How can I make a bootable OSX USB installer?

Posted on April 26, 2015 by quill

Reinstalling OSX on a Macintosh is sometimes necessary, whether you are upgrading or whether you need to repair a problem.

The problem is that after Snow Leopard, Apple abandoned DVD media and gone exclusively to downloadable installers.  And, many recent Macintosh machines no longer have DVDs, or you may have sacrificed your DVD drive for a second hard drive in your machine.   The easiest solution is to have a bootable USB stick with the OSX installation you need on it.  Note:  It is a good idea to get this made BEFORE you have problems, because you need a fully functioning Mac with an Internet connection to set it up.

First, you will need to log onto the Apple App Store, and download the latest OSX installer. Just do the download, don’t start the installer. Currently, the only choice you have for free is OSX 10.13 High Sierra.

However if you previously had downloaded OSX 10.7, 10.8 10.9, 10.10, 10.11 or 10.12 , you should be able to re-download the installer from your Apple App Store Purchases list.  Again just do the download, don’t start the installer.  Get yourself a 16 GB USB stick (an 8 GB will do, but I like to be on the safe side – also note that the stick is going to get erased in the process, so don’t use one that has any important data on it.)

Then get the shareware program Diskmaker X which has scripts that will do the rest for you. It will ask you where you have stored your Installer file, and then burrow into it to find the disk image, and Restore that to your USB stick.  Diskmaker X is currently having a problem with 10.13, we are waiting for an announcement on a fix.

Some of the Apple installers have a bug in them – if they were downloaded before February 2016, they go out to check an Apple server for authentication, but those servers no longer exist.  The fix, as long as you can boot the Mac still, is to set the date back to January 2016 or earlier, then proceed with the install, then reset the date to current.

As an alternative you can find the files manually: http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/how-to-make-a-bootable-osx-10-8-mountain-lion-disc-or-drive-from-the-downloaded-mountain-lion-app/

If your machine came with 1o.7 or higher, and you haven’t purchased any upgrades, then you don’t have a way to download anything except 10.13. However your machine originally came with a hidden Recovery partition and if you still have the original hard drive (or if you migrated the Recovery partition properly to a new drive) you can still build an installer using Apple’ OSX Recovery Disk Assistant https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US.

http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/make-a-bootable-usb-drive-of-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-using-the-recovery-partition/ 

One note, never try to install an OSX version earlier than the one that shipped originally with the machine.

 

 

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Can I build a $600 gaming machine?

Posted on April 26, 2015 by quill

The CAN$600 question is, can an uber-affordable machine deliver an acceptable gaming experience?  GF_Case_3205BAnd the answer is: with the right expectations, yes.

The first thing that has to go out the window is the idea that you have to play all games at maximum resolution and maximum quality settings.  You could do that, of course, as long as you were OK counting to ten between frames.  But being willing to compromise on resolution and fine detail will let you play with acceptable frame rates on a machine that won’t break the bank.  The exact settings “sweet spot” is going to vary from game to game, so do some testing with your favorites.

Intel_Pentium_Anniversary For a low-cost gaming build, we are going to sacrifice CPU cores and go for flat out dual-core speed.  The Haswell Pentium dual core chips start out fast, and can be handily tweaked, so the the Anniversary Edition Pentium will power our platform. Starting at 3.2 GHz, it can be overclocked to 4.0 GHz with the stock air cooler.

The MSI Intel B85 motherboard has SATA 6.0 Gbps connections, USB 3.0 ports, solid capacitors and “milspec” components for reliability, and unusually for a mATX board, it has four DDR3 DIMM memory sockets and can go to 32 GB of RAM if you wish.MSI_B85M-E45 This also means you could populate it with some 2 GB DDR3-1600 MHz DIMMs that you may be able to pick up cheaply from someone who has upgraded.

MSI is big on gaming, and they have overclocking support built into their BIOS.

The big ticket item, and the most direct influence on game frame rates is the video card, so about 30% of our budget will go there.

AMD_R7_260XThe Radeon R7 260X 2GB card is reasonably priced with performance close to the NVidia GTX 750ti version (which sells for $40 more). Both cards can run without dedicated PCI-e Graphics power connectors from a 350-400W power supply.

For this build, the first item to get tossed overboard is the hard drive.  This is a gaming machine, not a media library.  You can add a couple of TB of spinning drive storage later for $100 or so if you really want, or you can re-purpose an drive from an older machine or one from a buddy who has upgraded. (A data storage and backup drive does not have to be fast).

SanDisk_X100_128On the flip side, we are going to go with an SSD flash-based drive for the boot drive, because the price point has crossed the critical bar where a 128 GB SSD is as inexpensive as a 500 GB hard drive.  Yeah, it’s a small drive. But it is FAST – your mission if you choose to accept it is to keep your system lean and mean, with no superfluous programs or data (lay off of that Download Now button).  Apart from the fast booting and lightning-speed loading of programs and data, an SSD exacts far less of a time penalty on virtual memory swap files than an hard drive – near zero latency and triple the bandwidth means that you don’t suffer nearly as bad a performance hit if you exceed your physical RAM capacity.

About that memory: 4 GB RAM is just enough, 8 GB would be better, so that’s the obvious first upgrade.  Or you may be able to scrounge up 2 GB module or two to make it 6 GB or 8 GB.

As usual, prices are estimates only, in Canadian dollars, and subject to change.

Case GoldenField 3205B mATX case with 500W PSU
 CSE-3205B-500W $ 45
Motherboard MSI Motherboard LGA1150 B85 DDR3 max 32GB RAM Sata 6.0Gbps, USB 3.0
 B85M-E45 $ 81
Power supply 500W included with case    
SSD Drive SanDisk X110
 SD6SB1M-128G-1022i $ 79
Memory DDR3-1600 CL10 4 GB (1x4GB DIMM) $ 36
CPU Intel Pentium G3258 Anniversary edition dual core 3.2 GHz
 BX80646G3258 $ 91
Optical drive Asus DVD-RW DRW-24F1ST/BLK/B/AS $ 20
Keyboard and Mouse Microsoft or Logitech Desktop combo
 $ 17
Cooler Stock cooler
Video card Radeon R260X 2GB Overclock Example Asus R7260X-DC2OC-2GD5 $ 159
TOTAL before tax, shipping and assembly $ 528
Upgrade RAM To 8 GB +$ 36
OS Windows 8.1 OEM WN7-00615 $ 116
Upgrade video card
 NVidia GTX 750ti -159 + 199 =
+$ 40

Looks good, we’re hitting the mark at $528 plus tax, but there’s a cheat here; that’s without the Windows OS, which puts us over the $600 mark by a long ways.

There are a limited number of legal alternatives here. You could install Linux, but then your gaming selection and installation requirements are radically altered.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025909/gaming-on-linux-a-guide-for-sane-people-with-limited-patience.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2363780/linux-gaming-rising-7-big-name-pc-games-that-now-call-linux-home.html

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/

If you have an unused retail copy of Windows 7 (as opposed to a Windows that came bundled with a machine purchase) you could use that.

Or, if you are willing to do a bit of work and take some minor risks of compatibility and crashing, for a limited time you can download the Windows 10 beta (Technical Preview ISO) here http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/preview-iso and follow the instructions to burn it onto a USB stick for installation on the machine.

What are the tradeoffs? Besides the CPU choice, 4 GB of RAM and the small SSD drive, the Golden Field case and power supply combo is, how can we say? Basic.  Although the PSU is rated at 500W, I would really call it a 350W unit, which is still fine for this build.  If you wanted a more attractive case, a larger power supply or the ability to power PCI-e Graphics cards, you’d have to invest $50 – $100 more

Previous articles

April 2015 $1000 gaming machine

Feb 2014 $1000 gaming machine

Dec 2011 $2000 gaming machine

2011 $1000 gaming machine

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Can I build a gaming computer under $1000? (Apr 2015 edition)

Posted on April 25, 2015 by quill

It’s April 2015 and we are revisiting our exercise in budget computing: Can we build a computer that will give acceptable gaming performance for under $1000 (In our 80 pound weakling Canadian dollars)?

In the past year we have seen DDR3 memory prices go up and then ease back just a little, the Canadian dollar go down precipitously adding 20% to the cost of nearly everything, and SSDs (flash based hard drives) steadily dropping in price and increasing in capacity.

The component that has the most impact on performance in a gaming computer is the video card, so budget compromises have to be between the relative costs of the GPU video card vs CPU processor vs SSD drives. Fortunately, video cards have been improving in performance, and the latest generation of NVidia Maxwell chips is particularly impressive.

The best bang for the buck on CPUs is still an entry level Intel Core i5 CPU or a 6-core or 8-core AMD FX series CPU. For the cheapest possible machine, an AMD FM2 A8 or A10 APU could be used, or one of the fast dual-core Pentium chips, but that sacrifices CPU power to the point that it can affect game-play.

Here are suggested configurations at about the $1000 price point (before tax, Canadian dollars, current to April 25 2015) In all of the configurations, we have gone with motherboards that have:

  • at least two PCI-e video card slots compatible with Crossfire (or SLI) for future acceleration (with more money, you can get 2 PCI-e x16 slots with full 16 lane support on each, but at this price level, the second slot can be limited to 4 lanes).
  • USB 3.0 on board
  • SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) on board
  • Gigabit Ethernet (1000BT)
  • 4 RAM sockets with overclocked DDR3 capability, with a mximum RAM capacity of 32 GB. This allows us to get 8 GB of Dual Channel RAM installed, with room to upgrade later as budget allows.

A micro-ATX board with 2 slots can save some cash, if you are willing to live with a single PCI-e x16 slot and 2 memory sockets with 16 GB maximum, you could save up to $50

In brute computing performance benchmarks using all cores, the 3.5 GHz AMD 8-core FX-8320 out-performs the Intel i5-4440. (However in the real world we’re often in the position where not all 8 cores are utilized to the max,, and there the 4-core i5 holds its own). We have gone with a 240 GB SSD drive as a primary drive on each machine, for the speed of booting and loading.  Its easy to add an extra hard drive if you need the space for file storage.

So here are our contenders:

AMD FX 8-Core system.

Case Coolermaster CMForce 500 CSE-FOR500KR500   $87
Motherboard MSI 970A-G43 AMD AM3+ 970/SB950 DDR3 SATA PCI Express USB 3.0 ATX $91
Power supply Coolermaster Elite 500W   included with case    
 SSD drive  Kingston 240 GB     $135
Memory DDR3-1600 CL9 8 GB (2x4GB DIMM) BLS2KIT4G3D1609DS1S00 $89
CPU AMD FX-8320 8 core 3.5 GHz / 4.0 GHz boost FD8320FRHKBOX   $199
Optical drive Asus DRW-24F1ST/BLK/B/AS   $20
Keyboard and Mouse Coolermaster CMStorm Devastator combo SGB-3010-KKMF1-US   $34
Additional Fan 120mm (one included with case)     $11
Video card Asus R7 260X 2GB OC R7260X-DC2OC-2GD5 Overclocked, with 2 GB of video memory   $159
OS Windows 8.1 OEM WN7-00615   $116
Cooler Stock cooler  Included with CPU    
 TOTAL before tax, shipping and assembly     $941

The Black edition FX-8350 chip would be fun if you want to experiment with overclocking, but it adds $40 or more to the cost plus the cost of a better cooler.  (If you’re going to spend the money, the Intel i5-4670K is about $100 more, but offers about 25% better performance than the FX-8350)

Intel 4-core system.

For today’s system we are moving the i5 up to the slightly more powerful 4460 at 3.2 GHz, and going with SSD as the primary drive, and it just sneaks in under $1000 before tax.

Case Coolermaster CMForce 500 CSE-FOR500KR500  87
Motherboard Gigabyte ATX 4*DDR VGA DVI HDMI Main Board GA-B85-HD3 109
Power supply 500W included with case    
SSD Drive Kingston 240 GB   135
Memory DDR3-1600 CL9 8 GB (2x4GB DIMM) BLS2KIT4G3D1609DS1S00 89
CPU Intel i5-4460 3.2 GHz 4 core / 3.4 GHz boost BX80646I54440 239
Optical drive Asus DVD-RW DRW-24F1ST/BLK/B/AS  20
Keyboard and Mouse Coolermaster CMStorm Devastator combo SGB-3010-KKMF1-US  34
Additional Fan 120mm (one included with case)   11
Video card Radeon R260X 2GB Overclock Example Asus R7260X-DC2OC-2GD5 159
OS Windows 8.1 OEM WN7-00615  116
Cooler Stock cooler    
 TOTAL  before tax, shipping and assembly   $999
Options        
Cooler for overclocking Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R1  $32
Upgrade the video card  NVidia GTX750TI  2GB GDDR5  $197 -159= +$38
Upgrade the video card  NVidia GTX960
(+ power supply adapter cables or upgrade PSU)		  2GB GDDR5  $282 -159= +$123
Upgrade the Power Supply If you want a high powered video card, you’ll have to up the PSU’s capabilities. Switch to CM Elite 371 BLACK Case and CM GX2 650W 80+ Bronze PSU, less the cost of the CM Force 500
   $135 – $87 = +$48  

The video card is the obvious first step to upgrade beyond the basic level. The GTX 750ti, which runs the NVidia Maxwell architecture gives a small but real upgrade in some specific games over the R7 260X $197  (the AMD card does better in some benchmarks, and in a few titles).  Plus the 750ti is very energy efficient and does not need supplemental PCI-e power connectors.

The next big step up is the GeForce GTX960, with the second generation of NVidia Maxwell GPU architecture $282.

Some GTX960 cards require one 8 pin PCI-e power connector and some need two 6 pin connectors.  Since the CM500 Elite PSU has one 6-pin PCI-e connector, the GTX960 upgrade would require either an upgrade to the stock power supply, or some adapter cables to provide connection from 4-pin peripheral power connectors.

These computer builds rely on the stock cooling fans, which is perfectly fine at the rated clocks – if you are intending to overclock, then you may be wise to look into third party CPU coolers, and the Intel Core I5 i5-4670K, 3.4GHz Unlocked “K” version of the CPU for about $67 more than the stock i5, which will push the Intel system just over $1100. For overclocking as well, there are RAM upgrades in the 1866 MHz region for not much more, and in the 2100 – 2400 MHz region for quite a lot more.

Other upgrades:

Mouse: Logitech Gaming Mouse G500 USB $79
(note that you don’t want a wireless mouse or keyboard for gaming)

Keyboard: Logitech Gaming Keyboard G110 12 programmable keys, backlighting, USB audio $96

RAM: 16 GB rather than 8 GB  Add about $100

Next time, we’ll see if we can put together a credible $600 machine.

Previous posts
Feb 2014

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, PC Gaming, Upgrading | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

News: Apple admits 2011/12/13 MacBook Pro flaws, starts repair program

Posted on February 22, 2015 by quill

Apple finally has admitted that the graphic chips in the 2011 MacBook Pro machines are prone to failure, and have created an extended warranty program for owners who are experiencing black screens, garbled screens and unexpected shutdowns.
The program covers all 2011 15 and 17 inch MacBook Pros, and mid-2012 to early-2013 15 inch MacBook Pros.  13 inch MacBook Pros and machines without discrete graphics chips are not affected.

The extended warranty program goes until February 27, 2016 or three years from its original date of sale, whichever provides longer coverage.

You can take the machine to a local Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Store or arrange for mail-in service. Because it probably involves a motherboard replacement, it cannot be done by an owner.

You can check your machine here to see if it qualifies:
https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do

Affected Models
  • MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011)
  • MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2011)
  • MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012)
  • MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2011)
  • MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011)
  • MacBook Pro (Retina, 15 inch, Early 2013)

and the program details are here:
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

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Superfish malware installed on new machines exposes HTTPS browsing

Posted on February 21, 2015 by quill

No SuperfishIf you have a new Lenovo laptop, do this today: Check for Superfish and eliminate it

Software called Superfish, a “Visual Search enhancer” product pre-installed on new consumer laptops from Lenovo among other brands, has been revealed to have severe privacy breaches. This also affects any software using the underlying Komodia toolkit (see below)

Superfish is software that inserts advertising into web pages you visit, creating a “Visual Search results” area with the notation “powered by VisualDiscovery.” If you see these phrases on your web browser pages and searches, then you have this software installed.

You want to remove this immediately, because it works by installing phony ‘security certificates’ for SSL HTTPS pages that you browse, so that the program can snoop on your secure browsing (like, your banking and financial sites) to throw ads up on the screen. Unfortunately, by subverting SSL security, it also opens up your browsing to a hacker who if they can gain access to your network, can then also view the data of what you thought were private and secure connections.

Fortunately, Microsoft has already updated Microsoft Defender anti virus software and it will eradicate Superfish. Update and run Defender at your first opportunity.  Instructions for manual removal are here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886278/how-to-remove-the-dangerous-superfish-adware-presintalled-on-lenovo-pcs.html

You can check if your machine is affected by visiting this site https://lastpass.com/superfish/

The dodgy technology

The underlying certificate hijacking technology that Superfish is using is from the Israeli firm Komodia, which produces parental control (“net nanny”) software, including Komodia’s KeepMyFamilySecure and is included in similar products from the company Qustodio.

A partial list of programs that have been identified by researchers and reported on ArsTechnica of using this certificate hijacker is

  • Komodia’s KeepMyFamilySecure
  • Qustodio network security software
  • Lavasoft Ad-aware Web Companion
  • CartCrunch Israel LTD
  • WiredTools LTD
  • Say Media Group LTD
  • Over the Rainbow Tech
  • System Alerts
  • ArcadeGiant
  • Objectify Media Inc
  • Catalytix Web Services
  • OptimizerMonitor
  • SecureTeen

Plus there is one piece of malware identified so far which incorporates it

  • Trojan.Nurjax

A different but similar HTTPS vulnerability in the stand alone version of PrivDog (the PrivDog 2 software supplied by Comodo apparently does not have the vulnerability).

All of these programs should also be regarded as hazardous and removed.

The toolkit spoofs security certificates for the sites that you visit, substituting its own certificates that assure your web browser that everything is secure. In fact, it allows the software to see everything that passes between you and the server, whether it is your bank, an e-commerce site, medical or government site.  Then, to top it off, the company was lazy enough to use the same certificate private key for all of the certificates on all users machines… it is the work of a moment for researchers (and hackers) to extract that key, and theoretically have access to the data using a “man in the middle” attack.

Your risk of attack in your home or business is low, because the hacker would have to have access to your network (not impossible, due to vulnerabilities in internet routers or from computers on the network which has previously been infected with a backdoor trojan). But in public areas, the risk is much higher, so removing the software and those certificates is paramount.

Lenovo machines from Mid 2014 to January 2015  which may be affected:

  • G Series: G410, G510, G710, G40-70, G50-70, G40-30, G50-30, G40-45, G50-45
  • U Series: U330P, U430P, U330Touch, U430Touch, U530Touch
  • Y Series: Y430P, Y40-70, Y50-70
  • Z Series: Z40-75, Z50-75, Z40-70, Z50-70
  • S Series: S310, S410, S40-70, S415, S415Touch, S20-30, S20-30Touch
  • Flex Series: Flex2 14D, Flex2 15D, Flex2 14, Flex2 15, Flex2 14(BTM), Flex2 15(BTM), Flex 10
  • MIIX Series: MIIX2-8, MIIX2-10, MIIX2-11
  • YOGA Series: YOGA2Pro-13, YOGA2-13, YOGA2-11BTM, YOGA2-11HSW
  • E Series: E10-30

Why is it there in the first place?

The dirty secret in the computer business is – money.

Software vendors pay computer manufacturers to pre-install their wares on new machines. That’s why any new machine you get comes with McAfee or Norton Antivirus “trial” versions, complete with the nag-ware which pops up incessantly and prompts you to purchase or renew a subscription “to stay protected”.   Ditto the “free” games that came with your machine that clamor for you to upgrade or make in-app purchases.

Less scrupulous software vendors install software that modifies your web browser to show advertising, or redirects your search preferences to their own tailored search results. Their motivation is the ad revenue they get from websites and brand owners for preferentially driving your traffic to them.

In a bid to get more revenue (and lower the price of their computers in a fiercely competitive market) Lenovo have succumbed to the lure of thirty pieces of silver, and have betrayed your privacy (and virtually all other brands engage in the practice of pre-installed software as well). In this case, Lenovo did a stunningly poor job of quality control of what they allowed to be installed.

Are we out of the woods if we don’t have these laptops?

Keep in mind that it is not certain that Superfish, or the underlying technology, is limited to Lenovo laptops.  It could as well be embedded in shareware or commercial software, or in plug ins or browser add-ons – in addition to the parental control software already identified. We don’t know yet what the degree of spread is.

As for the preinstalled software in general, there are a couple of programs that are worth running, the wonderfully named PCDeCrapifier which identifies and removes a range of “shovelware” that manufacturers put on new machines
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/download

and
AdwCleaner, a program that does a good job of removing web browser redirect and adware extensions.
https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/

 

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, News, Security, Viruses and malware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Event: DesertBus For Hope Charity drive

Posted on November 19, 2014 by quill

DesertBus 2014 is now in progress, http://desertbus.org/

My friends from the Loading Ready Run sketch comedy troupe in Victoria are playing the most boring video game ever made (Penn & Teller’s DesertBus*) to raise money for the Child’s Play charity. They will keep driving the DesertBus 24/7 for as long as people donate to the charity. While they are driving the bus, they hold auctions, do skits and songs for donations, and accept challenges to do hilarious and/or embarrassing things for donations.

The volunteer drivers have over 160 hours to drive the DesertBus (keep them driving by donating, the more money raised, the longer they are tortured by having to play the worst-game-in-the-world.)

DesertBus for Hope has passed $400,000 on this years campaign so far, and have raised over 2 million for charity since 2007

Tune in and support the gang and the Child’s Play charity, which provides toys and games to children who are seriously ill and in hospital.

* Developed by comedians Penn and Teller, the “anti-game” DesertBus is a first-person driving game, where you drive a bus from Tuscon to Las Vegas, in real time. The road is dead straight, and — nothing happens. Then when you reach Las Vegas 4.5 hours later, you —turn around and go back. The bus’ steering is defective, so if you don’t pay attention it will veer off the road and crash. At which point a tow truck is dispatched to tow you back — in real time.

Here’s an article from last year in the New Yorker about their effort http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/desert-bus-the-very-worst-video-game-ever-created

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Ventir: New Mac malware, Trojan Horse

Posted on October 20, 2014 by quill

As reported by The Safe Mac here, and Kapersky Labs here, a new trojan horse “Ventir” has been discovered which infects Macintosh OSX.  The vector for infection has not been determined, but the Ventir installer must be run, either as part of another program installer or as a trojan horse (masquerading as something else).  It has two methods of installation, including one which will continue to infect the Mac even if Administrative privilege is denied after the installer starts.

The malware is called a modular malware program, there are two known components – it acts as a keylogger, capturing your keystrokes and sending them, plus it opens a back door for installation of other malware. Because at this point it isn’t known what this “Dropper” component may install, the indicated disinfection for a compromised machine is “nuke-and-pave”, or complete reformatting of the hard drive and re-installation of OSX and your programs from known-clean sources such as your original DVDs or installer files.

According to reports, ESet antivirus software has signatures for this malware, and Apple are working on an XProtect update.

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Mac questions, News, Security, Viruses and malware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Memory for the new late Apple 2014 5K iMac, Mac Mini

Posted on October 19, 2014 by quill

Apple has released a 2014 model of the iMac, with a stunning new “5K” 27 inch Retina screen.  Happily, unlike the previous Retina iMac models, Apple included upgradeable memory in this configuration. It can go to a maximum of 32 GB with four 8 GB DDR3-1600L SODIMMs, accessible through a fold-out hatch on the back of the machine. You can see the inner details of the iMac 5K at iFixit’s teardown page here.

Apple iMac 27" 5K Screen Late 2014

Apple iMac 27″ 5K Screen Late 2014

 

CanadaRAM offers memory for the 5K iMac machine here in 8, 16 and 32 GB kits from DMS Certified, Kingston, Crucial and other brands.

Sadly, the 2014 Mac Mini, which received a refresh at the same time, has soldered in RAM which is not upgradeable, it can only be ordered with 8 Gb or 16 GB from the factory (4GB, 8 GB or 16 GB on the entry level model)  The stock hard drive is a 5400 RPM model, which makes the 1 TB Fusion Drive (1TB hard drive plus a small SSD drive) or SSD options pretty much mandatory if you are looking to put the Mini into any high performance application. Between the 16 GB option and the higher performance drive option, the Mini’s previously low price balloons to well over CAN$1,100.

Apple_Mac_Mini_2014

Apple Mac Mini 2014

The entry level Mini with a small 1.4 GHz processor is strictly for budget use with non-demanding applications; like the entry level iMac introduced earlier, the machine uses a low-power CPU (the weakest processor released by Apple in some time) and is aimed at schools and students with a minimal budget.

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Mac questions, Memory News, Upgrading | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What is the state of Thunderbolt drives? (October 2014 edition)

Posted on October 17, 2014 by quill

Thunderbolt drive news
(Note 4/2020, many of the products introduced in 2014 are now out of date in 2020)

Apple has left Firewire and adopted Thunderbolt as their recommended high speed connection for external hard drives (and monitors and other devices). With the Late-2013 “tubular” MacPro, Apple is making it quite explicit that there is no longer any place for drives internally in Macintosh computers.  In the mean time Intel has been quietly promoting the inclusion of Thunderbolt into higher end PC motherboards and workstations.

Thunderbolt is a Intel development with cooperation from Apple, which extends the PCI-e bus to an external interface and includes connectivity for DisplayPort graphics signals. The speed that it provides for data transfer is of particular interest to media production professionals (Video editing, music recording, animation) and for scientific, graphic, and other large data set applications. The extension of the PCI-e bus also opens the door for high performance external video and processing acceleration cards such as the Red Rocket, AJA Kona, Black Magic, Bluefish, DeltaCast, Matrox Mojito.

Thunderbolt hard drives and enclosures were slow to come to market but a number of models are now shipping. Thunderbolt products do remain pricey as the chipset adds a premium over the cost of USB 3.0 drives. As chipsets become more common and manufacturers get competitive we should start to see the prices creeping down.

Here is a quick review of what is available as of Oct 15 2014

Firmtek:
The Thundertek/PX-Q6G is a promising development, a Thunderbolt to eSATA solution which actually supports Port Multiplier, for up to 20 external hard drives (in four 5 bay eSATA enclosures). You do have to purchase the Thunderbolt cable and the eSATA enclosures or external drives separately. Unfortunately the Thundertek has only a single Thunderbolt port, making it a terminal device (no daisy chaining) and does not come with the Thunderbolt cable.
The ThunderTek/PX is a Thunderbolt to PCI-e slot external chassis for Macintosh machines with Thunderbolt ports, it can take a PCI-e half-length card.  In combination with the SeriTek/Q6G 4-external-port eSATA card, it creates a Thunderbolt to eSATA 4 port solution, the combination is called the Thundertek/PX-Q6G.  The ThunderTek/PW version is the same but is PC compatible as well as Mac compatible.

Firmtek ThunderTek/PX

Firmtek ThunderTek/PX

LaCie:
The eSATA Hub Thunderbolt series did ship earlier than most of its competitors, and offers two eSATA ports.  Sadly, it is not Port Multiplier compatible, so it supports at most 2 external eSATA drives. It does have two Thunderbolt ports for daisy chaining, which is a plus, but no cable.
CanadaRAM LaCie Thunderbolt series 

LaCie eSATAHub Thunderbolt

LaCie eSATAHub Thunderbolt

LaCie eSATAHub TB back

LaCie eSATAHub TB back

LaCie is shipping their 2Big Thunderbolt external drives, which have 2 x 3.5″ drives in a RAID pair within the Thunderbolt enclosure, these come with the Thunderbolt cable and dual Thunderbolt ports.

CanadaRAM LaCie Thunderbolt series 

C

LaCie 2big Thunderbolt

LaCie 2big ThunderboltLaCie 2big Thunderbolt Back

LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Back

The 5Big Thunderbolt has 5 drives in a RAID configuration. These can be configured as a RAID 0, or by using Apple’s Disk Utility, they can be formatted either as RAID 1 mirrored pairs (2 pairs plus one independent drive, or one pair and three independent drives), or as 5 independent drives.

CanadaRAM LaCie Thunderbolt series 

LaCie 5big Thunderbolt

LaCie 5big Thunderbolt

The LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series is a smaller size desktop drive (requires an AC adapter so it is not considered a mobile drive) available with 2 hard drives in a RAID0 Array or with two SSD drives internally. They have two Thunderbolt connectors and include a cable.

CanadaRAM LaCie Thunderbolt series 

LaCie_LittleBigDisk_Thunderbolt

LaCie LittleBigDisk Thunderbolt

The LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt2  1 TB SSD is a compact size desktop drive with two 512 GB  SSD drives in a RAID 0 Array and two Thunderbolt 2 (20 Gbps) connections, making it one of the fastest currently available drives. Thunderbolt cable is included.

1TB LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt2 SSD 1TB USB3.0 + TBolt Mobile RAID 0 (2X512) SSD drive, fanless with cable up to 1300 MBps RPM External, Thunderbolt 3 Yr Warranty 9000477

LaCie LittleBigDisk2 Thunderbolt2

LaCie LittleBigDisk Thunderbolt2

The single-drive options are the LaCie d2 USB 3.0 Thunderboltâ„¢ Series, which also have USB 3.0 but sadly have just one Thunderbolt connector. The cable is included.

CanadaRAM LaCie Thunderbolt series 

LaCie d2 Thunderbolt

LaCie d2 Thunderbolt

LaCie has some mobile drives, the Rugged USB3 Thunderbolt Series, available with hard drives or SSD drives, encased in bright orange rubber shock resistant material, and including a 1.5 foot Thunderbolt cable but just one Thunderbolt port

CanadaRAM LaCie Thunderbolt series 

LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt

LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt

Western Digital:
WD is shipping, in limited quantities, their MyBook Thunderbolt Duos which, like the LaCie 2Big, have two drives in the enclosure.  Credit to Western Digital for including both the Thunderbolt cable and the second Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining.

CanadaRAM Western Digital Thunderbolt series 

Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt

Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt

WD MyBook Thunderbolt open

WD MyBook Thunderbolt open

MyPassport Pro 2 TB and 4TB RAID drives
Portable, bus-powered aluminum external drives with two 2.5″ drives inside, in a RAID 0 configuration, these come in 2 TB and 4 TB sizes, and have maximum data throughput of about 230 MBps. They have a tethered Thunderbolt cable (short), and no daisychaining capability. As far as we know, they are not shipping in Canada as of Aug 6 2014.

Western_Digital_MyPassport_Pro

HighPoint:
The Highpoint RocketStor 5212 Thunderbolt brings a quick-load dual slot “Disk toaster” to the Thunderbolt arena. This is great for the convenience of swapping 3.5″ and 2.5″ SATA drives in and out. On the downside, Highpoint provides neither a Thunderbolt cable nor a second Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining.

CanadaRAM Highpoint Thunderbolt 

Highpoint RocketStor Thunderbolt with 1 2.5"SSD and 1 3.5" HDD

Highpoint RocketStor Thunderbolt with 1 2.5″SSD and 1 3.5″ HDD

Highpoint have also released some Thunderbolt2 to Mini-SAS high performance external interface adapters, with Mini-SAS interfaces for enterprise level SAS storage bays (can also be broken out to multiple eSATA connections)

RocketStor 6328 RAID interface with two 20Gb/s Thunderbolt2 Ports, two Mini-SAS Ports and Hardware RAID 0,1,5,6,10,50 and JBOD

RocketStor 6328L interface (no internal RAID) with two 20Gb/s Thunderbolt2 Ports, two Mini-SAS Ports

RocketStor 6324L interface (no internal RAID) with two 20Gb/s Thunderbolt2 Ports, one Mini-SAS Port

Highpoint_Rocketstor_RS6328

Buffalo:
Ministation 1 TB THUNDERBOLT portable Hard Drive HD-PA1.0TU3  Thunderbolt speed in a pocket sized drive, comes with USB 3.0 as well. Overall, it scores highly for portability, the performance will top out at the throughput of the 2.5″ hard drive, which is slower than a desktop 3.5″ drive. The inclusion of neither a Thunderbolt cable nor daisy chain second port is disappointing.

Buffalo Ministation Thunderbolt HD-PA1.0TU3

Buffalo Ministation Thunderbolt HD-PA1.0TU3

Buffalo’s Drivestation Mini Thunderbolt SSD is a compact desktop drive which has two SSD drives in a RAID for high speed storage up to 763 MB/s transfer rate.  It comes with dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy chaining and a Thunderbolt cable.

Buffalo Drivestation Mini Thunderbolt SSD

Buffalo Drivestation Mini Thunderbolt SSD

Buffalo Drivestation Mini TB back

Buffalo Drivestation Mini TB back

Data Robotics:
DROBO 5D – 5 Bay Storage Array is one of the few devices that comes with both USB3.0 and Thunderbolt ports, it has room for up to 5 3.5″ drives plus a unique approach – an mSATA slot accessible from the bottom of the drive, for an mSATA SSD drive; this is intended for cache memory, which could speed up the RAID performance.
It is an expensive solution that uses a proprietary RAID system internally.

Drobo 5d Thunderbolt

Drobo 5d Thunderbolt

Drobo 5d back

Drobo 5d back

Drobo Mini: four bay 2.5″ drive enclosure, Two Thunderbolt and one USB 3.0 port. No Thunderbolt cable.  mSATA slot in the Drobo Accelerator Bay for a caching SSD drive (optional).

Drobo_Mini_DR-MINI-1A21
CanadaRAM Drobo Mini link

Kanex:
Kanex has a line of Thunderbolt adapters, one for SATA and USB 3.0 (useable simultaneously) and one for USB 3.0 and Ethernet (intended for MacBook Airs which don’t have an RJ-45 port)

Canadaram Kanex Thunderbolt to USB3.0 + eSATA Adapter KTU10

Kanex_tbolt_ktu10
Kanex_tbolt_ktu20

Cables

Canadaram 1M Kanex Thunderbolt 1 m. cable M-M TBOLT1M
Canadaram 2M Kanex Thunderbolt 2 m. cable M-M TBOLT2M

Seagate:

Backup Plus for Mac with Thunderbolt external single-mechanism 3TB desktop drive includes both a cable and a daisy chaining second Thunderbolt port.

CanadaRAM 3TB Backup Plus for Mac with Thunderbolt STCB3000400 Link

Seagate Backup Plus STCB3000400

Seagate Backup Plus STCB3000400

Seagate also has adapters to convet GoFlex and Backup Plus drives purchased originally with USB or Firewire interfaces to Thunderbolt. The adapters are specific to certain models.|

Portable Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus Portable STAE128 for mobile Backup Plus 2.5″ drives (Thunderbolt cable not included)

Desktop Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus STAE129 for desktop Backup Plus 3.5″ drives (Thunderbolt cable not included)

Thunderbolt Adapter for GoFlex drives STAE121 (Thunderbolt cable not included) Intended as a Thunderbolt adapter for GoFlex Ultra-Portable portable drives with detachable adapters. The GoFlex Slim drives are too thin and they are loose when fitted, possibly leading to SATA connection failure.  This item may be discontinued, it seems to have disappeared from most catalogs.GoFlex_Portable_Thunderbolt_Adapter inside

GoFlex_Portable_Thunderbolt_Adapter

Sonnet:
Sonnet has their own take on an external PCI-e chassis, Echo Express III-D Desktop Thunderbolt 2 Expansion Chassis, which is a three-slot PCI-e chassis, and has support for Thunderbolt 2 (20 Gbps).  The Echo Express III-R Rackmount Thunderbolt 2 Expansion Chassis is a rack-mount version of the same.

Sonnet Echo Express 3d

Sonnet Echo Express 3d

The Echo Express SE II Thunderbolt 2 Expansion Chassis is similar but with two half-length PCI-e slots

Sonnet_echo_express_se2

Their latest entry is the Echo Express SEL Thunderbolt 2 single slot expansion chassis, which accommodates one low profile PCI-e card only.

Sonnet_echo_express_sel

The xMac Mini Server is a unique rackmount product that houses a Mac Mini, adds two PCI-e slot and a 150W power supply so the Mini can run higher end video editing cards.

Keep in mind that with this and any other expansion chassis, support for PCI-e cards will be limited to those cards which are on the manufacturer’s supported list.

Next up is the fabled Echo 15 Thunderbolt Dock 15-port docking station for computers with a Thunderbolt port. This should be intriguing when the products actually ship – an optical drive and a internal hard drive, plus other ports, this would seem to be a solution made for Macs that ship without optical drives. We are told the first units of these will start arriving in September 2014 after a close to two years wait on backorder. I’m sorry, Sonnet but credibility suffers when you continually announce ship dates only to push them back each time.

4 x USB 3.0 ports, 1 internal SATA and 1 external eSATA ports, 1 FireWire 800 port, Gigabit Ethernet, and audio interfaces, plus a second Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining. Includes either 8x DVD±RW drive or, optionally, a Blu-ray BD-ROM/8x DVD±RW drive. Supports installation of one 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA internal hard drive or SSD (and is available with various drive configurations pre-installed).

The Echo 15 Pro+Thunderbolt Dock 16-port comes with a Blu-Ray drive pre-installed, and it has connections for either two 2.5″ drives or one 3.5″ drive internally.

Sonnet Echo15 Thunderbolt Dock

Sonnet Echo 15 Thunderbolt Dock

Promise:
Promise has several variations of the Pegasus line of Thunderbolt enclosures.

The Pegasus J4 is a 4 bay 2.5″ SATA RAID enclosure that can hold laptop 2.5″ SATA hard drives (9.5mm or 7mm tall) or 2.5″ SATA SSDs. It will create a RAID array out of the drives, allowing up to 750 MB/sec transfer with SSDs.  It does have two Thunderbolt ports but does not come with the cable. With SSDs, the J4 can create an extremely fast RAAD drive in a portable package.

CanadaRAM Promise Thunderbolt series

Promise Pegasus J4

Promise Pegasus J4

Pegasus R4 and R6 are the 4-bay and 6-bay high performance hardware RAID Solutions with two Thunderbolt 10 Gbs ports. They are available in a variety of hard drive configurations up to 24 TB.

Promise Pegasus R4 and R6

Promise Pegasus R4 and R6

The Pegasus2 line is Thunderbolt 2 enabled hardware RAID storage with 4, 6 or 8 drive bays and up to 32 TB of storage per tower. Promise is pitching the Pegasus2 line toward video and multimedia production, giving performance fast enough for 3D and 4K video editing together with enterprise level RAID protection.

Promise Pegasus2 family

Promise Pegasus2 family

The Promise SANLink and SANLink2 are Thunderbolt external adapters that provide dual 4G Fibre Channel connectivity for Macs for connection to high speed storage area networks in enterprises and video production suites. They have dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy chaining, the SANLink2 supports Thunderbolt2.

Promise SanLink2 External Fibre Channel adapter

Promise SanLink2 External Fibre Channel adapter

OWC:
Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt RAID Storage Enclosure. Two 3.5″ SATA drive bays. Built in RAID controller supports RAID modes 0, 1, spanning & independent drives. Thunderbolt cable included, two Thunderbolt ports for daisy chaining.

With no drives (add your own) Elite Pro Dual METB7DK0GB Link
With 2 x 2 TB drives Elite Pro Dual METB7DH2.0T
With 2 x 3 TB drives Elite Pro Dual METB7DH6.0T
With 2 x 4 TB drives Elite Pro Dual METB7DH8.0T

OWC Elite Pro Dual Thunderbolt

OWC Elite Pro Dual Thunderbolt

ThunderBay IV four bay Thunderbolt enclosure. Independent drives or a variety of RAID modes. Note that this enclosure uses software RAID, not a hardware RAID controller in the case. Can take a mixture of hard drives and SSD drives. Two Thunderbolt ports for daisy chaining.
With no drives (add your own) ThunderBay IV TBIVKIT0GB Link
4 x 1 TB drives ThunderBay IV TBIVT04.0S
4 x 2 TB drives ThunderBay IV TBIVT08.0S
4 x 3 TB drives ThunderBay IV TBIVT12.0S
4 x 4 TB drives ThunderBay IV TBIVT16.0S
4 x 120 GB SSD ThunderBay IV TBIVSSD480
4 x 240 GB SSD ThunderBay IV TBIVSSDT1.0
4 x 480 GB SSD ThunderBay IV TBIVSSDT2.0
4 x 960 GB SSD ThunderBay IV TBIVSSDT4.0

OWC ThunderBay IV

OWC ThunderBay IV

Mercury On-The-Go Pro Thunderbolt portable 1 TB hard drive MOTGTBH5T1.0, single Thunderbolt port, so no daisy-chaining, and an odd choice of a slower HDD, I would have thought a Hybrid SSHD or a 7200 RPM HDD would have been better.

OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro Thunderbolt 1 TB

Mercury Helios Thunderbolt PCIe Expansion Chassis supports one PCI-e 2.0 half-length PCI-e x1, x4 or x8 card. Two Thunderbolt ports

OWC Helios Thunderbolt PCI-e Chassis

OWC Helios Thunderbolt PCI-e Chassis

One Stop Systems 
One Stop Systems has announced the CUBE line of Thunderbolt/PCI-e expansion chassis

The CUBE family includes
nanoCUBE, which takes one 7.3 inch PCIe short card

OneStop_nanoCube

The Micro Cube family µCUBE (1 slot), µCUBE2 (3 slot), and µCUBE3 (5 slots) supporting  9.5 inch PCIe short cards

OneStop_mCUBEs

The Cube family CUBE (2 slot), CUBE2 (5 slots), and CUBE3 (8 slots) supporting full-length PCIe cards

OneStop_CUBEs

The details are important, so make sure you go back to their website check the compatibility list for cards that can be used in the expansion chassis as they are tested.

CalDigit:
CalDigit has a fairly unique enclosure, the CalDigit T3 which is a three-bay Thunderbolt enclosure with quick-swap trays.  With three drive bays, it can implement a RAID 0 or a RAID 1 across three drives. With a RAID  1 mirror, that means you have three copies of the data instead of the conventional 2 with a 2 bay RAID. Alternatively, you can have a 2 disk RAID and assign the third bay to be an independent disk (JBOD). This opens up the possibility of a 2 drive RAID 0 for speed, which you could set up some cloning software to periodically copy to a large, slower drive in bay 3 as a backup.  Or, two large hard drives for archival data and an SSD for speed on your current working files.  SSDs and hard disks can be mixed in this enclosure.  It has 2 Thunderbolt ports but no Thunderbolt cable.

CalDigit announced (Oct 20 2014) a Thunderbolt2 version of the T3, and they have increased the warranty to 5 years. It supports hard drives up to 5 TB for a 15 TB maximum capacity and a 1,100 Mbps throughput with SSDs.

A T4 model with four drive bays is announced but not shipping yet

CalDigit_T3_RAID

CalDigit T3 RAID Thunderbolt Enclosure

The CalDigit Thunderboltâ„¢ Station is an external Thunderbolt adapter that adds USB 3.0, Audio In & Out, HDMI, and Ethernet connectivity via dual Thunderboltâ„¢ ports. Although the Audio in and out may be a benefit to new MacPro owners, the video and Ethernet ports seem to be aimed at MacBook Air owners. It has neither eSATA nor Firewire outputs, CalDigit is suggesting that the USB 3.0 ports are fast enough for hard drives, and position their AV Pro USB 3.0 and USB 3.0/Firewire 800 enclosures as companions for the Thunderbolt station. The AV Pro enclosures share the same drive caddies as the T3 RAID enclosure, so drives can be interchangeable between them (limited by the RAID configuaration of course).

CalDigit Thunderbolt Station adapter

CalDigit Thunderbolt Station adapter

CalDigit AVPro

CalDigit AVPro USB 3.0 / USB3/Firewire 800 enclosure

Belkin:
Belkin has their Thunderbolt Express Dock which provides a Thunderbolt adapter providing 3x USB 3.0 ports, 1x Firewire 800 port, Audio I/O and Gigabit LAN. It provides USB charging power (500 mA only) on the USB ports, has a second Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining, and includes an AC power adapter. Comes in two versions, with and without Thunderbolt cable.

Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock (rear)

Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock (rear)

Matrox:
Matrox offers the DS1 Thunderbolt Dock in either a DVI or HDMI versions. This is intended mainly for offering display, audio and Ethernet connectivity for MacBook and MacBook Air machines. It has 2 x USB 2.0 and 1 x USB 3.0 ports, which seems to be a missed opportunity for additional USB 3.0 connections for drives.  It oddly puts the microphone and headphone connectors on the back panel. Without a cable, and without a daisy chaining second Thunderbolt port, it does not compare as well against the CalDigit and Belkin offerings.

Matrox DS1 dock

Matrox DS1 dock

Atto:
Atto’s ThunderLink adapters convert from Thunderbolt to various media.  They all have 2 x Thunderbolt ports, and come in four versions,

Atto Thunderlink

Atto Thunderlink

ThunderLink FC 1082 Two Thunderbolt ports to 2 x 8 Gbps FibreChannel ports,
ThunderLink SH 1068 Two Thunderbolt ports to 8xSATA/SAS, on SFF-8088 port(breakout cable required for connection to SATA or SAS drives)

Atto Thunderlink SH-1068 Back

Atto Thunderlink SH-1068 Back

ThunderLink NT 1102 (10GBASE-T) 10Gb Ethernet on Twisted pair
ThunderLink NS 1101 (SFP+) 10Gb Ethernet with optical LC SFP+

ThunderStream RAID controllers

ThunderStream SC 3808D has 8 x SATA/SAS ports and is an external Thunderbolt to SAS/SATA RAID adapter, connecting MacPros, iMacs and laptops to 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID storage devices. The difference between this and the ThunderLink SH 1068 is the addition of an Atto hardware RAID controller. It uses a SFF-8088 connector which can be attached to SAS storage devices with this connector, or SATA devices with an appropriate breakout cable.

Atto Thunderstream Back

Atto Thunderstream Back

G-Technology (HGST a division of Western Digital):

G-Dock EV with Thunderbolt: Two bay dock for 2.5″ drives in G-Drive EV cartridges.  The individual cartridges can be used as stand-alone USB 3.0 drives. The G-Dock EV however has only Thunderbolt connectors, not USB or eSATA (despite the specs on the website). Two Thunderbolt connectors allow daisy chaining, Thunderbolt cable included. 2 TB model (2 x 1 TB G-Drive EV drives included)

G-Technologies GDock EV Front

G-Technology GDock EV Front

G-Technology GDock EV Back

G-Technology GDock EV Back

G-Technology G-Drive EV Front

G-Technology G-Drive EV Front

G-Technologies GDrive EV Back

G-Technology GDrive EV Back

G-Raid with Thunderbolt: Dual drive RAID enclosures with either 4 TB (2x2TB)or 8 TB (2x4TB) 3.5″ 7200 RPM Drives.   Two Thunderbolt connectors allow daisy chaining, Thunderbolt cable included.

G-Technology GRaid Front

G-Technology GRaid Front

G-Technology GRaid Back

G-Technology GRaid Back

G-Drive Pro with Thunderbolt: Single drive, 2 TB or 4 TB 7200 RPM hard drive. Includes a cooling fan for more reliable 24/7 operation but may increase noise level for recording studios and other quiet environments.  USB 3.0 connection, but disappointingly for a drive labelled “Pro” only one Thunderbolt port, so no daisy chaining is possible. Thunderbolt cable is included, three year warranty.

G-Technology GDrive Pro Front

G-Technology GDrive Pro Front

G-Technology GDrive Pro Back

G-Technology GDrive Pro Back

G-Drive Mobile with Thunderbolt: Mobile 2.5″ hard drive with one Thunderbolt port and one USB 3.0 port. No daisy chaining. 1 TB model, three year warranty.

G-Technology GDrive Mobile Back

G-Technology GDrive Mobile Back

G-SPEED Studio 4 bay RAID, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, comes with Thunderbolt cable. available in 12TB, 16TB and 24TB configurations, from US$2200 to US$3600

G-SPEED Studio

G-Drive with Thunderbolt: Single drive, 3 TB or 4 TB 7200 RPM hard drive. USB 3.0 connection, only one Thunderbolt port,  no daisy chaining. Thunderbolt cable is included, three year warranty.

G-Technology_g-drive

Areca
Areca from Taiwan has some Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 RAID towers. Some of the models include out of band RAID management capability through the LAN port.

ARC-8050T2 Thunderbolt 2 to 6Gb/s SAS 8 – bay RAID Storage (note: for Serial Attached SCSI drives only)

Areca_ARC-8050T2

Areca 8 bay SAS RAID ARC-8050T2 Thunderbolt 2

ARC-8050 Thunderbolt to 6Gb/s SAS 8 – bay RAID Storage (note: for Serial Attached SCSI drives only)

ARC-5028T2 Thunderbolt 2/USB 3.0 to 6Gb/s SATA 6 – bay RAID Storage

Areca_ARC-5028T2

Areca 6 bay RAID ARC-5028T2 Thunderbolt 2

ARC-5026 Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 to 6Gb/s SATA 4 – bay RAID Storage

Areca_ARC-5026

Areca ARC-5026 4 bay SATA TB1

That’s all the news we have for now, more updates as things progress.

Posted in Hard Drive News, Hard Drives and SSD, Mac questions, News, Performance | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Selling it: pitching stem cells to the credulous

Posted on September 27, 2014 by quill

Hey, have you heard of all the medical advances and research being made with stem cells? Especially the near-magical abilities of these cells to regenerate and repair many different types of body cells.  Wouldn’t you like to harness the power of Stem Cell Science to keep your hair looking shiny and youthful?

Have I got the product for you , organic hair shampoos and conditioners with Fruit Stem Cell Science.

You heard it here first you can get Fruit Stem Cell Science for your hair! Go and buy some now!

Yes. Fruit Stem Cell Science, not as in; stemcells, but as in; the company has used cells from the stems of fruits.  And of course it’s scientific, why wouldn’t it be.

Shampoo_bottle

Kudos to whatever warped marketing genius came up with a way to take a waste product, incorporate it into a bottle of water and various greases and oils, and spin it so that gullible people will want to get in on this new scientific development.

I am heartily sick of companies who go out of their way to mislead the credulous.  The beauty and personal care industry isn’t the only culprit by far, but they certainly do more than their fair share of prevarication, misdirection, allusion and snake oil salesmanship.  And they keep selling it at insane profits.

Apparently Apple, Grape and Argan stems when mashed into your conditioner, have miraculous results. Quoting their website http://www.andalou.com/

Our Advanced Results

Renew Dormant Cells
Awakens dormant cells to behave like younger healthy cells

Repair Damaged Cells
Repairs cellular damage caused by UV radiation, oxidative and environmental stress

Regenerate Healthy Cells
Protects longevity of skin and follicle stem cells for continuous regeneration at the cellular level

If the product was a medical treatment, a car, or most any other product, it would be required for the advertiser to substantiate their claims. But apparently these are all meaningless but vaguely scientific sounding words which don’t have to be defended.

Another example of meaningless words is the Tresemme TV advertisement for their hair care product which intones that it contains “Three caring, weightless oils” while a model rapturously looks at olive, jojoba, and avocado oil being artfully poured in long streams in front of the camera.  Leaving aside that the natural oil content of the product is probably less than 10%, and the amount being poured onscreen would likely do for about 120 bottles, what gets up my nose most are the “caring, weightless” nonsense words. Oil is incapable of emotion, and it is certainly not weightless (or we would have seen it drifting up into the air in the commercial, wouldn’t we?).  Absolute drivel.

</Curmudgeon mode>

Posted in Media and Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. How do you organize emails on an iPad?

Posted on September 1, 2014 by quill

How do you organize emails on an iPad or iPhone? You have a gazillion mail messages in your Inbox and you want get them sorted into folders.

Background: The iPad and iPhone operating system iOS does not have a user-accessible document filing system like a Windows and MacOS computer does. All of the file storing and manipulation has to be done through Apps. So managing your documents is a bit different on an iPad than on a computer.

Lets say you want to create some folders to organize your incoming mail messages. Although there is nothing in Mail called “Folders”, you can still do this.

Creating Folders:

  • In the Mail app, on the left hand side, under the Mailboxes heading, you have one or more Inboxes and under that a section for ACCOUNTS.

SCREEN 1

  • If you touch the Account entry of your mail account, it will show you the existing folders such as Inbox, Junk, Trash, Sent.

Screen 2

  • If you now hit the Edit link on the top, you will see a button at the bottom called New Mailbox.  Does this create a new Mailbox or mail account?  No, it creates a new Folder.  Simple, eh? It’s all a matter of labeling.  It’s strange that Apple, who are normally so attuned to user experience, are imprecise in their language here.

Screen 3

  • Create that new folder Mailbox, and give it a name and hit Save.  Now your new folder will appear below the Trash folder.

Screen 4

  • Touch Done and then touch <Mailboxes to go back to your main Mail screen.
  • Now, you can go into your normal Inbox.

Moving Messages:

  • If you touch Edit you’ll see some round radio buttons appear to the left of each mail message.
  • If you touch the radio button, it will add a check mark to that message.  Go ahead and check all the messages that you would like to move to your new folder.

Screen 4.5

  • Now touch the Move button on the bottom, then select the folder you want them moved to.

Screen 5

You are done!  Go ahead and create new Mailbox/folders for as many categories as you would like to file your mail into.

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, How-To, iPad, iPhone, iPod | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Another Phishing Email – “Your iTunes is frozen”

Posted on August 3, 2014 by quill

Online criminals continue with phishing expeditions. Phishing is sending phony emails that mimic legitimate emails from reputable sources, hoping to get you to click on them to download malware, or to steal your login and password when you arrive at what you think is the real website (but is a simulation of the login page hosted on the criminal’s servers).

The one last week is pretty amateurish

itunes_phishing_email

 

The obvious grammatical errors and the mistake of using a font for the Apple logo show it up.  Where is could work is that so many people use iTunes, that a fair number of them will have had password problems in the past few days, so it jumps over the barrier of implausibility for those people.  When you see something expected, human nature is to not look at it closely.

But not all phishing attempts are so easy to spot, some are excellent reproductions of courier delivery notices, bank money transfers, invoices from suppliers, etc.

Today’s iTunes phishing attempt is an invoice for a movie rental for an absurd amount and an inviting link saying “Click here to report problems”. This one is better crafted, they managed to make it look like it was coming from Itunes, but from the UK in my case.

iTunes_phishing_email2

 

If you click on it, it goes to a fake Apple login page where your ID and password will be stolen

Apple_Fake_Login_Screen

Of course, you can be worried about the criminals making purchases from your Apple account, which you probably have attached to a charge card, so they can ring up hundreds or thousands of dollars of goods. But your Apple ID may allow them to hijack your iPhone or iPad, and because people tend to use the same passwords over and over, they can try out breaking into your email or other online accounts.

The first step is to treat every email that instructs you to click on something with severe prejudice.   Even if your bank does want you to log in to them, you should always type in the bank URL in your browser, not click on a link.

Increasingly, banks and other security conscious organization are adopting policies of never including direct links in emails, and always including some confirming information in their emails, such as “Dear Stephen Jones” rather than “Dear Customer”.  Apple’s emails always have your real first and last name, and the Apple ID account address.

The second step is to look critically at the contents and the addressing of the email.

In the case of the “Apple iTunes” email, even if the layout, spelling and grammar were perfect, the first thing I spotted is that it was sent to the wrong email address, an email I do not have associated with my iTunes account.

I am an advocate of creating different email accounts for different purposes (this is especially easy if you own your own domain name and can create mail forwarding tables for different mail accounts).  Besides making it easier to spot fakes, if I get tired of hearing from xyz company, I can simply delete the mail forwarding rule for the account I created.

Looking at the contents, I see that it has an address in Luxembourg. While Apple Europe may operate out of that country, there is no chance that they would use that address to message me in Canada.

Viewing the headers of the email, the mail was sent from the server xtra.xtrazon.com, not from a server at Apple, and the return path was xtrazon.com.  This tells me that the criminals are pretty unsophisticated, because with a little effort they could have forged mail headers to make it at least appear that it came from an Apple server. So you can’t 100% rely on the mail headers to prove it is real, but an off-target header if pretty good proof that it is fake.

Complicating this is that companies will use commercial server farms like Akamai, or will contract their email to ConstantContact or MailChimp or another sending service, so it is a matter of experience, or Google-search skills, to help decide what is legitimate.

The third step – if you find yourself at a login page to a site, and have any doubts how you got there, just quit the web browser without typing in anything. Then when you reopen the browser, type in the URL manually to make sure you get to the real site.

Carefully check the URL of the web page you are on in the browser’s Location bar. Criminals will make up domains that look like a real domain at first glance, like app1e.com or gooogle.com, they will use substitute characters, or embed legitimate sounding names in a phony URL – like itunes.update.co – that goes to update.co in the South American nation of Columbia not to itunes.com or to update.com

And finally, we always recommend using a web browser with enhanced security features, like Firefox with NoScript and with security features turned up.

firefox_security_settings

 

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What are your pictures doing still on your SD card?

Posted on July 17, 2014 by quill

Every week it seems I read about someone who lost their camera, bungled an OS upgrade on their tablet, or had a phone stolen, and they are lamenting “There’s three years of irreplaceable family photos on it, of great sentimental value and they are all gone!” (cue the tears and gnashing of teeth).

Seriously? What are your photos doing still on your camera flash card or your phone?

Flash memory cards are designed to hold your photos just long enough to copy them to your computer. They are not designed for long term storage.  Aside from theft or loss by dropping into the (ocean/Grand Canyon/thrift store donation box/porta-potty/take your pick), flash memory cards have a finite lifespan, and when they fail, they don’t usually give any warning at all.

So here is the drill.

Take your photos, and then at the first opportunity, copy them into a computer.  Your own computer preferably, but if you are on the road and all you have access to is a cybercafe or a friend’s machine, then create a Dropbox, Flickr, OneDrive, Apple iCloud or other online storage account and upload your photos to that over a net connection.

Then, because computers can fail too, burn a DVD of the photo data files, label and date the DVD (!) and store it on the shelf.   You have room for about 1500 photos on each DVD-r blank disc (give or take, depending on the resolution and file format), so you can organize your photos by date and event.

You can either connect your camera / phone to the computer to transfer files via USB cable, or you can eject the flash card from the camera and use a flash card reader on the computer to read the data.  If you don’t have a card reader slot built into your machine, then USB flash card readers are cheap and cheerful.  The advantage of a card reader is that you don’t have to turn the camera on (and use up battery power) to transfer, and the reader is generally faster than a USB tethered camera to transfer the files.

If all you have is an iPad or tablet, you can generally get flash card readers for them. Although the memory space of a tablet isn’t sufficient to store a lot of photos, you can at least use the tablet to upload to online storage when you are attached to WiFi (make sure you are not uploading with you cellular data plan, because you might get a painful bill for data overage at the end of the month).

For extended field trips, either plan to take a laptop or netbook machine with you, (which can also access external hard drive storage for extra backup), or you can look into a specialized data backup battery powered portable drive such as the Digital Foci PST-251 Photo Safe II which gives you 320 GB or 500 GB of battery powered backup, with a built in CF and SD card reader (computer not required).  

Digital_Foci_Data_SafeIIThe Kingston WiFi MobileLite reader can hook up to your phone or tablet by WiFi and allows you to back up files to a SD card or a USB keychain drive using the Kingston app. Kingston_MobileLite

There are a couple of brands of SD memory cards that have WiFi built in, so they can automatically copy their contents to your computer if it is within network range.  

Eye-Fi
Eye-Fi_Mobi_16

While we are on the subject of backup, don’t attempt any major upgrades to the operating system of your phone or tablet until you have had the chance to back it up completely.  If you have an iPhone or iPad, use iTunes to make a backup first. Otherwise use the software that came with your device.  Then, make sure the phone is fully charged or better yet, plugged in. Only then, hit the OK button to do the upgrade to the latest and greatest system.

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, How-To, iPad, iPhone, iPod | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CryptoWall and Cryptolocker – what you need to know

Posted on July 2, 2014 by quill

Where did my data go?

You might remember a series of viruses (or trojan horses) which “deleted” your data files and charged a ransom to get them back. These were frightening, but not fatal because they only hid files and with the right software you could unhide the files after the machine was disinfected, and all was well.

The cybercriminals have upped their game, taken steroids, and have rolled out a version of the ransom scheme that has some real teeth. Cryptolocker, Simplelocker, CryptorBit, CryptoPrevent and the newer CryptoWall actually encrypt the files on the hard drive with a very hard to break password.  When you try to open files, they are corrupted and can’t be read.

Dig a little bit and you’ll find a demand for 300 or 500 Euros in ransom, to be paid by untraceable Bitcoin payment. The longer you wait, the higher the ransom goes.

I have this! What do I do?

First – Immediately shut down, unplug your machine from the network connection, and unplug all USB or other drives attached to it. If you’re lucky, you have caught it before it has spread to all of your files and network drives (see below)

Second – Restart the machine in Safe mode (Win 7 :hit F8 repeatedly while booting until the choice to boot in Safe mode comes up or Win 8/10 Hold the Shift key down while you Restart with the Power onscreen icon, or otherwise refer to your machine’s instructions for the key combo). Check for files on your desktop or in folders named DECRYPT_INSTRUCTIONS  If you have these, then you know you have been hit and you need to remove the malware. The latest version of Malwarebytes will remove it. Instructions here https://www.malwarebytes.org/

Third – while the encrypted files themselves are not dangerous, they are also probably irretrievably damaged.  You are going to have to restore the machine from backups. Better yet would be to reformat the drive and install Windows from scratch, then retrieve your data files from known-good backups.  To get a list of the files locked by CryptoWall, you can use a utility CWall from Bleepingcomputer.com

How do you get infected?

As with most Trojan horse schemes, these rely on tricking you into clicking on an email download or on a web ad to launch the trojan installer. This give the installer access to anything you can modify under your user permissions.

Why are you still an Admin?

Here is part of the problem. You most likely set up your computer with your own account as the Administrative user, giving yourself full rights to modifying the machine (installing programs, deleting files, editing registry, etc.) whenever you are logged in.  Convenient, of course, but this also permits any malicious software the same rights and privileges if you launch them while logged in.  Best practices are to have a separate Administrative user for doing software installs and maintenance, and demote your everyday log-in to a standard account without Admin privileges. Since your existing account is almost certainly an Admin account, you need to set up a second Admin account before you can change your daily account type to Standard user. Now you will have to log out and log back in as the Admin user each time you want to install software, but it also means that the malware cannot act behind your back when you are using your daily login.

Why are you still clicking on attachments and web ads and popups?

Make it a habit never to open attachments to emails until you have thoroughly confirmed the source. The latest trojans spread through any number of plausible Email messages, including “EFax” messages with attachments and phony PDF “invoices” or bank statements.

Web advertisements can be poisoned with malware, even if they are appearing on reputable websites (CryptoWall poisoned ads reportedly appear on sites including Disney, Facebook, and The Guardian). Many websites rent space on their page to advertising syndicators who then place ads from their clients into the page (without the site owner knowing necessarily what is going to appear). Criminals can easily put together a plausible looking ad for a product or service, which automatically redirects to a malware downloader.

You should be using Firefox with NoScript  (see more info)

Blocking scripts from running doesn’t make you bulletproof, but it can alert you to unintended scripts trying to run on web pages, and it can block auto-running (drive-by download) script exploits.

I have antivirus software running, I should be fine, right?

Check that assumption at the door, along with the tinfoil hat.

First, an antivirus program generally does not protect you from installing software when you have initiated the install yourself (whether you knew what you were in for or whether you didn’t).

Second, AV software is continually playing catch-up with the criminals, and is always a step behind.  Numerous organizations have been stung with CryptoWall even though they were running a commercial suite of AV software, including Symantec, AVG and  TrendMicro.

Of course, keep your AV software up to date and active – just don’t rely on the assumption that it will catch everything.

Well, I have a backup. It’s a drag that I have to reformat and reload my operating system, but can’t I just restore my files and carry on?

This is a nice idea, and brownie points for having an up to date backup. But here’s where it gets really good — CryptoWall doesn’t just encrypt your files, it also encrypts any files on drives or on the network that your user has access to.  You see that shiny new USB hard drive – or that  Network Attached Storage (NAS) server on the network – that you installed to make sure that your files were securely backed up? If it’s set up to be online with your machine, and your user has write privileges, then chances are that CryptoWall will corrupt all your files on the backup, as well.

The malware goes through your folders and files in alphabetic order, so it will hit your Drive C: first.  If you are lucky and stop it early, it may not have progressed to your backup drives and network drives.

Offline periodic backup is your saviour

So the CryptoWall malware can corrupt your machine and any backups that are online at the time. What the program cannot do is to encrypt a drive that is offline – that is, not attached and not running.

This means that it is even more important for you to have a backup drive (or three) that takes periodic backups of your machine, or of your NAS or fileserver, and then is turned off and disconnected, and/or taken offsite.  I like some relatively inexpensive 3 or 4 TB USB external hard drives for this. They can be written to and then physically unplugged and/or carried offsite.  Most NAS storage units these days have USB ports that you can use for writing a backup of the NAS unit.

Another option is to use cloud storage to keep your most important data offsite.  The downside of cloud is that it is slow to write files to, can be limited in space and is tied to the performance of your internet connection.

I also like to recommend that data that is not being changed on a regular basis be burned onto DVD recordable disks for cataloging. Good candidates for DVD-R are any data which is archival, or time-based, such as accounting month- and year-end files, photos, archived documents, completed projects, and emails. The DVD-R provides a non-changeable snapshot in time of the files. They are cheap enough that you can burn multiple copies, and small enough to stash in a safe deposit box.

Whichever methods you use, remember one thing – if you back up data which has already been corrupted, then you will have a backup of corrupted data.  So as soon as you discover that you have any corruption problem, Stop the backup process immediately and turn off any backup schedules. Nothing is more disheartening then finding out you have been hit, and then finding out that you just ruined your last good backup by overwriting it with bad data.

Also make sure that your Java and Web browser software is completely up to date, as one of the vectors for drive by downloads is unpatched Java and browser code. Or disable Java entirely.

And, in case I have to remind anyone, do not click on web ads or Google search results claiming to repair or remove CryptoWall or Cryptolocker – the chance that these themselves are malware download sites or bogus AV software sales sites is significantly higher than zero.

More information

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/06/we-will-be-paying-no-ransom-vows-town-hit-by-cryptowall-ransom-malware/

Malwarebytes Cryptolocker blog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker

 

 

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Security, Viruses and malware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NoScript with Firefox gives a higher level of security to web browsing

Posted on April 30, 2014 by quill

firefoxlogoWeb browsing is full of hazards. Even reputable websites can have poisoned banner ads from third parties, which can attempt to hack your machine or browser settings. You don’t even have to click on a “bad” website to be the victim of a “drive-by download”. Some browsers such as Internet Explorer have a long history of vulnerabilities, and scripting languages such as JavaScript and ActiveX, Java, and media playing programs like Flash are all vectors for malware.

noscript

For better security, we recommend that you download the latest Firefox for your particular operating system here.  At the same time, install the NoScript extension to Firefox, which will prevent websites from running Javascript, Java, or automatically playing media files such as Flash.

Get NoScript here addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/

(unfortunately the NoScript home page itself does have advertising on it for potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) so I don’t recommend it.)

Since NoScript blocks all scripts from running, it will make some sites that you want to go to look different or not work well.  The solution to this is to look at the yellow bar that NoScript puts on your browser (or click on the S icon), informing you which web domains are trying to run scripts when you visit the page, and offering some Options.

This status bar displays information about the various web objects that are trying to run in the background on this page, and what domains (web servers) they come from. You then have the choice of which domain(s) you will permit scripts to run from, and you can permit temporarily (one time only), or permit a trusted site to run scripts permanently, which will save time the next time you visit.

noscript_status

It’s useful to know that when you visit your favorite sites, what other advertisers and tracking sites are active in the background, so you can selectively block them.

The general rule is, permit the site you know you are visiting (say, goodsite.ca) and block outside sites (google-analytics.com, unknownsite.com, and anything else from unknown sources that may be riding along).  If the site requires some content from a different server, you’ll notice something is missing on the page, and you can selectively grant permission to the server that’s needed to make it work.

One thing you will enjoy after installing NoScript is a lack of ads and popups on the sites you visit, as most ads and popups are reliant on scripting.

Similarly, if a trusted YouTube or Flash video doesn’t run properly, and you see something like this

Blocked flash object image

Blocked flash object image

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– you can grant permission temporarily for that item to run by clicking on it.

More info on NoScript  krebsonsecurity.com/tag/noscript/
Video from CNet www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzBqnLgOzwM
Brief introduction securityinabox.org/en/firefox_noscript

NoScript isn’t perfect, and it can cause some short-term frustration until you get your favorite web sites sorted out. It also may be incompatible with some corporate, remote access or web conferencing software, if so check with your company or the company you are connecting to for system support for that software.

There are some similar utilities to NoScript for Google Chrome (although I have not tested them)
httpswitchboard, ScriptSafe, ScriptBlock – you can find them at the Google Webstore https://chrome.google.com/webstore/
However in my opinion Firefox is inherently easier to protect than Chrome.

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, Internet and Networking, Mac questions, Security, Software, Viruses and malware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment