Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" lacks many of the storage features we've long hoped for, including ZFS, iSCSI, and USB 3.0

Last week, at WWDC, Apple introduced many of the features found in their next operating system, OS X “Lion”. At that time, I posted an article about the storage features found in this new release, including integrated revision control, a major update to the FileVault encryption package, and additional enterprise storage protocol support. But, like Snow Leopard, Lion still lacks many storage related features, and it doesn’t look like Apple will get around to adding these anytime soon.

A Better Filesystem (ZFS, Please)

See also ZFS: Super File System! and Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)

During the development of Mac OS 10.5, “Leopard”, Apple spent a great deal of time working to replace their legacy HFS+ filesystem with ZFS, a much more advanced option. For starters, ZFS would have given Mac OS better reliability and flexibility, and it has been extended to include advanced features for security and capacity optimization.

But the battle between Sun and NetApp over patents related to the development of ZFS cast a shadow over the long needed replacement of HFS+. With Oracle buying Sun and focusing away from infrastructure products like ZFS, Apple seems to have lost interest in replacing their crufty old filesystem.

Instead of adding an advanced filesystem like ZFS, Mac OS X Lion extends HFS+ with versioning and enhanced security. The new Core Data incremental storage technology in Lion would probably have been easier to implement on ZFS, but Apple was able to add it to HFS+, and it will be a lifesaver in the guise of autosave, versions, and resume. The same goes for encryption, with FileVault 2 boasting background full disk encryption, remote wipe, and external drive support.

Those hoping for the integration of ZFS with Mac OS X appear to be out of luck. All components were removed from Snow Leopard, and Lion is moving forward without it. Sadly, this means that Mac OS X still lacks a flexible volume manager, something even Microsoft Windows boasts.

Perhaps the next version of Mac OS X will include friendly volume management features, but it is more likely that Apple will focus away from the filesystem and direct application developers toward the iCloud Storage API. And cloud truly is next-generation storage, making this a leapfrog approach and leaving ZFS in the dust.

Update: Lion does indeed include a full logical volume manager! See Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)

USB 3.0: Still AWOL

See also Will OS X 10.7 “Lion” Bring USB 3.0 To The Mac? and my Thunderbolt series

Although Apple may have simply overlooked or neglected to mention it, USB 3.0 apparently made no appearance at WWDC. Thunderbolt is an impressive technology to be sure, and I am bullish on its future application and performance. But “SuperSpeed” USB 3.0 seems poised to seize the baton and become the ubiquitous next-generation interconnect for every day peripherals.

Thunderbolt is a strategic protocol for Apple, and I expect it to rapidly spread across the entire Mac product range. Rather than simply a high-speed interconnect, Thunderbolt will soon enable advanced docking features, as envisioned in my recent post about the iMac as a Thunderbolt peripheral. It will also enable changes to the physical size and shape of laptop and desktop computers and servers, with many suggesting that the next-generation MacBook Air will become the standard Apple laptop.

In contrast, USB 3.0 is simply a performance bump for USB. It is likely that Apple will support USB 3.0 sooner or later, and third-party vendors are already rolling out Mac OS support. CalDigit recently shipped their third USB 3.0 controller for the Mac, and LaCie sells their own “walled garden” card and peripherals as well. I heard rumors that a few vendors are working on Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 bridges and breakout boxes as well.

USB 3.0 will come to the Mac sooner or later, but Thunderbolt is here to stay.

Enterprise iSCSI Support

See also Will Snow Leopard Finally Bring iSCSI To The Mac?

Another technology that Apple has flirted with in Leopard but never delivered is a software initiator for iSCSI, the block storage protocol that runs over Ethernet. We have not heard anything further about iSCSI since 2007, and there was no mention in the Lion introduction either.

Interestingly, Apple did rollout other new enterprise storage protocol options, including NFSv4, DFS, and even integration of Xsan, the Fibre Channel filesystem. Xsan also added ALUA compatible multipathing, a real surprise for storage geeks like me. But iSCSI was nowhere to be found.

This is a real shame, since iSCSI is becoming increasingly common in enterprise storage circles. Convergence on Ethernet is a hot topic right now, and iSCSI for Mac would give exceptional flexibility and interoperability and fit right into the “prosumer” Mac market niche.

Instead, end-users are stuck working with third-party iSCSI initiators, Fibre Channel and Xsan, or NFS. Although I am a fan of their free globalSAN product, Studio Network Solutions does not offer enterprise support for third-party arrays. The other major option for Mac iSCSI is ATTO’s Xtend, which is supported but somewhat expensive. Drobo also offers an iSCSI client for use with their storage arrays, but it is severely limited. An integrated Apple solution would be a welcome addition, both for consumers and enterprise systems administrators.

Stephen’s Stance

Apple is not in enterprise storage company to be sure, and news from WWDC dashed any hopes we had for ZFS and iSCSI support. USB 3.0 seems a foregone conclusion, but Apple seems intent on ignoring it as long as possible. Although I welcome the new storage features included in Lion, it is disappointing that these were left out.

Note that TRIM support was also not mentioned at WWDC, but it is likely included.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Three Key Storage Features Missing in Mac OS X “Lion”
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

CalDigit offers an excellent range of USB 3.0 and eSATA expansion cards for the few Macs with compatible expansion slots

Mac storage specialist, CalDigit, recently introduced a new combination storage card for Mac Pro users. The CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 combines two eSATA ports and two USB 3.0 ports on a single PCI Express card. This makes it a veritable Swiss Army knife of storage connectivity, but only if you own a Mac Pro desktop!

A Tale of Two USB 3.0 Cards

There are currently two companies offering USB 3.0 interfaces for Apple computers: LaCie and CalDigit. Although both offer similar products (an ExpressCard for certain MacBook Pro laptops and PCI Express adapter for Mac Pro desktops), the two companies’ approaches could not be any more different:

• The LaCie cards only function with LaCie’s own storage devices, and no other USB 3.0 device will connect at full speed. This is a conscious limitation of the LaCie drivers, and is done to limit their exposure to support claims, since Apple does not officially support USB 3.0 at all.
• The CalDigit cards, in contrast, work with any and all USB 3.0 devices. While some may not be entirely compatible, and CalDigit will not support other vendors peripherals, my testing has shown it to be widely functional.

For this reason, I can only recommend buying the CalDigit adapter. It works well, is reasonably (if not inexpensively) priced, and the company has put in much development effort to support Apple’s operating system updates.

Side note: The vicious and angry reviews at sites like B&H Photo and Amazon indicate that I’m not the only one to hold this opinion. LaCie should reconsider this decision or make it very clear on the product packaging that only their devices are supported.

All For One, One For Few

The CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 card is compelling for Mac Pro users who frequently encounter a variety of external storage devices.

• The eSATA ports function at full 6 Gb speed and are backward compatible with slower eSATA devices
• The USB 3.0 ports support full 5 Gb SuperSpeed transfer, along with all other USB 2.0 and 1.0 peripherals

Combining both of these interfaces onto a single PCI Express card saves cost and space for the Mac Pro user. The product will reportedly list for $139, somewhat expensive but within reach for Mac Pro users who need it.

Stephen’s Stance

I remain impressed by CalDigit’s USB 3.0 products. My own tests show that these cards are fast and compatible, and I was pleased to see that CalDigit recently updated their driver for Mac OS 10.6.7, which changed some of the core features used by the previous driver. This is the kind of commitment I expect, both in terms of interoperability and support.

But it’s disappointing that these cards can’t be used more widely. Only the Mac Pro desktop and 17″ MacBook Pro laptop offer any sort of expansion slots, leaving most Mac users out in the cold when it comes to USB 3.0 and eSATA. Or course, there are certain homebrew options, but until Thunderbolt becomes more widespread and a Thunderbolt USB 3.0 interface is delivered, these solid products sadly have a limited audience.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | CalDigit Brings Both eSATA and USB 3 to the Mac Pro
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.

Intel's "Olympus 2" is a Thunderbolt prototype board

People like me who bought a 2011 MacBook Pro are eager to explore the new Thunderbolt interface. Although no peripherals are available yet, there was much excitement about the interface at the recent NAB Show in Las Vegas, and many pre-production products were on display. It appears that LaCie will be first to market with a Thunderbolt storage device, but Promise will follow a few months later. And there were many intriguing interfaces on display as well, including Fibre Channel and video links, along with rumors about Apple’s plans for the Thunderbolt iMac.

Technology Demos Abound

Perhaps the most telling aspect of the Thunderbolt presence at the NAB Show was the overall level of excitement about the interface. Vendors and consumers alike were thrilled by the possibilities of this new technology, and preproduction Thunderbolt hardware brought a steady stream of visitors to booths as diverse as Adobe, AJA, Blackmagic and Matrox, as well as Promise, LaCie, Sonnet, and G-Technology.

Intel set the stage for a Thunderbolt-filled NAB Show

One high-profile Thunderbolt exhibit was Intel’s own pavilion. Located in a different exhibit hall from the rest of the infrastructure technology, Intel placed Thunderbolt on display alongside their new 10 Gb Ethernet adapters. The Ethernet representative joked with me that the only time anyone wanted to talk to him was while they were waiting for the Thunderbolt station to free up. This was my experience too, as there was a steady stream of visitors every time I stopped by. Intel was demonstrating the Promised Pegasus array with Final Cut and a DisplayPort monitor humming along at 800 MB per second.

Adobe integrated a Promise Pegasus array and a Blackmagic A/V adapter using Thunderbolt

Adobe was another company demonstrating the possibilities of Thunderbolt rather than a specific product. At their stand was a Promise array connected to a Blackmagic Thunderbolt video converter, all tied together with Adobe software and running on a MacBook Pro.

G-Technology: Diving Into Thunderbolt

G-Technology, soon part of Western Digital, showed the possibilities for future Thunderbolt products

They did not have production hardware ready for the show, but G-Technology was pleased to be able to demonstrate their commitment to Thunderbolt using Intel’s reference board and a passive PCI backplane. Although tightlipped, the G-Tech engineer did note that he was impressed with the ease with which they were able to roll out a functioning Thunderbolt prototype. This bodes well for future product development efforts.

This little AV-oriented company recently got a big boost in profile: Having recently been purchased by HGST, they now find themselves owned by Western Digital, the world’s largest hard disk drive manufacturer. It is likely that Western Digital will come out with a variety of RAID devices built on the G-Technology base, including a line of Thunderbolt storage products to compete with LaCie and Promise.

LaCie, Promise, AJA, Blackmagic, and Matrox

I’ve devoted separate articles to the main products on display at NAB Show, so I suggest taking a look at these individually:

• LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Preview
• Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt Preview
• Promise SANLink Thunderbolt Preview

Each Little Big Disk features two Thunderbolt ports, and LaCie demonstrated daisy-chaining four of the devices at NAB

There were two main categories of products on display at the NAB Show: Storage arrays and I/O interfaces. LaCie looks to be the first out of the gate with a Thunderbolt storage array. Their Little Big Disk is even bus powered, and portable enough to be of interest to MacBook Pro owners. It is likely that LaCie will follow on with a solid-state drive (SSD) boasting better performance, and I would bet that a 4- or 5-disk RAID array will follow before the end of the year.

The Promise Pegasus R4 is a desktop RAID system featuring Thunderbolt connectivity

Promise had both a storage array and an I/O adapter on display at the show. The Promise Pegasus is a 4- or 6-drive RAID storage system boasting up to 800 MB per second in ideal conditions. The SANLink, a Fibre Channel interface for Thunderbolt, is a bit puzzling until one considers its desktop use cases. The Pegasus shows what a desktop Thunderbolt peripheral looks like, and together with the SANLink presage Apple releasing Thunderbolt-equipped desktop computers like the forthcoming iMac.

The I/O interface boards at NAB were skewed toward multimedia, as was the show itself. Blackmagic, AJA, and Matrox all had digital video interfaces for Thunderbolt on display, but it is difficult for an infrastructure guy like me to adequately judge the merits of these products. One thing is certain: AV pros are excited to get their hands on these devices!

Stephen’s Stance

That NAB Show is a hotspot of Thunderbolt interest should come as no surprise: The broadcast and media professionals present represent a nexus of Apple customers and storage power users. Because they have been dragging their feet on eSATA and USB 3, Apple ran the risk of alienating this core customer group. But Thunderbolt promises to deliver a new level of performance and a whole world of peripherals. The excitement was palpable!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | The First Thunderbolt Peripherals On Display At NAB Show
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Features, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The Promise Pegasus R4 is a desktop RAID system featuring Thunderbolt connectivity

When Apple announced the new MacBook Pro at the end of February, there were just two Thunderbolt peripherals featured: The LaCie Little Big Disk and the Promise Pegasus. Both of these storage devices were on display at the NAB Show in Las Vegas last week, and each appeals to a different market segment. The 2-drive Little Big Disk is a portable matched up with the MacBook Pro, while the Promise Pegasus is a 4- or 6-drive desktop RAID system. Promise expects to deliver the Pegasus to the market sometime after the summer.

Introducing Pegasus

Promise Technology is a storage company that should be familiar to many Mac users, since Apple sells their rackmount RAID units as a replacement for their canceled Xserve RAID. Most of Promise’s storage products are larger devices intended for business use, but the company does make a line of smaller desktop RAID systems called the SmartStor.

The new Pegasus storage systems from Promise are Thunderbolt versions of the company’s latest 4- and 6-drive SmartStor lineup. Unlike LaCie, Promise’s SmartStor drives are available in a “bring your own drive” model, allowing consumers to use whatever hard disk drive they desire. This reduces the initial cost of purchase but also raises compatibility and support headaches, since customers may use unsupported or mismatched hard disk drives.

Although some SmartStor devices offer NAS connectivity, the Pegasus is a direct attached storage (DAS) device with no Ethernet connectivity possible. In fact, the Pegasus appears very simple in the flesh, with nothing but two Thunderbolt ports and a power outlet around the back. Promise will sell two models of the Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID storage system: the 4-bay Pegasus R4, and the 6-bay Pegasus R6.

The Thunderbolt cables appear tiny, even on a compact desktop device like the Pegasus R4. Those are quiet variable-speed fans.

Inside, the Pegasus features seven different RAID modes, including high-performance striping (RAID 0), drive mirroring (RAID1), single or dual drive parity raid (RAID 5 and 6, respectively), and stacked raid 10, 50, and 60.

Promise suggests 800 MB per second throughput, though only a stripe set of six drives is likely to deliver this kind of speed. RAID-protected data will likely come in below 200 MB per second, even for the 6-drive unit. This is still much faster than any USB or FireWire drive, and likely beats LaCie’s 2-drive Little Big Disk as well. But it is unfortunate that such lofty performance numbers are promised, if you pardon the pun.

Stephen’s Stance

The Promise Pegasus was featured in many displays at NAB, and appears nearly ready for production. We look forward to experimenting with the final product and putting it through its paces, since it will likely be the fastest Thunderbolt product on the market for a while. Although the Pegasus is luggable, it is not exactly a portable device like the Little Big Disk. This is not a criticism: It is good that two distinct devices will come to market rather than a raft of similar products. Like LaCie, Promise is setting the standard for the products that will follow.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt Preview
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LaCie will be first to market with a Thunderbolt storage device

LaCie looks to be the first out of the gate with a Thunderbolt storage system. They promise to deliver their Little Big Disk portable RAID storage device sometime this summer, and the polished look of the devices on display at the NAB show suggests that they will meet this target.

Hello, Little Big Disk

The Little Big Disk is a portable RAID storage device featuring two hard disk drives or flash solid-state disks (SSD). On display at NAB was a two-drive 1 TB hard disk drive RAID featuring 7200 rpm drives. This will be the initial product to market, with the SSD devices following later.

Each Little Big Disk features two Thunderbolt ports, and LaCie demonstrated daisy-chaining four of the devices at NAB

LaCie’s demonstration at NAB was impressive, but not really a real-world scenario. They had four Little big disk devices daisychained off a single Thunderbolt port, each configured as RAID 0 for maximum performance. These eight hard disk drives were able to deliver over 800 MB per second to Apple’s Final Cut Pro.

But real-world users will likely configure the drives as RAID 1 mirrors for data protection, and the Thunderbolt port does not have enough power to spin up this many drives without external power bricks. Therefore, most Little Big Disk buyers will experience less-mindbending performance – around 100 MB per second. Although not quite as fast as some might hope, this still leaves USB and FireWire in the dust, making this new product the fastest official external storage device available for a MacBook Pro. It’s just too bad Apple doesn’t support USB 3, however, since some USB 3 devices already push past 200 MB per second.

Stephen’s Stance

Since Thunderbolt was introduced on a portable device, the Apple MacBook Pro, first, it makes sense that a portable storage product should be the first peripheral to market. The LaCie Little Big Disk looks like an excellent combination of data protection, portability, and performance, and will likely sell like hot cakes once it is released. LaCie should be applauded for targeting the right niche to start out, as well as for their early access to the Thunderbolt technology from Apple and Intel. I look forward to seeing what products they follow on with.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Preview
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.

CalDigit USB 3.0 PCI Express Card Review

I recommend the CalDigit PCI Express card for Mac Pro users with a need for (storage) speed!

No, Apple didn’t send me a sneak peak at some new hardware. My USB 3.0 experience comes courtesy of CalDigit, who sent me their Mac OS X-compatible USB 3.0 PCI Express card for evaluation. I’m pleased as punch with the card and software drivers they delivered, and it makes me crazy that this isn’t included by default in Mac Pro desktops, let alone the new MacBook Pros to be introduced tomorrow.

The CalDigit USB 3.0 adapter is a PCI Express card intended for use in a Mac Pro. A graphic artist friend of mine was kind enough to let me use his very-expensive Apple workstation for testing, and was so impressed that he turned around and ordered a CalDigit card for himself. Installation is a snap – just open the Mac Pro, unscrew the retainer above the PCI Express slots, slide the card in place, and screw everything back together. (Side note: I love Apple’s tower case design!)

I didn’t see a 4-pin mini floppy power connector inside the Mac Pro case, but the CalDigit card does include a compatible header. This would give the ports more power than they can draw from the PCI Express bus itself, but I didn’t see the need. Using only the PCI Express bus, I was able to spin up and use every USB bus-powered drive I tried with no issues.

Installing the software was a snap, too. CalDigit’s driver appears to be locked to only their card (I tried it with a variety of other USB 3.0 cards with no success) but it did support every USB 3.0 drive I tried. This is in stark contrast to the LaCie USB 3.0 driver which only talks to LaCie drives! Specifically, I connected two different Seagate GoFlex USB 3.0 drives, a generic USB 3.0-to-SATA adapter, and Iomega’s screaming-fast USB 3.0 SSD. Every one was instantly available to Mac OS X and visibly out-performed FireWire and USB 2.0.

Real-World Tests

Since this was not my own machine, I was not able to perform my usual benchmarks. But I did test some copy operations, experimenting with USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 and 800 connections. The 1 TB Seagate GoFlex drive pushed over 100 MB/s when using the CalDigit USB 3.0 card, according to my iPhone stopwatch, but were limited to about 45 MB/s and 30 MB/s when using FireWire 400 and USB 2.0, respectively. I had previously tested this drive using eSATA on my iMac and found it topped out at about 110 MB/s, so the drive itself appears to be the bottleneck when using USB 3.0.

Swapping in the Iomega USB 3.0 SSD was eye-opening. This drive proved to be blazing fast in my tests earlier in the week, topping 200 MB/s in both read and write operations when connected to my Asus Cougar Point motherboard running Windows 7. I wasn’t able to perform adequate benchmarks with the Iomega, but my stopwatch showed it accelerating past the GoFlex and easily pushing 150 MB/s or more. I wouldn’t doubt that the CalDigit card is capable of 200 MB/s with an appropriate storage device.

The CalDigit controller lagged in writes, but performance was still impressive

The story was somewhat different under Windows. My instrumented tests (using Atto Disk Benchmark in Windows 7) showed a curious slowdown in write operations compared to the ASMedia USB 3.0 controller selected by Asus for my P8H67-M Pro motherboard. The CalDigit card and drivers matched the ASMedia at over 200 MB/s in read operations to the Iomega SSD, but lagged behind at 150 MB/s when it came to writes. I wonder if perhaps Mac-oriented CalDigit did not optimize their Windows 7 drivers for this card. Of course, 150 MB/s is still more than four times faster than USB 2.0, and I would never have noticed this if I was only using a hard disk drive!

Stephen’s Stance

If you own a Mac Pro, there is no need to wait for Apple to release USB 3.0 hardware and software. I can unreservedly recommend the CalDigit USB 3.0 PCI Express card for Mac Pro owners. The performance and ease of use is well worth the $79 MSRP. With so many external storage vendors rapidly switching to USB 3.0, the days of FireWire 800 being top dog in Mac performance are over. I’d love to connect the new USB 3.0-equipped Drobo S to this card!

CalDigit promised to send me an ExpressCard USB 3.0 adapter to try in my MacBook Pro as soon as they refresh their stock. I’m eager to try it out, since I’ve noted less-thrilling performance in the other USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapters I have tried. Those maxed out at around 110 MB/s in my Dell XPS/Windows 7 laptop, suggesting serious performance limits for the ExpressCard form factor. I am curious to see how the MacBook Pro performs in comparison.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | USB 3.0 For Mac Is Here!
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.

LaCie has released a free driver that supports every current USB 3.0 host controller but will only talk to LaCie USB devices

Steve Jobs isn’t too keen on USB 3.0, apparently, but other vendors are stepping in to fill the void. CalDigit was first with a USB 3.o driver, but it was tied to the pricey PCI Express and ExpressCards they sell. Now LaCie is out with a free driver for just about any USB 3.0 card, but it’s locked to LaCie’s storage products. Let’s hope we get an unlocked driver soon!

Now You LaCie It

LaCie seems awfully proud to be bringing USB 3.0 to the Mac, and they expound about the virtues of this new bus. They claim on their USB 3.0 page that their 2big USB 3.0 drive could hit 220 MB/s in “burst transfer” using their cards and driver.

I’ve been testing USB 3.0 for the past week using a Seagate GoFlex drive and Keydex USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter. But I could only work with the combo in Windows, since Mac OS X lacked a driver for it. Pleased that LaCie released their driver to the world, I was anxious to try it out for myself.

I downloaded the tiny driver package and installed the “MacOS106″ package it included. I noted that the installer specifically claims that “this driver may work on USB 3.0 Host controllers base (sic) on the NEC 720200 chipset.” This is great news, since every current USB 3.0 host controller is based on this chipset!

There it is! USB 3.0 on Mac OS X!

I popped in my cheapie Keydex USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter and sure enough, an entry for “USB Super-Speed Bus” appeared in System Profiler. Now we’re cooking!

Now You Don’t

My next step was plugging in the Seagate GoFlex drive with its USB 3.0 cable. Although the ExpressCard slot lacks full USB 3.0 power, and I was using a 7200 rpm “GoFlex Pro” drive, mine had plenty of juice. The drive spun up, the lights came on, but nothing else happened.

After refreshing System Profiler and Disk Utility a few times, I jumped over to the Terminal to see if there were any error messages. Then I spotted the error message: “Super Speed device other than LaCie is not supported – Vendor ID[bc2]”

Dmesg tells the tale: LaCie's driver won't work with a Seagate drive

That’s right: This free driver wouldn’t allow me to connect a device from Vendor “bc2″. This is Seagate’s USB Vendor ID, so the driver is presumably locked to LaCie’s ID (which I believe is “59f” for whatever that’s worth). Although it supports any USB 3.0 adapter card, it will only allow LaCie storage devices to be connected.

LaCie includes an uninstaller and instructions on how completely to remove their driver. Almost like they knew we wouldn't want to keep it installed...

I looked through the driver and plist files and couldn’t see any obvious way to change the driver to work with non-LaCie storage. So I’ll uninstall it and wait for someone else to release a real open driver.

Note: The LaCie driver doesn’t interfere with the ability of Mac OS X to access USB 2.0 devices through the NEC chip’s backwards-compatibility. But this works fine without the driver installed, too!

Stephen’s Stance

I can’t really be mad at LaCie. They built this driver for their own products, not so folks (like me) with other companies’ hardware can use it. They have every right to lock it down, but the way they did it is foolish.

See, LaCie sells USB 3.0 controller cards, too. And these controllers will presumably only work with LaCie USB 3.0 storage as well! They’re likely to have some seriously angry customers on their hands once the promise of device interoperability is broken. Sooner or later they’ll have to open the driver up for other devices.

Despite this setback, I consider it a good sign that there are now two USB 3.0 driver sets available for Mac OS X. No matter what Steve Jobs thinks of USB 3.0, it is coming to the Mac and soon. CalDigit and LaCie didn’t write these drivers, they’re just repackaging them. I imagine other companies (Belkin? Iomega?) will soon introduce Mac OS X drivers of their own and someone, sometime will leave them unlocked. Then we’ll all be able to enjoy “super speed” on our Macs!

Disclosure: Seagate provided the GoFlex drive and USB 3.0 interface for testing at no charge. I purchased everything else mentioned.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | LaCie Releases USB 3.0 Driver For Mac OS X (But It Only Works With LaCie Drives)
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.

Seagate's new GoFlex external drive lineup moves the smarts into the cable, simplifying function and connectivity upgrades

The external hard disk drive market is incredibly hot right now, but it’s also ultra-competitive. Stalwarts Seagate and Western Digital battle it out with everyone from disk makers like Toshiba and Hitachi to PC hardware companies like HP, Iomega, LaCie. The latest trend is dockable multi-function drives that are friendlier to use and offer advanced features like video playback. Most docks rely on USB 2.0, but Seagate just dropped a bomb on the industry with a simple twist: They moved the intelligence outside the case, repackaging the standard internal SATA connector as GoFlex, an external link to a variety of docks and adapters.

The Trouble With Hot Products

External drive makers face a dilemma: Fierce competition has driven down the price of external USB hard disk drives, hurting profit margins. Most brick-and-mortar stores sell basic external USB drives even cheaper than the bare hard disk mechanism contained inside, and sales can push them lower than online bulk drive purchases. It’s nice to be in a hot market, but not so great when it squeezes out all of the profit.

Drive makers responded by adding features. A few years back, the trend was upscale “pro” models with 400 or 800 megabit FireWire interfaces, one-touch backup software, or built-in encryption. We also saw “fashion” drives with sleek lines and bright colors. But these were one-sale sweeteners and did nothing for the brand as a whole. The next step was the introduction of desktop docking stations, encouraging the purchase of more devices from the same vendor. Then came a wave of video playback stations that connect to a television.

But all of these devices were limited by the USB 2.0 interface they used. USB was good enough for many uses, but it was too slow for some users. Those wanting faster performance simply ignored the dockable lines and went straight for FireWire 800, eSATA, or iSCSI over Gigabit Ethernet. The release of USB 3.0 forces vendors to scrap their current docks anyway.

What’s the Big Idea?

Seagate took these marketing lemons and turned them into lemonade. Their idea is simple: Move the interface and feature smarts outside the drive case and into the cable or dock. The GoFlex interface is almost identical to the standard SATA data and power interface found on physical hard disk drives. This gives plenty of performance, future-proofs the line as drive speeds increase, and allows a wider variety of interfaces to be used.

Take a good look: GoFlex uses SATA data and power connections!

Let’s say you go out and buy a simple basic 500 GB FreeAgent GoFlex portable drive. It comes with the USB 2.0 cable but not much else. You can still get a TV dock like before, but now you can also order up some speed with a FireWire 800 or eSATA Upgrade Cable. And you can mix and match drives and cables, using eSATA with your desktop and USB with your notebook.

This is a win from Seagate’s perspective, too. Assuming they made the connector just different enough to not be compatible with other vendors’ SATA drives, they retain the brand lock-in advantage while offering enticing features to their customers. Assuming they eventually offer GoFlex drives without the cable as upgrades for existing users, the technology also allows them to underprice their competitors.

My Take

GoFlex is definitely a clever marketing idea, repackaging existing technology in a novel way. I am pleased to see an upgrade path to faster interfaces like USB 3.0 and eSATA, though I wish Apple would hurry up and offer these ports on their machines. And I am eager to try the technology out, especially with third-party drives.

I imagine that GoFlex will give Seagate quite a differentiator in a competitive market and will encourage brand loyalty among customers. But TV docks have not been a big success (judging from the clearance section at my local Best Buy) and I doubt this will change that situation. I expect this technology to be a hit, but drives will be drives.

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. | Lemons Into Lemonade: Seagate Repackages SATA As GoFlex
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.

The new Drobo FS brings native file sharing capability and a whole world of add-on "apps"

Data Robotics is back with yet another member in the rapidly-expanding Drobo family of “storage robots.” The newly-announced Drobo FS brings gigabit Ethernet, file-sharing protocols, and installable apps to the platform’s industry-leading flexibility and data protection. But Drobo FS is no slam dunk: It’s expensive, not found in (many) stores, and the value proposition can be difficult to comprehend. Will Drobo FS sink or swim?

Drobo FS: The File-Based Drobo

It used to be so easy: Drobo was a 4-drive SOHO storage device that protected your data, allowed easy and seamless drive swaps, and attached with a USB or FireWire cable. The lauded Drobo operational simplicity remains, but the newly-expanded Drobo family is starting to look awfully complex. Instead of a single product, Data Robotics now sells no fewer than five models of Drobo.

And baby makes five? The Drobo line runs from the old 4-drive direct-attach Drobo to the iSCSI SAN DroboElite and now includes the NAS DroboFS.

The original 4-drive direct-attach USB/FireWire Drobo was refreshed a few years ago. It remains the value leader, and I am totally committed to the gen-2 Drobo I purchased and rely on to protect my own data. Next up is the faster 5-drive eSATA/USB/FireWire Drobo S, upon which the Drobo FS was based. The Drobo family also includes two 8-drive iSCSI models: The single-computer DroboPro and full multi-server SAN capable DroboElite.

The new Drobo FS is an entirely different animal. Instead of presenting plain disk capacity (what we in the business call “block storage”), the FS acts like a file server. It “speaks” SMB/CIFS (the Windows protocol), AFP (the Apple Mac OS X protocol), and, through a free download, NFS (the UNIX protocol).

Plug the single gigabit Ethernet port of a Drobo FS into your home or office network and it will appear to be a Windows or Mac server with tons of available storage. This marks the first time a Drobo can be easily shared between many users: Although a front-end device like a PC or Mac (or the now-discontinued DroboShare) share the storage space from any Drobo over a network, it was a multi-step process that challenged some users. Of course, the DroboElite can share capacity using the iSCSI protocol, but that’s nowhere near as user-friendly as the Drobo FS NAS.

The Drobo FS shares much of its hardware with the impressive Drobo S, including its 5-drive chassis and dual-drive data protection. It also shares the high-performance CPU of the Drobo S, making the Drobo FS mighty fast for a small NAS. Although I have not benchmarked it myself, the company promises 40-50 MB/s read and 30-40 MB/s write performance, making it one of the fastest devices in this class. I’ll be eager to test those numbers out myself, since most of the competing devices have seriously disappointed me with their slow transfer speed.

The Drobo FS packs a single gigabit Ethernet port rather than the USB, FireWire, or eSATA found on other models

What’s missing from the Drobo FS is a USB, FireWire, or eSATA port. Like all Drobos but the DroboElite, the DroboFS is a single-purpose storage device. If you want to connect it to your PC, you have to use Ethernet and SMB, AFP, or NFS. This is not a limitation per se (competing devices, like the Iomega ix4 and Lacie Big5, are similarly limited to NAS-only), but may come as a surprise to the Drobo faithful. Note too that, unlike the DroboPro, DroboElite, and ix4, the Drobo FS is not VMware or Hyper-V certified, limiting its use as a virtualization lab target.

You might like reading some of the other pieces I’ve written about Drobo products.

The DroboApp Economy

Anyone who has unboxed a Drobo knows that the company has a serious crush on Apple. The single-purpose simplicity of the design similarly apes the boys from Cupertino. But the Drobo FS takes the fruit envy to a new level with DroboApps.

Like the iPad, the Drobo FS is a blank slate, waiting for you to customize and configure it as you like. At launch, Drobo FS can be upgraded to a media server for iTunes or UPnP/DLNA, a BitTorrent client, or a web server. All of these apps are free, and most are open source ports with varying degrees of stability. I long tried to use the Firefly media server on a similar NAS device, for example, but finally abandoned that buggy and limited software in favor of a real iTunes instance on my always-running iMac.

Most of these apps are inherited from the dead DroboShare, but new the revived platform is likely to spawn more interesting apps. Launching in May, Oxygen Cloud is particularly appealing. A “private cloud” service for the Drobo FS and public services including Amazon S3, Rackspace, Mozy, and Nirvainx, the Oxygen Cloud application allows clients to access files anywhere on many devices. Imagine sitting at Starbucks using your iPad to browse your home or office Drobo FS content! Oxygen Cloud also handles data replication and can even remotely wipe content from devices if needed.

Strangely, the Drobo FS lacks a web-based management interface. Instead, you must install the Drobo Dashboard application on a PC or Mac. And third-party apps each have their own management interface with little or no integration with the Drobo itself. This goes against my image of the Drobo, and I suggest that the company roll out a web-based plugin-friendly interface to integrate the user experience.

Should You Get A Drobo FS?

As a professional focused on data storage, my hearty endorsement goes to the Drobo platform. The BeyondRAID technology and solid engineering of these devices mitigate the serious risk of data loss posed by the unprotected “bare disk” storage devices that are so popular with computer users today.

I have had four hard disks crash in the last 12 months. Anyone less careful about backups than I would have lost data in three of those incidents, but the fourth deserves mention: I installed two brand new Samsung hard drives in my Drobo and started adding data. Within 48 hours, one of those drives had failed. I popped it out and returned it, inserting instead a Western Digital I found at Fry’s. When the replacement Samsung arrived, I popped that into the Drobo, too. Through it all, the Drobo protected my data and kept me up and running without a snag.

One nagging issue with the Drobo line is the price. List price for the Drobo FS with no disk drives installed is US$699 (that’s 469 quid or 519 of the fancy European ones). That’s a serious amount of money. The base Drobo is $300 cheaper, which is enough to buy a cheapie Windows or Linux box to use as a more full-featured NAS head. Shop around and you might be able to afford a used Mac Mini and a new Drobo for the same price as a Drobo FS!

Add in three 1.5 TB disks, and your Drobo FS investment is up to $1k. Is that too much to ask for peace of mind? Interestingly, the Drobo S lists for $100 more than the similar Drobo FS. Perhaps it’s time for Data Robotics to drop the price on that unit? Street prices for the Drobo S eliminate that $100 differential anyway.

The competing 4-drive 4 TB Iomega ix4-200d sells for about the same price as an empty Drobo FS. But the comparison reveals a fundamental difference between these products: The Iomega is only available with a full complement of drives and can not be upgraded. In contrast, the Drobo can be purchased empty, expanded on an as-needed basis, and easily upgraded in the future without data loss or even downtime. This is a huge difference, both in terms of initial cost and “live with it” longevity.

I decided that the Drobo was worth my own money. I bought an empty (heavily discounted) Drobo and two new (heavily discounted) hard disk drives for less than $500. Although I am happy with that choice, the Drobo S is simply too expensive for me to upgrade. I feel the same about the Drobo FS: My negative experience with many of the same open source apps used on the FS, combined with the high price tag, leave me happy with my current solution which combines a Drobo and an iMac.

One of the reasons I love the Drobo is the simple set-and-forget experience. Like the iPhone, the Drobo just works. But the Drobo FS suggests we should use third-party open-source apps, each with its own management interface and foibles. None of these will share files or serve media to Mac OS X and iTunes as well as OS X and iTunes itself, so why bother with the FS at all? Unless you want basic NAS connectivity or the coolness of Oxygen Cloud, I still recommend the original Drobo over any alternative, even the Drobo FS.

Disclaimer: Data Robotics is a paying sponsor of the Gestalt IT Tech Field Day, which I organize. I know many people at the company and was briefed ahead of this launch. Anyone reading this review will hopefully recognize that none of this influenced my opinion on this, or any, 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. | Review: Will Drobo FS Take The NAS Market By Storm?
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.