Here’s the scoop: Apple’s Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2, released back at the end of August, claimed to improve “compatibility with the latest Apple memory kits on Mac mini computers”, but in typical Apple fashion, no one quite knew what that meant. Some brave soul must have tried installing two 4 GB PC3-8500 SO-DIMM modules in the Mini’s two RAM slots, and must have been awfully happy when they did, because it works! All 2009 Mac Minis are supported, including the recently-released Mac Mini Server and the earlier March-era machine.

This is now confirmed by Mac Mini Colo, a more reliable source than Macrumors forum posters, so I’m finally confident in posting this. Being a cheapskate, I’m not going to run out and spend $510.98 at Amazon on two Crucial SO-DIMMs for my $599 computer. But I’m eager to hear from you if you have the inclination, and will be watching as prices fall in the box at right. An 8 GB Mac Mini ought to perform amazingly when running VMware Fusion or VirtualBox!

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. | Got Excess Money? Upgrade Your 2009 Mac Mini RAM To 8 GB!
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.

This last point has always been debatable as well. Apple tends to select higher-end x86 parts for their Macs and has led the way with innovative chassis, screen, and trackpad technology. But PC makers have quickly followed, offering part-for-part Apple clones at 80% of the cost. This week, however, I stumbled onto a concrete difference between Mac and PC hardware that has real-world impact: Across the board, Apple uses exclusive Intel CPUs with enhanced capabilities to support virtualization of 64-bit operating systems, including Windows 7′s special XP compatibility mode.

Virtualization-Ready

Virtualization hypervisors have become very widespread and popular, especially in the Apple world. Mac users regularly list Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion among their favorite applications, since they open up the wide world of Windows applications running in a virtual machine. Although most daily tasks can be performed with native OS X applications, some apps just aren’t available.

Personally, I use Fusion on OS X with Windows Vista to occasionally run Microsoft’s Visio and Outlook, both of which aren’t available as native applications. I also use a 2009 Mac Mini as a server and virtual computer lab, mainly relying on Sun’s lightweight and free VirtualBox hypervisor. Although it isn’t impressive as the physical lab Dennis Martin described to me last week, I am able to run a variety of servers (Linux, Windows, and OS X) and other virtual gear (Windows Storage Server and FreeNAS) to simulate enterprise IT environments.

Windows users have less need to run virtualization applications: When your operating system commands over 90% of the market, a whole world of applications is at your fingertips! But enthusiasts and corporate IT types love virtualization, and VMware Server and Microsoft Hyper-V are commonly found on their Windows machines.

64-Bit Road Block

These popular virtualization packages support a wide range of modern hardware, but not everything works perfectly. Hypervisors had trouble with many tasks, particularly running 64-bit operating systems, until Intel and AMD introduced special hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities in their CPUs. The latest hypervisors and CPUs can now even virtualize 64-bit operating systems on top of 32-bit hosts!

But not all CPUs include this technology. Intel has a long history of artificially segmenting their product line by disabling certain features in low-end parts. For their Core 2 Duo “Merom” and “Penryn” lines, Intel decided that their VT virtualization technology would be the differentiator. Therefore, a lack of VT support is one of the main differences between low-end and high-end Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs.

Many of the latest portable and compact desktop systems use Intel’s Penryn-3M line, including Apple’s MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini systems. See the issue here? Intel’s lower-end 2.0 GHz and 2.133 GHz CPUs (P7350 and P7450, respectively) don’t support VT, which means that systems using them don’t have the latest VT hardware virtualization capability and thus can’t run 64-bit virtual machines!

This is an issue for users of popular Sony Vaio, Dell Inspiron, and HP Pavilion PCs, and is likely to become much more important soon. See, Windows 7 includes a special XP compatibility mode, which is really just a virtual machine running XP under 7. But XP mode will not work without Intel VT or AMD-V. This means that XP mode in Windows 7 won’t work on the very mass-market machines that would benefit most from it!

Apple’s Different

This sounds terrible: The latest machines won’t run increasingly-popular virtualization software. But there is a very good reason that buyers of the latest Apple machines aren’t up in arms. It seems that Apple made a deal with Intel to get a special version of the Penryn-3M Core 2 Duo CPUs that do support Intel VT!

Apple’s latest Mac Mini, MacBook, and MacBook Pro all sport P7350 and P7450 CPUs, just like competing Dell, Sony, and HP machines. But the Apple CPUs have VT and the PCs lack it. The VT support is gone, and cannot be enabled in the PC BIOS.

So even a PC and Mac sporting the exact same CPU part numbers aren’t equal: Every recent Mac will run 64-bit Windows and XP mode in Windows 7 and many PCs won’t. And I can run anything I want on my Mac Mini virtual lab!

Update - Let me be very, very clear on the facts here:

• Most hypervisors now require Intel VT or AMD-V in order to virtualize 64-bit operating systems
• Microsoft requires this technology to use XP mode in Windows 7
• All current Apple Macs (including those that use P7350 and P7450 CPUs) have Intel VT support in their CPUs regardless of what Intel says on the model spec sheets
• Many PCs use high-end Intel and AMD CPUs that support VT or AMD-V, though some have this turned off in the BIOS
• No PC with an Intel P7350 or P7450 CPU has Intel VT support at all. It cannot be enabled in the BIOS because it does not exist.

I am not an Apple fanboy. I am a virtualization fanboy who is glad I bought a Mac Mini instead of a Dell Studio, HP TouchSmart, or Sony Vaio.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | A Concrete Reason Macs Beat PCs: Intel VT
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, 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.

Windows 7 RC literally hit home for me today. Seriously! Eight DVD copies of Windows 7 RC (32-bit) arrived in a FedEx from One Microsoft Way!

Microsoft just let loose a Release Candidate for Windows 7, the operating system that will bring peace, love, and joy to PC users everywhere and finally stop folks from switching to Macs instead of using Vista. Maybe.

So today I find myself in possession of eight DVD copies of Windows 7 RC (32-bit – boo!) for some reason. Maybe they sent them to all TechNet subscribers. Maybe all Microsoft MVPs got them. Regardless of the reason, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with them all. I already downloaded the DVD from TechNet after all!

Although perhaps not everything it’s been built up to be, Windows 7 is a seriously worthy upgrade from Vista. I’ve already switched my laptop to Windows 7 RC and am happy to report that it boots much faster, runs solidly, and thrashes less than it used to. It’s especially nice in virtual machines – Windows 7 in VMware Fusion and VirtualBox on my Mac is like night and day compared to Vista. It even runs great with only 512 MB of RAM, something Vista just can not do except in Basic guise.

I’m not using the OS too heavily (all my day-to-day work is done in Mac OS X) but I do want to point out some seriously nice features in Windows 7. These are also present in Windows Server 2008 R2, an operating system I’m much more interested in since I actually use it in production!

• DirectAccess and BranchCache are very cool additions. DA punches through firewalls like a VPN, but there’s no VPN client involved! It’s all based on standard Internet protocols like IPv6 and IPsec, kinda like Back To My Mac. BranchCache is also very nifty, creating a peer-to-peer or server-based distributed cache of a remote SMB file server. I’ve been playing with this and will report more on it eventually!
• BitLocker To Go applies Microsoft’s solid disk encryption technology to USB drives. It works. And Windows 7 now tries to help keep you from losing your keys, something I seriously need help with!
• PowerShell is spreading throughout the Windows and non-Windows world, and I’m loving it!
• VHD files are now first-class storage devices, and can be managed (and even booted from) just like any other drive. Sweet!
• Windows 7 also includes the new iSCSI initiator with QuickConnect. I’ll be covering this more soon!

So Windows 7 ought to keep some of the PC masses away from the Apple store. But I really didn’t need 8 copies of the DVD… What do you all suggest I do with them?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Windows 7 Is Here! In My Hands! But Why 8 DVDs?
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Sun is getting into the cloud services business, but which market is their target?

While the bulk of Sun-related news this week relates to reported talks of a buyout by IBM, the company took a break from negotiations to introduce their own cloud computing and storage infrastructure, challenging Amazon, Google, Rackspace, and perhaps VMware, Microsoft, and Nirvanix.

Sun is leveraging the assets they acquired from Q-layer earlier this year on top of OpenSolaris, MySQL, ZFS, and just about everything else in their arsenal to offer their own virtual data center (VDC) strategy. The Sun Cloud will be a private (inside the firewall) environment offering mobility of virtual machines. Q-layer had partnerships with both VMware and Microsoft and functioned with Windows, OpenSolaris, and Linux, suggesting that this will be quite a full-featured offering. Suddenly Sun’s free OpenSolaris offering on Amazon EC2 makes a lot more sense – it provides a gateway to take virtual computing business from the Bezos team!

One very nifty angle Sun is taking is enabling VirtualBox system images to be saved to (and presumably run in) their cloud. I wonder about monetization, since VirtualBox is more of a desktop virtualization system than VMware ESX and Microsoft Hyper-V, but the prospect of clicking “Upload to Cloud” is intriguing! OpenOffice will also allow cloud storage, a foil to Google Apps.

The Sun Cloud also includes a managed storage service. Sun apparently has three storage protocols: A proprietary Sun Cloud Storage API, WebDAV, and an object API likely leveraging Amazon’s AWS. The company claims that they are API-compatible with AWS, allowing applications written with Amazon in mind to be easily ported to their cloud storage service.

One key point to consider with all of this cloud talk, however, is how prepared each company is to support enterprise computing needs. Long-term viability depends on paying customers, and only the largest systems can attract enough end-user nickels and dimes to survive. Enterprise solutions are where the real money is, and questions remain about how prepared companies like Amazon, Google, and Rackspace are to support the needs of corporate users.

There are really three cloud markets: Shared clouds for small developers and enterprise customers and private cloud systems. Amazon was strong from the start with the little guys, Web 2.0 startups and end-user services like Jungle Disk, and Rackspace/Mosso and Google are challenging them in this space. Sun’s focus on AWS compatibility and VirtualBox suggests that they plan to play in this sandbox.

But the enterprise cloud is another matter entirely. Nirvanix stands strong in shared managed storage services, racking up win after win with big customers. EMC, VMware, Microsoft and others are positioning themselves as private alternatives in this space. Will Sun try to compete here, too? They are certainly talking about private clouds and the virtual data center, but there is a serious risk that they will lose focus trying to take on too many roles, and enterprise users won’t tolerate poor pre- and post-sales support! 

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Sun Launches Their Own Cloud, But For Which Market?
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

If you haven’t already tried VirtualBox, you ought to. It works very well, virtualizing Windows and Linux guests on Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Mac hosts with respectable performance. One thing I really love about it is that it doesn’t bog down my Vista system like VMware with installed drivers and services. It just installs and works and gets out of the way when you’re not using it.

VirtualBox supports shared folders, USB, and has guest additions for Windows and Linux to provide resolution independence and performance boosts. The new 2.0 version adds 64-bit guest OS support for 64-bit hosts along with performance and stability fixes. The Mac version now has a native look and feel and better networking, too.

One really interesting twist for folks interested in desktop virtualization (aka VDI on VMware) is integration with remote desktop protocol (RDP). VirtualBox guests can be configured to act as RDP servers, with thin(ish) clients accessing them over a network and even sharing their USB devices seamlessly. I’m getting pretty excited about the desktop virtualization concept – I’ll be keeping my eyes on companies like stealthy Old Road Computing Virtual Computer to see what they’re up to!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Sun’s Excellent VirtualBox Goes 2.0
This post was categorized as Apple, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.