The sleek Blackmagic Design Intensity Extreme allows Thunderbolt-equipped computers to import and export HDMI video

Streaming live video from a camera into a computer has never been more difficult than today. Now that cameras rely on HDMI rather than simple composite, S-Video, or FireWire ports, it can be extremely difficult to connect them to a computer. That’s why I was thrilled to see the announcement by Blackmagic Design of two Thunderbolt versions of their respected Intensity video input/output box. But which is the better choice, the Intensity Shuttle or Intensity Extreme?

Introducing the Blackmagic Design Intensity

Blackmagic Design is well known for their inexpensive yet professional quality audio/video hardware and software. I first became acquainted with the company at NAB Show last year, coming away impressed by their broad lineup of video input and output devices. But the one that really caught my eye was the Thunderbolt-enabled Intensity Extreme.

You might also want to read The First Thunderbolt Peripherals On Display At NAB Show

“Intensity” is Blackmagic’s line of HDMI capture and playback devices. The Intensity Pro (internal PCIe) and Intensity Shuttle (external USB 3.0) have been available for a while. These offer a wide range of video capture and playback connections including HDMI, S-Video, component, and composite. Both are compatible with a wide range of professional editing software, including Avid Media Composer 6, Apple Final Cut Pro, and Adobe Premiere Pro.

You can't use this Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro in a MacBook Pro, but the same components make up the other Intensity products

HDMI capture is critical for the latest generation of cameras, since most do not stream video over FireWire any longer. There is a vibrant market for “new old stock” and even used Canon HD camcorders with FireWire output, since these were the last to reliably stream live video to computers for use with webcasting applications.

The Intensity line opens up a whole world of cameras, including many HD camcorders as well as SLR and mirrorless cameras like my Sony NEX. This will lead to higher quality video for live streams of events like my Tech Field Day and Truth in IT seminar series.

The Thunderbolt Enabled Intensity Shuttle and Intensity Extreme

Although Apple Macintosh computers are widely used for live streaming, they have not been able to take advantage of the Blackmagic Intensity line due to Apple’s steadfast refusal to adopt USB 3.0. All that changes with the introduction of the Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt and Intensity Extreme.

The Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt may not look as cool, but it just might be the better product!

Both the Intensity Shuttle and Intensity Extreme feature HDMI input and output and Thunderbolt connectivity for Apple MacBook Pro laptops. Both also include a variety of alternative input/output options, including S-Video, composite, and component. Both versions are also compatible with a wide range of popular software, include a bundle of Blackmagic applications, and share the same internal components.

So what’s the difference between the Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt and Intense Extreme, apart from a $60-higher price tag for the latter? The most obvious difference is the gorgeous machined aluminum case on the Intensity Extreme, which totally outclasses the two-tone plastic of the Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt. The Intensity Extreme relies on a breakout cable rather than the lineup of connectors along the edges of the Intensity Shuttle. Perhaps the Intensity Extreme is more rugged, but I prefer the light weight and integrated connectors of the Intensity Shuttle.

There are only slight differences between Blackmagic's Intensity Shuttle and Intensity Extreme products

A quick look at the tech specs for the two devices shows some subtle but, perhaps, important differences. The Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt supports 8 channel audio input and output for HDMI connections, while the Intensity Extreme only lists dual channel support. But the Intensity Extreme is alone in featuring a 2-channel 24-bit SPDIF audio output port. The Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt appears to support a wider range of video formats, including 480p, 525p NTSC and 625p PAL, though this could perhaps be an oversight in the specifications listing.

Both versions of the Blackmagic Intensity require the separate purchase of Apple’s $50 Thunderbolt cable, and both appear to draw power from this port rather than increasing travel weight with an extra power supply.

I know I would lose the breakout cable for the Intensity Extreme...

Stephen’s Stance

Overall, I’m thrilled to see Blackmagic bring HDMI video input and output to the Thunderbolt ports found on most Apple computers, and the low price of the Intensity products is certainly welcome. Personally, I will choose the Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt for its lighter weight and no-breakout connectivity, and use the $60 I saved to purchase the Apple Thunderbolt cable. I’m not convinced that the minor technical differences between the 2 devices are a dealbreaker for me, though I can imagine some might demand the SPDIF audio port found only on the Intensity Extreme. Note that neither device is yet shipping, but Blackmagic promises to deliver them this quarter.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2012. | Preview: Two Thunderbolt Video Input and Output Devices from Blackmagic Design: Intensity Shuttle and Intensity Extreme
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Two portable RAID systems arrived at my door. Which would you be more interested in?

RAID is becoming more familiar in the SOHO market, but portable devices using 2.5″ drives remain a novelty. I recently tested two such units, and came away with mixed impressions. Although the ToughTech Duo from CRU-DataPort/Wiebetech sports attractive design, it didn’t perform much better than the homely Akitio Taurus Mini Super-S. And neither is all that portable.

A Tale of Two Drives

CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech ToughTech Duo and Akitio Taurus Mini Super-S

I’ve been intrigued by the industry-wide shift from 3.5″ to 2.5″ hard disk drives, and was curious when this trend would come to consumer devices. CRU-DataPort, also (confusingly) known as Wiebetech, was first to offer up a two-drive portable RAID unit for me to test. Their ToughTech Duo is a rounded elongated brick with a brushed aluminum finish, LCD screen, and big rubbery buttons.

The ToughTech Duo arrived with a pair of 750 GB Seagate drives installed, but it supports many others as well. I swapped in a pair of 500 GB Toshiba drives (sent separately by IDEMA for my use in tests) and was immediately impressed by the ToughTech’s metal drive carriers. They hold the drive firmly and latch in place securely yet require no screws. The overall build quality of the ToughTech Duo is solid, and the interface is easy to use – perhaps too much so, as we will shortly see!

I really appreciated the CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech ToughTech Duo drive carrier

A short time later, Akitio offered me their 2-drive “Taurus Mini Super-S” for testing. A sharp square brick with a rough black finish, the Taurus Mini’s LCD was harder to read and the two tiny control buttons were nearly impossible to press. The drives reside behind a metal door operated with thumbscrews but attach to rough trays with standard Phillips screws. I suppose the drives are secure, but the Taurus isn’t reassuring to work with.

Both the ToughTech Duo and Taurus Mini Super-S include USB 2.0 and eSATA as well as two FireWire 800 ports for daisy-chaining. The omission of USB 3.0 is curious considering how widespread that interface has become on storage devices, but eSATA and FireWire allow these devices to reach their (limited) performance potential.

The CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech packaging is much friendlier

Both devices ship in gaudy boxes that would be right at home on the shelves of MicroCenter or Fry’s, but the Akitio is excessively verbose and nerdy. The packaging, like the overly-long product names, would put off casual computer users, especially Apple buyers looking for simplicity and ease of use. This is disappointing, since any device with FireWire but no USB 3.0 must be aimed at Apple users!

Configuring RAID

Both drives allow the user to switch between RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 0 (striping, with no data protection) using the panel buttons. But since this operation is destructive to the data stored, this might not be all that useful. Most users will likely select one or the other and leave it that way, a blessing given the microscopic buttons on the Akitio.

An average user is likely to leave the drive plugged in when performing RAID changes, leading to disastrous results with the Wiebetech drive. The Akitio resets itself when RAID levels are changed, but the Wiebetech (curiously) does not. I was able to continue writing and reading data after switching to RAID 1, but a reboot destroyed the format and the data. I made the company aware of this issue and they assured me it would be corrected. But I haven’t seen a fix yet, and it’s been a few months. The fact that the documentation instructs users to unplug the drive on RAID changes isn’t reassuring: Few buyers will actually read and follow these instructions.

Interestingly, both devices use the same on-disk format for both RAID 0 and 1. I was able to pull the drives from one and use them in the other with no apparent issues. Wiebetech assured me that their RAID 1 format simply writes all data to both drives. I was able to confirm that this was the case, with a removed RAID 1 drive remaining readable using a direct SATA connection.

Usability Concerns

There's a lot of stuff in the Akitio Taurus Mini Super-S box!

Although both devices are admirably small, they are not really all that compact. Carrying either drive (along with its power brick) in my backpack was definitely noticeable both in bulk and weight. And these are surprisingly heavy devices – each weighs more than my 2011 MacBook Pro!

Both devices get fairly hot under heavy use as well, and neither sports a fan. The Akitio has what looks like a heatsink along the bottom, but I didn’t notice that the rest of the body stayed cooler. And the Wiebetech got downright hot, even setting off its internal temperature alarm during benchmarking! This was an isolated occurrence, however, and I was unable to cause it to overheat again.

It is way too easy to erase all data on the ToughTech Duo by changing RAID levels with the big, friendly buttons

The ease of switching RAID modes is disturbing to me, since this destroys all data on the drives even without considering the Wiebetech’s data loss-inducing bug. But the LCD and buttons are fairly useless apart from this rare operation.

Performance and Compatibility

I tested both devices with the same Toshiba 500 GB drives to gauge their controller performance, but the Seagate drives shipped with the CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech device are much quicker overall.

Sequential read performance with RAID 0 pushes the limits of FireWire at about 83 MB/s, with RAID 1 only slightly behind

Sequential write performance isn't as good, with both units lagging when using RAID 1. Although equal in performance with RAID 0, the Wiebetech lagged severely in RAID 1 performance

Random read performance is nicely homogenous, with both drives topping out around 45 MB/s

Random writes were a different story, with the Akitio and Wiebetech close together for both RAID 0 and 1, but each demonstrating superiority in a different area. The Akitio just kept accelerating as I/O's got larger with RAID 1, while the Wiebetech pulled ahead with RAID 0. Oddly, RAID 0 writes lagged behind RAID 1 on the whole.

Wiebetech's bundled Seagate drives easily outperformed the Toshibas is random benchmarks, nearly doubling random write throughput

But the Toshiba drives were faster in sequential operations, with the Seagates lagging well behind

Stephen’s Stance

I often receive storage devices for review, but it’s unusual that two such similar ones arrive at once. After giving each a fair amount of testing and use, I come away unimpressed. The Akitio looks and feels like the sort of no-name OEM device often overlooked by buyers, while the slickly-designed Wiebetech exhibited disconcerting bugs. Both have confusing names and packaging as well. If I had to pick one, it would be the CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech ToughTech Duo, thanks to its more compact size and user-friendly drive sleds. Note that the Akitio appears to be cheaper at retail, but this is due to the cost of the hard disk drives in the Wiebetech/CRU-Dataport device.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Two Dual-Drive Portable RAIDs Reviewed: Akitio and Wiebetech
This post was categorized as Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The new Apple Thunderbolt Display is much more than just a monitor: It's a demonstration of what Thunderbolt technology is capable of!

It took a while, but Apple’s Thunderbolt technology is finally proving its worth. The new Thunderbolt Display is called “the ultimate docking station” on Apple’s website, and this may just be the case. With a single cable carrying power, display, and I/O from a thunderbolt equipped MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, the Thunderbolt Display really does transform what a laptop computer can be.

A Quiet Surprise

You might also want to read Thunderbolt = Light Peak = Mini DisplayPort + PCI Express

Apple introduced the latest version of their OS X operating system alongside the new MacBook Air, the cancellation of the old plastic MacBook, and a refresh of the Mac Mini this month. With so much news, it was easy to overlook another key product introduction: the Thunderbolt Display.

But far from being a simple monitor, the new Thunderbolt Display is really the first non-storage Thunderbolt peripheral as well as a demonstration of the power of this new interconnect. Taking a step forward from previous Cinema Displays, this new monitor includes a single cable for power and video signals and also leverages Thunderbolt technology to carry I/O traffic, turning the monitor into an extension of the attached MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or Mac Mini.

The new Display uses Thunderbolt technology to expand the I/O capabilities of slim computers like the Mac Mini and MacBook Air

The Thunderbolt Display includes three full power USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a “FaceTime” HD webcam and microphone. All of these signals are multiplexed over a single Thunderbolt connection along with the DisplayPort via signal. Attaching this display to a brand-new Thunderbolt equipped MacBook Air transforms it into an iMac equivalent, with the same I/O capabilities and performance.

Note that the Thunderbolt controller in the MacBook Pro is twice as powerful as the one found in the new MacBook Air, allowing the Pro computers to use to Thunderbolt Displays at once. This “LightRidge” chip is also found in the Mac Mini and iMac, so all are capable of dual displays.

Changing the Shape of Computers

This is the real power of Thunderbolt technology in action. By extending the PCI bus outside a computer’s chassis, advanced peripherals like the Thunderbolt Display can add full speed I/O ports without sacrificing a thin, portable form factor. The previous generation MacBook Air was seriously compromised in terms of performance, with just two slow USB 2.0 ports and no Ethernet. The new Thunderbolt MacBook Air is an entirely different league, boasting 10 Gb of external I/O that can be used for full speed Ethernet, FireWire, and (hopefully) USB 3.0 in the future.

Thunderbolt allows a slim portable computer to have the same massive I/O capability as a desktop, and it has implications for nonportable devices as well. Consider the new Mac Mini, which has slimmed down to the size of the old Apple TV. Although it lacks an internal optical drive or any other expansion capability, equipping the Mac Mini with Thunderbolt enables it to challenge the tower desktops in the future. Already, companies like Village Instruments are promising to introduce PCIe expansion chassis for Thunderbolt, allowing computers like the Mac Mini and MacBook Air to use full-size PCIe cards.

Stephen’s Stance

Thunderbolt is important not because it is fast but because it extends the PCI bus outside the computer chassis. The next iteration of the Mac Pro could be as tiny as the Mac Mini, as long as it has two or more Thunderbolt ports and an expansion chassis for video and I/O cards.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Apple’s Thunderbolt Display Shows the Future
This post was categorized as Apple, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Thunderbolt (nee Light Peak) is here!

Apple unveiled their new line of MacBook Pro laptops today, complete with “Thunderbolt”, the trade name for a production packaging of Light Peak and Mini DisplayPort. After much speculation (including quite a bit by yours truly), we finally have some concrete information about Light Peak, and perhaps a peek (if you forgive the pun) into the next generation of I/O technologies!

Note: The following comes from my own research on the day of the launch. Intel’s Thunderbolt Technology Brief is especially helpful, and many of these images come from there. Intel has promised to brief me on the technology shortly, and I will write a more complete and correct article at that time!

PCI Express At Heart

We have long known that Light Peak is more a transport than a protocol. Rather than competing with existing standards like USB and FireWire, Light Peak is an interconnect that can carry a variety of protocols. But we never knew exactly how this mechanism would work until now.

Apple’s and Intel’s Thunderbolt pages reveal that it uses PCI Express as its base transport mechanism. This isn’t the first time the serial PCI Express bus has been exposed to the “outside world” – the weakly-supported ExpressCard standard already includes a single PCI Express (v1) lane for plug-in cards.

But Thunderbolt is much, much faster than ExpressCard. With a confirmed 10 Gb/s of throughput, Thunderbolt is a significant upgrade, but what exactly is the technology behind it? Intel could have used four PCI Express v1 lanes, but this would fall short of 10 Gb/s in real-world throughput thanks to 8b/10b encoding losses and other overhead, and would also pose additional cabling challenges. It could also have specified a single PCI Express v3.0 lane, which would spec nicely to 10 Gb/s, but this standard is quite new, having been finalized in November, 2010.

Instead, it appears that Thunderbolt will use two PCI Express v2.0 lanes, each operating at 5 GHz and using 8b/10b encoding. This means that real-world Light Peak throughput will be limited to about 2x 4 Gb/s, 20% less than the rated number. But this scheme would be much simpler to implement, being compatible with Intel’s current Sandy Bridge CPUs and chipsets as well as nearly every existing PCI Express-capable chip and peripheral.

Thunderbolt = Light Peak Over Mini DisplayPort

Intel’s Thunderbolt port is not just a renaming of Light Peak, though. It is a packaging of Light Peak technology with Apple’s Mini DisplayPort (mDP) video connector standard. Note that the Thunderbolt name and logo are Intel’s trademarks, not Apple’s, and will likely show up on PC hardware as well.

Mini DisplayPort is a compact 20-pin connector for the DisplayPort digital video interface standard. Introduced in 2006, DisplayPort is intended to replace DVI and VGA (and supplant HDMI) for use in computer displays. DisplayPort gained significant traction in late 2010 as major PC component and display manufacturers like AMD, Intel, Dell, Lenovo, LG, and Samsung announced they would use it both internally and externally for future displays.

Apple switched to DisplayPort in late 2008, and has exclusively used Mini DisplayPort since 2009. They released the compact mDP specification for free use by other manufacturers, and support for the standard is growing.

Maintaining Compatibility With Mini DisplayPort

Although it is not 100% clear exactly how Intel added Light Peak PCI Express lanes to the Mini DisplayPort connector, we do have a general idea.

All 20 pins in the mDP connector are already used for the DisplayPort video and associated data signals, leaving none for PCI Express. Although the mechanical tolerances of a mDP connector are better-suited for an optical interconnect, and Thunderbolt does hold out the promise of optical connections, the initial Thunderbolt implementation uses electrical signals to carry PCI Express data.

Intel’s illustration appears to show PCI Express and DisplayPort data multiplexed over a single connection. But this would be tricky to implement while still maintaining backwards-compatibility with existing Mini DisplayPort devices, as touted.

Intel accomplished this bit of magic by only multiplexing when compatible endpoints are detected:

“if a DisplayPort device is detected, a Thunderbolt controller will drive compatibility mode DisplayPort signals to that device”

They re-use the existing pins for a multiplexed connection of PCI Express and DisplayPort data for Thunderbolt-capable endpoints but fall back only to Mini DisplayPort signaling when a mDP device is detected. This likely means that the PCI Express lanes will be entirely disabled when connected to an existing Apple Cinema Display or other Mini DisplayPort device.

One Big Surprise: Two Channels!

There is one more surprise in store from Intel and Apple:

“A Thunderbolt connector is capable of providing two full-duplex channels. Each channel provides bi-directional 10 Gbps of bandwidth.”

Whoa there! So this little Mini DisplayPort connector includes 20 Gb/s of throughput in each direction, plus up to two DisplayPort v1.1a connections with 8.64 Gb/s each. This yields a grand total of 57 Gb/s over that slim wire. That’s one impressive interconnect!

Intel's Thunderbolt Controller diagram is revealing!

The Intel Thunderbolt controller is fed four PCI Express v2.0 lanes and a DisplayPort signal from the “Cougar Point” platform controller hub (PCH). A DisplayPort signal can also be routed in from a discrete graphics card. Each Thunderbolt controller can apparently drive two Thunderbolt connectors, though it is likely that these will share the same four PCI Express lanes using a crossbar switch built into the controller.

A Wide World of Peripherals

LaCie stands make a big splash with Thunderbolt-compatible storage devices

As mentioned, just about any existing PCI Express chipset can reside on this Thunderbolt bus, and the topology is extremely flexible. A Thunderbolt peripheral could be an endpoint, using the PCI Express lanes to drive FireWire, USB, Fibre Channel, or just about any other interconnect. It could also be a hub, allowing further Thunderbolt connections, or a pass-through in a daisy-chain topology.

It is somewhat surprising that Apple did not release a new Thunderbolt-capable Cinema Display today. In fact, only storage devices from Promise and LaCie are noted in Apple’s page. They do promise a user can “daisy-chain up to six new peripherals, such as the Promise Pegasus RAID or LaCie Little Big Disk, or five peripherals and an Apple LED Cinema Display.” But this indicates that the Cinema Display would be at the end of the chain operating in Mini DisplayPort compatibility mode.

It is likely that Intel is supplying the Thunderbolt chips used in peripherals as well. If Intel is the single source for these chips, it could drive up cost and reduce availability of compatible peripherals. But it would also likely improve interoperability and compatibility in general.

Stephen’s Stance

Although Thunderbolt is backward-compatible, only the forward-looking use cases are really compelling. A future Cinema Display with USB, FireWire, and Ethernet ports would be a start. It would be easy to imagine a slimmer MacBook with just a few internal ports that relies on its display to provide DVD, ExpressCard, and other expansion devices. I’d love to see a Thunderbolt- and Sandy Bridge-equipped MacBook Air!

It is disappointing that Apple and Intel decided to use the Mini DisplayPort connector rather than USB, but the USB Implementer’s Forum was apparently opposed to that idea. Since Apple controls mDP and modern Macs increasingly include just that connector and USB, it was an easy alternative choice. Although today’s MacBook Pros include just a single Thunderbolt port, one suspects that future machines might reduce the number of USB connectors or eliminate FireWire in favor of a second Thunderbolt.

This is an exciting development in I/O and storage. Watch this space for future updates!

Note: Images in this post come from Apple and Intel.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Thunderbolt = Light Peak = Mini DisplayPort + PCI Express
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

It looks like Apple will indeed re-brand Intel Light Peak as "Thunderbolt" and combine it with Mini DisplayPort!

Intel has been incredibly tight-lipped about Light Peak. Although I’ve been hounding my contacts inside the company for months, no one has spilled the beans about anything. All I know about Light Peak I learned on the Internet, as they say. Now comes another bombshell: Apple will introduce Light Peak-equipped MacBook Pros tomorrow (February 24) with “Thunderbolt”, a high-speed I/O port!

One could easily guess that Apple would rename Light Peak for its own use. It did the same with its previous high-speed I/O port, IEEE 1394, known among Apple users as FireWire. A trademarked name allows Apple to control compatibility to some extent, requiring users of the name to submit to Apple’s guidelines and perhaps pay a fee for its use. And Light Peak seems an especially poor name amid rumors that it will not use an optical connection after all!

The news comes from the German-language site, FSCKLog, and includes photos of the 13″ MacBook Pro spec sheet, the Thunderbolt logo, and even the ports on the side of the machine!

If we take this as fact (and the logo it pretty convincing) here’s what we know about Apple’s implementation of Light Peak:

1. Apple will call it “Thunderbolt” and refers to it as a “High-speed I/O” port
2. Apple will integrate Thunderbolt with the Mini DisplayPort connector (rather than a USB 3.0 port as I had guessed)
   1. The German spec sheet says “Thunderbolt-Anschluss unterstuetzt High-Speed E/A und Mini DisplayPort Geraete”, which means “Thunderbolt port supports High-Speed I/O devices and Mini DisplayPort”.
   2. The side photo shows an ordinary-looking Mini DisplayPort connector with a little thunderbolt icon next to it. Under magnification, I don’t see any sign of image manipulation in this photo.
3. Since it’s integrated with the Mini DisplayPort connector, it’s likely Apple will use the monitor as a high-speed I/O hub or breakout box
   1. Expect to see a new line of Cinema Displays with Thunderbolt-powered ports embedded in them.
   2. I bet companies like Belkin will quickly come out with Thunderbolt breakout boxes.
4. The MacBook Pro will still include FireWire 800 and (2x) USB 2.0 I/O ports, in addition to a MagSafe power port, Gigabit Ethernet port, and SDXC card slot.
5. There is no mention of USB 3.0, though I strongly suspect it will be included in the Thunderbolt spec.

Interested in learning more? You might want to check out some of my other articles about Light Peak, or my Light Peak performance comparison infographic!

Stephen’s Stance

I was skeptical that Apple would introduce Light Peak this month, though confident it would come this year. But this evidence is very convincing, if not wholly satisfying. I’ve been holding off on upgrading my three-year-old Santa Rosa MacBook Pro until Apple released some kind of serious I/O: A few USB 2.0 and FireWire ports just doesn’t cut it for my use. I do hope these new Sandy Bridge MacBook Pros meet my needs, though, because I’m itching for an upgrade!

But the specific inclusion and mention of USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 ports gives me pause. Why put USB 2.0 on board instead of USB 3.0? Why bundle “Thunderbolt” with the Mini DisplayPort connector rather than a USB 3.0 port? Why is there no mention of what Thunderbolt is useful for? I’m concerned that Thunderbolt might not be fully baked, and might not deliver the “high-speed I/O” I wanted. Early adopters could be stuck with limited compatibility and connectivity, and there is no telling if my “breakout box” concept will come to fruition. Heck, Thunderbolt could carry just video and audio for all we know!

Image credit: FSCKLog

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Will Apple Call Light Peak “Thunderbolt”?
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

It’s hard to compare big numbers: Just how fast is 10 gigabits per second anyway? To help out, I’ve prepared another napkin-tastic infographic!

This illustration shows the number of ports required to match a single 10 Gb/s Light Peak connection (or 10 GbE link) in terms of real-world throughput. I used my own benchmarks to come up with real-world performance. Since these average 80% efficiency, I estimated that Light Peak would deliver 80% of its theoretical bandwidth, or just about 1000 Megabytes per second.

It’s important to remember that, despite the doom and gloom predictions, Light Peak is not intended to replace any existing port type. It is a high-speed interconnect for multiplexing these protocols. In other words, a Light Peak connection will carry multiple USB 3.0, FireWire, Ethernet, or other signals not some new special protocol. And Light Peak probably won’t use light at all at first: It will run over conventional copper wiring, perhaps combined with USB 3.0!

It’s fun to imagine what such a port would mean to the physical design of portable computers. A future MacBook Air could have a single combined port carrying either USB 3.0 or 10 Gb/s Light Peak over copper (“Copper Peak”?). This could connect to a “dock” or break-out box, or perhaps the ports could be embedded in a monitor or even the power adapter. This remote block could include everything we might need: 1 Gb Ethernet, FireWire 800, USB 3.0, and ExpressCard (PCI-over-Light Peak isn’t that far-fetched).

About the only thing Light Peak will have difficulty carrying is full-bandwidth video. Apple’s current DisplayPort cables already carry 10.2 Gb/s of data, and the DisplayPort signal driving a 27″ 2650×1600 display would saturate a Light Peak connection. Unless Apple has something up their sleeve (multi-link Light Peak?) we’re not yet looking at single-port computers!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Infographic: Real-World Port Throughput Relative To Light Peak
This post was categorized as Apple, Features, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How Fast Is It? A Storage Infographic
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, Features, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Is "SuperSpeed" USB 3.0 coming to Apple computers? My sources say yes!

Apple is a funny company, happy to go their own way even as the rest of the industry piles on to the latest trend. Such is the case with storage, with Apple ditching floppy drives, optical drives, and even hard disks. On the expansion side, Apple was an early and aggressive proponent of USB but stubbornly ignored eSATA. Now that PC makers are turning to USB 3.0, many are wondering when Apple will follow suit. My sources tell me that “Super Speed” USB 3.0 is indeed coming to the Mac, and very soon!

The Limits of Expansion

USB has served Apple well, with the company abandoning their proprietary peripheral ports in favor of mostly-USB approach starting with the original iMac. Those needing faster I/O always had FireWire – although it is uncommon in the PC world, Mac users relish the high performance and daisy-chain ability of FireWire 800, found on most high-end Macs.

But increasingly-speedy peripherals post a problem for Mac users. Hard disk drives can now top 100 MB/s, and RAID units and SSDs are even faster. Iomega recently introduced a 300 MB/s portable SSD with USB 3.0, for example, but Mac users are left out in the cold, poking along at 1/10 the speed. Apple is phasing out ExpressCard ports on MacBooks and most desktop Macs lack any sort of expansion at all: Only the Mac Pro has PCI-Express slots. This forces I/O- or expansion-hungry Mac users to resort to extraordinary means to add expansion to their machines.

Apple desperately needs something faster than USB 2.0 or FireWire and more flexible and integrated than eSATA. They need USB 3.0! “SuperSpeed” USB 3.0 boasts fast 5 Gbps signaling for real-world performance about equal to SATA.

When Will USB 3.0 Arrive?

So when will Apple embrace USB 3.0? My sources say very soon! I’ve been pestering every vendor I know with that question, and one finally broke down and admitted that Apple contacted them about USB 3.0 compatibility testing. Considering that a new line of MacBooks is about to be introduced, along with a major new revision of Mac OS X, I think this points to an early-2011 release, as Intel brings USB 3.0 to their chipsets. The Fall 2010 Macs might not include USB 3.0 hardware, but it should arrive soon after the new year.

Update: Steve Jobs himself reportedly said Apple is waiting for Intel and others to support USB 3.0

On the software side, I’m told that OS X 10.7 “Lion” includes the necessary drivers to enable USB 3.0 on Macs with appropriate adapters. This will include future models (perhaps not including the MacBook Air, which arrives too soon), and could also be good news for existing MacBook Pros equipped with an ExpressCard slot and Mac Pros. Note that one company, CalDigit, already offers a USB 3.0 PCI-Express card for Mac Pros with OS X-compatible drivers, and there are a number of adapters available for Windows users.

Stephen’s Stance

USB 3.0 can’t come soon enough. I’m going to assume my sources are accurate, though I could end up with egg on my face. Although Apple is a bit late to the party, USB 3.0 is not yet a mainstream feature on the Windows side either. It’s nice to hear that they’re concerned about interoperability testing, too. Hopefully we’ll all be cruising along with 5 Gbps USB ports soon!

Update: To answer some questions I’ve gotten, I must first say that this is all hearsay. I have no direct evidence that Apple is including USB 3.0 drivers in OS X 10.7 or that future Macs will include USB 3.0 hardware. To protect them from Apple’s wrath, I won’t reveal the source of the hardware test information, but the Lion software driver info came from a separate source. I consider these two pieces of information enough to convince me that this is true, but folks have cause to be skeptical. Finally, I imagine that a USB 3.0 driver won’t merit mention in the Lion keynote, though USB 3.0 hardware might make a Jobs speech eventually.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Will OS X 10.7 “Lion” Bring USB 3.0 To The Mac?
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

"Bridging versus routing" brings us to the perennial networking debate: Are low-level protocols better?

Unless you’re “in the know”, terms like “layer 2″ can seem mysterious, making it all the more plausible when someone touts the benefits. It seems logical: “Bare-metal” communication must be better, faster, and cheaper than higher-level “everything over IP” approaches, right? But it’s not quite that simple.

This piece assumes you know something about the OSI model.

Ivan Pepelnjak posted a great overview of the “bridging versus routing” debate (Bridging and Routing: is there a difference?), and Marko Milivojevic posed the question in response: “I’m one of those who doesn’t understand the whole L2 obsession of the modern networking world, but…”

It really is an obsession: Data communications folks continually argue about the merits and trade-offs between high-level network protocols and low-level communications. We hear it in storage all the time: FCoE proponents assume performance benefits, and AoE fans add cost advantages to the mix. But many of these claims are unsubstantiated, and iSCSI and NAS protocols like SMB and NFS just keep rolling forward. If storage over IP is so bad, why does iSCSI work (and perform) so well?

One thing often missing in the “layer 2″ arguments is what’s missing when you skip the network layer. There’s a reason IP is so widespread: It may not be the best protocol ever, but it works really well in a huge variety of situations and there is a vast pool of associated technologies that can be drawn upon when using it.

IP can run over just about anything, from FireWire to SONET, so any protocol using IP can (theoretically) run there, too. I’ve run iSCSI over Wi-Fi and WAN links, and it works great out of the box with 10 Gb Ethernet. Protocols that are tightly linked to a layer-2 protocol face stiff challenges when moving to different data links. Witness the difficulty moving Fibre Channel to 10 Gb Ethernet, including all those data center bridging technologies. In fact, when faced with the challenge of long-distance Fibre Channel SAN communication, encapsulation over IP was a natural choice.

IP also has a myriad of wonderful technologies to choose from. The creators of iSCSI were able to pull authentication, encryption, lossless communication, and many other features straight from the existing toy box. Developers of new non-IP protocols have to invent their own solutions to these problems, often with disastrous results. Why reinvent the wheel? Just apply a little CHAP, some IPsec, and roll it in TCP and you’re done!

Photo credit: “Akashi Kaikyo Bridge 明石海峽大橋” by Shenghung Lin

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | The Lure of Layer 2
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Another great question in my mailbox:

I bought a 3rd SATA drive, and have nowhere to put it in my PowerMac G5. I forgot there was only room for 2 inside!

I do audio recording: Lots of Digital Performer, plus a bit of Pro Tools. I recently bought a new 1 TB Hitachi drive and don’t know how to house it.

Here are my choices:

1. External FW400 enclosure
2. External FW800 enclosure
3. External USB2 enclosure
4. PCIe SATA card (expensive because I’d still need to buy an enclosure?)

I’m hearing that the unused FW800 socket on the back isn’t a good idea. True?

I have a Digi002r Firewire Audio interface attached to one FW400 port, and a PCIe MOTU 424e card (with the other audio interfaces attached) installed.

Thank you much for any help.

Stephen’s Stance

My preference is to rank them in terms of performance and cost:

1. eSATA
2. FW800
3. FW400
4. USB

I don’t know much about the G5 but guess that a PCIe eSATA card won’t be too expensive. The enclosures are cheap too.

A better option might be a Drobo (on FireWire 800) if you have the cash. It’s not super fast (though the new Drobo S is faster) but it protects your data and it’s easy to add more space. With that many drives, you’re likely to have a failure soon… The only issue here is that an empty Drobo costs a few hundred dollars and that might be out of your price range.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How Should An External Hard Drive Be Attached?
This post was categorized as Ask a Pack Rat. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.