Apple boasts that their AirPort Extreme base station is "5x faster" but which devices can connect?

Apple is not always quick to support new technologies, but they threw their weight behind 802.11n Wi-Fi as soon as hardware was available. They upgraded their access points, laptop and desktop computers beginning in 2006, though support importable devices lagged. But the capabilities of 802.11n devices varies widely, and today’s Apple devices are no exception.

802.11n Capability Refresh

Routers like this Cisco E4200 can hit 450 Mb/s data rate!

As I discussed in detail last week, there are four main technology enhancements to 802.11n: MIMO and multi-streaming, 40 MHz channels, 5 GHz radio spectrum, and various packet enhancements. Each of these is optional for 802.11n devices, and Apple has picked a subset to support.

Basic 802.11n devices operate in the same 2.4 GHz radio channels as earlier Wi-Fi technologies. Many also lack the multiple radios and amplifiers required for multi-stream performance, and Apple only supports 40 MHz channels in the 5 GHz range. This means that simple devices are limited to a data rate of 72.2 Mb per second. These compromises are often made to conserve power or due to physical space constraints, so portable devices like the iPhone lack the performance of full-fledged computers.

Most desktop and laptop implementations of 802.11n include radios capable of either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz operation, and many offer two or three antennas for MIMO and multi-streaming. From 2006, Apple has offered 802.11 draft-n wireless cards in their laptop and desktop line, and all of these boast dual stream, dual frequency radios. Beginning in 2011, Apple has introduced ultra high-performance Wi-Fi offering three spatial streams and up to 450 Mb per second data rate.

When it comes to access points, Apple has aggressively moved toward 802.11n but lacks many of the features found on competitive products. The Apple AirPort line of Wi-Fi access points currently includes both the AirPort Express, with selectable frequency and dual stream support, as well as the AirPort Extreme, which supports both frequencies concurrently as well as triple stream performance. But Apple does not allow multi-streaming or 40 MHz channels in the 2.4 GHz frequency range on any device in their AirPort line.

Apple 802.11n Wi-Fi Device Capabilities

You might also want to read Which iPad is the Best Choice? and Decision Point: Comparing the 2011 MacBook Pro Models

To try to alleviate the confusion around which devices support what 802.11n features, I created the following table. Generally speaking, any Apple access point, laptop or desktop built since 2006 includes selectable 2.4 or 5 GHz support and at least dual stream capabilities. Every Apple TV also includes 802.11n Wi-Fi right out of the box. On the portable device side, both iPad generations, the iPhone 4, and the latest iPod Touch support 802.11n, though performance is limited.

Apple Devices with Limited 802.11n Support

I love my AirPort Express, but it's limited to two streams and either 2.4 or 5 GHz

Apple’s portable devices sacrifice performance for efficiency when it comes to Wi-Fi. The iPhone 4, 3rd generation iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV each have just one Wi-Fi antenna, so they are limited to single stream performance. The iPhone 4, iPod Touch, and first-generation iPad also lack 5 GHz radio compatibility, though the second-generation iPad and Apple TV do include it. This means that households with these popular devices cannot use 5 GHz-only networks, making the dual-band AirPort Extreme more attractive as a base station than the switchable AirPort Express.

Unsupported Apple Devices

Many readers will find that they own devices that do not support 802.11n at all, forcing them to maintain backward compatibility when deploying new Wi-Fi routers. Some very recent devices, including the iPhone 3G S and previous and the first three generations of iPod Touch, require 802.11g to connect. On the computer side of things, pre-2006 MacBook, MacBook Pro, and iMac computers lack 802.11n compatibility. But the Mac Mini is the real standout: It didn’t include 802.11n until the Core 2 Duo refresh in early 2009.

Stephen’s Stance

Apple's 5th-generation AirPort Extreme can hit 450 Mb/s data rate in combination with the 2011 MacBook Pro and iMac

It is nice to see Apple out in front with a technology like 802.11n, considering their reluctance to support Blu-Ray and USB 3.0. Although expensive, the AirPort Extreme and 2011 MacBook Pro and iMac sport top-of-the-line specs and high performance Wi-Fi. But the lack of 5 GHz support across the board means many users will stick to the crowded 2.4 GHz spectrum, limiting performance. And I’m sure owners of recent but unsupported devices (the older iPhone, iPod Touch, and Mac Mini) will be disappointed to have to stick to 802.11g.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Which Apple Devices Support 802.11n Wi-Fi?
This post was categorized as Apple, 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.

OWC sent me the DataDoubler (purple), so my MacBook Pro now has "paired storage": A hard disk drive and an SSD

Datacenter servers commonly store data on shared networked storage arrays, but the laptops and desktops used by individuals continue to rely on internal hard disk drives. Enterprise arrays employ a number of performance enhancements, including large RAM caches and fast flash storage, but end users are stuck with single disks. This is changing, however, as users increasingly deploy flash SSD for performance while retaining a hard disk as well for capacity. This is “paired storage”, and it’s a major trend.

Tiering and Pairing Storage

Tiered storage is commonly used in the enterprise server space. Storage pros deploy a few different categories of storage and assign them to servers as needed: Slower RAID-5 for capacity and faster 15k rpm mirrors or flash SSD for performance. Some systems now have the ability to actively move data on the fly between according to demand, often on a block-by-block basis.

Tiered storage makes sense in the enterprise because storage arrays are shared by multiple servers. But it was impractical to deploy multiple storage types in a desktop, and often impossible in a laptop. The typical client machine still has a single hard disk drive, often chosen for capacity rather than performance.

Avid gamers challenged the status quo, however, by deploying faster hard drives, multiple drive types, and even RAID storage. Drives like the 15k rpm Western Digital VelociRaptor and OCZ Vertex SSDs took this enthusiast market by storm, and the excitement about the massive performance offered by these devices is spilling over into other markets.

Today, high-end laptop and desktop buyers are rapidly adopting dual-drive strategies, pairing an SSD for booting and applications with a hard disk drive for capacity. PC makers are responding, offering built-to-order paired storage configurations in high-end machines like the Apple iMac.

Leave The Optical Drive At Home

A common aftermarket paired storage configuration replaces the optical drive with a hard disk drive (HDD) using a specialized bracket. This is especially common in the Apple world, with MacBook Pro users snapping up the MCE OptiBay and OWC DataDoubler and moving their DVD SuperDrives to external enclosures.

One reason for this shift is the lagging capacity of optical media. Today’s hard disk drives have up to 100 times the capacity of a DVD, and “ripped” media files are even more compact. A 1 TB hard disk drive can hold over a thousand hours of high-definition video and can serve double duty storing virtual machine disks, music, and other space hogs as well.

Another reason to skip the DVD drive is a shift in the distribution of software from optical disc to online download. Apple has rapidly moved to Internet-based distribution with their Mac App Store, and independent publishers commonly rely on digital downloads rather than box-and-disc distribution. Many users simply no longer need an optical drive.

Fitting an SSD in place of a DVD or Blu-Ray drive is something of a challenge, however. The Slim SATA connectors used by optical drives is mechanically incompatible with laptop hard disks (microSATA), as is the drive bay mounting screw locations.

Data Placement Difficulties

But mainstream operating systems like Microsoft Windows 7 and Apple Mac OS X are not inherently suited for paired storage. No desktop operating is able to make optimal use of an SSD and hard drive by dynamically placing data according to performance demands or frequency of access. They will not even combine the SSD and HDD into a single logical drive.

Instead, users must manually configure their storage, often placing most of their data on the SSD and moving data to the hard disk by hand. This wastes valuable flash capacity and limits the effectiveness of a paired storage configuration. But users are willing to sacrifice some price efficiency for the performance they get from the SSD.

Stephen’s Stance

Paired storage is a growing trend in the laptop computer market, with many high-end machines sporting both a SSD and hard disk drive. But it remains a game for the rich, adding many hundreds of dollars to the cost of a computer, and manually placing data is inefficient. It will be interesting to see if future operating systems bring better support for paired storage, and if it will reach into the server world.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | What Is Paired Storage?
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

SANLink is a Fibre Channel interface for the MacBook Pro, and that's no joke!

Thunderbolt was everywhere at the NAB Show, including many new products previewed or unveiled just last week. Beyond the two previously-known storage devices, the Promise Pegasus and LaCie Little Big Disk, a number of interfaces were also on display. Since this was the NAB Show, much of the focus was on the audio and video interfaces from Blackmagic and AJA, but Promise had a surprise in store: Their SANLink is a Fibre Channel interface for Thunderbolt.

SANLink: Connecting MacBook Pros to the SAN?

The SANLink is a compact portable device that allows a Thunderbolt-equipped computer (currently the 2011 MacBook Pro line) to Fibre Channel SAN. Featuring two 4 Gbps Fibre Channel ports, the SANLink demonstrates the kind of high performance that we can expect from future Thunderbolt peripherals.

I have to admit, the SANLink left me scratching my head at first. Why would a MacBook Pro user want to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN? Is this even a good idea? Considering that the slim Thunderbolt connector is not firmly fixed in place, a sudden disconnect is likely and would prove highly disruptive to the SAN, not just the laptop. And what laptop user wants to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN anyway?

I talked to the product manager from Promise, who suggested a use case for this device: Mobile video production systems sometimes use Fibre Channel for high-performance storage connectivity, and a MacBook Pro user could use theSANLink to access these storage devices as well. I will concede that a few people at the NAB Show were probably intrigued by this possibility, but I’m betting that the SANLink will be much more useful in an entirely different market segment.

The SANLink promises massive I/O performance, even on a laptop!

Considering that Apple is set to update the iMac line this month, it seems likely that the SANLink will allow these gorgeous desktop computers finally to meet their destiny as audiovisual workstations. Running Final Cut Pro X on a new Sandy Bridge iMac with high-performance Fibre Channel storage will be a revelation, and will likely cause a raft of Mac Pro users to “switch”. Promise is certainly barred from talking about future Apple products, even if they have inside information, but this is a much more logical use case than the SAN-on-the-go.

SANLink suggests that we may soon see a variety of high-performance interfaces developed for the Thunderbolt ports soon to be found across Apple’s product line. I would not be at all surprised to see 10 Gb Ethernet adapters, P2 and ExpressCard readers, docking stations, and perhaps even a PCI Express expansion bay.

Stephen’s Stance

Although the SANLink appears to be something of an oddball, it indicates the shape of things to come. Thunderbolt will transform the use cases for portable and all-in-one computers, likely spelling the end of the empty boxes for desktop use. In fact, I would not be at all surprised if Apple soon canceled the Mac Pro line entirely in favor of a beefed up Mac Mini and iMac stable. And the dozen or so MacBook Pro users wanting to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN will finally have the opportunity to do so sometime later this year.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Promise SANLink Thunderbolt Preview
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

We have barely scratched the surface of what this little cable can do!

Apple and Intel introduced the impressive new Thunderbolt interconnect last month on the MacBook Pro line, but folks like me who bought one have nothing to connect to yet. It was exciting to see the wide variety of Thunderbolt peripherals on display at the NAB show in Las Vegas last week, but none of these will ship to end-users before the middle of the summer. But evidence is mounting that Apple will be the first out of the gate with a Thunderbolt peripheral, it just won’t be the sort of peripheral you might expect. I am hearing rumors that the new iMac, to be introduced this month, will be both a Thunderbolt host and peripheral in one! Read on for what this means in the real world.

A Quick Review of Thunderbolt

Before we dive into this discussion, it is probably wise to revisit the latest information about the Thunderbolt interconnect. Although Thunderbolt MacBook Pros are widely available and Intel, Apple, and others have been talking about the technology quite a bit lately, there is still much confusion about just what this new interconnect is all about.

Thunderbolt includes both PCI Express and DisplayPort video

Put simply, Thunderbolt passes two important protocols between a computer and its peripherals:

1. Video, in the form of a full DisplayPort signal
2. Data, in the form of two full-duplex 10 Gb PCI Express lanes

These two signals are multiplexed onto a Mini DisplayPort interface. Although envisioned as an optical interconnect, Thunderbolt is today an electrical interface that uses copper wiring.

The Shape of Things To Come

There is one key reason to be excited about Thunderbolt: This high-bandwidth connection promises to change the physical shape of computers, since external devices can be accessed with the same performance as internal devices. In fact, design engineers who have worked with Intel’s initial chips report that integrating existing PCI Express peripherals with Thunderbolt is a piece of cake: The chips don’t know that they are located outside a computer!

Historically, laptops have been severely limited when it comes to I/O bandwidth. One reason for the lackluster performance of most portable computers is that they are strangled by slow interfaces like USB, FireWire, and ExpressCard. But Thunderbolt changes everything.

My new MacBook Pro has far more I/O capability than the iMac sitting on my desk, and perhaps even more than the Sandy Bridge desktop system I built for my lab! Packing all this I/O bandwidth into a single cable connection allows us to do magical things: We can put a wide variety of peripherals, from displays to storage networking, on that one little port and everything can operate at full speed.

This changes the very shape of the computer. No longer do we need to reserve empty space inside the box for full speed peripherals. Instead, a compact machine like a laptop or an iMac can connect to external devices without sacrificing performance. The next-generation Mac Mini might even be stackable, with a variety of expansion bases produced by third parties.

The iMac as a Peripheral

But things get weirder and more wonderful if we consider that the PCI Express lanes found on a Thunderbolt connector can even extend one computer’s resources to another. It is already possible for a MacBook Pro or other DisplayPort-enabled device to use the iMac as a monitor. Yet this leaves the keyboard, hard disk drive, camera, and other peripherals idle.

But what if we could use every part of the iMac as an extension of the MacBook Pro or vice versa? Plugging a Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pro into a new Thunderbolt iMac could allow the desktop system to take on the personality of the laptop entirely, sharing all peripherals and connections transparently and at full speed. The running operating system would instantly see the iSight camera, keyboard and mouse, network expansion ports, and of course the display panel.

But let’s take things a step further: What if the MacBook Pro and iMac shared their CPUs and graphics adapters as well? Grand Central Dispatch, built into Snow Leopard, could use these to accelerate rendering or gaming, using the high-speed PCI Express interconnect to share all the resources of both machines as a single compound computer.

Stephen’s Stance

Who doesn’t want an eight-core MacBook Pro with a 27-inch high-resolution display? Who wants the hassle of synchronizing documents and files between a desktop and portable computer? Why not just merge everything into a single computer over the high-speed Thunderbolt interface?

There is no reason this cannot be done, and I have heard many hints and suggestions that this is exactly what Apple is planning to introduce next week. The supply of iMacs is running short, and no one doubts that Thunderbolt will make an appearance on the replacement device. The only question is whether Apple will allow this kind of host to host interconnect, and how integrated it will be.

Jan Tångring consulted electronic experts and found this to be a credible idea at least. Read in Swedish (English translation)

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Will The First Thunderbolt Peripheral Be The iMac?
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This is not exactly the photo I intended to take...

Among the useful features and applications bundled into Mac OS X, Photo Booth is not exactly the most useful. Still, it’s handy to sometimes have an application to snap a photo of yourself or your surroundings while on the go. But Photo Booth has no preferences pane, and the default delay and BRIGHT screen flash can ruin your picture. Here’s a quick tip on how to use Photo Both with either (or both) turned off!

Eliminate the Flash

When Photo Booth takes a picture, it flashes the entire screen to white momentarily. I’ve never found this at all useful, and in fact have resorted to all sorts of unnatural acts to eliminate it – dimming the screen, moving away, and even covering it up. See the photo above for an idea why it’s particularly awful with the large, bright screen on the iMac!

But it’s easy to eliminate the flash. Just hold down the Shift key when you press the camera button! Note that you don’t need to keep holding it down, so you can get in position before the photo is taken.

Eliminate the Delay

I normally like having the delay, since it gives me a chance to see what I’ll look like. But there are times that you want to take a photo right now, and there’s a fix for that too.

Hold down the Option key when you press the camera button to take a picture immediately.

Use the Keyboard

As an avid keyboarder (and mouse hater) I was pleased to locate a shortcut to snap a photo. Command-T will take a photo with no click, and this can be combined with the options above as well!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | How To Use Mac Photo Booth With No Flash or Delay
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The new MacBook Pro impresses with its performance

As I mentioned in my previous article, I decided to buy the 13″ Core i5 (base model) MacBook Pro. It meets my needs as a travel workstation, but how does it perform? I decided to benchmark it against my other Macs to see how it stands up.

Benchmark Details

The following benchmarks were performed using Xbench and Geekbench, running on a freshly-booted machine. Xbench is outdated but solid and universally-accepted as the standard Mac benchmark. Plus, I had historical data from all of my machines. Geekbench is a great cross-platform CPU test, but it doesn’t measure as wide a variety of system parameters as Xbench.

Each Xbench test was normalized against the new MacBook Pro, which always shows as “100%” in these charts. This should help get a feel for how much slower or faster it is than the other machines.

The test subjects are as follows:

This probably seems like an odd and motley assortment, but they all have one thing in common: I own them. Although everyone’s performance baseline will be different, I was interested in how the new MacBook Pro compares to my other machines, and my 15″ machine in particular. So there you have it!

The CPU, graphics, and memory tests were performed running the latest version of Mac OS X “Snow Leopard”, version 10.6.6.

The disk tests, however, were run under either 10.6.6 (in the case of the 13″ MacBook Pro and iMac) or the version of Mac OS X that came with the machine originally (in the case of the 15″ Santa Rosa MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini). Since I am a storage guy, I have long-since upgraded the hard disk drives in both machines, and felt it was unfair to compare the OEM drive in the new MacBook Pro to these upgraded drives. So I used the original Xbench tests I performed when the machines were new.

Performance Overview

The new 13" MacBook Pro performance admirably

As others have reported, overall performance is solid. Even though it is the absolute base model in the line, the new MacBook Pro matches or bests my old machine in every respect. It clobbers the Santa Rosa MacBook pro in CPU, Thread, Memory, Quartz, UI, and disk tests, and ties in OpenGL performance. It even matches the high-end desktop in most tests, only falling behind when it comes to Disk, Thread and OpenGL graphics performance.

The fact that it achieves all this with a base price $600 less than my old MacBook Pro and runs for almost 7 hours on a charge is simply amazing. Moore’s law ought to allow new machines to outperform old ones, but one is still surprised to see it so flamboyantly displayed.

Performance Details

Now let’s dig a little deeper into these performance numbers!

CPU Performance Details

The base-model 13″ MacBook Pro uses a 2.3 GHz dual-core CPU, which hardly sounds better than the 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo chip used in my old MacBook Pro. And it shouldn’t hold a candle to the mighty 2.66 GHz quad-core “Nehalem” Core i5 in my iMac.

The "Sandy Bridge" Core i5 performs very well - it's nearly twice as fast as the old Core 2 Duo!

The detailed CPU tests tell a different tale, however. The architectural improvements made between Merom/Penryn and Sandy Bridge are evident, with the new chip almost doubling the old in floating point math and (thanks to hyperthreading) solidly throttling it in thread tests.

The most impressive feat is its performance relative to the quad-core Nehalem Core i5 in the iMac, however. Looking past the thread tests, which are greatly helped by two more full cores, we see nearly equal performance between laptop and desktop. This suggests that the Sandy Bridge architecture does a solid job of reducing electrical demands without sacrificing performance. The quad-core desktop CPUs in this family are shockingly strong, as we will see in a moment!

Geekbench Results

Since it is a cross-platform benchmark, I was able to add a ringer to the Geekbench test: My new lab workstation. Built around a Sandy Bridge Core i5-2400, Asus P8H67-M PRO motherboard, and speedy OCZ memory, this is a seriously-fast desktop for very little money. All in, we’re talking about under $500 for this guy!

The Core i5 and i7 processors walk all over the old Core 2 Duos

The two Sandy Bridge Core i5 CPUs are neck and neck in most of the tests, which is really shocking given that the desktop has two more cores, can ramp to 95 Watts, and runs at 3.1 GHz. It is also impressive that the older Nehalem Core i5-750 can keep up in Geekbench tests. Unsurprisingly, the old Core 2 Duo machines aren’t in the same league, not managing even half the performance of these three.

I previously talked about the performance-per-dollar ratio of the various MacBook Pro machines, noting that the base models were much more attractive by this metric. Although it’s definitely not an apples-to-apples comparison (for starters, my desktop is harder to use on a plane…) I will admit that one can get roughly three times the Geekbench score by building a Sandy Bridge system at home. With a score of 7350, my desktop delivers almost 15 Geekbench points per dollar, compared to 3.5 to 5 points from the new MacBook Pro line.

Memory Performance Details

Both the MacBook pros sport 4 GB of RAM, while the Mini still has just 2 GB and the iMac has been upgraded with 8 GB. The old MacBook Pro uses 667 MHz PC-5300 RAM, while the Mac Mini and iMac use 1066 MHz PC-8500 SODIMMs. The new machine steps up to 1333 MHz PC-10600 memory.

The "Sandy Bridge" platform really shines when it comes to memory performance

The Nehalem series integrated the memory controller with the CPU, and this is continued in Sandy Bridge. This allows really amazing memory performance across the board – the old CPUs are stuck with 30% to 40% of the new machine’s memory access capabilities.

The new chipset even manages to beat the iMac in many tests, with only the thread-sensitive System Copy test showing a real loss.

Graphics Performance Details

Graphics performance is the one area I was most concerned about. All three older machines use discrete graphics controllers of various sorts, from the wimpy Nvidia GeForce 9400M in the Mac Mini to the Nvidia 8600M GT in the Santa Rosa MacBook Pro to the more-impressive ATI Radeon HD 4850 in the iMac.

Intel's integrated HD 3000 graphics do a fine job, generally keeping up with the discrete GPUs found in the other machines

As expected, the discrete graphics cards are much more competitive with the new HD 3000 engine integrated into the Sandy Bridge Core i5. Yet once again, the new machine is able to match or beat the old machines in nearly every test.

OpenGL performance seems to be an issue for Intel’s new chip. Perhaps a driver update might improve the situation? But it’s still solid – matching the older machines and only throttled by the big desktop. Most of the Quartz graphics tests show the iMac and new MacBook Pro tied with the old machines trailing far behind. Perhaps they are CPU-bound?

Hard Disk Performance Details

Finally we turn our attention to the question of storage. Hard disk drive performance depends on many factors, and Apple’s machines have historically varied quite a bit. Every one of the new MacBook Pros come standard with a mundane 5400 rpm Hitachi hard disk drive, so one cannot expect it to match the performance of the full-size 7200 rpm desktop drive in the iMac.

Although it's nothing to write home about, the 320 GB Hitachi drive performs adequately

Density improvements should give the new MacBook Pro a leg up on the old Mini and ‘Pro and, our tests bear this out. None of the disks are really all that impressive (sequential reads and writes in the 65 MB/s range aren’t impressive) but it’s not bad.

Stephen’s Stance

The Sandy Bridge MacBook pro really shines in terms of performance. It soundly beats my old laptop in nearly every test, and even gives the desktop a run in some tests. In all, I’d say the hard disk drive ought to be the first thing to get an upgrade. Throw in a speedy SSD and we’ll be looking at some really earth-shattering performance and battery life. And yet, we’d still be looking at a sub-$2000 machine!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Benchmarking the 2011 13″ Core i5 MacBook Pro
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The ioSafe SoloPRO protects your data from a house on fire. Seriously! That's really what it does!

It’s hard to stand out in the world of external storage devices, and doubly-hard to compete with the hard disk drive makers themselves. This hasn’t stopped folks like Iomega, Verbatim, and LaCie from trying to impress customers with flashy cases, software bundles, and clever functionality. But clever new twist on the external hard drive concept just rolled into the Pack Rat lair: The ioSafe SoloPRO is fireproof and waterproof. Cool!

A New Kind of Data Protection

I’m an enterprise storage specialist. I talk about backups, snapshots, mirroring, replication, and archiving all the time. I’ve also delved deeply into the physical reliability of hard disk drives versus flash, tape, and RAID systems. But pretty much every data protection conversation takes for granted that storage is not meant to be robust. We just assume that the disk itself will be lost in the event of fire or flood, so we had better figure some way to protect the data off-site.

But what id this wasn’t the case? What if the disk itself could survive a house fire, standing up to the heat, crushing weight of collapse, and a thorough soaking from the fire hose? That’s exactly what ioSafe is promising with their line of storage devices!

The ioSafe line has a few tricks up its sleeve:

1. The hard disk drive mechanism is wrapped in a “HydroSafe” water barrier
2. This is encased in a thick layer of “DataCast” endothermic insulation, releasing water which evaporates and cools the drive when exposed to extreme heat
3. The “FloSafe” cooling channels allow airflow during normal operation but seal shut in a fire
4. A tough steel case surrounds everything, offering some protection against physical damage and allowing the device to be bolted to the floor for theft protection
5. Every ioSafe drive also includes data recovery services in the event of a fire or drive failure

All these CamelCase trademarks appear to work just fine, thank you. Numerous tests have been performed by amused journalists and bloggers, including backyard fires, dousing the unit in a swimming pool, and running over it with a bulldozer. In each case, the housing is ruined but the data survives. My favorite is the following video from HomeServerReview, but a quick glance through YouTube is worth the time if you like watching people destroy perfectly-good technology!

The Pack Rat Test: Performance

When ioSafe offered to send me a SoloPRO for evaluation, I was excited to burn, drown, and mutilate it. But considering just how many torture tests were already performed, I decided to give that a miss. Instead, I hooked the SoloPRO to my test rig to see how well it handled everyday storage tasks. After all, most owners will never experience the kind of damage the ioSafe line can sustain!

My tests used Intech Software’s ZoneBench and QuickBench tools on a late-2009 iMac. The ioSafe SoloPRO was connected to the iMac’s secondary internal SATA port using my iMac eSATA mod. This is a 3 Gb/s SATA connection and ought to sustain just about anything a spinning disk can currently sustain. Tests were performed on a freshly-booted Mac OS X 10.6.4 64-bit system with no other programs running.

32 MB transfers reveal the performance limits of the ioSafe controller and Hitachi hard disk drive. Performance was excellent - better than the 7200 rpm Seagate drive in the iMac!

Sustained throughput was excellent as well, delivering between 130 and 140 MB/s in my tests. Real-world transfers were just as quick!

The SoloPRO uses a 7200 rpm Hitachi DeskStar 7K1000.C (HDS721010CLA332) hard disk drive. This is a modern, quick mechanism with a 32 MB buffer and 3.0 Gb/s SATA interface. Kudos to ioSafe for picking such a solid performer for this unit – I expected a slower 5400 rpm “green” drive given the modest performance expected by most buyers.

Connected to my iMac with eSATA, the SoloPRO could outrun the internal hard disk drive, both in benchmarks and real-world use. Moving data back and forth was a joy, and backing up the internal disk using Time Machine was amazing: I averaged over 100 MB/s, with Activity Monitor showing frequent peaks over 160 MB/s during the operation!

Although I did perform these tests using the USB interface, the outcome is predictably disappointing. USB 2.0 just can’t go faster than about 35 MB/s in sequential throughput, so the graphs and comparisons look awfully predictable. That said, the ioSafe SoloPRO was able to hit that 35 MB/s mark with ease.

The Pack Rat Test: Usability

The SoloPRO was delivered in a large box with generous packing material. It’s amazingly large, really, considering that it contains a single 3.5″ hard disk drive mechanism. ioSafe includes both USB and eSATA cables, though the latter cable was the short-necked “type I” variety.

The SoloPRO is larger and heaver even than it looks, with solid build quality. The power supply and switch aren’t much to get excited about, however, but no cheaper than the power devices most other manufacturers use. I would have like a power connector that locked in more securely, however.

I appreciate the protruding steel flange with holes for floor-mounting, and finally located a Kensington-style lock hole next to the fan. I was surprised that the holes in the face do not light up when using eSATA, though they do glow while using USB. On the other hand, the flashing light show is pretty distracting for a desktop drive.

The SoloPRO is somewhat noisy, though not any more than a desktop PC. The built-in fan runs continually, though the drive itself will spin down if the computer allows it to. Due to the short range of the cables, an under-desk location is about all an eSATA user can hope for. USB users will likely move it a bit further away so they won’t have to listen to the fan noise. Of course, it would be just fine in a wiring closet attached to a small server.

As mentioned, the SoloPRO is a mid-range offering from ioSafe. They also offer a basic USB 2.0 model (the Sol0), versions of the SoloPRO with SSD or USB 3.0, and an internal drive. This last is particularly clever: It packs the fire- and water-protection technology into a standard 3.5″ SATA drive form factor for use inside a computer.

My biggest complaint about the ioSafe products is that they’re all single-drive only. Although I appreciate their design and construction, all of the protective features ignore the most-common causes of data loss: Logical corruption and the loss of a disk. No storage system can protect data from a “fat-finger” error or operating system fault, but many do include reliability features for the device itself. The ultimate data protection system would include more than one disk drive and would go beyond merely mirroring the data and instead use advanced math (erasure coding, perhaps?) to ensure the consistency of data.

Perhaps ioSafe will consider using two 2.5″ drives and erasure coding in a smarter unit in the future. They could call it the “DuoPRO” – in fact, maybe that’s why they chose the curious “Solo” moniker to begin with!

Stephen’s Stance

No one is suggesting using such a drive as one’s only copy of data, but it makes lots of sense to back up your home or small-office computer to an on-site ioSafe drive. In fact, I would go so far as saying that it makes no sense not to use an ioSafe drive for on-site backups! The drives are somewhat more expensive than basic alternatives but well worth the premium.

A USB-only 1 TB ioSafe Solo costs just over $200 on Amazon, about 50% more than a basic external drive. The eSATA SoloPRO I tested does not appear to have reached Amazon, Buy.com, or NewEgg yet, but ioSafe sells it online for $249. The PRO unit includes the faster eSATA or USB 3.0 port, making it easier to fill up, but not every computer has one of these ports.

Update: The ioSafe SoloPRO is now available online! Amazon lists it for about $250.

For comparison, the only real competition, a SentrySafe Waterproof 160 GB Hard Drive, is $300 for 160 GB! Another option is the SentrySafe Data Storage Chest, which accepts your 2.5″ portable USB drive for a massively-discounted $55. The 250GB ioSafe Pilot internal drive is much more expensive ($250 for 250 GB) but might be just what the doctor ordered if you want to protect data inside a computer.

I am very impressed overall by the ioSafe product. It is solidly-built, and I believe their fire- and water-proof claims. I would not hesitate to recommend this type of drive to small-business owners or “pro-sumer” users concerned about data protection. I do advise keeping an off-site copy of critical data, but the ioSafe is the safest method yet to store an on-site backup.

Disclosure: ioSafe provided the SoloPRO free of charge for testing after I expressed interest in the product

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | ioSafe SoloPRO Review: Is It The Safest Place For Your Data?
This post was categorized as Apple, 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.

Why SDXC?

You might also want to read my  Introduction To exFAT

SDXC is all about performance and capacity. The SDcard Association SD 2.0 specification limits SDHC cards to 32 GB of capacity, and the FAT32 filesystem they use limits each file they contain to 4 GB. And the fastest (class 10) SDHC cards peak at 30 MB/s.

Although fine for casual photographers, professionals, especially videographers, require more space and speed, explaining their continued use of formats like CompactFlash and Panasonic P2. These formats boast 90-100 MB/s performance and 64 GB to 128 GB capacity, respectively.

SDXC promises to change the landscape with a universal card format boasting improved performance and capacity at a lower price point thanks to widespread adoption. The “UHS-1″ SDXC spec promises 104 MB/s performance, and some expect faster performance in the future. Although exFAT is good for 64 ZB of capacity, SDXC cards use MBR partitioning, limiting them to a theoretical 2 TB. Note that today’s early SDXC cards boast “just” 64 GB and poke along at 15 to 20 MB/s.

Mid-2010 iMac and Mac Mini adds SDXC/exFAT Support?

Surprise! Mac OS X 10.6.4 in the mid-2010 iMac adds exFAT support!

Apple isn’t always quick to embrace emerging standards (where’s my USB 3.0 and Blu-Ray?), but they are rapidly adding SDXC. They’re moving so rapidly that they apparently have no idea which new models support SDXC and which do not! Since a Mac needs both updated reader hardware and the exFAT-capable software, it’s a gamble whether a given machine supports the new cards as of Fall 2010.

The iMac models introduced in July 2010 are supposed to include SDXC slots rather than the USB-connected SDHC readers included on earlier models, and SDXC support is listed prominently on Apple’s iMac Tech Specs page. The Mac Mini Tech Specs don’t list anything about SDXC, but their motherboard-mounted SD slot is a new PCI device and does appear to be SDXC-capable.

Apple sneakily added exFAT support to the version of Snow Leopard 10.6.4 shipping with the latest iMacs, but not all Macs are getting this software. Frustratingly, some mid-2010 iMacs appear to have the old SDHC reader, no matter what the box says! Apple responded that this is a software identification error, and the jury is still out on whether this is true.

This 2010 Mac Mini appears to have SDXC-capable hardware

Any SD reader listed under the USB tab in System Profiler ought to not support SDXC, while any one listed in the main list as “Card Reader” has a better chance. The SDHC reader in my late-2009 iMac is definitely USB-connected and lists “Product ID 0×8403″ just like some of the newer supposedly SDXC-capable iMacs. A verified SDXC reader on a 2010 Mac Mini has “Device ID 0x16bc” instead.

exFAT in Mac OS X 10.6.5

Update: Yes! 10.6.5 includes exFAT!

Although the software situation is dreadfully confusing currently, it just got a lot easier. Mac OS X 10.6.5 has exFAT support just like the post-July iMac builds of 10.6.4. After installing the 10.6.5 upgrade, every Mac user should have exFAT support in Disk Utility.

SDXC Card Readers

Although any Mac with 10.6.5 will be capable of reading the exFAT filesystem found on SDXC cards, they will also need an SDXC-capable card reader. Apple appears to be rapidly transitioning to these readers on new Macs (see above), but older systems will need an add-on device.

USB SDXC readers are appearing, including this SGT122 81-In-One SDXC Reader I spotted over at Amazon, and should be Mac-compatible. Although USB will limit performance somewhat, it should match the 22 MB/s that Panasonic, the current SDXC speed champion, boasts. Eventually, PCI Express-based readers will appear, blowing this performance out of the water.

Note that, although SDXC readers are backward-compatible, they are not forward-compatible. This means that SD and SDHC media will work in an SDXC card reader or camera but SDXC cards will only work in an SDXC reader.

Stephen’s Stance

It’s great to see Apple in the lead on a new technology. Since I recently purchased an SDXC-capable camera, I’m looking forward to trying out the new format. Although none of my Macs has an SDXC reader today, it’s nice to know that they will soon support the exFAT format. Once OS X 10.6.5 arrives, I will be able to use the internal SDXC card reader on my Sony NEX-5 camera via USB on any Mac!

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Introducing SDXC and exFAT in Apple Mac OS X
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.

I installed an eSATA port on my iMac. I must be crazy!

My late-2009 27″ Intel iMac now has an eSATA port. I’m documenting how I did it here mainly for posterity. Although it works fine, I cannot recommend that others attempt to perform the same surgery on their own crazy-expensive Apple computers. eSATA mods like this won’t be satisfying to most users, and the operation is risky and destructive enough that non-crazy people shouldn’t attempt it!

Preparation: Options, Parts, and Courage

I suggest also reading my post, Four Ways to Add eSATA to Your iMac

The iMac is not meant to have an eSATA port. The case is fairly tricky to open, though once one gets the hang of it it can be accomplished in minutes. This is the first obstacle.

2009 models like mine include two SATA connections internally: One for the boot hard disk drive and another for the internal DVD SuperDrive. Mid-2010 models add a third SATA port, unused unless one specifies the expensive SSD and hard disk drive combination. So adding an eSATA port on a 2009 model means sacrificing the internal DVD drive. This is obstacle number two.

You need a male SATA cable to attach to the slimline DVD connector

That DVD SuperDrive SATA cable is soldered to the back side of the motherboard, so the cable cannot (easily) be swapped for one with eSATA on the other end. This is the next obstacle. It uses a standard female slimline SATA connector, however, and I was able to locate and purchase an appropriate male SATA (data-only) to eSATA cable at CPUstuff. Get the 10 inch length.

Since this eSATA port will sit behind the aluminum vent grill at the bottom of the iMac, the longer connector on an eSATA 2.0 cable is required. You want a Serial ATA 2.0 Cable like this one not one of the more common plain-Jane eSATA cables with shorter plugs. Watch out for cable length, too. Although this is an eSATA port mechanically, it does not have the higher power (and thus extended reach) of a real eSATA port.

No other parts are really required, though you will probably want something to attach to your Mac. I’m using a simple Kingwin EZ-Dock EZD-2535 but it’s not anything awesome. I plan to upgrade my 4-bay Drobo to a Drobo S with eSATA for some real data protection and performance. I’d also like to try a SATA port multiplier like this Addonics AD5SARPM on the port to see if it works.

Before you consider following these directions, know that the result isn’t all that satisfying. Mac OS X doesn’t support hot-plugging drives on this port, so you’ll have to reboot whenever you want to switch them out. There are also some potential issues with moved or added temperature sensors causing the iMac’s fans to run more noisily.

Then there’s the real fear that you will damage your expensive computer. Although Apple should still support other parts under warranty, they definitely will not cover issues you cause while mucking about in your computer!

Performing Surgery

The eSATA mod is actually quite straightforward. We will open the iMac, remove the DVD SuperDrive, and attach the male SATA to eSATA cable to it. We will route this through a hole carved in the ventilation grille at the bottom edge of the iMac. Once we put it back together, we will have an iMac with an eSATA port and no DVD drive.

1. Prepare for surgery
   1. Locate a broad, sturdy table and cover it with a soft cloth or two. You don’t want anything getting scratched or dropped.
   2. On a computer readily at hand, open up iFixit’s 27″ iMac teardown and use this as a guide
   3. You will need something to lift the screen glass. iFixit suggests strong suction cups, but I used a thin spatula.
   4. You will need a Torx T10 screwdriver, tweezers, and two paper clips to remove the LCD
   5. You will need a Dremel tool or other cutting device, along with a proper cutting disc and drill for use on aluminum
   6. You did buy that 10″ male SATA to eSATA cable, right?
2. Open the iMac
   

   I lifted the glass with a broad, slim spatula rather than suction cups

   1. Place the iMac on its back with the top facing your body. Lift off the glass using suction cups or gently pry it up from the middle with a broad thin spatula. Set the glass somewhere safe, clean, and secure. Do not touch the inside of the glass!
   2. Remove the four screws along each side of the LCD panel and watch for the magnets that hold the glass in. Use the tweezers to grab the screws if you need to.
   3. Bend the paper clips into J-shaped grabbers and begin lifting the LCD panel from the case by hooking them under the exposed corners. Do not lift far!
   4. Reach under the panel and unhook the four cables connecting it to the motherboard. Now lift the panel clear and set it in a clean, secure spot. Do not touch the face of the panel!
   5. Unplug the DVD SuperDrive SATA cable as well as the temperature wire. Remove the four Torx T10 screws holding it in place and lift the drive out of the case.
3. Carve the port hole
   

   We will locate our eSATA port between that black component and the RAM

   1. Locate the spot where the eSATA port will be placed. The best place is about an inch from the RAM hatch on the DVD side of the case. Watch out for the black component on the motherboard a little bit outward from this!
   2. Carefully measure the port hole and mask it off with tape and cloth to keep aluminum dust from getting all over the computer.
   3. Pack the inside of that spot with cloth, too, to protect the motherboard from dust.
   

   Drill, baby! Drill!

   4. Carve the long sides of the port hole using a cutting disc. I started with a diamond-coated disc but the aluminum case ate it up. I ended up using a fiberglass-reinforced cut-off wheel. It got very hot but did the job.
   5. Clip the short edges and pry the band of aluminum out of the case.
   6. 

      We'll clean that slot up a bit before installing the port

      Mark and drill the screw holes on either side. I used a standard sheet metal bit, but it was very hard to hold it steady so I attached the multipurpose cutting guide to help.

   7. Reshape and hone the opening to your satisfaction.
   8. Carefully remove the masking and clean out any dust.
4. Install the eSATA port
   1. Position the eSATA port behind the aluminum grille and screw it into place.
   2. Connect the male SATA connector to the slimline DVD SATA connector. I used some electrical tape to hold it in place.
   3. Tape the connected ends to the back of the case to keep them out of the way.
   

   We taped everything into place to keep it out of the way

   4. Pry the temperature sensor from the DVD SuperDrive and reconnect the wire to its port on the motherboard. Attach the other end somewhere in the space left by the removed DVD. I taped it to the back of the case. If you don’t do this the right-side fan will run full-speed all the time!
5. Reassemble the iMac

Stephen’s Stance

Don’t do this. I’m a storage guy, and I regularly test the performance of hard disk drives using my iMac, so it was worth it to me. I’m also pretty good with tools and computers, so I wasn’t worried about damaging anything. You’re probably not me, and you probably don’t want to go through all this.

Other World Computers (OWC) has a service offering to perform this exact modification to your iMac and guarantee the work. Although that’s much safer than performing surgery yourself, I strongly suggest that you consider whether you really want eSATA at all. eSATA is the fastest I/O channel an iMac can use, but Gigabit Ethernet and FireWire 800 are pretty fast, too. Although USB is too slow for some modern storage needs, even it’s 25 MB/s is plenty fast for most people.

Then there are the issues. Mac OS X appears to read the temperature sensor on some of my hard disk drives over SATA and run the internal fan faster (and noisier) to cool them off. But since they’re now outside the case, it can’t cool them so it just runs and runs. I have to power off the iMac and disconnect the SATA drive to stop this happening. And I can’t override the fans or tell it to ignore SATA temperature reports. So the only time my iMac runs quietly is when nothing is plugged into the eSATA port.

Mac OS X also does not support hot-plugging on these ports, and the “eject” icon is not displayed in Finder. One can eject through an option-click or right-click or using Disk Utility or diskutil from the command line, though. I have not yet located a way to tell it to rescan the SATA bus if a drive is connected or removed, so once a drive is ejected it’s time to reboot anyway. Sleep seems to do something for removed drives, but it doesn’t correctly read a new drive that has been attached. Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated here!

In summary, the risk is probably greater than the reward for most people. Get a FireWire 800 device with RAID and call it a day, or upgrade to a Mac Pro or Hackintosh if you need more internal storage. But watch this space for news and updates from me!

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To Add An eSATA Port To An Intel iMac
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.

Why eSATA on an iMac?

SATA and eSATA are almost identical, but the ability to add external storage to an iMac is a powerful difference!

eSATA is an odd beast. SATA was never intended as an outside-the-box connection. It’s narrowly-focused on high-performance storage connectivity, with simple but somewhat fragile connectors. But the relatively “leisurely” performance of USB 2.0 and the failure of FireWire left a vacuum in system-to-peripheral connectivity. PC owners found themselves needing a high-performance connection but didn’t want to pay for SAS or FC or wait for USB 3.0.

Enter eSATA. By bulking up the connectors for improved mechanical reliability, extending the SATA bus outside the computer case was fairly straightforward. The electrical signaling was (optionally) boosted and sensitivity increased somewhat for greater range, but the protocol remained entirely untouched: eSATA is mostly a mechanical change from plain internal SATA. Maximum cable distance is twice that of plain SATA (2 meters, or 6.6 feet), enough for storage simple array use.

Although the iMac has wonderful performance potential, its expandability is remarkably limited. Storage consists of two internal SATA ports: A single 3.5″ hard disk drive (albeit a nice 7200 rpm Seagate or WD drive) and a basic “SuperDrive” DVD writer. Apple also offers an internal SSD option, and, as of July 2010, even sells a 3-drive configuration (hard disk, SSD, and SuperDrive) using a new third SATA port on the motherboard.

But the iMac’s storage remains locked up inside that solid aluminum case. Want to attach a RAID system for video editing or other capacity-intensive work? You have to use FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, or USB 2.0. None of these can match the performance potential of SATA, so all will strangle the performance of the iMac. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could add an eSATA port for extra high-performance storage?

It’s a lot easier on a MacBook Pro. I’m currently using a cheap ExpressCard eSATA Adapter

Four iMac eSATA Options

There are three ways of adding eSATA to a late-2009 iMac like mine, and the 2010 model adds one more. Let’s look at the pros and cons of all of these!

Update: It’s up and running on my iMac. Read more: How To Add An eSATA Port To An Intel iMac

OWC’s iMac Upgrade Service

The fine folks at Other World Computing now offer an upgrade service for iMacs: Mail yours to them and they’ll add an eSATA port in place of the DVD drive and will also throw in an SSD and max out the RAM for you. Their surgical approach matches my DVD-for-eSATA concept outlined below. The difference is that they’ll do the work for you and will even warranty it. This is probably the best option for anyone lacking the confidence or mechanical skills to open this beast.

DVD-for-eSATA Cable Swap

The DVD SuperDrive uses a hard-wired slimline 13-pin SATA cable that looks something like this one

The internal SuperDrive DVD uses a standard slimline SATA cable hard-wired to the motherboard. It is possible to convert this to eSATA using a proper cable, but no one seems to make exactly the right one. The closest I could find is this eSATA panel mount to male SATA cabke from CPUstuff.

13-pin Slimline SATA is common on DVD drives, but the 6-pin power connector differs from the regular 15-pin power found on 22-pin SATA hard disk drives. Got that? The good news is that the data side is identical to standard SATA and the power isn’t required for eSATA use. So that eSATA cable ought to fit right into the data side of the existing slimline SATA cable currently used by the SuperDrive and extend it to an eSATA port.

This worked great for me, with the cable fitting fine and everything working as well as can be expected. Although SATA connections are full-speed, Mac OS X doesn’t allow hot-plugging of SATA devices. Oh well.

Third SATA Header (Mid-2010 iMacs only)

The mid-2010 iMacs have a third SATA port on their logic board according to OWC. One ought to be able to attach an eSATA cable to this port, as long as it’s not already in use by the HDD+SSD option available from Apple. But earlier iMacs like mine don’t have this port. So it’s out of the question for me.

AirPort-for-SATA Mini-PCIe Swap

It might be possible to swap in a Mini-PCIe SATA controller like this Commell MPX-3132 for the AirPort card

Although the iMac doesn’t have any standard PCI-Express slots, it does have a single-lane Mini-PCI-Express slot for the included AirPort Wireless network card. It ought to be possible to pull out the AirPort card and install any Mini-PCIe card in its place, including a SATA controller. I haven’t looked too deeply into this, but did find a few tidbits of interest:

1. Mini-PCIe-to-SATA cards for the Eee and Dell netbooks will not work – these machines have a special non-standard Mini-PCIe slot with SATA lanes included.
2. The Commell MPX-3132 SATA RAID controller ought to work electronically, but I don’t see anyone selling it and the OS X driver situation doesn’t look good.
3. An OCZ Mini-PCIe SATA SSD would be a cool and easy addition, but that’s not what this post is about.
4. A particularly industrious hacker could probably adapt an external ExpressCard or internal single-lane PCI Express SATA adapter to fit, but that’s beyond my abilities.

The Hitch: Where to Put the eSATA Port?

OWC locates the eSATA port in the speaker grille - possibly the only option!

Now that we know that it is possible to add an eSATA port to an iMac, we come to the real snag in the plan: Where do we put the eSATA port? The iMac’s case is milled out of a solid piece of aluminum. The only holes that are not too small (cooling vents, DVD and SD slots) or occupied (FireWire and USB ports) are the memory and speaker openings at the bottom of the case. OWC chose to cut through a speaker grille for their eSATA port, and this might be the only viable location. But reaching this area of the case requires removing just about all of the iMac’s guts, and it’s not the most attractive place to plug in.

Stephen’s Stance

I think the DVD-for-eSATA cable approach is easiest to accomplish at home, but I’m still unsure where exactly this cable will end up. There is literally no place to run a cable out of the iMac’s case without drilling, and that’s not the most enticing option. It’s too bad the DVD slot is too narrow for a cable – it would be a logical place given the swap and the location of the slimline SATA connector inside.

I ordered that SATA to eSATA cable and began experimenting. Shortly after publishing this piece, I did get eSATA working on my iMac. Read my follow-up piece, How To Add An eSATA Port To An Intel iMac, for more!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Four Ways to Add eSATA to Your iMac
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.