Granite Digital FireWire 800 Hot-Swap Series - Manual (Page 5)

Connecting FireWire Devices
There are basically two ways to connect FireWire devices together. The
first way is by simply daisy-chaining the devices together and powering them
all on. You must power all of the devices because each device actually acts
as a signal repeater. This unique FireWire 1394 design allows for the use of
longer cables and more connected devices. See the diagram below.
Granite Digital • 3101 Whipple Rd. • Union City, Ca. 94587 www.granitedigital.com
USERS GUIDE Page 5
Computer
Hard
Drive
Hard
Drive
CD
ROM
In theory you can have up to 63 devices daisy-chained together.
However, in real life situations it would be difficult to run a large number of
devices daisy-chained together in this fashion. If any device were to be
powered down, the devices beyond the powered down device would imme-
diately vanish from the FireWire 1394 Bus.
The second way to connect FireWire devices is with the use of a
FireWire Hub. Hubs allow you to easily remove or add individual devices
without disturbing its neighbors. The diagram on the next page shows how
the hub eliminates the problems associated with daisy-chaining. However, it
should be noted that you can still daisy-chain devices on each leg of the
hub. With a little bit of thought, you can put similar devices together and
customize your system to fit your usage needs. Each port of the hub is not
affected by the other ports so you can easily remove individual devices or
chains of devices without effecting its neighbors. The hub also acts as a
repeater and hubs can also be daisy-chained together to achieve long cable
lengths. With the use of hubs and good quality Granite cables, you can
quickly and cost effectively set up a storage network that can’t be beat.
FireWire truly is designed to be easy to use and expandable.