I am pleased to note that CoreStorage, the volume manager in Mac OS X Lion, is much more functional than I had guessed, including a number of undocumented but seemingly functional commands for on-the-fly resizing of logical volumes as well as manipulation of physical volumes.
Apple
Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)
Mac OS X was majorly deficient in that it lacked a volume manager. This wouldn’t seem like a big deal to the average user, but held back the operating system in so many ways. A volume manager brings storage virtualization to an operating system, allowing storage capacity efficiently to be managed and manipulated. But all this has changed in Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion†with CoreStorage.
Which Apple Devices Support 802.11n Wi-Fi?
It is nice to see Apple out in front with a technology like 802.11n, considering their reluctance to support Blu-Ray and USB 3.0. Although expensive, the AirPort Extreme and 2011 MacBook Pro and iMac sport top-of-the-line specs and high performance Wi-Fi. But the lack of 5 GHz support across the board means many users will stick to the crowded 2.4 GHz spectrum, limiting performance.
What Is Paired Storage?
Paired storage is a growing trend in the laptop computer market, with many high-end machines sporting both a SSD and hard disk drive. But it remains a game for the rich, adding many hundreds of dollars to the cost of a computer, and manually placing data is inefficient. It will be interesting to see if future operating systems bring better support for paired storage, and if it will reach into the server world.
Implications of the 2011 MacBook Air’s Unconventional SSD
As techies moan about the lack of upgrade options presented by a soldered in SSD, they miss the bigger industry picture. For too long, computers have been held back by traditional SCSI and ATA controllers. These are both a performance bottleneck and an impediment to innovation. A shift to an integrated PCI storage model makes much sense tactically and strategically for Apple, and I expect that these rumors are true. Furthermore, this move will put even more stress on Windows PC makers. Once again, Apple is outmaneuvering the competition.
