Dragon Dictate might be the best dictation option for Mac users, but it's not very good at that

For the last few months, I’ve been experimenting with dictation software on the Mac. Previously, I had used the built-in dictation software in Windows Vista and Windows 7, but it was annoying to launch a virtual machine every time I wanted to dictate something. On the Mac and purchase an (expensive) copy of Dragon Dictate for Mac. So far, my experience has been less than positive.

What I Was Looking For

I use dictation software for dictation, not control my computer. I was looking for a product that would allow me to speak naturally to my computer as a way to accelerate my writing. See, I am a professional writer and regularly churn out thousands of words per week. Although I can type very fast, I find that dictation allows me to sit back and collect my thoughts without being distracted by the keyboard.

It is critical for me that the software I select recognizes my words consistently and does not require a great deal of post-speech editing. In other words, I want to be able to carefully talk through an entire piece without going back and doing word by word checking after the fact.

Since I write on technical topics (I specialize in enterprise data storage), it is critical that the dictation software is flexible in allowing bizarre spelling and capitalization combinations. It seems that every enterprise product and company has some strange combination of capital letters and made-up words!

Dragon Dictates (Sometimes)

Dragon Dictate has proven frustrating in regular use, especially for a software package that cost nearly $200. Although it is quite adept at recognizing flowing speech, it utterly fails to be useful in regular applications and workflows.

Adding new words to the Dragon dictionary is frustratingly complicated, requiring nearly a dozen steps with keyboard, mouse, and the GUI. Why can’t an end-user dictate a new word? Alas, this seems to be impossible. Spelled (or even typed) words don’t appear to be added to the dictionary and will be mis-recognized even in the same document.

Dragon stubbornly refuses to learn certain words, as well. I can’t figure out how to tell it to spell the word “minutes”, for example, rather than the abbreviation “min.” though there is such an option in Dragon’s PC product. It is frustratingly inconsistent at recognizing common punctuation marks and commands, often typing “exhalation point” or “go to and” rather than “!” or moving the cursor to the end of the line. I can’t figure out how to tell it to spell my name without a “V” and it even mis-recognizes its own name as “DragonDictate” (no space).

But by far the most frustrating aspect of Dragon Dictate is its incompatibility with just about every native application I use. The only satisfying dictation experience relies on the ultra basic text editor included with Dictate. Although it is supposed to be compatible with Microsoft Word, actual usage is frustrating. And attempting to use dictate in other applications makes me want to throw my computer out the window, as illustrated in the video below.

Stephen’s Stance

I am utterly frustrated with Dragon Dictate for Mac. It shows sparks of brilliance but is so tarnished by the obnoxious experience of actually using it that I have half a mind to demand my money back. And it certainly did cost quite a bit of money, especially compared to the free and less frustrating speech recognition software bundled with Microsoft Windows!

I’d like to see Dragon improve this product in key areas:

1. Add a simple, streamlined dictated command to add a word to the dictionary – “add that” should allow you to spell and train in one go
2. Fix the obnoxious behavior outside the Dictate “notepad” window – or add an “insert only” setting to not “guess” where you are in a document and overwrite things
3. Fix the weird “add extra characters after the cursor” bug demonstrated in my video
4. Allow me to fix one or two words, not a whole phrase, and allow me to fix it outside the Recognition window’s (limited) choices
5. Add a “no abbreviations” setting to the Mac version so it stops correcting “minutes” to “min.”
6. Allow me to say “always recognize it this way” for words like “Fibre Channel” and “Stephen’s stance” (not “fiber channel” and “Steven’s stance”)
7. Improve recognition of common commands and terms (“explanation point”? Seriously? When has anyone ever dictated that?)

See Nuance Responds to My Dragon Dictate Concerns for detailed information on these concerns

Finally, I suggest that Dragon does something to lower the price. I got mine at a steep discount, but it was still $129, which is pretty stiff for a utility of limited utility. The included headset and USB adapter are of mediocre quality and aren’t worth more than $20. If Dragon brings Dictate to the Mac App Store at $49 and fixes the bugs it might be worthwhile. But for now, it earns a “don’t buy“.

One more thing: 90 days of support? For a product costing over $100? Seriously? I was so frustrated at my initial attempts to use Dictate that I stuck it on the shelf for months before giving it another shot. Now I have to pay for support. Or not.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Dragon Dictate for Mac: Utterly Frustrating
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Features, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

But Windows Automatic Update is causing me trouble. It automatically restarts these virtual machines whenever there is an OS update, which seems to be every night lately. This automatic reboot kills whatever programs happen to be running at the time, causing me to lose half-written articles (even though I saved them and Auto Save is on) and almost killing an old BlackBerry I was updating. I had to figure out a way to disable this automatic reboot!

The answer is fairly simple. Just about every part of Windows can be tweaked using the surprisingly-friendly but scarily-named Group Policy Editor. Here’s how:

1. Log in as a user with Administrative access
2. Click the Windows circle thingy in the lower-left of the screen
3. In the “Search Programs and Files” box, type the following:

   gpedit.msc

4. Group Policy Editor is organized into a hierarchy. Open “Computer Configuration” then “Administrative Templates” and finally “Windows Components”
5. Scroll down to “No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations” and double click it.
6. In the window that pops up, select “Enabled” to disable the automatic reboots.
7. Click “OK” and you’re all set. You can quit GPEdit too.

Now, Windows will merely nag you about rebooting rather than dumping everything you’re working on in the middle of the night!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To Disable Windows 7 Automatic Reboot After Update
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.

Spot the Problem

Let’s play a little game, shall we? Let’s see if you can spot the problem!

Windows Vista reports robocopy.exe as version 5.1.10.1027, but the exe is just 85.5 KB

Windows 7 also reports robocopy.exe as version 5.1.10.1027, but the exe is 95.0 KB

Now let’s run “robocopy /mt” so see if multi-threading is supported!

The Windows 7 version of Robocopy supports the "/MT" parameter

The Windows Vista version of Robocopy does not support the "/MT" parameter

There you have it. Two executables with the same version number but substantial differences in functionality. Thanks, Microsoft!

It turns out that only the “6.1″ versions of Microsoft Windows (Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2) include multi-threaded robocopy. And my buddies tell me you can’t just move the exe to older versions.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Versioning FAIL: Windows Vista/7 Robocopy
This post was categorized as 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.

It's hard to take a product called "Robocopy" seriously!

Anyone doing much storage work on Microsoft Windows machines is familiar with Robocopy. It’s the best tool to move data between NTFS filesystems, since Robocopy maintains permissions and file attributes. It also tolerates dropped connections, resuming where it left off, and can throttle operations over slow networks.

But Robocopy was never very quick, especially when dealing with large data sets. It was single-threaded, hurting performance on high-latency networks, and startup was painfully slow on deep directory structures.

Robocopy XXVII

Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and later versions include a new version of Robocopy with performance tweaks designed to overcome these limitations. Right-click on the executable in Windows\System32 and make sure you are using version XP027, 5.1.10.1027.

Update: Oops! Only the “6.1″ versions of Microsoft Windows (Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2) include multi-threaded robocopy!

The big deal here is multi-threading:

• The application can now run in multi-threaded mode using the /MT option. This defaults to 8 threads, but users can specify up to 128 if desired. For example, the following command would use 16 threads:

robocopy c:\ d:\ /MT:16

• Initial directory enumeration is also multi-threaded, so deep directory structures are examined much more quickly.
• XP027 also added the /EFSRAW parameter, allowing one to copy files from EFS using RAW mode. However neither this nor /IPG (inter-packet gap) can be combined with the multi-threaded option mentioned above.

Dead or alive, you’re coming with me!

I tried out the new /MT option on a Core 2 Duo laptop and was surprised by the dramatic improvement in copy performance. Copying my entire “Program Files” directory took well over a minute without multi-threading, but simply specifying “/MT” at the end of the command reduced a second copy to a different directory to about 20 seconds. Using “/MT:32″ was blazing fast – easily less than 15 seconds. I repeated the first single-threaded test again and watched it dawdle along, taking over a minute again to finish.

Microsoft suggests that multi-threaded Robocopy helps with network throughput as well. I tried a series of copies between two Windows 7 machines over Wi-Fi, to simulate a slow network. Although single-threaded Robocopy was able to saturate the network with large files, it really slowed down (thanks to latency) once it hits a patch of smaller files. Multi-threaded Robocopy was more capable of maintaining high throughput once smaller files were encountered, with a 32-thread test keeping the link at maximum pretty much the entire time. Again, a noticeable improvement.

Your Move, Creep

If you’re copying lots of Windows data on a machine running Windows 7 Vista or newer, I can confidently say that the /MT switch will speed things up dramatically. Whether you should stick with the default 8 threads or up it to 16 or 32 depends on the capabilities of your CPU, but it’s worth a try. One more tip: Use the /LOG switch or pipe the output to NULL to speed up copying even more. Displaying all that text delays the whole process!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Robocopy: Better, Faster, Stronger
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, 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.

Making a list? Who's naughty and who's nice?

Who’s naughty and who’s nice? The average computer geek of the last decade would have placed Microsoft atop the naughty list. The average corporate IT manager’s nice list probably wouldn’t have included EMC and Oracle. Yet Google, Apple, Sun, HP and even IBM don’t have this frequent negativity directed towards them. What’s the difference between naughty and nice when it comes to IT companies? I’ve heard complaints of the greed and arrogance of these companies, though their boosters would point out that it’s easy to envy the success of others.

But things are changing. Microsoft has a bona fide hit on their hands, with Windows 7, Xbox, and Bing re-introducing the company to new customers that don’t harbor old grudges. Inside corporate IT, the halo cast by VMware seems to highlight the re-energized EMC in much the same way. With their competition taking dents in the ongoing battles, Microsoft and EMC just don’t look so bad anymore.

Microsoft: Hearts and Minds

The blooms in many Microsoft competitors’ rose gardens seem to be fading. With “do no evil” Google only finding lucre in the filthy advertising business and the naughtiness of “evil as we wanna be” Apple peaking, Microsoft’s Internet and consumer efforts are starting to seem downright approachable. That’s one way to change your image: Wait for your competitors to catch up and your customers will catch on. The geek parade still loves Google and Apple, but their ambitious drive and massive revenue are distasteful to many.

Every time I write about Apple products, at least one credible geek has to call me out for being a fanboy. The core of their arguments seem to combine scorn for friendly interfaces and pretty hardware, a distaste for Apple’s huge profit margins, and a belief that the faithful wear Apple-tinted glasses when looking at alternatives. I guess Apple users look like a bunch of sissies to the more manly geeks in the audience.

In fact, it’s become something of a badge of pride to stick by Microsoft, even as the UNIX weenies and Apple-heads wander off. They ask “who’s got the most market share in desktops and servers?” Windows Vista’s appetite for hardware and unstable nature might have challenged them, but the quick, slick, solid Windows 7 has reaffirmed their faith. And they know that those who throw stones at Windows Server are living in the past: Ridiculous naming aside, Windows Server 2008 R2 is every bit as great in the data center as Windows 7 is on the desktop.

But there’s more to Microsoft than Windows. Even ardent Microsoft haters have to admit Bing is solid, functional, and even clever. Indeed, Microsoft has taken the search battle right to Google and is working hard to innovate past their rival. Xbox has a solid beachhead in the gaming world, challenging successful and innovative products from Nintendo and Sony. Azure puts a developer-friendly face on the nascent cloud computing market and is anything but a “me-too” to Amazon EC2 and VMware. Barring any major product or PR disasters, Microsoft is well on the way to renovating their sagging corporate image.

EMC: Keeping It Real

EMC is leaving the little storage market behind and doesn't look as big and scary in the larger IT world

What Microsoft is to average computer users, EMC is to enterprise data storage folks. No one denies that they make great products, and have dominated the market for two decades. Although they don’t have the massive share Microsoft has in the desktop OS market, no one comes close to EMC in enterprise storage. They spent the last decade steadily growing to control 25% of the market leaving a wealth of competitors fighting it out far below.

Through all this growth, however, EMC has never been loved by their customers. I’ve known literally dozens of IT shops who refused to buy from EMC, even though the sleazy sales tactics that turned them off (and indeed the sales reps themselves) are reportedly long gone from the company. Like Microsoft, EMC hasn’t softened its approach as much as their competitors have hardened theirs. With the market getting tougher, the tough guy doesn’t look so bad anymore.

I hear that things have improved inside the company, too. All giant corporations have their share of intrigue, politics, and dead weight, and EMC is certainly no exception. But the reports I hear from insiders are positive, and improving all the time. EMC is making some smart moves, giving acquisitions the independence to thrive and building revenue outside their enterprise storage base. Hiring great folks like Scott Lowe, Christopher Kusek, and Ed Saipetch doesn’t hurt, either.

Customers seem to be sensing a change, too. It’s hard to hate VMware, RSA, Legato, and the rest of EMC all at once, though some have grudges against two or three. EMC is successfully diversifying into other areas of information technology. Like Microsoft, EMC’s new customers never learned the old stereotypes. Now that they’re swimming in a much larger pond, EMC looks neither as big or as bad as it once did.

You Will Decide

Are EMC and Microsoft really turning the corner? We will all know in a few years. If the geeks of tomorrow no longer resent their success and hold past mistakes against them, both companies could enter a renaissance not only of credibility but of business success.

Santa Claus image: Public domain from Project Gutenberg

Gorilla image: public domain from Pearson Scott Foresman

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Are Microsoft and EMC beginning a renaissance of geek respect?
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

It’s that time again, when everyone who thinks they’re a pundit (that would be everyone with a blog or Twitter account) has to make predictions for the coming year. But predictions are perilous: Get it right and you look like a mere trend-watcher; get it wrong and you look like a fool. It’s such a hassle! So I’m doing something different this year: I’m going to make predictions for 2009 now that it’s over, and reflect on just how smart I am (not) to have made them. Or something.

What I Would Have Gotten Right

I definitely could have predicted a lot of what happened in 2009. I mean, these were slam dunks!

1. Twitter rocks the world – I wasn’t early to Twitter, but I spent the early part of 2009 evangelizing its benefits to companies and co-workers alike. Considering how common Twitter is today, it’s hard to believe how roundly criticized and misunderstood it was this time last year. Yet here we are, on the verge of 2010, and Twitter has seeped onto our business cards, presentation templates, and web sites. I might not have predicted how stable (!) Twitter got by the end of the year, though.
2. Apple’s Macs and iPhones rule – I switched to the iPhone and the Mac in 2007 and 2008, respectively, but it looks like I wasn’t much of an iconoclast after all: By November, half of the Tech Field Day delegates were using MacBooks, and the Windows and Blackberry holdouts have started vocally defending their operating system choice. Pretty much like Mac folks used to do way back in 2008.
3. The recession is a serious pain – Companies put the brakes on spending and hiring, many even shifting both into reverse in 2009. This came as no surprise to humans capable of thought. The impact on enterprise IT companies was similarly predictable: Although most were able to survive, the impact of 2009 will continue to be felt for years. I might have predicted it would be worse, though I’m glad to say I would have been wrong.
4. EMC, NetApp, HDS, HP, and IBM continue to quibble – Surprise: Big company bloggers spend way too much time criticizing the products and actions of each other and way to little time talking about the true value of their own products.

Non-IT slam-dunk predictions: Obama was reviled by the right; the war in Afghanistan continues; people do stupid stuff in the name of reality shows.

What I Probably Could Have Predicted

Although some details would likely have been missed, I think I would have seen these coming.

1. Cloud compute and storage hits the enterprise – I was a believer in the cloud this time last year, and I bet my future on it by taking a position at enterprise cloud storage provider, Nirvanix, in March. I would have predicted that enterprise buyers would be putting serious thought to buying cloud products, but the scope has surprised me. We’re talking enough petabytes that the non-cloud players felt compelled to strike back with the private cloud pitch. Awesome!
2. Sun and Data Domain were acquired – My money would have been on Dell, IBM, or HP as buyers for this pair, but EMC wouldn’t have been outside my guesses. Still, Oracle buying Sun and vocally committing to keep it going, SPARC and all, would never have come to mind. But I wouldn’t have guessed against it either, so I’ll give myself a point here!
3. Cisco and EMC buddy up – I’ve long thought an outright merger of these two was in the cards, but even the recession couldn’t make the financials work. A partnership would have been on the list, and Acadia came as no surprise to anyone.
4. Cloud outages and data loss – I definitely could have predicted that high-profile cloud services would fall over throughout the year, and that some would lose data. Not all are enterprise-grade, after all. But the outages at Google, Rackspace, and Amazon, and Microsoft’s Danger data loss, surprised me. Don’t those guys have their acts together?
5. IT conferences falter – I spoke at Interop in 2009, but it lacked the 20,000-strong crowd it once had. Storage Decisions and Storage Networking World managed to fill their halls, but the old-school IT conference has lost its luster. Although VMworld remains strong, attendance was definitely off.
6. FCoE and SSD are still starting – I’ve been lukewarm on Fibre Channel over Ethernet and Solid State Drives, but I’m a bit surprised that storage vendors didn’t push them harder in 2009. I might have guessed there would have been more customer uptake to match the buzz.
7. SMB storage is hot – There’s a hole in the storage market between $1,000 and $20,000, and companies like Drobo and Iomega are rushing in to fill it. Now that ESX has solid iSCSI support, I expect a world of innovation here. (Oops, that sounds kind of like a 2010 prediction!)

Also in the predictable category: Goldman Sachs and Bank of America thrived while others fell; Ford is the strongest of the remaining US automakers; Boeing finally got the 787 off the ground.

What I Never Would Have Guessed

I’m not perfect, even in retrospect. Some of the Tech news from 2009 was just completely off the wall.

1. Microsoft Bing: This time for sure! – Seriously, Microsoft should stick to in-house thinking instead of trying to copy its rivals. Yet somehow, miraculously, Bing appeared and did not suck. In fact, I’m hearing regular (non-techie) folks around town talking about using the search engine. I’ve even used it! Could they actually have a winner?
2. Windows 7 rocks – Really? Seriously? Could Microsoft have come up with a solid replacement for Windows XP?
3. Ship it! – It’s not even 2010, and enterprise storage buyers can go out and purchase NetApp’s OnTap 8, EMC’s FAST, EMC Atmos Compute, and unicorn tears. Well, maybe not unicorn tears.
4. Still no GDrive – Seemingly every company has a cloud storage platform, from Amazon to Rackspace, Nirvanix to EMC, so why not Google? Could GDrive join Duke Nukem Forever as the most famous vaporware of the decade?
5. The executive shuffle – Dave Donatelli was supposed to lead EMC, not HP. Alan Atkinson was supposed to launch another startup, not take over Xiotech. At least NetApp was gentle.
6. Mac OS X (still) lacks iSCSI and ZFS – Come on, Cupertino, what’s wrong with you guys? I’ve been hyping ZFS for years, and iSCSI is commonplace. Yet Snow Leopard is stingy with both. Makes me want to hiss like one of those blue folks in Avatar.
7. Gestalt IT is a success – On a personal note, Gestalt IT didn’t even exist this time last year, and now we have a successful IT infrastructure blog and social media event. Amazing!

Other total shockers: Everyone loves Michael Jackson again; digital Beatles tunes are available everywhere but iTunes; Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize arrives 10 years early.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | My 2009 IT Industry Predictions
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, 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.

Western Digital is first to bring "Advanced Format" 4k-sector drives to market, but buyers should beware of installing them in old systems!

Personal computer hard disk drive access methods have repeatedly been forced to adapt to ever-expanding capacity. Physical (CHS) addressing and 28-bit LBA have been abandoned, but the disk drives themselves retain the tiny 512-byte sectors they have had since IBM introduced fixed-block addressing in the 1970′s. But time marches on, and Western Digital is leading the change to larger 4 kilobyte hard disk blocks. Although this new “Advanced Format” includes mechanisms for backwards compatibility, buyers should be wary of these new drives for the time being.

A Little History

A long, long time ago, before there were personal computers, IBM set the standard for data storage with their CKD (“count key device”) format. Variable-sized records were stored on a raw disk with gaps between them. Each included a sequence number (“count”), an optional key, and the data itself.

This flexible format proved impractical as multi-process systems evolved in the 1970′s, so IBM introduced a new format: Fixed-block architecture (FBA). FBA disk drives were divided up into equal-sized blocks and addressed by their physical location on a specific cylinder accessed by a specific head. Each cylinder/head pairing had its own series of sectors, starting at the outer edge of the physical disk platter and moving inward.

This system of addressing hard disk capacity with a triple number identifying the cylinder, head, and sector (“CHS”) continued in the PC space in the 1980′s. Since early hard disk drives were tiny by modern standards, the PC industry chose the smallest sector size specified by IBM, 512 bytes. The earliest MS-DOS/BIOS PCs were limited to just 504 MB, thanks to incompatible defaults for the CHS address space. This forced a transition, initially raising the addressable capacity to 7.8 GB.

But the writing was on the wall: CHS just didn’t make sense. Storage protocols, including ATA, were being pressed into service for devices that didn’t have cylinders or heads, and the 128 GB limit of ATA-1 wouldn’t cut it forever. So the industry transitioned again, abandoning physical references in favor of a simple logical block addressing (LBA) scheme. By the time ATA-6 was introduced in 2002, all systems used LBA, and the new 48-bit address system allowed a maximum of 128 PB of capacity per device.

Though hard disk capacity had ballooned from the megabyte to the terabyte range (a million-times increase in 30 years), the 512-byte disk sector remained, each with its own error-correcting code (ECC) and gap.

Up To Date

Processors and file systems have long since moved on from 512-byte blocks of data, with 4 kilobytes being the most common size used by the x86 CPU and NTFS, ext3/4, and HFS+ filesystems in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. With just about every storage access triggering the reading or writing of eight disk sectors, an increase in hard disk sector size to 4 KB seems obvious. Stepping up to 4K enables better ECC checksums, making disks more reliable (in theory) and freeing up capacity.

Modern operating systems, including Windows Vista, Windows 2008, Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.4-10.6, VMware ESX 3.x-4.x, and most recent versions of Linux, will have no problem with 4 KB sectors in most cases. Installing a 4K drive, like Western Digital’s new “R” line, and partitioning and formatting it fresh should present no issues for most users. In fact, these operating systems will not even “know” they are talking to any special kind of drive, since Western Digital presents its new 4 KB sectors as plain old 512 byte sectors for compatibility reasons.

What’s Your Alignment?

Other systems present a challenge, however. MS-DOS traditionally started filesystems at sector number 63, and most other PC operating systems (including old versions of Linux and VMware) followed this convention. This presented no issue at all as long as disks used 512-byte sectors: Requesting 8 sectors starting at number 63 was the same as requesting eight starting at sector 64. But things get mucked up when the disk drive uses 4 KB sectors.

See the misalignment here? A starting offset of 63 moves the filesystem cluster across the 4K sector boundary. This misalignment means that every filesystem cluster access results in two disk sector accesses. This is a Very Bad Thing, especially for to write performance. Layers upon layers of convention, standards, and compatibility have left us with a problem.

Western Digital solves this problem in one of two ways:

1. Jumper pins 7 and 8 on the drive and it will internally offset all of its logical 512-byte sectors by one
2. Correctly align all partitions written to these new drives

The jumper method, though simple, is not a great idea. If the drive was ever moved or reformatted to a system that aligns its volumes differently (as do all modern operating systems), it would be puzzlingly slow. Instead, it’s best to simply realign any filesystems written to the drives, and Western Digital is providing a utility do just that.

USB, Drobo, and TiVo, Oh My!

Most external drive enclosures will simply pass read and write requests to these new drives as they get them. This means that an external USB enclosure with an Advanced Format drive will have exactly the same issues as an internal drive if it is partitioned under Windows XP or another old operating system. Not only that, but portable drives often get moved from system to system, so an XP-formatted USB disk will have this misalignment issue even when attached to a Windows 7 machine! As these 4K drives begin hitting the market, users should be careful to note if they are correctly aligned.

But what about other disk-using devices like Drobos and TiVos? The jury is still out here. TiVo appears to use misaligned partitions, so I don’t recommend installing 4K drives in a TiVo at this point. I contacted a number of other manufacturers, most of whom are “looking into” the matter.

Data Robotics did respond, and even posted a tech note about 4K drives on their support site. Their short answer is no, that 4K drives should not be used in Drobo storage devices. However, it is unclear if they are affected or just erring on the side of caution until they can test these new hard disks. They also promise an update allowing the use of 4K drives in the future.

I would be cautious about using 4K drives in anything other than a newish PC or Mac at this point. I will continue following the situation and will post updates on my blog as news comes out.

More Info

The following articles also offer great insight into these new 4K drives:

• Western Digital: Advanced Format Technology White Paper
• StorageMojo: Why we need 4k drives
• AnandTech: Western Digital’s Advanced Format: The 4K Sector Transition Begins

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Drobo, XP Users: Beware of 4K “Advanced Format” Drives!
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, 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.

Most important: Please register to be a marrow donor, especially if you might be a match for Nick Glasgow of EMC!

Misc

• The week of May 16 will forever be known as the week Twitter lost control of their eponymous service. There were some great posts, many of which went beyond whining and offered context on why Twitter is so important, but the one that sticks in my head most was a simple statement: “Goodbye People I Never Knew“
• But it wasn’t all bad news related to Twitter. Witness this awesome idea: A Modest Proposal For More Microstructure: Twitter /Locations
• My friend Donavon was featured in Baltimore Business Journal talking about his nifty home servers, and pictured with his humidor!
• A simple pearl of MBA wisdom: Ignore sunk costs
• And if you’re using LinkedIn, here are Five Dos and Don’ts
• The best new product of May? Easily it’s Lego’s new Frank Lloyd Wright models!
• Wilco’s new album was leaked, but rather than freak out they put up a free streaming version. It’s Grrrrrrreat!

Enterprise Computing

• vSphere finally hit, and lots of in-depth information appeared. I loved learning more about vSphere Memory/CPU Hotplug, a topic I knew nothing about! Also, see my Gestalt IT post answering Will the vSphere 4 Upgrade Require Another VMFS Update?
• The Doeswijk Data Model presents a wonderful way of thinking about storage capacity and growth.
• One of my favorite Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 features is the way that VHDs are handled: Learn more in Native VHD Support in Windows 7 and Less Virtual, More Machine – Windows 7 and the magic of Boot to VHD
• New to storage? Brent Ozar (aka The Man) wrote a series on SAN Multipathing. See Part 1: What are Paths? and Part 2: What Multipathing Does
• As everyone following my Twitter or Flickr feed knows, I was in Prague last week at the Sys-Con Cloud Expo. While there, I met up with a few others, including Guy Bunker, Sam Johnston, Roman Stanek, and others. See Time for a debrief!, Review of the Reviews, and the Photo Album

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Back From The Pile: Interesting Links From Mid-May
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.