First 3rd Party Mac USB 3.0 Interface Benchmarked

[bocomo]

Ok. And? USB easily dominates (and has since when?...1997?) over FW for consumers. If folks are gonna use FCP or other memory and I/O intensive apps, it's going to be on local SATA or similarly fast drives...not USB 2.0...and I doubt even FW.

offloading from the camera?

 

[JustDom89]

This is why every Mac needs an expresscard slot.

Agree, but on just the 15" and 17" models. Which I consider as the 'real pro' models.

Replacing a versatile, fast express card slot (which is needed for professionals) with the SD card slot was in my opinion, one of Apple's worst decisions to date.

 

[cppguy]

I believe Apple needs to move on this fast. Professionals no longer use optical disks, but towers of inexpensive external hard drives. This is especially important with the MacBook and the iMac, where the hard drives are small capacity and not easily replaceable by the average consumer. Apple has skipped eSATA, and Mac users are uncertain about Apple's plans regarding a high speed external bus.

Sure, USB 3 drives aren't that common yet, but if I upgrade my MacBook I'm going to use it for 3-4 years easily. Within half a year USB 3.0 will totally replace USB 2.0 in the PC world, and it makes sense to worry about Apple leaving us behind. Being an engineer running over a dozen virtual machines at work, I'm fairly certain I couldn't do it easily on my MacBook Pro if I wanted to, due to the lack of eSATA/USB 3. Videographers and photographers are in need of fast external storage as well.

 

[bigwig]

That's a tired old argument, Firewire has plenty of legs left (mainly in audio and video though), just not in the consumer markets it seems.

Who is going to develop FW3200 just for low-volume A/V devices when they can use USB 3? FireWire is less available than ever on digital cameras and camcorders. You see the problem, don't you? If Apple had pushed when the FW3200 spec was first finalized maybe they'd have some market share in the high end interconnect space now occupied by USB 3 and eSATA. Instead they dithered on FW3200 for so long it's now moot. USB 3 has won, not because it's better but because its backers actually bothered push it into the market.

 

[Perdification]

You can blame intel I guess, but you could also argue that apple are just being lazy cheapskates, after all the recent Gigabyte socket 1366 Mobos run on the intel chipsets, and they've added USB3, and SATA3 controllers to the motherboards themselves, so it wouldn't be too much to ask for apple to consider doing the same.

I guess that's just because Gigabyte has their own chipset or usb 3.0 controler built into their boards as an add on. Apple can't do that, without the help of intel or some 3rd party chipmaker.

 

[X38]

Really, that's the best USB 3.0 can do? Pretty lame - only 1.75x to 2.4x faster than FW800 by those numbers. FW3200 is 4x faster. So much for the claims that USB 3.0 is a worthy competitor to FW3200.

Shame on Apple for not having put FW3200 in all their products by now, but holding off on USB 3.0 looks like a pretty wise move by these numbers. On the other hand, if Light Peak really is just around the corner, then no point in wasting time with either.

Regardless, these numbers make a pretty good case that 2.0 should be the end of the line for USB.

 

[Perdification]

Who is going to develop FW3200 just for low-volume A/V devices when they can use USB 3? FireWire is less available than ever on digital cameras and camcorders. You see the problem, don't you? If Apple had pushed when the FW3200 spec was first finalized maybe they'd have some market share in the high end interconnect space now occupied by USB 3 and eSATA. Instead they dithered on FW3200 for so long it's now moot. USB 3 has won, not because it's better but because its backers actually bothered push it into the market.

But usb 3.0 is getting extremely slow and painful growth thanks to intel not rolling out chipset support too. I hope intel hurries up with lightpeak.

 

[spillproof]

Hurray for my express card slot!

Even with 3.0 I only have a 5400rmp HD so I won't see that big of a difference.

 

[DisMyMac]

Could the MacBook Pro receive USB 3 before the Mac Pro?

 

[Chase R]

Could the MacBook Pro receive USB 3 before the Mac Pro?

Hopefully, but doubtful. As soon as Apple decides to stuff a dedicated card inside the 13" MBP and add USB 3.0 I'll be in line!

 

[johnnymg]

That caldigit site is absolutely worthless as far as getting info on how to purchase these units. Very strange.............. smells fishy (like bad fish) to me.

JohnG

 

[Perdification]

Hopefully, but doubtful. As soon as Apple decides to stuff a dedicated card inside the 13" MBP and add USB 3.0 I'll be in line!

But if they didn't put in an i5 then i see no point for people with the 2010 MBP 13' to upgrade. It'd be unbalanced performance, though they'll EOL the C2Ds.

 

[myca]

I guess that's just because Gigabyte has their own chipset or usb 3.0 controler built into their boards as an add on. Apple can't do that, without the help of intel or some 3rd party chipmaker.

Not really, they just buy the controllers from third parties (like most other mobo manufacturers do) and stick them on the boards, just like apple do with their firewire controllers. The only thing that apple would have to do is write the drivers, and have their logicboard makers follow a slight re-design.

Who is going to develop FW3200 just for low-volume A/V devices when they can use USB 3? FireWire is less available than ever on digital cameras and camcorders. You see the problem, don't you? If Apple had pushed when the FW3200 spec was first finalized maybe they'd have some market share in the high end interconnect space now occupied by USB 3 and eSATA. Instead they dithered on FW3200 for so long it's now moot. USB 3 has won, not because it's better but because its backers actually bothered push it into the market.

I'm not arguing that firewire is pretty much on it's last legs in the consumer markets, and I don't really expect to see any great uptake of FW3200 if it is ever released. Mainly due to the competition of USB3, eSATA and the upcoming Light Peak, but also from the fact that most audio interface devices can't even max out the bandwidth of FW400. But I would say that if apple hadn't drawn the line between pro and consumer when FW800 was released, and if they had been less stringent with their licensing terms, that FW800 would have been as ubiquitous as FW400 was. Granted FW400 (or iLink as sony would say) was much more popular when consumer DV cameras were flooding the market.

But it is a shame that apple dropped the ball, as FW is arguably a much better interface for high bandwidth tasks.

 

[barkmonster]

The thing that makes firewire better than USB is the fact it's full Duplex, like an ATA or SATA drive and doesn't tax your CPU.

I only need to plug-in my iPhone to sync it with audio going out of my Mbox2 and I get noise out of it's audio driver.

If you look at the attached image, I did the very unscientific test of copying 2Gb of files from my USB 2.0 drive to a 7200rpm drive on ATA Bus 1, the CPU usage was consistently 25%.

When I copied the same files from the 7200rpm drive on ATA bus 1 to the another drive on ATA bus 0, the CPU usage was consistently about 10%.

Point proven!

Yeah, like I want to pay up the wazoo for some tiny SSD drive when I can get a 500GB 7200 RPM drive for $40. I'm getting 110MB/sec sustained transfers for my $40 too and it's dead quiet. People who think they "need" SSD probably think they "need" an 8-core Mac Pro with 22GB of ram just to do Ping on iTunes. Meanwhile, my Hitachi is working great with Logic Pro here.

I half agree about the 7200rpm drives but I think you're missing the point of what makes an SSD good, especially for audio work.

I use Protools LE on a very underpowered old G4

My Drives are configured like this:

1) 7200rpm 250Gb Maxtor 32Mb Cache: 60Gb System (Applications/Software Synth Patches only), 190Gb Storage (General files)

2) 120Gb Western Digital 16Mb Cache: 30Gb Sessions (Recording/Sessions only), 80Gb Audio (Mp3s)

3) 1TB external USB 2.0 drive for back up.

Partitioning a drive so the first 60Gb is for a boot partition and the rest for general storage is going to be no less efficient than how I plan on configuring a Mac Mini based system as my next mac:

1) 60Gb SSD System (Applications/Software Synth Patches only)

2) 500 or 750Gb 7200rpm FIREWIRE drive with Oxford chipset: 60Gb Sessions, 690Gb Storage (General files, MP3s etc...)

3) 1TB external USB 2.0 drive for back up.



This set up will be no different from my current partition scheme, except I'll have a drive that can handle 10,000s of IOPs, making access time a non-issue and much faster patch loading, application loading and boot times while having the same efficiency of not saving loads of files to my system drive, slowing it down over time, recording to a dedicated audio drive (which is essential to start with) and all my general files going on a partition on their own that won't slow down either my system drive or the drive I record to.

I see your point about the Mac Pro, it WOULD be overkill for a lot of people's needs!

 

[Perdification]

Not really, they just buy the controllers from third parties (like most other mobo manufacturers do) and stick them on the boards, just like apple do with their firewire controllers. The only thing that apple would have to do is write the drivers, and have their logicboard makers follow a slight re-design.

But it is a shame that apple dropped the ball, as FW is arguably a much better interface for high bandwidth tasks.

I don't think apple is very lenient with third party stuff on their boards, are they?

 

[akdj]

"Regarding the ExpressSlot, too bad that Apple CRIPPLED IT in the latest revision of the 17 inch MBP. Just another reason to stay with my 17 inch unibody before Apple fumbled the ball."

Total and COMPLETE BS!!! I have the new '10 MBPro 17" and use two different ExpressCard SATA and extra FW/800 controllers.

Also...I make my mortgage doing video production. I use a two year old Mac Pro (3.0ghz OctoCore) with FW800 drives and/or internal SATA drives for scratch. Doesn't matter which...they're both just fine for HD video work. What in the world are you guys doing? That transfer speeds with FW800 aren't working for you? Seriously???

I was bored of reading post after post of Apple not jumping on board NOW with USB 3.0...so I did a quick search (Until I got bored with that, too) of a couple BIG vendors...and a couple boutique PC manufacturers.

I checked Dell

Studio 17 (laptop...latest version)...NO, USB 2.0 Only
XPS 16 (laptop...new version)...>NO, USB 2.0 Only
Alienware M11X (BRAND NEW Machine!!!! Alienware recently acquired by Dell) NO USB 3.0 support...only USB 2.0

What about Dell's premium workstations...The Precision T3500? Count 'em... 11 USB 2.0 slots...1 serial, 1 parallel, 2 PS/2, 1 RJ-45, but NO USB 3.0!

HP?
Their premium dv8T laptop? NO...USB 2.0 only!!!

What about their brand new, $2,000+ Pavilion Elite HPE-490t series? This is a really sweet Core i7 machine, with advanced functionality...and absolutely no USB 3.0 support...

I even pulled up a pretty well known boutique manufacturer...IBuyPower

Their Gaming Laptop...The W87OCU...again, over two grand for this sweetheart...and no...Zero...ZILCH support for 3.0.

Completely and totally over embellished in this thread...first, the importance for today's applications for USB 3.0....and second, the actual availability by real manufacturers, with REAL support* And I believe that is key when comparing to Apple.

I didn't check ASUS...so they may actually be bucking the trend...but as I mentioned. I got bored searching when the were all coming up with the same answer...NO USB 3.0 support! It's definitely the exception to the rule.

Do I long for faster transfer rates? Sure....but for now, ESata and FW800 are just fine for my less than practical purposes (HD video editing and compositing)

YMMV, of course

J

 

[gramirez2012]

Firewire 3200 might theoretically be slower than usb 3.0, but in actuality, it might be faster than usb 3.0. The theoretical speeds are always exaggerated.

Just like how USB 2 is "theoretically" faster than FireWire 400. We all know FW400 blows USB2 out of the water.

 

[tirerim]

I believe Apple needs to move on this fast. Professionals no longer use optical disks, but towers of inexpensive external hard drives. This is especially important with the MacBook and the iMac, where the hard drives are small capacity and not easily replaceable by the average consumer. Apple has skipped eSATA, and Mac users are uncertain about Apple's plans regarding a high speed external bus.

Sure, USB 3 drives aren't that common yet, but if I upgrade my MacBook I'm going to use it for 3-4 years easily. Within half a year USB 3.0 will totally replace USB 2.0 in the PC world, and it makes sense to worry about Apple leaving us behind. Being an engineer running over a dozen virtual machines at work, I'm fairly certain I couldn't do it easily on my MacBook Pro if I wanted to, due to the lack of eSATA/USB 3. Videographers and photographers are in need of fast external storage as well.

Exactly. I don't really care which next generation bus Apple implements, I just want something that will continue to be useful for the life of the computer. FW800 is already showing its age for my needs (transferring and backing up lots of photographs), and when I buy a new machine (probably in a year or so), I don't want to be stuck with it for another five years. And I'm not likely to get a Mac Pro next time -- they're just too expensive just to have the ability to upgrade to a better external bus.

Sadly, Apple seems to have given up on being a leader with this sort of thing. Back when USB first came out they were an early adopter, and the same with FireWire. And the peripheral makers very rapidly produced compatible products. Now the peripheral makers are already producing useful devices, and Apple can't be bothered to make the computers compatible.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

I've never even heard of them, is this a reputable peripheral maker? The "FW800 CalDigit" vs "FW800 Other" makes me wonder if this will stand up to 3rd party testing, or is just marketing hype.

Caldigit is one of the best third party mass storage/raids/servers for Multimedia companies.

 

[myca]

I don't think apple is very lenient with third party stuff on their boards, are they?

Everything on their logic boards are third party more or less, the chipset is intel, the FW controllers are Agere (iirc), but used to be Texas Instruments, and the GPUs have been either intel, Nvidia or AMD throughout the years, and Realtek supply the soundchip.

So all apple does is choose their components stick them in a box, put a nice mark up on there and earn lots of money.

--

Of course there's a bit more to it than that

 

[hchung]

I bought a $500 PC with USB 3.0 a 6-core and raid-0 SSDs.... Let's see something around that price range for the MAC!

Link or it didn't happen

But seriously, even a pair of the cheapest SSDs would cost £120 in the UK, and an AMD hexacore is about £150, so I'd be impressed if you could verify this.

Although it could just be our VAT

My SSD cost more than his entire rig?
So let's see some proof, yeah? Cuz, I could use a new computer....

 

[hassiman]

CalDigit USB 3.0 drive... really does SCREAM. FAST

I have used a lot of CalDigit stuff.

Here at my University we store all of our BU's and critical data on CalDigit externals.... all boxes set RAID 1. We use both Windows and Mac machines.

Many of the CalDigit boxes I have have been running 24/7 for YEARS with nary a hiccup. Never had a problem with one bit of their equipment... It may be because they pre-test every unit they ship beforehand. Whatever... the people are great and the stuff just works. No more replacing LaCie, WD and G tech drives every 6-9 months.

I have tried the new USB drive with my MacPro and scream it does. I do not have the equipment to quantify said screamage but it really seemed quite fast... even in comparison to eSATA. Very well built also.

I highly reccomend their stuff and I do NOT work for them.

 

[JeffDM]

Firewire 3200 might theoretically be slower than usb 3.0, but in actuality, it might be faster than usb 3.0. The theoretical speeds are always exaggerated.

It is complicated, but the 3200 figure isn't a theoretical speed, it's just the base signaling rate, which unfortunately gets conflated with data transmission speed when it's impossible to transmit data at that rate, because there is some overhead to deal with.

Caldigit is one of the best third party mass storage/raids/servers for Multimedia companies.

Yes, CalDigit's main market is to the professional video market, they don't seem to advertise outside that realm.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

1)Not sure where you are getting $40 7200RPM drives...laptop drives? Not at $40. Desktop drives? Not at $40. $60 and up for anything decent but please don't state these things are all over the world for so cheap.

Have you checked prices before shooting off a reply? A quick check from Google (took 3 seconds max) shows me any number of places to get a H2.5" 500GB 7200 RPM drive in the $45-60 range not including any sale price when I got mine. Here's a Seagate 7200 2.5 for $46.97 on Amazon. I see the same Hitachi I got for $53.99 on A-Power.com

Desktop drives? Not at $40. $60 and up for anything decent but please don't state these things are all over the world for so cheap.

Here's a Hitachi 3.5" 7200 RPM for $39 at PC Bees.

My point is not to argue over a couple of dollars, but to point out that they are DIRT CHEAP compared to SSD and still do quite nicely in terms of performance. I get sustained transfers of 105-110MB/sec write and 115MB/read on my MBP with the Hitachi drive according to XBench. OSX boots in about 20-30 seconds. How much faster is SSD going to get me for over $1600 for the same size drive??? I could almost buy another MBP for that much money.

3)What's really hindering personal computer performance (and has been for over a decade) is hard drive I/O. Period. CPUs are far faster than even enthusiasts can push. RAM is (and has been for 15+ years) dirt cheap...and RAM plateaus very quickly as a source to improve "speed". SSDs are night and day performance improvements. Sure, a 128GB is $200 these days (for a 2.5" drive)...and a 64GB is $100....but plop one in as your main drive and watch your OS and daily apps fly. Grab a 2nd drive and use it for high end apps/tools like Photoshop, movie authoring, rendering, etc. and you'll wish you bought one months earlier.

Most PCs don't even come with Gigabit Ethernet and most people are using 802.11G or 802.11N and touting how wired networking is DEAD. Yeah, right. Try copying 10GB of Logic music production files to another computer using wireless or 10/100 wired. Go get some coffee because it'll take around 20 minutes. Connect to Gigabit and it takes under 4 minutes (I know because I just did this yesterday). The write speeds on a 7200 RPM SATA can't really go any higher than that, so I suppose SSD would have some advantage, but I'm not in a giant hurry to save 2 minutes off of 4 for $1500 more money. The important thing is that I can record or edit in real time and that's not an issue here (CPU speed generally runs out when recording before the hard drive in Logic because of all the processing effects/filtering. I could use a quad-core MBP before an SSD drive).

Not everyone needs the latest and greatest...but hard drive I/O is really the final bottleneck to break.

If you say so. I personally think CPUs and GPUs are the biggest bottleneck. Until I can render high quality 3D in real time (instead of 30 minutes per frame with 8 cores), the hard drive is moot. Like I said, I've had Logic cry about reaching the CPU limits for real time rendering on one of my songs. The hard drive didn't cry at all. Video games don't look "real" just yet either. GPUs have a LONG way to go. The hard drive doesn't matter much there either except for load times. Yeah, I'd like to backup my 1.5TB drive a lot faster, but it's not really necessary, either, just a convenience if it went a lot faster. I just let it run overnight if I have to do the whole drive.

Really, that's the best USB 3.0 can do? Pretty lame - only 1.75x to 2.4x faster than FW800 by those numbers. FW3200 is 4x faster. So much for the claims that USB 3.0 is a worthy competitor to FW3200.

Shame on Apple for not having put FW3200 in all their products by now, but holding off on USB 3.0 looks like a pretty wise move by these numbers. On the other hand, if Light Peak really is just around the corner, then no point in wasting time with either.

Regardless, these numbers make a pretty good case that 2.0 should be the end of the line for USB.

End of the line for USB? ROTFLMFAO.

You can't seriously believe that ANYONE would bother to support FW3200 at this point beyond a few hard drives? USB is ingrained and nearly all existing devices support it. FW never supported mice, keyboards and the usual low-speed dreck and so USB will always be included for the forseeable future, so why not include the BEST and fastest version of it? Watching Apple include USB 2.0 when budget PCs are shipping with USB 3.0 makes Apple look LAME. But then they don't ship Blu-Ray either so maybe Apple is turning into the Fisher Price of computers? After all, they seem to be telling me lately that when you want to play with the big boys, you buy a PC since Apple wants to use 10-15 year old technology (USB2 and DVD) and treat it like it's a big deal. "Super Drive"? There's nothing "super" about a drive that is 5 years out of date. I bought Firewire input audio gear (to record with Logic) since it's superior to USB 2.0 for multiple channels, but USB 3.0 would be more than adequate at this point (i.e. faster than FW800), but obviously that is not an option.

 

[JeffDM]

Watching Apple include USB 2.0 when budget PCs are shipping with USB 3.0 makes Apple look LAME.

What budget PCs includes USB 3? Every time I look, I come up empty for USB 3, even if I set the "budget" to $2000.