Running a PPC system over FireWire from second machine

[Justin Hibbits]

Hi,

On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 4:43 PM, Roger Leigh <rleigh at codelibre.net> wrote:
> I found this
> https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/target-mode-firewire-but-not-so-specifically.30997/
> but it's a few years old and possibly incorrect even then.
>
> What I'd like to do is put a FireWire card in my FreeBSD NAS, and then
> export a ZVOL on a specific FireWire port in target mode so that it can be
> used as a raw block device on a Mac Mini as its root filesystem. This will
> have the advantage of being faster than the internal 2.5" IDE HDD and also
> having the ability to take snapshots and backups from the NAS system.
>
> I was curious to know if this was technically possible, and if so if anyone
> had done this and had success?
>
> Is there any limitation on this if so?  Are both 400 and 800 ports
> bidirectional in this manner?  I have 400-400 and 400-800 cables, so I could
> use either on the target (the Mac Mini is 400 only).  Before I purchase any
> hardware, I want to be certain this would work out.
>
>
> Thanks all,
> Roger

It should be technically feasible.  I've never done this, so can't say
for certain, but I did play around with exporting a file over
firewire, with minimal success (didn't try too hard, either).  The Mac
Mini should just see a block device, and perform normal I/O to it,
which the target endpoint would handle.  I would recommend getting a
PCIe dual 800/400 firewire card, and using the 400 port.  I did find a
minipcie firewire card on amazon, but it's rather expensive at $95
(full sized PCIe is probably cheaper).

- Justin