireWire drive, which will install the operating system to the external drive. Upon completion, eject the external drive and reboot the Mac to your regular operating system.
6. After you reboot, connect the external FireWire drive to the computer. Open System Preferences and click "Startup Disk." In the list of disks, choose the external FireWire drive. Confirm, click restart.
7. After rebooting you'll be in the new operating system, running directly off your external FireWire hard drive.

Defragment the hard drive and backup your data regularly. In addition, do not move or disconnect the drive while it is reading/writing data as this can cause data loss or corruption. Finally, properly eject the drive before removing it from the system by using the following procedures:

• Mac OS: Find the Disk icon associated with the drive and drag it to the Trash icon on
  your desktop.
• Windows: Close any windows that are open and displaying the drive. Click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in your system tray (typically located on the bottom right corner) and select the drive to be disconnected.

Yes you can. Our 2.5" portable hard drive and 3.5" external hard drive include a 6-pin to 9-pin FireWire cable, which allows the drive to be connected to a standard 1394a FireWire 400 port.

eSATA does not provide bus power; therefore, an eSATA hard drive will require a power source in order to function. However, the Oyen Digital eSATA/USB portable hard drive uses an innovative DC to USB power cable, which allows the drive to be powered from USB bus power. Simply connect the DC cable to two USB ports and the eSATA connection to an eSATA port for total eSATA portability.

MAC OS X: For Pro Tools compatibility with a Mac, format the external FireWire drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - also known as HFS+ using Disk Utility. See FAQ #7 for specific instructions regarding the formatting process. View more information and tips regarding using a Mac FireWire drive with Pro Tools.

Windows: For Pro Tools compatibility with a Windows computer, format the drive as NTFS using the steps provided in FAQ #9. Note: If your Pro Tools version is 7.3 or earlier, you can also format the drive as FAT32; however, Windows is unable to create a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB. View more information and tips regarding using a Windows FireWire drive with Pro Tools.