That's a good one, Brendan! Thanks. :-) On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Brendan MacRae <[email protected]> wrote: > I have been running out room on my Mac Pro and needed to get an external > drive. I have one Aperture library that is nearly 500GB in size. I wanted a > off-the-shelf Mac drive that was inexpensive that would have fast throughput. > USB 2.0 and Firewire just aren't fast enough. So, I initially got an eSATA > PCIe card for my Mac that allows SATA connections with external drives. > Unfortunately, either the card, the driver, or both didn't provide the > 3Gb/sec speed I require. In fact, the transfer speeds were running at slower > than USB speeds so it turned out to be worthless to me. Luckily I found a > solution: > > http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php > > Not bad and it costs $19 plus shipping. > > Since, it turns out, the Mac Pro's made between 2006 and 2008 have two add'l > SATA ports on the motherboards you can install this kit and get two eSATA > connections on the back of your machine. What's really nice is that since > you're plugging into native ports on the motherboard (vs. going through a > card), the Mac just treats the drive just like internal storage, no drivers > needed. The downside, for some, is that you have to basically take your > machine apart to get to the ports. It requires removing the ram risers, all > installed cards, all hard drives, the processor cover, and the front fan > assembly. Sounds like an incredible pain, but really is quite simple as Mac > Pros are designed to be reconfigured easily. > > I'm running a super cheap ($159) WD My Book 1.5T drive via the eSATA > connection and I can now run my largest Aperture library from this drive just > as if it were an internal drive. You do need to turn the drive on before > start up, however, but the drive then turns off on its own when the system > shuts down. > > This will do until USB 3.0 becomes affordable. > > -Brendan > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. >
-- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
