Re: USB Spec upped for power delivery to 100W

On 8/30/11 5:04 AM, -hh wrote:
On Aug 30, 4:04 am, Steve de Mena<st...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 8/29/11 3:52 AM, -hh wrote:
On Aug 29, 3:28 am, Steve de Mena<st...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 8/28/11 2:08 PM, -hh wrote:
On Aug 28, 5:18 am, Steve de Mena<st...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 8/27/11 9:49 AM, -hh wrote:
Try applying logic: would this then mean that LaCie wrote a driver
for just their own product to use?

Doesn't make sense to me. Why would they limit their market for that
card? What is special about their drives where they don't follow USB
3.0 specs?

Because it does sense to differentiate their product from their
competitors, and the way that they're doing that here is to have their
USB 3 driver only work with their own hardware. Afterall, LaCie is in
the business of selling hard drives, so if their USB 3 driver worked
with anyone's, then they would potentially make fewer hardware
sales.

Great logic. BTW I understand LaCie changed their drivers so they
would work with any USB 3.0 drive....

Does it work as well as the rest, with those "USB2 hacked drivers"?

I think we have 4 posts now implying I don't understand "logic".

All the posts were from you....

Which insinuates that they're somehow wrong? More flawed logic from
you, Steve.

And the above represents more proof of what you don't know or
logically understand.

Funny how many 3rd party eSATA manufacturers had no problems making
PCIe cards and writing their own drivers for OS X and a myriad of
cheap external eSATA boxes.
Logically, that only applies if the OS X driver for eSATA product "A"
works with eSATA product "B", etc, rather than for just their own PCI
card. Feel free to prove that to be the case before trying to
continue.

The eSATA drivers only worked for their own cards. Why would I expect
them to work with other cards with other chipsets?

Isn't eSATA a standard just like USB3 is? What's the critical
difference?

This isn't the appropriate forum but I would say there were too many
eSATA implementations before there was a standard, which has affected
compatibility. It's personally a technology I am moving away from,
like Firewire, so don't wish to waste time discussing merits.

...and if we go back to the OP, where we are talking about yet another
change to USB3 (this time, its power ratings), who is to say that it
is going to be any better from a compatibility standpoint? You've
already started the USB2-vs-3 cable logistical funhouse, for
example. Frankly, I'd be happy to stick with FW if only Apple would
have supported FW1600/FW3200...it was the right tool for the job and
wasn't trying to venture out of its strength to try to become more
ubiquitous.

...
Insofar as the Drobo, I researched them before I started buying more
RAIDs a few years ago and found that they have notoriously slow I/O
performance for their price. I can't recall if they're literally
slower than a single spindle system, but they're probably close ...
and given that their ethernet adaptor to make them into a NAS adds
even more to their price, even an average-level NAS is a better
alternative IMO.

That Ethernet adapter you are probably thinking of (Droboshare?)
connected to the Drobo via USB!!! So it was slow as a pig.

That would explain it, although if one was connecting to a Drobo via
USB2 anyway, adding a Gigabit Ethernet transport layer probably
shouldn't slow it down any further. At least one would get relief
from USB's cable length limitations.


What is funny/sad is that the Drobo community forums are only open to
registered owners so prospective owners can't read what current owners
feel about the machines.

That's IMO quite revealing, and in of itself is sufficient motivation
for me to not consider their products again in the future, either.


In your case, they're probably slightly better off
running on eSATA, only because while USB2 is more stable, it is
clearly slower. The better alternative would be to run them on
Firewire again, but I don't recall if you have that particular option
available to you. If eSATA doesn't work out, then consider if you can
buy the optional Ethernet adaptor cheaply...otherwise, ditch them for
anything more than slow Time Machine backups and buy new FW800 RAID
cabinets to transplant the HDDs into and sell off these Drobos.
Frankly, while their idea is appealing, they charge a fairly heavy
premium for those who are afraid of running a traditional RAID.

Time Machine backups are just for laptops, I hook them up every say or
two at night for awhile. It's the drobos that currently get the pounding.

I have to do some tests, my 2nd Drobo ,when I moved it from eSATA to
FW800 suddenly wouldn't copy image files (.dmg) any more. I had
removed the Sonnet eSATA card because of perceived conflicts with Pro
Tools 9.0.5 but might still be having problems...

If you're looking for performance comparable/better than your Drobos,
consider a RAID 1 based NewerTechnologies 3.5" HDD based "Maximus"
hooked up by FW800 (or eSATA) to your Mac Pro. Consider picking it up
with just the 1TB drives onboard ...its only $250 (you can manually
upgrade the drives quite easily) and let us know how it benchmarks
with different interfaces, as well as against your Drobos.

BTW, in checking its webpage, I see that they've now added USB3 too,
so if you want to bench it with that on a PC, that can be done now
too.

And here's a review page with some benchmarks; it references Digital
Lloyd, but I don't see the work over there:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-Newer-GMax.html

KISS summary is (in MB/sec): eSATA=120; FW800=75; USB2=35 while using
Hitachi 7K2000 drives.


-hh


He might have moved a lot of stuff to the members area but this guy ( http://www.amug.org/ ) would extensively review every external HD enclosure and interface under the sun. Noise is a big factor for me too, this equipment is in my bedroom. Will forward this to me email to read your links too.

Steve
.

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