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Firewire (IEEE-1394) Hard-drive Enclosure Compatibility with Real-Time Controllers

Primary Software: LabVIEW Modules>>Real-Time Module
Primary Software Version: 7.1
Primary Software Fixed Version: N/A
Secondary Software: N/A
Hardware: Instrument Connectivity Other>>IEEE 1394>>PXI-8252, PXI/CompactPCI>>Platform Modules>>PXI-8252

Problem:
I have a Firewire hard-drive enclosure that I want to use for data logging purposes in LabVIEW RT. When I connect it to my Real-Time controller via a PXI-8252 Firewire board, the drive doesn't get recognized by the Pharlap RTOS. I have a different Firewire drive which seems to work fine.

Following the tutorial (see Related Links), no partitions.ini file is created on the controller when I have my drive connected. I have checked to make sure that the drives are formatted as FAT32 and even tried to partition them into smaller sizes. I have the latest NI-1394 External Drive Support drivers installed.

Are there any compatibility issues with using Firewire hard-drive enclosures with my RT controller?

Solution:
The PXI-8252, or a similar IEEE 1394 Firewire interface board can be used with a Real-Time controller to communicate with Firewire hard-drive enclosures. You need the NI-1394 External Drive Support driver, which supports SBP2 (the industry standard) compatible hard drive enclosures. Due to the variety of IDE-1394 bridge chipsets used by Firewire enclosure manufacturers, we have compiled a list of chipsets we have tested with NI-1394 External Drive Support. The IDE bridge chipset in the enclosure allows the IDE hard-drive to communicate via Firewire. The results of the test are listed below:
Bridge Chipset Result
Oxford 922 Successful
Oxford 912 Successful
Oxford 911 Successful
Oxford 911+ Successful
Oxford 900 Successful (obsoleted chipset)
INIC-1430L Successful
Prolific PL-3507 Failed!


NOTE: This is not an official statement supporting all Firewire devices. These are very rudimentary tests and National Instruments cannot guarantee that these chipsets will ALWAYS work. Inversely, certain chipsets that have failed in our tests may be supported in the future. We have not done comprehensive testing to determine complete supportability, due to feasibility. So, this information should be used only as a suggestion when purchasing a Firewire hard-drive enclosures.

Related Links:
NI Developer Zone Tutorial: NI-1394 External Drive Support
KnowledgeBase 3J2BC2DS: RAID Hard-drive Enclosure Support for LabVIEW RT
Prolific's PL-3507 chip
1394 Trade Association

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Report Date: 01/27/2005
Last Updated: 05/09/2008
Document ID: 3HQ8M0DS

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