Apple IP over Firewire PR1.1

[Fred Licht]

Hello list,
    With the release of IP over Firewire PreRelease 1.1 from Apple 
computer today, it has prompted some questions I am hoping to find some 
answers to.

What are the limitations of building daisy-chained Firewire macintosh 
computers?

Known:
• Apple Quicksilver computers w/ two built in firewire ports allows 
firewire traffic to pass through the firewire ports when the unit is on 
or off.
• A power-cycle or restart of the given computer does not interrupt 
firewire traffic (again, tested only on an Apple Quicksilver)

Scenario to Try:
• Setup six Apple Computer systems and test for firewire traffic 
pass-through while the system is off, powered on, powered on in target 
disk mode, and power cycled.
• See if a system running MacOS 9 in the middle of the daisy chain 
inhibits any communication.

Systems to include:
• FireWire Tray loading iMac
• Sawtooth based Tower
• QuickSilver based Tower
• Mirror Drive Door based Tower


Possible enefits if daisy chaining of systems:
• Allow for 400/800MB networking (good to offload backup traffic of 
servers off the 10/100 Network switch
• Firewire allows for network resiliency (vs hubs/switches that have 
collisions)
• By using daisy chain ability, eliminate need for firewire hub in a 
datacenter/server room configuration.
• Cheaper then a 10/100/1000 switch
• Hot-swap/plug

If anyone has the equipment and/or time to test any of this, I would be 
very interested to see the results.

Regards,
Fred Licht
itsupport at eaglevsn.com
support at hildy.com
flicht at apple.com