1. Insert a blank DVD into your SuperDrive


Insert a blank DVD and select "Open Finder" as your "Action"

2. The Finder will pop up a window asking you to select an action. Choose “Open Finder” in the “Action” menu.
   1. If this window does not appear and some other application automatically starts, you will have to hold down the “Option” key on insert.
   2. If no other application launches when you insert a blank disc, you probably selected “Open Finder” as your default action and you can move on to the next step.


Select the "Untitled DVD" under "Places"

3. A Finder window will appear, with a new entry called “Untitled DVD” in the “Places” list. This is your workspace, and you will use it to create your DVD image.
   

   Drag and drop files or folders from other Finder windows

   1. Drag and drop files or folders here and an alias will be created
   2. You can create folders here as in any normal Finder location and can organize your files in them
   

   Watch the status bar to keep from over-filling the DVD

   3. Note the line at the bottom, which lets you know how much space is left for files
   4. If you are organizing aliases in folders, you must click on another “place” then back to the “Untitled DVD” item under “Places” to force a recalculation of capacity used/available
4. You can rename the disc by right- or option-clicking the Untitled DVD in Places and selecting “Get Info”. Give it a new name, but leave the “.fpbf” extension.


Click "burn" when you're ready to go

5. When you’re ready, click the “burn” icon under Places or select “Burn” under the “gear” menu.


Select the speed or rename your disc here

6. You can rename the disc or select burn speed in the next window. Click “Burn” again and wait while your disc is created!

Once you get used to the process, burning a DVD in Mac OS X is a painless and simple matter. But it’s not exactly self-explanatory!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To Create a Data DVD Using Only the Mac OS X Finder
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 Apple's new OS reinstallation media: A read-only flash drive

Along with the apparent Mini PCI-E SSD, Apple introduced another storage feature with the late-2010 MacBook Air: The Software Reinstall Drive. Although not mentioned in the product introduction, the read-only USB drive is a clever solution for a device with no optical drive. Here’s what I’ve discovered about it so far.

Not a Flash Drive

Although Apple did not include USB 3.0 hardware on the new MacBook Air, they did add a second USB port, which users will certainly appreciate. The USB-connected SuperDrive appears to have disappeared along the way to the 2010 Air, replaced by the read-only Software Reinstall Drive. But as Apple’s FAQ reveals, this is not a simple USB flash drive.

First, it is important to realize that the drive is read-only. It cannot be reformatted and reused. Apple does not appear to be getting into the portable flash drive market, which is a good thing considering that it’s a highly-competitive low-margin business.

Second, the drive is apparently keyed to the particular MacBook Air it came with. This is probably a simple software check using the system serial number rather than some special hardware restriction. But it means that the (key-less) copies of iWork won’t work on other Macs you may own. Apple says nothing about the Snow Leopard and iLife software included, however, so those may be installable on other Macs. Or perhaps the FAQ is incorrect in mentioning iWork and only includes OS X and iLife.

Like the install DVD, the Reinstall Drive can be used to boot a Mac for system recovery or reinstallation. It can also be used to enable hardware test mode on the MacBook Air. The drive does not contain Boot Camp drivers or Apple’s DVD/CD Sharing software, however.

Stephen’s Stance

This is not a major industry shift; it’s a clever solution to the MacBook Air’s lack of a DVD drive. I’m intrigued by the Software Reinstall Drive mainly because it points to a continuing shift in the storage industry from towards flash storage. HP did the same thing with their Blackbird 002, and others have also apparently done this in the past.

So why is this noteworthy? Apple was first to eliminate the floppy disc, and they have been moving away from optical disks for some time. Now we have a laptop with no hard disk either, and the software reinstall is via USB drive. I call that a trend.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Apple Replaces Operating System DVDs with the Software Reinstall Drive
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.

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.

Can you supercharge a Mac Mini?

Last week I reported my progress upgrading my Mac Mini’s RAM and hard drive to extract much more performance out of Apple’s little desktop. And indeed, adding a 7200 rpm high-performance laptop hard drive did make a noticeable difference in system responsiveness.

But a question came in via email asking, will Western Digital’s killer 10,000 rpm VelociRaptor SATA drive work in the Mac Mini? So inspired, I set out to find out just how far one can push a Mac Mini’s performance!

Pillars of Performance

As I noted in my last update, there are four keys to desktop system performance: CPU, RAM, storage, and graphics. The Mac Mini’s CPU is soldered in place and its graphics are integrated into the system chipset, so neither are upgradable. The best one can do on the CPU side is to order a built-to-order 2.26 GHz Mac Mini from Apple, adding $150 to the base Mac Mini price of $599.

Base Mac Mini: $599

2.26 GHz CPU upgrade: $150

Running total: $749

PC hackers commonly upgrade their systems’ performance by tweaking the system BIOS to overclock the CPU, memory, and system bus. But you can’t overclock a Mac Mini, or at least I haven’t found the secret yet.

More RAM always helps, but the Mini won’t accept more than 4 GB 8 GB of RAM. The graphics can also be improved slightly by installing more than 1 GB of RAM because the system will then use 256 MB of RAM as a frame buffer instead of 128 MB. Since we’re going to be opening the system anyway, we can save some money by upgrading the RAM ourselves. The Mac Mini uses 204-pin DDR3 SO-DIMMs rated at PC3-8500 (1066 MHz). A nice 4 GB matched set can be purchased from Amazon.com for $60.

4 GB RAM upgrade: $66

Running total: $815

Your Apple Mac Mini is now maximally configured, with the exception of storage.

Update: The 2009 Mac Minis can now accept 8 GB of RAM!

Killer Storage

The only remaining upgrade is storage. And here, the Mac Mini is amazingly adaptable. About 2/3 of the vertical space covered by that aluminum and plastic exterior consists of a black plastic cage containing the DVD SuperDrive, hard disk drive, and cooling fan and serving as a support for the BlueTooth and 802.11 wireless antennas. This is your target.

The Mac Mini’s storage subsystem is up to date, with two SATA channels supporting 3 Gbit speed and advanced capabilities like native command queueing (NCQ) even though the stock Mini’s hard drive lacks these features.

The hard drive sits in a cradle immediately under the optical drive, face-up in an open cavity over the motherboard. Although it ships with a slim 9.5 mm high hard disk, my ruler says that the Mac Mini cradle can accept a 12.5 mm z-height disk. This is interesting from a capacity standpoint, since some higher-GB drives are 12.5 mm 3-platter units, including the popular TravelStar 5k500 drive from Hitachi.

However, the Mini was designed to have an air gap between the hard disk and DVD drive, and a 12.5 mm drive will press against the optical unit, potentially causing heat problems. And a larger 2.5″ drive will not fit, including the 15 mm mechanism from the Western Digital VelociRaptor.

Therefore, any crazy disk drive dreams that also include leaving the Mini and its DVD drive in the original case are right out. All is not lost, however! Apple kindly included the MacBook Air’s Remote Disc support, so the Mini doesn’t need a DVD drive at all if you happen to have another Mac or PC handy. Removing the SuperDrive leaves room for up to two 2.5″ hard disks!

Without the SuperDrive in the way, a 2.5″ Western Digital VelociRaptor hard disk drive should fit just fine. Although it ships with a massive heat sink, the VelociRaptor isn’t as power-hungry or hot as you might imagine. It might be a good idea to apply some cooling fins or add an extra fan, but I’m betting the Mini wouldn’t have any trouble driving this 10,000 rpm drive once the SuperDrive is removed. So the WD VelociRaptor is a serious option for the Mac Mini.

Another killer performance option is a RAID-0 set of internal SATA drives. Although the Mini’s second SATA channel (normally used for the DVD drive) does not have the proper connectors or mounting supports for a hard disk drive, iFixit sells a DIY kit to connect a second hard drive. This kit, which includes two 500 GB 5400 rpm hard drives, sells for about what a single 300 GB VelociRaptor costs, and should provide similar performance using RAID-0 striping.

WD 300 GB VelociRaptor hard disk or iFixit dual-500 GB kit: $250

Running total: $1,065

Conclusion

So there you have it! For just over $1,000, you can have the baddest Apple Mac Mini possible. But for quite a bit less, I suspect that a 2.0 GHz/4 GB/7200 rpm disk combo would be nearly as fast.

One more thing: If you decide to use RAID-0 on your internal drives, you must use Time Machine to protect your data! A stripe set of disk drives poorly mounted in a tiny chassis without a properly-engineered cooling or power system is a recipe for disaster. Your disks will fail, and your data will be lost!

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, 2009. | How Far Can You Push a Mac Mini?
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.