USB 3.0 At 5Gbit/Second Versus Intel’s Thunderbolt at Dual 10Gbit/Second Full Duplex Channels

USB 3.0 has been a much anticipated update to the USB spec since we have all felt the I/O bandwidth pinch that the USB 2.0 bus provided (~30-35MB/Second).

USB 3.0

So far, our experiences with the USB 3.0 implementation both on Intel’s motherboards via the Renesas USB 3.0 chipset and on add-in cards using the same or other USB 3.0 chip has been spotty at best. The new spec is definitely showing its immaturity at this time.

However, that 90MB/Second backup speed for ShadowProtect or the 110MB/Second copy speeds to a USB 3.0 connected hard drive (that copy speed is the sustained data throughput limit a 7200 RPM SATA drive has on average) is a real benefit to us here.

Thunderbolt

Enter in Intel’s “new” specification called Thunderbolt.

• Intel: Thunderbolt Technology Page
• 

Thunderbolt is a dual channel fully duplexed 10Gbit/Second I/O specification with a connection that is shared with DisplayPort.

• Apple: Thunderbolt Technology

From the Apple page linked above:

We came across Thunderbolt not because of our Mac involvement, which is currently minimal due to client server based needs, but because we had signed into the Promise Partner site and saw this:

• Promise Pegasus RAID Storage with Thunderbolt

So, we highlighted Thunderbolt Technology and ran a Bing Search out of IE:

• Bing Search Results for Thunderbolt Technology

Among the results was the following article:

• Engadget: Apple and Intel unveil Thunderbolt I/O technology

Thunderbolt was originally “Light Peak” which is tagged in the above Engadget article:

• Engadget: Light Peak Tagged Articles

A good portion of the above tagged articles have come in the last six months!

Some Thoughts on Thunderbolt

With USB 3.0 being relatively new to the I/O technology scene and now with Thunderbolt going live on Apple products we have what looks to be an I/O technology competition/war brewing . . . maybe.

The following snip is from Apple’s site showing the back of their current line of iMacs (as of this writing):

Note the distinct lack of a USB 3.0 port on the back of the iMac. :(

Back when we did start to see FireWire showing up on most PC motherboards after the technology was introduced on Apple platforms. However it was not adopted too widely by peripheral manufacturers beyond video camera manufacturers and a few external storage manufacturers.

One of the benefits to Thunderbolt is its use of an existing DisplayPort connector. Many Intel motherboards are already shipping with at least one of these ports on board so hopefully enabling Thunderbolt Technology on those ports would not be too much trouble.

However, the lack of a USB 3.0 port on an Apple forces manufacturers to configure their connectivity type devices with at least two ports to accommodate the two specifications . . . or run with one or the other as in the case of the Promise Pegasus that is Thunderbolt only.

Having to configure two separate connectivity technologies on any direct attached device can be quite expensive both in R&D and manufacturing.

Conclusion

Hopefully we are not on the brink of another form of technology competition much like VHS versus Beta or Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD.

FireWire had its place back when we had very limited I/O connectivity solutions.

But today, with USB 3.0 providing more than enough bandwidth to run a 7200 RPM SATA drive at its full sustained transfer rate we would be hard pressed to look to Thunderbolt as a “better” option.

We see a niche for direct attached storage devices like the Pegasus and others.

However, for most folks that are keen on streaming video, storing video, streaming music, and storing music there are a plethora of Open Source and Windows Home Server based solutions that provide ample storage _and_ are Mac compatible.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

LaCie d2 Quadra 1 TB PC to Mac Fail

We performed a data recovery operation on an older PC that was successful. We were eventually able to create a ShadowProtect image of the original drive.

The customer brought in a LaCie d2 Quadra 1 TB USB hard disk for us to copy the recovered data onto. Once they dropped off the USB drive we set up a partition on it and copied the data over to the drive.

Our customer decided to purchase an iMac to replace the ageing PC that we had here in the shop.

Once we had the data copied onto the LaCie drive we got it back to them.

This was about a week ago.

Since then we have been in almost constant contact as the LaCie absolutely refused to show the partition we created on their iMac. When the drive was plugged into the iMac the LaCie Setup Assistant would pop up and ask them to format the LaCie drive.

We had them bring the d2 Quadra back to the shop and sure enough when we plugged the drive into any of our Windows machines the partition with the recovered data would show up.

So, we plugged the LaCie drive into our own MacBook Pro and up popped the LaCie Setup Assistant. We tried to close that, find the partition in Finder, and to see if the Mac’s disk management utility would see it which all failed.

There seems to be some sort of firmware/software intercept built into the LaCie drive that hides any existing partitions on the drive from any Mac based system even though those partitions show up just fine on a Windows machine.

We burned about half an hour trying to see if there were any other options to gain access to the partitions without having to run that Setup Assistant utility which would probably flatten the drive. There were none that we could see.

So, now we are copying the customer’s recovered data to one of our 2.5” USB drives formatted FAT32 and will loan it to them so that they can get their data onto the Mac.

The LaCie Setup Assistant needs to be tweaked to check for any existing partitions if plugged into a Mac for the first time and allow access to those partitions. We will not be recommending this product to anyone from now on.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

iMac - In-Place Leopard to Snow Leopard Post Upgrade Printer Choke

We received a call from one of our clients that runs 100% Mac systems on their network.

Apparently, they could not connect to the Internet, send e-mail, or print. Thinking that perhaps there was a problem within the Leopard OS X itself, they did an in-place upgrade to Snow Leopard.

Well, that did not fix the problem. So we received a call.

When we got there, there was no DNS resolution, no ability for the iMac to get anywhere even on the internal peer-to-peer network.

After poking around in the Network Settings, the network adapter was set to pull the iMac's IP address via DHCP and seemed to release and renew without a problem.

At first glance, the DNS field was not empty and the IP address that was in there did not register. It took a minute for the realization to hit: They had the IP address of their own iMac set as the DNS server!

No wonder there was nothing coming in. As soon as we deleted the iMac's IP address and released and renewed the IP the network's own DNS servers showed up and we had connectivity.

The e-mail issue turned out to be some in correct settings in their Mac Mail program while the Ricoh Aficio MP C2050 was another problem altogether.

Out of all of the troubleshooting time spent there, most of it was spent on getting the iMac to reconnect to the copier.

Knowing how an in-place upgrade can kill any already existing drivers we downloaded the newest printer driver set from Ricoh's Web site and installed it. We deleted the two Ricoh printers in the iMac's Printers and reinstalled using the copier's IP address and the correct LPR queues.

Still no joy though.

In the end, we needed to perform essentially what is a ground level reset of the entire printing subsystem in OS X.

This is the Apple KB article that we needed in order to fix the problem:

• Apple Knowledgebase HT1341: Mac OS X: About the Reset Printing System feature.

It is important to note that we were unable to fix the problem by clicking on the "-" sign to remove the printers. We needed to perform the drastic measure in the KB:

Resetting the printing system in Mac OS X 10.5.x

To use the Reset Printing System feature in Mac OS X 10.5.x, follow these steps:

1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
2. Choose Print & Fax from the View menu.
3. Control-click on list of printers on the left side of the window, then choose "Reset printing system" from the contextual menu.
• If you don't see a list of printers, Control-click on the text "Click + to add a printer or fax" and select "Reset printing system..."

Once we reset the printing system we were able to install the copier via LPR using its two queues, one for black and white and the other for colour printing.

Written using MarsEdit on the MacBook Pro. This blog post editor looks promising as I know enough HTML to be dangerous. We shall see if it can upload images to Blogger's Picasa Web Albums to clinch the deal.

Philip Elder

MPECS Inc.

Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

HP TouchSmart PC Beside an iMac 20”

Wow … the HP TouchSmart PC is an amazing machine.

In a way, we are talking about comparing Apples with Oranges, pun intended, but the TouchSmart sure open’s one’s eyes as to how the Apple iMac product has challenged the PC industry and brought about some pretty neat innovations.

To be fair, the iMac in the photo is a 20” version that is in our shop because it BSODs on boot and won’t Safe Boot either. We will be working on it on Monday.

The HP is an iQ816 Core 2 Duo with a 26” LCD display and is on the bench because we are going to create the HP recovery DVDs then flatten the system and install Windows 7 Ultimate RTM to test out the OS on this particular hardware setup.

Our initial impressions of the HP TouchSmart PC are very positive. This is a really neat machine and we can see some pretty lucrative market directions for them.

The product Web site:

• HP TouchSmart Home Desktop PCs (Canada)
• HP TouchSmart Business PCs (Canada) (soon to be released)

The business version of this particular product line will do very well for situations where desk space is at a minimum or there is the possibility of wall mounting the unit among others.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

OS X: Mac Mail POP Stops Working

We had a call to look into why the built-in OS X mail client was no longer pulling e-mail into the inbox.

The 24” iMac was running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) with most of the recent updates.

The e-mail stopped flowing on July 9 at 16:45hrs (4:45PM).

Click on the gear near the bottom left corner of Mac Mail and then click on Get Account Info and the window that came up would connect to the POP3 server and list all e-mail on the server including any new e-mail not being retrieved.

Because the Account Info dialogue allowed us to connect and view content on the POP3 server, we knew that we were not dealing with an authentication or improper credentials problem.

A search for a solution to the problem took a few different keyword iterations before anything reasonably close came up:

• Tech-Recipes: OS X Mail: POP Suddenly Quits Working

Now, the above link deals with an e-mail that is malformed with a 0KB size that causes the stall.

In our case, the e-mail that was next in line, when sorted by date, had a 35KB size and was a broadcast self-addressed e-mail with a number of BCC addresses in it.

Somehow, that e-mail was causing the hang-up because as soon as it was deleted using the Remove From Server button in the Account Info window the user’s e-mail started to flow.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Finding the weak spots … our office was broken into

Apparently the lock on the front door was not a very good one. The folks that broke in used a pair of Vice-Grips to literally twist off the lock cylinder.

We were fortunate that everything in the front office area, which is quite small area wise, was relatively safe from a dine and dash like this.

They did, however, make off with the old iMac! But, they somehow forgot the keyboard and mouse as well as the second 19” wide LCD monitor that was sitting beside it. There is some justice in that! ;)

The R.C.M.P. officer in charge of the investigation said that our alarm, which is really really loud, probably scared them off.

Anyone see the irony (yesterday’s post) in this? ;)

We were very fortunate as the situation could have been a lot worse.

Our shop area is the largest part of our space here, and it is protected by heavy gauge doors along with pinned hinges and a pair of strategically placed deadbolts on each door. The server room is protected even further. So, they did not manage to get into the back or even see what was going on back there.

A valuable lesson has been learned here for us. We need to make sure the lock smith that will be here this afternoon is going to install a very good lock that cannot be defeated by a pair of vice-grips.

While no lock is perfect, just search out “bump keying”, having a lock that will prevent some of the easier methods for getting into our shop is a good start.

We will also look into some security film for the glass on that door too. It does not hurt to have another layer of security.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac!

MPECS Inc. Category Win in Intel's Your Desktop Innovation Contest

Intel held a challenge for Intel Partners: Desktop Innovation Showdown.

We received notice near the beginning of the month that both of our submissions had reached the semi-final round. Neat.

Our submissions were in the Extreme Gaming Desktop category and the Business Desktop based on Intel vPro Technology category.

We just received an e-mail indicating that one of our submissions has won. Though, at the moment we are not too sure which category yet as the details have not been released yet.

The suspicion here is we won in the Business Desktop category!

For our entries entering the semi-final round we won an Intel DG45ID Desktop Board and an Intel Q9550 Core 2 Quad processor.

For actually winning one of the categories, we won a 32GB iPOD Touch. Neat! We will also get honourable mention in RAM Magazine and Tech Insight magazine!

Have a boo at the videos and let us know what you think! They were put together on our iMac in the shop and there was a bit of a struggle trying to get any transitions to happen ... but they still turned out alright.

We had fun putting them together and they will give you a good view of our existing Extreme System we have had for a while now and our standard Corporate Platform based on Intel vPro Technologies.

Intel's vPro is a designation for the "Q" series Desktop Boards that support Active Management Technology. This is an Out of Band management capability that only the "Q" series boards have. We love it. It makes our lives a lot easier when it comes to remotely managing our client's systems and now laptops too!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

iMac Safari troubles and Office 2008 for Mac

Our iMac has been sitting here in the office relatively unused for the last while due to high demands on the Windows side.

It has our HP 5590 ScanJet connected to it since the HP driver setup on Vista, our office is essentially 100% Vista now, is rather flaky. We cannot get documents scanned with relative ease into PDFs anymore on the PC.

The iMac doesn't make it any easier, as the HP Scan to PDF always wants to OCR the input. That doesn't work so well for all of the handwritten notes we like to digitize for archival and wiki purposes.

So, we use the Scan to Print HP feature to Save as PDF in the iMac's print dialogue! ;) A bit of a funky way to get around the problems we are having, but it works.

We have since installed Office 2008 for Mac on the machine and began to work our way through the new product.

However, we cannot for whatever reason get Safari to work on any secure sites or to log into Blogger and get the Blogger editor up and running. This we are not able to do any blogging via the iMac at this point.

Suffice it to say that Office for Mac 2008 is a really neat update to the Office for Mac product.

When our priority bench catch-up projects get done here over the next week or so, we will format and install Leopard on the iMac and run through the setup on our SBS 2K3 network, install and configure Office 2008 for Mac, and then blow it away to start fresh connecting it to our Beta 2 of SBS 2008.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.