Right now is an interesting time in consumer computing, as there are a lot of new technologies evolving that add some truly important and very usable features that wide varieties of users will benefit from.
Unfortunately, some of these technologies are going to be unavailable to most Mac users for some time. Its one of the disadvantages of Mac ‘s hardware being tightly controlled and locked down by one company, and the relatively slower approach Apple takes when deciding which new technologies are important and when.
Let’s take a look at some of these technologies, why they matter, and how Mac users – especially buyers of Apple’s latest iMacs – are largely locked out of them due to the lack of desktop expansion options common with PCs. In fact, several new models of PC motherboards are already in the channel which, when combined with Windows 7, include complete support for all of them on-board
USB 3.0
The most important is USB 3.0 To date, modern hard drives have been severely bottlenecked by Firewire and USB 2.0 as convenient external drive connections. eSATA has been a help, but as many users know, eSATA (if Apple even decided to include such ports) can be fussy and its usually easier to just use USB 2.0.
USB 3.0 is about 10x faster than USB 2.0 in the real world, which really lifts the bottleneck off of common external storage. This is a big help especially for Time Machine users who allow Time Machine to back up their Mac frequently.
But there is another great benefit to USB 3.0 also – and that is the extra electrical power it supplies to devices, which makes it such a better choice for external storage over all other methods.
With USB 3.0, it is possible to connect much more power-hungry external drives without a separate power connector or y-cable. As every computer user knows, the fewer cables the better no matter whether where you are, but mobile users will especially appreciate this.
Now, if your notebook – Mac or otherwise – has an ExpressCard port, you will likely be able to add an awkward adapter to enjoy USB 3.0 down the road – but you will need an external AC adapter to supply the extra power it needs which it cannot draw from the ExpressCard slot.
The problem is, there are a lot of very popular MacBooks without an ExpressCard slot out there (mine is one – a 2008 Unibody MacBook) – and iMac users are sadly completely out of luck, as that machine has no PCI Express expansion.
SATA 3.0 6Gbps
SATA 3.0 6Gbps is less important to the average user, but will be a nice feature for power users very soon. The reason is that this month the new Micron C300 SSD will be released which will be the first – but definitely not the last – to exceed the real-world throughput of SATA II.
Since this performance boost is largely delivered by the drive controller, and not the quality of the Flash memory, it is not unlikely we will see more drives at reasonable (relatively, for SSD) prices over the next 12 months.
Again, if you have an ExpressCard slot you may be able to take advantage of this for external storage – but ironically, not for internal storage. In general, due to their price, most users (like myself) prefer to use SSDs as internal boot drives and traditional drives for external bulk storage.
And while we are on the topic of SSD’s…
High Performance Solid State Disks (SSD’s)
MacBook users are not completely locked out of the great performance advantages of the newer High-Performance Solid State Disks. I am writing this on a MacBook with an OCZ 120 GB Vertex SSD
However, unlike Windows 7, MacOS is not ‘aware’ of SSDs and treat them as a normal hard drive. This has some drawbacks.
Most important is the lack of TRIM command support in MacOS, which is supported in Windows 7. The TRIM command enables the OS and SSD to negotiate the management of drive space to avoid specific performance issues with SSDs when they start to become full.
Whats important to remember is that the performance hit from not having TRIM support will vary from drive to drive, and will reach a certain point after which it wont get any worse. I have read few anecdotes from people who have observed such a hit that they sold their SSD. I personally have never really observed it on my MacBook, but I have never come close to filling the drive either.
My Windows 7 SSD *is* nearly full, and I haven’t perceived any issue with that drives performance either.
(This is potentially relevant however since most SSD’s are 120 GB or less and are very expensive. As a result, users tend to buy as little storage as they can tolerate, and as a result will typically fill it faster than a $75 1TB Hard Drive.)
Windows 7 will also make other adjustments in how it manages an SSD which involve the disabling of features which were only designed to overcome the performance profiles of a traditional hard disk which are not present on an SSD.
For example, an SSD does not need to be defragmented (and shouldn’t be since you want to avoid unnecessary writes). Other features such as Superfetch, boot and application launch prefetching, ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive – which are designed to overcome the access time variance with hard drives – are also unnecessary.
These steps are also important to the lifetime of the SSD, since fewer writes = longer SSD lifetime. (In the real world, however, SSD cell write wear is not going to be a problem for most users – and modern SSD controllers can reduce it’s likelihood enormously with wear leveling and write amplification reduction algorithms)
Note: Intel claims that the average user writes about 2-3 GB of data to their hard drive every day, and that in order to wear out an Intel SSD, you would need to write about 100 GB day for the drive to wear out over 5 years. Extrapolating, this means it is more likely you will die before you drive suffers a write-wear failure. So, although SSD cells do in fact have a limited write capacity, its relevance is largely mythical. Compared to the reliability of a mechanical drive, its nearly hysterical.
Finally, Windows 7 will avoid the unnecessary use of unused disk space, properly align the NTFS partitions, eliminate merge operations and prioritize garbage collection (PDF of relevant PPT Presentation).
So, Windows 7 users are going to get better performance and better reliability out of SSDs compared to other OS’s. It really is entirely up to Apple to start taking similar steps.
iMac and Mac Mini users have a special problem with SSDs however, and that is that neither allows the user to (easily) replace the hard drive themselves. I certainly would not recommend any user not familiar with building their own computer crack open their Mac Mini with a Spackle knife, or attempt the challenging and delicate disassembly and thermal sensor handling required to simply change the hard drive in a 27″ iMac.
Also, there is only one drive bay in most Macs, so the preferred desktop strategy of having an SSD boot drive and an HDD mass storage drive onboard is impossible (another reason the iMac would benefit from USB 3.0 – the HDD could be external without the performance penalty).
In Conclusion
Mac users seeking to upgrade should be aware of these new technologies and decide for themselves which are important to them over the lifetime of their next Mac purchase.
Unfortunately, unlike other computer manufacturers and OS’s, Apple keeps its roadmaps under its hat, making an upgrade decision frustratingly difficult compared to PC users. Which makes it the same old game of wait-and-see.
50 responses so far ↓
1 Leopold von Ranke // Feb 17, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Uh, actually, the Youtube video shows that USB3 data throughput is max about 100 MB/sec, while USB2 reaches 40MB/sec max.
I really don’t see this as more than a gradual step up, apart from the ability to provide more power through those ports. This certainly does not translate into a “real life 10x speed improvement”, as you claim.
2 bbb // Feb 17, 2010 at 5:31 pm
laughable. Even your premise of benefit for TimeMachine is backwards. The more frequent you backup, the less bandwidth is of any benefit, as the backups are smaller the more frequently you backup.
No mention of the lack of current USB 3 devices; FW 800 standard across all FW macs; Potential of FW 1600; or even that Apple will move to USB 3 when cost and market makes sense (it certainly does not right now)
Apple originally started the move to USB as the defacto standard. It made sense for them to lead with that technology in 1998. But as for USB 3 today; Apple has much more important things to focus on.
3 steve // Feb 17, 2010 at 5:34 pm
macbook airs have an ssd option, so apple must be testing them internally for wider use. actually the mac mini would make a nice lil unit with the optical disk replaced with one to go along side it’s hdd. (the server version has 2xhdd) the imacs REALLY need usb3 though.
4 Chris (Admin) // Feb 17, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Leopold –
USB 2.0 is spec’d at 480 Mbps, USB 3.0 at 4.8 Gbps, or 10x faster. In the real world, no bus achieves its theoretical maximum, but it is likely the *relative* real-world performance is at least the same.
In the video , the USB 3.0 port was limited by the speed of the hard drive, where as the USB 2.0 test was limited by the speed of the bus.
I replaced the video with one using a 300 MB/s storage device.
Hopefully someone will create a RAID array capable of saturating the USB 3.0 bus soon
5 Jade // Feb 17, 2010 at 8:22 pm
The actual real world tests of USB3 have been about 1.5 times faster than USB2 and slower than Firewire 800. With USB you still have 40% overhead so this is NO LOSS at all for Mac user!
Try to get your facts straight before you mouth off like this articles does!
6 James Katt // Feb 17, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Of Course.
You complain about Apple’s lack of openness about future products.
But that is how Apple does business. That is how Apple gains millions in free publicity. And that is how Apple delivers products that just work – without promising vaporware like Microsoft repeatedly does. Apple only divulges what it will ship, not what someone hypothesizes it will ship.
If you want expandability to use the latest technologies, you always choose the high end Macbook Pros and the high end Mac Pro desktops. You should know that by now. Shame on you.
7 Chris (Admin) // Feb 17, 2010 at 11:12 pm
bbb – The point I make with USB 3.0 it not that Apple didn’t include it to date – as you mention, its new. Its that Apple’s habit of making computers without PCIE expansion capability makes adding it (and SATA 3.0) impossible, while its trivial and cheap on a PC – $30 retail for an add-on PCIE card that includes both ports.
I have a 3-year old PC sitting in my office that can handle external storage better than a brand new $2000 iMac by inserting a $30 add-on card. Something wrong there.
Add a $50 USB 3.0 hard drive dock and all existing SATA drives become available as full speed external storage.
It’s not like anyones waiting for USB 3.0 support for mice, printers, and scanners – USB 2.0 handles that fine. Its relevance is full speed external storage without AC power.
It was nice for Apple to put the Firewire 800 port on there – its definitely better than USB 2.0 for external storage, but still a bottleneck for SATA drives http://bit.ly/c2W6xJ
As for Firewire 1600 – what is the relevance of a 1.6 Gbps port which isn’t out yet, while 4.8 Gbps USb and 6 Gbps eSATA are already available?
It would have been nice if Apple had at least punched a hole in the iMac for the 3.0 Gbps eSATA port which is undoubtably supported on the iMac’s motherboard chipset. That would have at least made full-throughput external SATA storage on the iMac *possible*.
8 Chris (Admin) // Feb 17, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Jade – if you have links to benchmarks of 800 Mbps Firewire outperforming 4.8 Gbps USB 3.0, feel free to send a link to them and I wil be glad to add them to the post!
9 Chris (Admin) // Feb 17, 2010 at 11:32 pm
James,
Of course that is how Apple does business, and how they get publicity.
It is not in any way, however, helpful to users who need to make an upgrade decision.
Also, paying $2000+ for workstation-class hardware like the Mac Pro should never be a requirement to get the expandability of a $299 eMachine from WalMart.
10 germ // Feb 17, 2010 at 11:50 pm
What an idiotic article. Laptops without express card slot cannot be upgraded to USB3 or eSATA. How’s that a mac problem?
SSD drives function just fine with Mac OS X. I prefer to use OS X, which does not support TRIM, than to use Windoze 7, even if it supports TRIM.
11 Chris (Admin) // Feb 18, 2010 at 12:05 am
germ –
Its a Mac problem because Apple only allows owners of its most expensive laptop (the 17″ MacBook Pro) and desktop (Mac Pro) to have expansion slots, while its an everyday feature on notebook and dekstop PCs at virtually every price point.
As I mentioned in the article, I also prefer MacOS with an SSD and that my SSD runs fine.
However, unlike a lot of Mac users, I call them out rather then defend them on choices which unnecessarily limit their users and/or force them to tier up to more expensive ‘Pro’ models to obtain the same features common on PC hardware.
12 Skipper Queen // Feb 18, 2010 at 10:22 am
IMHO, Apple’s tight control translates into an OS that just works. My pc’s normally don’t do that and require months of patches and poor performance for them to get it right. I think Apple is smart to wait until the kinks are worked out and the OS interface is reliable rather than early adopt technologies that don’t translate into a topnotch user experience.
13 Chris (Admin) // Feb 18, 2010 at 11:04 am
Skipper –
So, Mac Pro’s and 17″ MacBook Pro’s are inferior Macs because they include PCI-Express and ExpressCard expansion slots?
14 bbb // Feb 18, 2010 at 6:59 pm
So, PC Junkware is superior to Macs because they include PCI-Express and ExpressCard expansion slots?
Nobody buying the Mac units you refer to care about these features. Apple does very, very well with it’s product lineups in the various markets it serves.
Meh. doesn’t matter. This bit really says it all:
“Unfortunately, some of these technologies are going to be unavailable to most Mac users for some time. Its one of the disadvantages of Mac ’s hardware being tightly controlled and locked down by one company, and the relatively slower approach Apple takes when deciding which new technologies are important and when.”
Pure click bait.
You won. Congrats.
15 Chris (Admin) // Feb 18, 2010 at 10:59 pm
> You won. Congrats
The idea that you think there needs to be a winner and a loser or that I think ‘PCs are better than Macs’ is the same reason you saw my article as link bait.
In my article’s conclusion:
“Mac users seeking to upgrade should be aware of these new technologies and decide for themselves which are important to them over the lifetime of their next Mac purchase.”
That’s where I let readers know it was perfectly OK to not care about these technologies or restrictions and to go about their life happily with their Mac.
The question is why its so frustrating to you that another Mac user should find full speed external storage nice to have on their system if it isn’t important to you personally.
16 Mike // Feb 22, 2010 at 8:35 pm
I agree with your article and as a mac user myself, found it an even-handed evaluation of the situation, despite some of the knee-jerk reactions in the comment section.
Apple limits its hardware choices and obviously feels that the tradeoffs are worth it. The benefits are that it reduces costs and complexity in their supply chain, and that it keeps the operating system / drivers simpler with fewer devices to support. On the other hand, people interested in the leading edge technologies you describe will have to do without or be willing to wait.
I think Apple is more concerned with the overall system experience (as a general rule) than with providing up-to-the-minute hardware. It seems to be working for them, and ultimately the customer will vote with their wallets whether or not the approach satisfies them.
Of course there are a few exceptions to the rule that apple doesn’t pursue the cutting edge — they are very interested in LightPeak, for example, and I’m curious to see if they (and Intel) are successful in introducing it in the market later this year. If so, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if apple skips usb 3.0 altogether…
17 The enlightened one // Mar 9, 2010 at 5:43 am
As a user of both Windows 7 and Mac OSX I have to say that the comfort of using a machine that allows me the flexibility to upgrade components is great. I
am talking about Windows 7, the better OS. All you Mac users are the same and are making me question if I should go back to OSX, I
am beginning to think it makes it’s users more retarded.
18 KevinE2W // Mar 10, 2010 at 7:56 pm
First off, thanks for the information about USB 3 with regard to Macs. I was a little frustrated to see that it’s so slow in coming to the Mac. In reading some of the replies… wow, I’m ashamed to confess I used to be that way about all things Apple. It’s like being raised a holy roller only to be enlightened by somebody and then looking back and realizing how much of a close-minded tool you actually were. I saw no “link baiting” in your article. Those of us who use Macs both at home and especially professionally get frustrated by how much Apple hogties us sometimes with expansion options and new technology upgrades.
I use the Mac OS because I prefer the Mac OS and understand its computing “ecosystem” tends to be better because of the tight control and integration of the software and hardware. And yet, it’s almost more incumbent upon Apple to ensure they are on the leading edge with what is available BECAUSE our options are restricted exclusively to their hardware. There have been no ESATA ports on any of their products, there is no mention of USB 3.0 anywhere on the horizon and those of us who (professionally) require high speed throughput are almost forced to look at non-Apple alternatives because of it, when we certainly prefer not to.
Anyhow, thanks for a fair and well-rounded summary of what is available and what may be a long ways away for us Mac users. I’m just a little disappointed to see the Mac platform will be lagging behind for a while on a USB 3 solution.
19 Dewey // Apr 15, 2010 at 3:04 pm
LOL. Listen to all these mac user bitch about this article. You all need to shut the hell up. This article is SPOT ON. You don’t have USB3 and SATA6 because apple is cheap. End of story.
20 Olly Newport // Apr 15, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Your article does raise a fair and balanced point about users thinking about their next Mac purchase.
Right now, for the first time I’ve decided to even think about investing in a MacBook Pro, but as you mentioned Apple has cornered users into buying ‘pro’ features that would otherwise be included in far, far cheaper Windows based laptops.
I want to have USB 3.0, or at least eSata (which I could buy a ExpressCard for), but 17 inches, £250 on top, and a pound of extra weight seems like overkill.
I suppose if you keep waiting you’ll never end up buying a new computer, as Moore’s law states. So you might as well jump into the deep end now and hope for the best that whatever Apple item you’ve bought will remain current for the next year.
…we all know this won’t happen though because USB 3 will very likely be starting to pick up around the middle to end of 2010.
21 Chris (Admin) // Apr 15, 2010 at 6:34 pm
I don’t even want to discuss the MacBook Pro launch yesterday – it was a perfect example of Apple not giving users what they need, but what Apple wanted to sell them.
Switchable graphics – that’s great, but you know what? Its expensive and most Mac users have no use for it.
I just wanted a $1299 MacBook Pro with a Core i5 chip and a couple more USB ports, one 3.0 port at least – a 7200 RPM hard drive would be a treat.
Pipe dream. For that money you still get a 4.5 lb Core 2 Duo with 2 USB ports and 5400 RPM drive- ??!?!?!
Fujitsu S760 has all that and HDMI and Expresscard for the same price – oh and weighs a pound less.
WHY cant I run MacOS on it?!
22 Don J. Thorpe // Apr 27, 2010 at 1:27 am
These PC vs Mac debates are simply so STUPID it’s silly! How Mac users are aware that there Macs are simply PCs running UNIX? Based on BSD with a pretty interface?
You might want to open up your mac and look what is actually inside! You might be surprised to see what you will find… :
An intel procssor
A video chipset ATI/NVIDIA
An audio chipset, etc,,,
Hmmm….. Sounds like PC hardware to me!
So what is the difference? There is NONE!
I agree alot of what is written in this article. PCs are always more upgradeable than a Mac! That’s why there’s the popular “Hackintosh” movement…
People don’t want to be locked down and not be able to make changes at will. Course this type of scenario could be simple avoided by Apple if they would simply release OSX made for PCs…
23 Latest external storage device news – QNAP NAS Community Forum • View topic – TimeMachine on External … // Apr 29, 2010 at 11:23 pm
[...] Apple Mac Users Locked Out of USB 3.0, SATA 3.0 6Gbps, and SSD … [...]
24 Aleksey // May 9, 2010 at 11:48 pm
100% agree with this article. I’m not an apple fanboy by any means and have used macs and pcs for life. I use both for development and I completely agree with everything you are saying. I really want to make the Mac pro my primary computer, but lack of specs is forcing me to look elsewhere.
That said, there is just something about Mac that is making me keep my Mac pro and ssds and taking the extra step to try to make it all work. I haven’t figured out if it’s the aesthetics of Mac or the marketing or whatever it is. Just sitting behind a Mac “feels” better, more productive. Maybe it is a cult and I’m blindly investing in it. Or maybe Dell and other manufacturers need to step it up a bit and make something that is comparable to Mac not just by specs but by looks and feelings.
Weird I know, 100% technical yet I care how a computer feels.
25 Dave // Jul 30, 2010 at 4:08 pm
I wouldn’t try and take on Mac users, Chris! If they spend $5000 on a PC that runs OS X, they’ll defend it until the bitter end.
I have Macs, I have PCs and I have Hackinstoshes. In reality, I just have a bunch of PCs… because that’s what they all are. My Hackinstosh is fascinating… I get the same benchmark scores out of hardware that cost a fifth less.
You’re completely right though Chris, if you want to be on the bleeding edge of computing, then a Mac isn’t for you. If you want to squeeze the most out of your hardware, a Mac isn’t for you. If you run performance-critical applications, a Mac *definitely* isn’t for you. If you want something that just works out of the box, and you have the cash… a Mac is for you.
There you go, that’s an ad right there!
Right, I’ll put on my flame-retardant suit. If I spent that money on… well… anything, I’d defend it too!
26 Chris (Admin) // Jul 30, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Yeah, that’s the thing, I *am* a Mac user.
Thing is, if we just had users more aware of the price gouging at Apple, we would eventually get some movement out of them.
This year has been really interesting, because you are starting to see people come down hard on Apple for some of the things they do – like delaying refreshes on MacBooks and PowerMacs way too long (and not dropping price since the day they were launched!), locking people into AT&T for four years, the antenna issue, and Job’s attitude towards customers and other companies.
Its good to see.
Apple will be around a long time I hope, but it needs more constructive criticism from its userbase in order to start implementing more customer-friendly pricing and policies. We are definitely seeing this now, as well as reaction to competition from Google with its Android platform. Thank god for Google!
27 Nomoremac // Aug 7, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Just admit it fanboys, Mac is dead. the core business of apple is Iphone already. Mac didn’t prove anything for the last couple of decades in the computer business.
only stupid girls and gays are all they can be fooled, people that doesn’t want to think and relies on what steve jobs can offer.
28 Aldrahn // Aug 14, 2010 at 2:53 am
I’ve used Macs and PCs for years on separated machines and now I use both, on the same machines (MacBook and an assembled PC – hackintoshed and windowsed).
Apple machines have been always pretty expensive so in terms of the prices PCs win hands down AND THE AUTHOR IS DAMNED RIGHT, BUT it will be unfair to Apple not to mention its legendary stability (hardware AND OS) since Motorola Power PC times. Yes I know Macs nowadays are PCs, but curiously they seem to be much more reliable than, say HP or Dell (experience is talking!).
29 Fusioncat // Aug 23, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Dear all. I hope Apple can implement eSATAp (eSATA/USB). Why?
1. eSATA or eSATAp is basically an externalised extention of SATA.
Do you know you can even implement eSATAp on a machine with just a bracket from Delock? ZERO driver, no need BIOS AHCI or registry tweak.
2. I have a few eSATA gadgets unbranded that are unstable. My Delock (Germany) eSATAp gadgets works like a charm.
3. eSATAp is backward compatible with USB
4. eSATAp on a desktop can single power a 3.5″ HDD or 5.25″ optical drive.
30 matthew // Aug 24, 2010 at 1:33 pm
As a “Hackintosh” user, I have the best of both worlds! I run Mac OSX on PC hardware. At the moment, I am able to use SATA3 6Gbps. Although I have USB3 ports, I doubt that they are able to run at their maximum due to unavailability of OSX drivers — I believe a linux to OSX port is in the works though.
31 Latest external storage devices news – Active Media Products serves up Aviator-2 external USB 3.0 SSD … // Aug 26, 2010 at 4:58 am
[...] Apple Mac Users Locked Out of USB 3.0, SATA 3.0 6Gbps, and SSD … [...]
32 Jason // Sep 7, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Well I landed here because I was looking for a new external FW800 drive and saw the USB 3.0 drive from LaCie, and I previously looked at eSata to remove the interface bottleneck. Yes I’m disappointed it’s not practical to use either of these on my Macbook Pro (thanks for pointing out the downfalls).
So although some of the criticisms here are not necessarily unfounded, I am ok with my FW800 drives for now. I am still about 2x ahead of USB 2 (which are the overwhelming majority of external hard drives sold today).
Whatever your bias I still think Apple has made some pretty good engineering and design decisions. Part of that is economy of interfaces. Yes they don’t add every interface under the sun, and that is part of their design history.
I’m sure they’re considering the next step from FW800, but I actually like that they haven’t just jumped straight in. It indicates to me that it could be an engineering decision, and I prefer a company that makes well considered engineering decisions rather than one that just slaps in USB 3 to say we have the latest and greatest, but compromise on build quality.
Comparing PCs with PCI Express slots and saying iMac has none is comparing apples with oranges (or lemons), so to speak. None of the PCs that have copied iMac design (ie all-in-one from Sony etc.) have PCI Express expansion. The PCs that do have PCI Express require a big ugly box under, or on top of your desk with cables to monitor and power, and those, unlike an iMac, are not likely to have built in (high quality) mic and camera (I know our work computers don’t and now they want video conferencing!).
For expandability, the Mac Pro has 4 PCI Express 2.0 slots, and you can add four drives to it. Granted that beast is expensive, but it has expandability.
33 Chris (Admin) // Sep 7, 2010 at 8:17 pm
FireWire 800 is not twice as fast as USB 2.0 for external storage,, not even close.
34 Ken // Sep 10, 2010 at 11:10 am
We don’t have eSATA on Macs because it is a one-trick pony. Apple doesn’t like a lot of connectors. We don’t have USB 3 because it isn’t quite here yet. We might never have either of them. Lightpeak is coming, and it would connect to everything: external drives, keyboards, and even monitors. One connector for everything, much faster than anything we have now.
I think Apple is waiting for Lightpeak.
Meanwhile, if you like to play cards, you can get a MacPro or put an Expresscard in a MacBook Pro. iMacs are not meant for users who like to diddle with their computer’s innards.
35 Ken // Sep 10, 2010 at 11:13 am
Chris: Firewire is a peer-to-peer protocol with much less overhead than USB’s master-slave protocol. USB was originally designed for keyboards and mice; Firewire was originally designed for data transfer. I had a race between a USB 2 drive and a Firewire 800 drive. The USB drive took 24 hours to store data that the Firewire drive took in less than half that time.
You are right, Firewire 800 is not twice as fast as USB 2. It’s four times as fast.
36 Chris (Admin) // Sep 10, 2010 at 11:35 am
Ken,
Here is a controlled benchmark:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9973894-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave
In real-world external drive usage, FW 800 falls far short of its theoretical maximums.
Chris
37 Chris (Admin) // Sep 10, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Ken,
Apple is not ‘waiting’ for Lightpeak – Apple is milking Firewire royalties by not including faster ports such as eSATA and USB 3.0.
38 azul120 // Sep 18, 2010 at 10:15 pm
And the Mac Pro is aimed squarely at the professional market. Have you looked at the prices for the upgrade options?
39 User // Oct 5, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Chris, who told you you can’t upgrade mac pro through PCIE????? You have wide selection of upgrades including PCIe usb 3.0…
40 Chris (Admin) // Oct 6, 2010 at 8:53 am
‘User’
Um, no one. However, USB 3.0 is not supported by MacOS, so existing USB 3.0 PCIe cards will not work unless they ship with a proprietary Mac driver from the manufacturer.
AFAIK, the only card which does is the brand new Caldigit, but you also have to buy the 1TB drive with it, for a price which is 70% higher than a Western Digital MyBook USB 3.0 1TB drive + card.
41 Chris (Admin) // Oct 6, 2010 at 9:00 am
User – Also my point is that for the price users pay for Macs, consumer models should have USB 3.0 already.
It’s fully backwards compatible with USB 2.0, provides enough inline power to run desktop drives without an extra power brick, and has more throughput headroom than any existing single SSD on the market.
Apple only delays stuff like this to tier people up to Mac Pros and keep their royalties on Firewire products. It is of no advantage to their customers.
42 Wishlist for Apple… « Peter's Box o' Soap // Oct 9, 2010 at 8:59 am
[...] 9/oct: Mac users don’t have… USB 3.0… proper SSD support (that TRIM again), SATA 6Gbps. Catch up, Apple, give your [...]
43 Brett // Nov 20, 2010 at 9:10 pm
I think it has to be hurting Apple sales. I might have replaced my Mac Pro and my MacBook Pro this year if it had USB 3. However, buying the existing stock of Macs could require me to replace them within 2-3 years because having USB 3 might become a necessity. To whomever says Mac Pros have 4 PCI Express slots, bullpucky. Unless you don’t plan to use monitors, you have 3 PCI Express slots. Mine are all filled. No room for another card. Bottom line, I’ll wait for the next generation.
44 Nikos Kanellopoulos // Jan 15, 2011 at 6:51 am
The reason I did not buy an iMac was exactly the issues you mention: lack of expandability. But to be fair, you know this from the start. Nobody lied to you.
This is also the reason I will never replace my 2008 pre-unibody 15″ macbook pro: It has express-card and dvi. It is a shame Apple eliminated the express card in the later models, in favor of memory stick reader you can get for $10…
However, for 2.5 years I enjoy WRITE speeds of 55 MB/sec (!) with my FW800 Western Digital Passport Studio external disk. I also added 4 eSATA ports to my MacPro with my PCI RAID controller and I feel king.
You just have to be careful before buying…
45 Chris (Admin) // Jan 17, 2011 at 10:31 am
I knew what I was buying, and it was absolutely a compromise, I just like hanging a lantern on stuff Apple does to force tiering customers up to hardware they don’t otherwise need or can afford.
46 21 // Feb 26, 2011 at 10:07 pm
USB 3 isn’t even widely available as people like to think. Sure there’s many devices on the market that support the new standard, but many motherboards that support it are using a NEC chip for usb 3 support as Intel do not officially support usb 3 as of yet.. Sata 3 support is also provided by third- party controllers. Besides, Apple have released a new port on their latest refresh of the mac book pro called Thunderbolt, made in collaboration with intel. This new standard has a theoretical bandwidth speed of 10 Gb/s and is said to be compatible with devices of other interfaces e.g. Usb 3, Firewire. All the user has to do is simply attach a adapter (eg. usb 3 to thunderbolt) to the device.
This new thunderbolt standard even supports the through-put of video as it also conforms to the pretty recent displayport standard.
47 Chris (Admin) // Feb 27, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Today Thunderbolt is nothing more than a mini-displayport that also works with a single expensive RAID array.
There are claims about what it will support in the future, but none of dongles, adapters, or hubs required to do even something as simple as attach an external hard drive dock are not available, nor do we know when they will be or how much they will cost.
48 Tommy Hollister // Mar 29, 2011 at 9:19 am
HOLD ON ITS GONNA BE A FAST I/O RIDE. Audio, Video, Dolby Pro Logic IIz 7.1 surround sound, Madi, AES/EBU, HDMI (multi ), and all the Raids and Rave’s and most probably USB 3.0 adapters driven buy Audio Video Avatar art making Mac nuts. No PCI-E cards for you dudes still waiting for USB 3.0 peripherals on your PC’s driven by video gamers, Quicken users, Word typers, but I guess you can still Open DOS applications full-screen under Windows 7 .
49 Tim // May 11, 2011 at 10:38 am
Thunderbolt is Apple’s solution instead of USB 3.0, and I think it is the right move. I think it answers the question you raise in your article about why Apple is not going with USB 3.0 and shows they were thinking ahead and making a logical choice, which is usually the case.
Also, they do offer a box that allows for any type of expansion you need, but most users don’t want or need that flexibility, and would never add an expansion card to their computer, even if it had a slot. Most users want the space saving of having the device smaller, without the extra slots.
You might want to pull down your article now, as it is looking a little silly.
50 Chris (Admin) // May 11, 2011 at 11:32 am
This may come as a surprise but blogs don’t typically ‘pull down’ archived articles from the past as future events change – that’s why they have a date
Thunderbolt doesnt even have device availability yet and I’ve had the 2011 MacBook Pro for 2 months – I cant do anything with that port I couldn’t do with my 2008 MacBook.
I have no problem with the Thunderbolt port, I do have a problem with not having USB 3.0 – its 100% backwards-compatible and there are a bunch of cheap devices (my most coveted is my USB 3.0 thumbdrive) that already work with it. There is no reason for Apple to not conver the existing 2.0 ports to 3.0 t except to push sales of exclusive TB devices and cables in their retail and online store, just like they did with $80-$120 displayport cables when they first came out on MacBook.
SCSI and PCI-X are other examples of interfaces which had higher performance than their PATA and PCI counterparts, but were relegated to the server market as consumers had no need to be spending the extra money on that advanced hardware as they would never realize much benefit that in desktop/notebook usage – TB is the same, I suspect for 95% of macbook users having cheap USB 3.0 devices @ 5Gbps which dont require a dongle rather than a 10Gbps port which does and will be more expensive is just common sense.
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