To combat my new nemesis, I searched the Google and found the most promising article at this website here. I read with excitement until I clicked on the link for the software – it’s a paid app called DiskTester… and not a cheap one at $40.

The free option…

I believe there’s always a free way to get what you need, so I began racking my brain. It occurred to me – OS X has Disk Utility.app built in. Duh! It can create volumes of very specific sizes, which seems to be the same function DiskTester is performing when it’s running its “recondition” option.

Here’s what I did:

• used CarbonCopyCloner to clone my SSD to a nice 1TB drive on a Firewire 800 dock.
• booted from the external drive into my clone OS.
• opened Disk Utility and selected the SSD.
  • ran the “erase” function on the SSD.
  • ran the partition function – selecting 1 partition for the volume scheme.
  • repeated the partition with 16 partitions
  • reduced the drive back to one Mac OS Extended Journaled partition.
• erased free space on the drive (seems unnecessary in retrospect)
• clicked on the “New Image” icon at the top of Disk Utility’s screen. I selected the SSD as the target volume and made a DMG file to the size of the SSD itself, 128.04GB. Disk Utility created the image and the SSD was left with about 21.61MB remaining. I repeated the action with a 21.6MB image file on the SSD. This left the SSD with only a few KB of empty space. Sufficient.
• insterted the OS X Snow Leopard DVD in my MacBook Pro and rebooted to the installation DVD. I ran the OS X setup as a new computer, not using the CarbonCopyCloner image. I figured a fresh installation would eliminate any detritus from tons and tons of use. I was right. The fresh copy was much better.
• during the Snow Leopard installation process, I opted to import settings, apps, emails and documents from the 1TB clone. OS X put everything in perfect order for me. My work environment was back to the way it had started.

The entire process took about 90 minutes. I got it done during two episodes of Castle.

Here are some pics:

So what happened?

The Disk Utility-reconditioned SSD was indeed much faster than before the whole process. Boot times were almost back to day-1 speeds, applications opened super fast and I was able to get back to hard core production.

One caveat - I learned that the SSD should not be used as a target disk for bittorrent files or for other apps that intentionally create highly fragmented files. Literally hundreds or thousands of files downloaded in countless tiny fragments simply screw the SSD sideways. It just can’t handle that kind of intentionally fragmented data, not in that kind of volume. So now I use an external 1TB drive for my bittorrent and other downloads. The SSD seems way better off without that constant pounding.

Hopefully my sharing this with you folks helps a little. You may opt to buy DiskTester for $40 (I’m not saying you shouldn’t – I’m sure it has TONS of useful features and all with shining merit), but if you’re like me, you may want a free option that does a similar, if not nearly identical function. As an old friend used to say, “Free is the best price.”

There were two things that really sold me on the Corsair P128: the 220MB/s read and 200MB/s write speeds and the 128MB cache. The read/write speeds are near top of the line for SSDs. The Corsair’s 128MB cache is simply staggering compared to the average 8MB or 16MB cache on standard laptop hard drives (16MB cache for the 500GB Seagate).

The P128 is the exact length, height and width as the 500GB Seagate. The P128, however, is much, much lighter.

Here are some simple before and afters:

Here’s the P128 getting mounted in the drive bay:

Dropping from 500GB storage was a bit of a mental hurdle, but I really value speed over size. That’s what external drives are for.

After a few days using the P128, I’m very satisfied. The price still makes me wince, though. Ouch.

Using Carbon Copy Cloner, it took roughly 3 1/2 hours to clone the contents of my 320GB drive to the 500GB. 120GB of photos was the #1 slow down, and #2 was the 320GB drive dragging its proverbial feet. Once the cloning was done, replacing the 320 with the 500 took about 2 minutes – 5 little screws (1 brace and 4 stabilizers on the drive).

The first thing I noticed was that the 500GB Seagate drive boots about 40% faster than the 320GB Hitachi. Apps open up a little faster – not 40% faster, but certainly 20% or so.

Once I’d booted up, I ran several tests and scans on the drive to make sure the drive was going to be stable and error free. Nothing sucks quite so much as banking on a new hard drive, only to have it melt down. Tests showed no drive flaws.

I then ran an XBench test to compare the two drives. The 500GB drive scored well over twice as fast as the 320GB with sequential and random reads/writes. For the non-techies, this simply means that this new Seagate drive whips the snot out of the Hitachi drive.

(XBench is a free utility that every Mac user should have, even if it’s rarely used.)

On the down side, the Seagate drive is just as loud as the 320GB Hitachi. That was a little disappointment to me. That said, the drive isn’t “noisy” per se, it’s just that the spinning is clearly audible in a near silent room or if one listens within 6 or 7 inches of the laptop body. No huge deal.

Other positives? XP boots and runs faster in Parallels. So does Windows 7. So does Linux. Photoshop CS4 opens up 25% faster and runs actions in an instant. File transfers to other 7200RPM drives are way faster. In short, pretty much everything is better and faster.

The best part of all? After Leopard, tons of apps, tens of thousands of photos, etc. I’ve got about 300GB free. Awesome!!

If you’re considering buying the Seagate 500GB drive, I hope these comments help. And hopefully you wind up with a good stable drive that passes any tests you subject it to.

Over the last few years, Apple has been reducing the size of it’s product packaging. Some packaging has been reduced by well over 50% – iPod/iPhone cases, MacBook and MacBook Pro boxes, etc. Software packaging (like that for OS X Leopard, iLife, iWork, etc.) has been dropped by about 75% in size, which is really great for the environment (and for Apple’s profit margin – win win).

After getting a new MacBook Pro, I was looking at the installation DVDs for OSX and iLife. They’re still DVDs – ostensibly an aging medium, especially with USB sticks and other flash memory becoming so widely available and inexpensive.

I think it’d make sense for Apple to ditch future OS X installation DVDs in favor of a locked USB installation device (or even SDHC card with a USB reader). Every Intel-based Apple computer, whether an iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro or Mac Pro, comes with USB ports and can boot directly from those USB ports. USB data transfer speeds are much better than DVD transfer, so theoretically, OS X installation or repair could be greatly improved via USB.

Price is one thing to consider. I know USB flash memory is higher priced than DVD disks, but in bulk, USB drives can’t be too expensive. Besides, Apple would be able to drop packaging sizes by at least another 50-75%, saving more money and earning an even better reputation.

I’ll bet even Greenpeace would give a thumbs-up. Maybe. Those guys are tough to please! (I remember when Greenpeace was warm & fuzzy, all about hippies saving the whales and seal cubs. Seems like such a long time ago.)
 

The problem? When the MBP is connected to an external display and then goes to sleep for x-period of time and then wakes, something tweaks and the video card gets the delirium tremens, causing the external display to get all confused and flashing with static. Here’s what it looks like:

(Audio has been removed from this clip.)

Fortunately, unplugging the external display from the DisplayPort adapter and then plugging it back in seems to remedy the spasm, but it requires manual intervention (which is very un-Apple). Some folks on the Apple forums report that a full reboot or PRAM reset give temporary relief from the static.

Update: Within minutes of making this post, Apple released a firmware update for the unibody MacBook Pro that’s targeted (in part) at fixing this issue.
 

Update part deux: The firmware update fixed the video static. Thanks Apple!
 

Crucial and newegg to the rescue! I ordered a pair of DDR3 1067Mhz RAM chips for $125. That’s pretty affordable!

Here are a few shots to illustrate how easy it is to upgrade the RAM (and, coincidentally, the hard drive) in the new MacBook Pro and MacBook. Thankfully, upgrading RAM and hard drives on the new unibody MacBook Pro is easy and won’t void or risk the warranty. (Just don’t sneeze or drool onto the logic board when doing work and you should be fine.)

 
First, remove the battery plate and battery. This exposes the hard drive for easy replacement if you ever want to upgrade to a 320GB 7200RPM drive or even one of the new 500GB 5400RPM drives. (I wonder if the MacBook Pro could be run off an external 10,000RPM SATA drive like the VelociRaptor. That’d be awesome!)

Removing the battery plate does not expose the memory bay like in the earlier MacBook Pros, so there’s more work to do.

There are 8 screws to remove from the bottom plate of the MacBook Pro. You’ll need a simple jeweler’s screwdriver. Remember the order of screws as there are three different sizes.

Here you can see the inside of the MacBook Pro exposed. It’s gorgeous. I was pretty impressed with the exterior design of the MacBook Pro, but this shows it’s true inner beauty.

This is where the RAM chips go. There are little tabs on each side of the chips. Pulling those tabs apart by less than a millimeter will “eject” the RAM for removal.

You put the new RAM in and take the old RAM out. You do the hokey pokey and turn yourself about. (Gag, I know.)

Here you see the new RAM installed. Check out the logic board and fans. Everything is so compact, tight and compartmentalized.

Another inside shot.

Put the botom plate back on and put the screws back in. Tighten well, but not too much. You don’t want to strip the threads.

That’s it! It took less than 5 minutes for the whole operation. With 4GB RAM, boot time is marginally better, but the real benefit comes with running larger apps like Photoshop, Parallels, Final Cut, etc. I can have much more going at one time than I could before.

A side note: I also notice that the new MacBook Pro runs much cooler than the old versions. When running generic apps like Mail, Safari, Firefox, etc., the old MacBook Pro would usually keep at a warm 130°. When running Photoshop and/or Parallels for more than a few minutes on my previous MacBook Pro, the internal temp would rise to no less than 160° and would often top 185°. This new unibody MacBook Pro runs between 96° and 110° for normal apps and hasn’t risen above 130° even when running Final Cut. Very cool, indeed!
 

After experiencing months of crippling trouble with the video card in my 2.4GHz MacBook Pro laptop (resulting in multiple logic board replacements, LCD screen replacements, etc.), I was generously given a replacement laptop from Apple. Yes, a full replacement. Stunning level of customer service and tech support – clearly above and beyond the norm.

Here’s the new machine. So nice! This new design and the new specs are so far advanced that I look back to my “old” MacBook Pro with a sense of analog nostalgia.

P.S. By way of Google, I found this image of the new logic board for the latest MacBook Pro. Pretty crazy shape!

P.P.S. The only bummer about getting a replacement computer from Apple is that one’s Apple Care warranty doesn’t follow to the new machine. I’ll have to buy another extended warranty asap. It’s a minor factor, but still – darn.

The automatic bump never happened. I called Verizon approximately 8 times to inquire about it and every person I talked to had a different understanding of it, though truthfully, several FiOS service reps were totally unaware.

I called again today and immediately selected the option to talk to someone in billing. I got a very nice girl on the phone who was willing to listen to my gripe. A first time experience for me dealing with Verizon – she knew exactly what I was talking about. Oh My Frikin Gawd! A FiOS employee in the know! Wow! She checked my account, confirmed that the 20/5 option was indeed available to me and put the change request in. For free, by the way.

Now that was pretty awesome. It got even better when she told me when to expect the upgrade to take place. “Now,” she said. My reply was less eloquent – something like “Haruh?!”

Lo and behold, I popped over to speedtest.net and ran a quick test. I got a near perfect score. Here’s the result:

So if you have FiOS, you may be eligible for a free upgrade. Give them a call. Give the billing dept a call. The support guys are serving up a pretty dismal 10% success rate at solving problems.

P.S. It looks like I can upgrade to 20/20mbps for an extra $10 per month. I might just do that!

Fast forward a year or so, and you’d see me sitting at my computer, cursing the task of converting AVI files to Apple TV friendly format so I could watch important videos on my TV instead of my little MacBook Pro screen. Curses, wasted CPU time and wasted disk space from double files… that was the price I had to pay for the pleasure of watching AVI video content. Sometimes I would spend as much time converting a video as I would spend watching it. Bah.

A few days ago, I stopped by Best Buy (I’m slightly embarrassed admitting that I went to that store) and found a very nice Pioneer DV-410V DVD player with a little USB input on the front of it. The DVD player handles DVDs and DivX videos among other formats. It also has an HDMI port for connecting video and audio to my HDTV in one tiny cable.

I set up the DVD player and popped in a micro USB flash drive loaded with a few of my favorite AVI videos and voila! it played the video cleaner and better than the Apple TV ever did! Imagine my surprise! A weight was lifted off my shoulders – the world seemed bright and warm. No more wasted time converting files. No need to stream video. No need to keep my MacBook Pro turned on while I watch videos. Sure, I lost the ability to rent movies from the iTunes store directly from the Apple TV, but I had only done that a couple times in 18 months, so it’s hardly a sacrifice.

Now I can quickly load a dozen or more AVI files on a stamp-sized USB drive and watch amazing quality videos. Buh-bye Apple TV – hello HDTV sneaker net!

Some people may argue that the DVD USB option is lower tech and doesn’t really constitute an “upgrade”. In my opinion, anything that produces remarkably better video, faster prep time, fewer steps, less hassle, consumes less electricity and allows more free time for enjoying video… well, that is truly an upgrade; the best kind of upgrade.

If you’ve never tried one of those DVD players with an internal USB reader, you absolutely MUST. It’s awesome.

P.S. As for the $90 in my pocket, I promptly sold the Apple TV and had $90 left over after the cost of the new DVD/USB player. Nice.

P.P.S. The aforementioned $90 lasted about 12 minutes as I bought another cool gadget that I absolutely had to have. C’est la vie.

Pre-pre Installation

On June 13th, the first Verizon tech showed up to run a line from the sidewalk to the garage. The house is less than 3 years old, so there was already conduit prepped. The only problem was that the builders didn’t have the brains to mark where the conduit terminated inside the garage wall.

The Verizon tech had to guess where the termination was and I wound up with a 6"x6" hole in my sheetrock. Wrong spot. Wrong spot means big hole in the wall and no cable drop. After fumbling around for another potential drop point, another 6"x6" hole was cut into the wall. Success on the second attempt.

As for the holes in the wall, I was told that such booboos were commonplace and that Verizon would send someone out to fix the sheetrock the following business day (Monday), free of charge. I waited the whole day and no one showed up. Nice.
 

Pre Installation

On June 17th, two more Verizon techs showed up to string the fiber optic line from the street to the second of the two holes in my sheetrock. It took them 3 minutes. Not bad. They didn’t repair the sheetrock. They stood in my driveway smoking cigarettes for about 15 minutes. Nice.
 

Installation

The very next day, I got a call from “Paul”, a thick-accented guy. He said he was running 15 minutes early for my appointment and asked if it was ok for him to arrive early. I agreed. After all, how can one argue with that? Paul turned out to be Pavel, a very nice Ukrainian guy. We got along great – I spent time in Kiev, so we had plenty to talk about while he was setting up the TV and modem.

Despite the 3 hours allocated for the entire installation, Pavel got his whole job done in less than 45 minutes – that’s full installation of the Verizon FiOS service box, TV, modem, everything. He was smart, quick and very professional. He even turned down a nice tip.
 

Property Damage

After Pavel left, I called to see if someone would fix the sheetrock. After 8 or 9 phone calls and over 5 hours on the phone (much of it on hold listening to awful, brain-melting, self-congratulatory Verizon ads and Muzak BeeGees), I failed find someone who will take responsibility for fixing the sheetrock. I got passed around from support people to supervisors to techs to regional support folks. Total incompetence and “I don’t give a shit” attitude by everyone on the phone.

I finally landed one support guy in Texas who said that I should just have the sheetrock repaired myself and Verizon would reimburse the costs. At the same time, he said he’d submit a “ticket” that would require a guaranteed call-back from a local supervisor within 48 hours.

I got the two gaping holes repaired for $112.97. I called Verizon to request reimbursement, whether by check or account credit. Another dozen calls ensued, with everyone passing the buck to the local Verizon dispatch/support manager. They eventually gave me his cell phone number. I called, left a voicemail and never heard back from him.

4-5 days later, I called Verizon again – nada. Total lines of crap from everyone I got passed to. The mandatory 48-hour call-back gets extended by 48 hours each time I call.
 

Property Damage, Follow-Up

After seemingly endless calls to Verizon to get a reimbursement for property damage done during the initial installation, I managed to track down the Verizon tech that came out to my house to do the install. She agreed to find someone at a local command center who’d look into the issue. As a result, I got a call from a nice lady with local Verizon management. According to her, Verizon isn’t responsible for damage done to the property by the original installation contractor.

When she was informed that a) three Verizon techs and four support reps acknowledged that they were responsible, and that b) the “original contractor” was Verizon (duh!), they agreed to a reimbursement. I was told a check would be sent to me right away. Three weeks later, a check arrived. Issue successfully closed.
 

Download Speeds

In the mean time, our 15/2mbps service was averaging 5mbps down and roughly 1.2mbps up. That’s 1/3 the advertised download speeds. Calls to tech support were fruitless – reboot, reset the modem, blame it on the Mac OS, pass it off to a higher level support group, offer false promise of call-back. No one has been able to successfully troubleshoot the slow speeds.

Here’s a speed test (speedtest.net) done July 1st with my 15/2 FiOS service:

Here’s the last speed test I did while I still had Comcast running (test run June 16th):

According to Verizon FiOS support, FiOS speeds may not be faster all the time, but they’re consistent. Ha ha ha. Ouch. That kind of consistency is nothing to brag about.
 

Download Speeds, Good News Follow-Up

For some reason, the first 2-3 weeks of FiOS service sucked badly. Verizon techs couldn’t figure out why. Neither could I.

All of a sudden, with no obvious causation, the upload and download speeds normalized at 90% to 101% of the 15/2mbps account speeds. That’s right – I’ve actually seen downloads exceed the 15mbps download cap. I haven’t had a single service outage since the sudden improvement. Go figure.

 

Legal Bittorrent

I have tested a number of bittorrent services, downloading “public domain” movies, etc. I have seen 10-15mbps downloads on a constant basis. With Comcast, I considered myself very, very lucky if I was downloading at 4mbps. Upload speeds are also awesome. The main thing I really notice with FiOS and bittorrent is that when files are screaming up/down at near max speeds, the rest of my online activity is not hampered. With Comcast, if I downloaded at over 2-3mbps and uploaded over 400kbps, everything else would crap out. Email would fail, websites would crawl to a halt and the internet was essentially useless. Not so with FiOS.
 

Video on Demand – Foreign, Porn, Horror

Oh, Video on Demand. Free movies available all day, all night, ripe for the picking. Comcast offered 80-90 good movies for free. I was excited about the FiOS TV videos on demand. The sales reps I talked to explained that there are tons of choices. This evening, I checked out what might be available for free. Porn. Horror flicks. Obscure foreign films. Three odd-ball Disney films and a cornucopia of 3-4 minute shorts. What the f-ck?

I called Verizon FiOS support to see if I was missing something. I got a support rep who sounded like he was heavily stoned. After verifying every last minute detail about my account, he asked what the problem was. I explained the bogus selection. After a long pause (was he toking? eating? picking his nose?) he repeated my problem back to me like a junior high school counsellor, only he got it wrong. I explained again, telling him my options for free Video on Demand were Horror, shorts and Porn. When he heard ‘porn’, he asked me “for free?!” I said, “Yes, for free, but that’s not the point. Comcast has nearly 100 good movies – comedies, action, suspense, whatever. Where’s the selection on FiOS?”

Stoney suggested that I re-educate myself on the remote control and VoD settings. (Painfully stupid.) Another few repeats of my “actual” problem to dipshit support man left him slightly dumber than before. He concluded that it has to be a billing issue – that the monthly FiOS TV plan I’m on must restrict free Video on Demand movies. Good lord.
 

Channels Go Wacko

After 5 weeks with the Verizon TV service, and after having saved all my favorite channels for quick and easy on-screen access, Verizon changed their entire channel lineup with not so much as a ping for warning. No letter, no call, no on-screen “hey, we’re about to shuffle the entire deck, dude” – nothing. Now none of my favorite channels have the same numeric value any more. What the heck is that all about?
 

My Overall Observation of FiOS

Technologically, Verizon’s FiOS service is awesome. Download and upload speeds are fantastic. Speeds are consistent, too. As an alternative to cable high-speed Internet, FiOS gets a very, very good score of 8/10 or even 9/10.

Verizon’s main weakness is a confounding combination of corporate idiocracy, contradictory management policies and untrained/unintelligent support staff. Not all Verizon support techs are detrimental to the cause (honestly, some are very smart and helpful), but too many low-rent reps spoil Verizon’s potentially wonderful image.

It seems that Verizon is simply just too big and clumsy for its own good. It seems as though Verizon can’t manage itself worth a damn, and if it wasn’t for the solid technical delivery of its services, Verizon would probably implode or get eaten up by competitors.
 

Oh, and I just got another Verizon FiOS invitation letter encouraging me to switch from cable to FiOS.

The new MobileMe service doesn’t include Backup 3. Time Machine doesn’t read/open individual files. Google searches resulted in various complex ways to retrieve data from the backup.sparseimage files that Backup 3 produced. I called Apple support to get help figuring this out. After being put on hold a number of times and having to re-explain the situation again and again, my support rep put me on speaker phone with his supervisor. That supervisor suggested the simplest of simple solutions. Double click the backup.sparseimage file that Backup 3 had created.

Derr. Way too simple. Of course, the backup.sparseimage file just opened up like a DMG file would – as a separate volume (like a drive). I could browse all the folders and files that had been backed up in 2006, drag & drop to my desktop and another external drive as needed. Simple solution.

So, if you have an old .Mac Backup 3 archive that you want to grab data from, and if you are using OS X 10.5 Leopard, just open the old Backup 3 folders until you see “backup.sparseimage” and give it a quick double click. C’est tout. That’s it.

Granted, if your backup.sparseimage is corrupt, double clicking won’t help a whole lot. But for those ex-.Mac users who have stable backups, this is a nice revelation.

What the hell is going on with these companies sending out tiny, near-weightless items in these massive boxes? The carbon footprint on stupidity like this is just sickening.

I wish someone at TechDepot (and plenty of other companies… Newegg, *cough* Dell *cough*) would take a little responsibility and stop the madness. Items like this could go out in little bubble-wrap envelopes. Big savings (and more profits) to the retailers, major relief to the shipping companies, less gasoline used for transit, less waste in landfills (or recycling depots) and fewer pissed-off consumers.

Here are some pics showing the process of taking the WD Passport Elite drive apart.

Here’s the prey in its natural habitat:

A credit card or thick fingernail is the best tool for prying the wide edge open. There are quite a few notches – very tough, very resistant to force. Careful, or *snap*, the case will break!

You can see the notches that hold the case together.

Because the case wants to snap back together, it’s necessary to hold it apart from all angles. I used four credit/gift cards to do the trick.

Here’s the center frame extruded from the outer case.

All the parts…

As you can see, the drive inside is a Western Digital 320GB SATA drive with a 5400RPM rotational speed. These drives sell for $130 to $170 online, and for much, much more in retail stores.

Here you can see the SATA drive separated from the tiny little SATA-USB controller. This controller works fine on its own. You can use it with or without the WD enclosure.

BONUS PICS:
I dropped the 320GB drive into my 2.16GHz MacBook Pro. It formats to 298.09GB. So far, I’ve got 219GB free. Wow.

Close-up inside the MacBook Pro…

Another close-up inside the MacBook Pro. I like the paper-thin SATA interface.

FINAL WORDS:
What I like about the Western Digital My Passport Elite 320GB is that it’s a great hard drive for laptop use. It’s much cheaper than a generic OEM drive. The outer case is flat-out awesome – better than most 2.5″ cases you can buy online for $50 or more. An additional perk – the Western Digital My Passport Elite 320GB case is 100% bus-powered. No need for an external power supply or dual-USB cable setup to power the drive. I’m very happy with this purchase.

Caveat: moving from a 7200RPM drive to a 5400RPM drive can result in a slow-down here and there, but I’ve found that this 320GB drive is pretty swift on its feet so far. Boot time is only 3-4 seconds slower, Photoshop runs roughly the same and only video conversion seems significantly affected (by about 20%). All else is good.

This afternoon I opened my mailbox to find an envelope from Parallels. When I opened it, I found another surprise – a $10 iTunes gift card. That’s $20 in customer appreciation on a $79 purchase from 2007.

This seems rather unprecedented, doesn’t it? I like this trend!

Formatting the 32GB OCZ Flash Drive for booting into OS X. In this example, I split the drive into an OS X partition and a Windows-friendly data-swap partition.

 

I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy a fresh image of OS X to the bootable partition on the 32GB drive.

 

The cloning took hours and hours. Painfully slow. This speed (or lack thereof) is consistent with the speeds I experienced with data transfers on my Windows servers.

 

Booting to an external drive is easy – just hold down the “option” key when starting your Intel-based Mac. When the available drives appear (internal, USB or FireWire), select the one you want to boot from and hit Enter.

 

It took over 5 minutes to boot OS X from the OCZ flash drive. Ouch! For sake of comparison, it takes about 25-30 seconds to boot from the internal SATA drive, and roughly 45 seconds to boot from a 5400 RPM SATA drive in an external USB enclosure like the Thermaltake BlacX. 5 minutes is rather crappy, but the cool thing is that it actually works.

 

As you can see in this image, the MacBook Pro is running OS X via the OCZ 32GB flash drive.

 

The 32GB drive certainly “works” as a bootable drive, but its performance leaves so very much to be desired. Five minutes for boot time is really unacceptable (6-7 times slower than external SATA drives), although I’ll admit that USB flash drives still have a lot of room for improvement.

Despite the aggravating 5 minute boot, it was fun to see OS X successfully boot. On a faster USB flash drive, I’m sure the boot time could easily be reduced by 50% or more.

When I used the drive for the first time, I was expecting some pretty impressive transfer speeds. OCZ, the drive manufacturer, indicates that the 32GB drive uses dual-channel tech to speed things up. In theory, it sounds great. In practice… not so much.

The first major chunk of data transferred was a 4GB folder with about 800 files. From the point of drag-and-drop to the moment the data transfer completed, the 32GB drive took just under 490 seconds, or roughly 8 mins and 8-10 seconds.

I thought this was a bit odd, so I made the same backup with a 500GB SATA drive using a Thermaltake BlacX USB 2.0 drive bay. The same transfer took about 128 seconds, or 2 mins 8 seconds.

I then repeated the backup with an old beater 8GB flash drive from Corsair. The same 4GB folder transferred in about 230 seconds, or 3 mins 50 seconds.

In this nerdy chart, shorter bars are better. Stats are in seconds.

I got slightly better results moving larger individual files, like 500MB and 1GB video files. No major change when formatted and used on my MacBook Pro.

As for data storage, the OCZ 32GB drive is hard to beat. 29.86GB formatted, this thing will fit TONS of data. I could back up critical files from all my servers with this little drive. I could easily move my entire iTunes library off my MacBook Pro’s hard drive and free up many, many gigs of space. I can have my Win 2000, XP and Ubuntu OSes boot via Parallels from this drive. But because the throughput of the OCZ 32GB flash drive is nowhere near as fast as I was expecting, I’ll have to shelf my dreams of speedy keychain backups of my servers.

Due to CompUSA’s closure, I was shopping at Fry’s recently (the fact that I loathe and despise Fry’s is another issue) and found a great item – the “Thermaltake BlacX” external USB 2.0 drive dock. It accepts both 3.5″ SATA and 2.5″ SATA drives, has its SATA connections firmly built into the body of the device itself (thereby preventing the all-too-common weakening of connectors) and the drives, once inserted, sit vertically into the air, allowing for excellent heat dissipation. It works with Mac and PC. The Thermaltake BlacX even has a little “eject” button for popping drives off the SATA connectors. The price was $39.95.

So far, this peripheral/accessory/tool has been incredibly useful. I’ve been able to use my 2.5″ SATA drives on a daily basis, and it’s less than a 5 second task for me to pull a drive from another computer (PC or Mac), pop it into the BlacX bay and pull/write necessary data and then eject.

All things considered, this is probably the handiest $40 tech item I’ve purchased in years. That said, I can think of a few improvements that Thermaltake could make.

• USB hub on the front and/or sides
• a better product name. Honestly… BlacX?   WTF?   (Morans on the marketing team!)
• a FireWire 400 or 800 version of this drive bay. I’d pay extra for that!

Here’s the drive dock with a 2.5″ SATA drive: