We had four test subjects: a 4TB (2 x 2TB Hitachi 7200RPM, 3Gbps drives in RAID 0) 2big USB 3.0 drive, a 500GB Iomega Skin to handle the USB 2.0 duties, a 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Go FW to test FireWire 800, and a 160GB G-Technology Combo to measure FireWire 400 performance. Just so we're perfectly clear, the Mac Pro used in these benchmarks is specced as such:Ģ.66GHz quad-core Intel Xeon 'Nehalem' CPU In our testing, we relied on a (relatively new) Mac Pro and the aforesaid LaCie PCIe USB 3.0 expansion card. Also, we should point out that the 2big USB 3.0 used here includes the $49.99 PCIe expansion card right in the box. Thanks to a stroke of genius that may only ever be understood within the lairs of Cupertino, the newest unibody MacBook Pro units all have an SD card slot in place of the ExpressCard slot (the gargantuan 17-inch MBP notwithstanding), so for once, it pays to have yesteryear's best rather than today's. This means that any Mac Pro and any last-generation MacBook Pro can gain USB 3.0 support with a relatively inexpensive piece of hardware. Mind you, this support only extends to OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Tiger users and below are out of luck. Then, you'll need a free driver, which can be downloaded here.
Shocking, right? First off, you'll need a new piece of hardware: either a LaCie USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34 (on sale now for $59.99) or a LaCie USB 3.0 PCI Express card (on sale now for $49.99). Just to refresh those who completely slept through November 4th, there actually is a way to get USB 3.0 on your Mac. Care to see how it stacked up against USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800? Head on past the break for the grisly details. We were able to pick up a LaCie USB 3.0 PCIe expansion card as well as a 4TB (2 x 2TB) 2big USB 3.0 drive and put the whole setup through its paces on our in-house Mac Pro. We're obviously no fans of the holdout - after all, even a few sub-$500 netbooks are enjoying the SuperSpeed spoils already - so we couldn't have possibly been more excited to hear that a longstanding storage vendor was about to fill the void that Cupertino continues to ignore.
We've seen purported emails from Steve Jobs noting that USB 3.0 just isn't mainstream enough to sweat just yet, but coming from the guy who's still bearish on Blu-ray, we get the feeling that it'll be quite some time far too long before Apple finally caves and upgrades from USB 2.0. For whatever reason, Apple has refused to offer SuperSpeed USB on any of its machines, even a fully specced-out Mac Pro costing well north of $10,000. It took LaCie nearly a full year to ship the 2big USB 3.0 RAID drive - a device that was announced in the fall of 2009 - but now that it's here, it's being accompanied by a concept that actually far outshines the unit itself: USB 3.0 on a Mac.
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