Monthly Archives: July 2012

HP100 adds USB3

Hackintosh

Not without a struggle.

Intel’s LightPeak is currently the fastest way of moving data to or from external storage, claiming 10 gigabits/sec, or 1.25Gbytes/s in regular English. This compares with a theoretical limit of 0.06Gbytes/s for USB2, so twenty times as fast on paper. LightPeak was rolled out in several Macs where it continues to enjoy near-zero market share, owing to a dearth of peripherals using the connector and insanely expensive connecting cables.

Meanwhile we have USB3 which claims 0.63Gbytes/s, is backward compatible with USB2 and USB1.1, and is available on most current Macs. The 2012 MacBook Air supports both USB3 and LightPeak (‘Thunderbolt’ in Apple Hypespeak).

For Hackintosh owners there are two ways of adding USB3. For those with older motherboards (LGA775, LGA 1156 typically) a PCIe internal card has to be added at a cost of $20-40. For more recent builds (LGA1155 and LGA1366 sockets) most come with USB3 connectors built into the motherboard. For Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge machines (LGA1155) current Gigabyte boards include USB3, so when ace computer builder FU Steve upgraded HP1 (LGA775 Core2Quad) to LGA1155 (Sandy Bridge i7-2600K) by fitting a Z68 Gigabyte motherboard, it came with two blue USB3 sockets on the back and a 19 pin USB3 connector inside.

And my HP100 has done nothing to use those USB3 sockets since the upgrade, as I have no USB3 peripherals. Until now. As we are getting into hardware, definitely not my forte, I’ll hand it over to ace Hackintosh builder FU Steve for what follows.

* * * * *

Thanks, Thomas.

When I upgraded Thomas’s HP1 to HP100 I intentionally chose the Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard from Gigabyte because it’s easily hacked, comes with two USB3 sockets (and many USB2), and has the 19 pin USB3 connector on the board itself. I envisaged upgrading the USB2 internal, front panel USB2 card reader to USB3 and had Thomas plonk down $33 for a Silverstone FP37B 3.5″ internal card reader. This was easily swapped with the older Sony 3.5″ reader, plugging into the 19 pin mobo socket.

And here the story gets complicated. After installing the appropriate USB3 driver (kext file) using TonyMac’s MultiBeast app, the two rear panel blue USB3 sockets were recognized:

Installing the USB3 driver – check the box and restart after running this.
The Gigayte Z68X mobo uses an Etron EJ168 controller. No instability issues noted.

However, no matter how many different drivers I tried the card reader was MIA. Nada. Zilch. Back she goes to Amazon.

Failure. Not recognized by the Hackintosh.

Plan 2. I had Thomas buy an external USB3 card reader, confident it would be recognized once plugged into one of the rear sockets. $35 and nowhere near as elegant a solution, but having the advantage that it could also be used with Thomas’s 2012 MacBook Air, which has no built-in card reader.

US Robotics USB3 card reader.

This comes with a ridiculous 6″ (yes, inch) USB3->micro-USB3 cable, so another $7 saw a 6′ extension cable arrive which is actually usable on the HP100. Having Thomas cuss me out because he cannot get at the card reader is more than life is worth. The stock, short cable is fine for use with the MBA. The reader is USB-powered, so no power brick is required.

Micro-USB3 extension cable.

Don’t bother with that old male-female USB2 extension cable in the brown cardboard box under the stairs. It will fit but you will only get USB2 speed. A USB3 cable has more wires and contacts. There is no free lunch here.

The card reader was immediately recognized, and though System Profiler reports the maximum speed is the 480Mbits/s of USB2, rather than the 5000Mbits/s of USB3, the full USB speed is available. Here’s how it’s seen in System Profiler:

USB3 card reader with a Class 10 SDHC card inserted.

USB3 is reported as ‘USB Super-Speed Bus’, and you can see both sockets are recognized.

Confirmation of the transfer speed was easily done by running the Xbench disk test. Here’s USB2, which takes 10 minutes (!) to run:

Xbench – USB2 (extension cable) with SDHC Class 10 card.

And here’s USB3 which takes a 75 seconds:

Xbench – USB3 cable with UDMA CF 400x card.

Like, whoa!

So USB3 is working properly on the HP100. I ran the same tests with the card reader connected to the 2012 MacBook Air, with identical results, except that the MBA reports the card reader’s speed correctly:

USB3 card reader as reported by the 2012 MacBook Air.

How about some real world tests?

Import and processing of 20 Panny G3 RAW files from the SDHC Class 10 card (not especially speedy as cards go) using USB3 compares with USB2 as follows, using Lightroom 4.1:

  • Import 20 files: 20/20 seconds. No difference.
  • Generate 20 1:1 previews and apply lens correction profiles: 43/48

Hmmm. Not very impressive. Why is USB3 no faster?

The limiting factor here is the slow SDHC Class 10 card. Here are the speed specs for the various SDHC card classes:

As you can see both USB2 and USB3 are working at maximum efficiency in HP100 – meaning one second per file, with files being around 10Mbytes in size. SDHC simply cannot go any faster, and is not helped by USB3 at all. More recent high-speed CF and SDXC cards however should benefit, as they support data transfer rates of 32Mbytes/s or more and here USB3 should realize the benefits. Thomas’s Panny G3 does support SDXC cards, his earlier G1 does not. He needs a faster card to realize the benefits of USB3 with the Panny G3.

Now repeating the same test using the Lexar 400x CF UDMA card from the Nikon D700:

  • Import 20 files: 3/20 seconds. Seven times as fast
  • Generate 20 1:1 previews and apply lens correction profiles: 46/48. No material difference.

* * * * *

Thanks, FU. So USB3 in the HP100 will work great with external USB3 drives, and with SD and CF cards. If the card is fast, USB3 is 7x as fast importing files with a 400x UDMA CF cards (and probably similar with recent SDXC cards), and all at a fraction of the cost of LightPeak/Thunderbolt. Processing time remains unchanged as that’s a function of the CPU and GPU, having nothing to do with the card. For users of the latest DSLRs like the Nikon D800 which generate 75Mb files USB3 is a cheap – and highly recommended – fix for fast import – the time will fall from 6 seconds a file to under 1 second.

And, of course, any USB3 external disk drives will be much faster, especially if SATA3 drives are used in preference to the older SATA2 designs.

As for the processing speed when importing to LR, that’s hardly a limitation. Once the files are imported, you can let LR grind through processing while you simultaneously start developing your picture. Processing occurs in background mode and only a faster CPU and GPU can speed that up.

So if you want the best transfer speed per dollar, USB3 is the way to go at very modest increased cost – $35 for the card reader plus $7 for an extension cable.

Update January 27, 2013:

I managed to bend two of the pins in the US Robotics USB3 card reader when inserting a CF card from my Nikon D3x. The pictures on the card were corrupted, but were easily recovered with the wonderful DiskDrill application. Mercifully, I have retained the original internal USB2 Sony card reader in my Hackintosh, so download could proceed. I dismantled the US Robotics device (you have to pull off the four rubber feet hiding the screws) and managed to straighten the bent pins and all is well again.

Moral: Be very careful to insert the card straight into this device. The guide channel is short – misalign your card and the suspect engineering design of the CF card which requires perfect alignment will trip you up, much as it did me. SD/SDHC/SDXC cards are a far more robust design, using broad contacts on the card, addressed by wipers – not pins – in the reader. Yes, you hear of CF cameras with bent pins too, but Nikons are fairly well made in this regard as they use a very long channel to ensure proper alignment of the card in the slot.

MacBook Air 2012 – Part II

Macintosh

A meaningful improvement over 2010.

My 2012 MBA arrived yesterday and here are test results. It’s the i5/4Gb/128Gb version, for $1,100. Last year’s model ran $1,200 with the 128Gb SSD and only 2Gb of RAM. The battery was 86% charged on receipt. From unboxing to ‘ready to import’ status took 5 minutes. Migration Assistant allowed recovery of all my user settings and applications from the backup for the predecessor 2010 MBA in 12 minutes more while I got on with something else. iCloud now makes setup of mail, calendars and contacts trivial and it’s this robust ecosystem which makes the premium paid, if any, for an OS X or iOS machine worth every penny and more. ‘Ecosystem’ remains a word none in Windows land know to spell and it’s what drives OS X sales to constant quarterly increases, small as they are.

Migration Assistant at work.

The focus of this piece is on performance with Lightroom 4.1.

Here’s Geekbench, 64-bit:

MBA 2012.

The 2010 model was 2205, making the 2012 almost three times as fast. If you get the 8gB model then you can expect a score of 7,000, meaning 16% faster for another $100.

And here’s Cinebench 64-bit:

MBA 2012 and 2010.

The performance is where it’s needed for a Lightroom or Photoshop user, as those applications are far more demanding on CPU (Geekbench) than GPU (Cinebench) performance. And while the Cinebench frame rate is nothing to write home about, the integrated HD4000 GPU in the IvyBridge i5 CPU does not disgrace itself, pausing just once briefly at the start of the movie stress test.

It bears pausing a moment to reflect on that Geekbench score. When my builder FU Steve built the original HP1 Hackintosh three years ago it used a Core2Quad CPU in a large case and delivered a Geekbench score of 6,200, barely faster than the 2.3lb. 2012 MBA. Startling. Add the fact that this is the first MBA with USB3 and Thunderbolt connectors and you are looking at a very capable machine indeed.

Unlike with the 2010 model, no USB thumb drive is included with the 2012. That drive included OS Snow Leopard and allowed recovery if the internal SSD became corrupted. Now you can simply download a new version of the OS (now OS Lion) over wifi. You start the MBA with the corrupted SSD, are asked for your wifi and Apple Store credentials, and can download the OS over the air. I tried it when prepping my 2010 for sale and it took 100 minutes, and worked perfectly. Elegant.

On importing to Lightroom 4.1, this is how the MBA 2012 compares to my nuclear powered HP100 Hackintosh desktop, both using a USB2 SDHC card reader in a USB socket; timings are in seconds for import of 20 Nikon D700 files to the MBA and HP100, respectively:

  • Import 20 files: 20/22 (yes, the MBA is a bit faster!)
  • Generate 20 1:1 previews and apply lens correction profiles: 135/48

In the 1:1 preview generation – very useful for effective fast processing – the superior RAM of the HP100, all 16gB, blows away the 4gB in the MBA. But still these are, overall, very impressive statistics, with the CPU speed increase a standout.

How about real use? It’s an absolute pleasure using Lightroom 4.1. With the exception of the Noise Reduction Luminance slider, all other sliders respond in real-time. The NR one has a 1-2 second lag. The selective editing brush is immediate. No excuses are needed for the integrated GPU and while the machine can run up the CPU to 160F with stock settings, as always I use the SMC Fan Control utility and set the fan (the one, pathetic, poncy, pusillanimous, microscopic, homunculus of a fan) to a minimum of 4,000rpm, as it’s more than this engineer’s mind can stand to see CPU temperatures that high. Set at 4,000rpm, where it is just audible, the machine gets slightly warm on the lap, nothing more. Left at stock it gets noticeably warm.

Here are the temperatures. Why so many sensors? Because Apple is rightfully terrified that if something fails then a meltdown will result if the problem is not sensed immediately.

Fan minimum set to 4,000rpm.

I turn down SMC Fan Control to 3,500 when not photo-processing, at which speed the 2012 MBA CPU core idles at 120F in a 75F room.

On the MBA, LR4.1 loads in 5 seconds compared to 3 seconds on the HP100. The red brace denotes the area where LR 4.1 was being imported from Adobe. The green brace indicates the import of the 20 RAW files tested above, and their subsequent processing. As you can see, processing causes little heat rise. The mauve uppermost temperature trace is for the i5 CPU core, whose service limit is 192F according to Intel.

What’s not to like? Well, Apple has made a silly retrograde step in reverting to an inline MagSafe power adapter plug, the original design which was the subject of a recall. The 2010 and 2011 MBAs used the superior, sleek right-angled plug which, when oriented with the cable to the rear, allowed easy insertion of any SDHC card in the left USB socket. The new (old) version does not allow that, so you either have to pull the plug or use the right hand USB socket. Doubtless they have reinforced the cable junction which used to fray, but it’s not an improvement.

The other caution would be for users of DSLRs which create very large files, like the Nikon D800. If you are using LR4, generating 1:1 previews is not a good idea. It takes 7 seconds per 12Mb D700 RAW file. The D800 generates 75Mb RAW files. You can do the math. Smaller previews are no big problem on the 11.6″ display but if you are driving a large, external display you will need 1:1 previews, and will have to wait as each is prepared. That will make for a slower workflow.

Tests with Photoshop CS5 appear here.

So the 2012 MBA is a credible and fully usable Lightroom/Photoshop machine where the 2010 was sluggish. If you try the 2012 and are using the 2010, you will want to upgrade. The improvement over the 2011 will be less noticeable. For those just seeking a speedy web and email laptop, the 2010 MBA at $650 used is a great deal.

For other comments, refer to my five-part review of the 2010 MBA which starts here. The ergonomics of the 2010/2011/2012 machines are identical, with one strange exception. The lid/display on the 2010 swivels back some 5 degrees more. The 2012 is not an improvement in that regard. However, by way of atonement, here’s a bit of magic the 2010 does not offer:

Backlit keyboard.

A friend writes: “Dimly lit venues are now fair game for inspiration.” Indeed. Thank you, Gregg.

Finally, disk speed. Here’s Xbench:

That compares to a score of 522 for the SATA3 SSD in the HP100, both representing a 60% speed increase over SATA2 drives like those used in the 2010 and 2011 MBAs. My 2012 MBA uses a Toshiba SSD (denoted by the ‘TS’ in the Xbench screen above), which some have said is slower than the Samsung used in others of the same model.

In conclusion the 2012 MacBook Air is an outstanding laptop, reasonably priced, and one which increasingly asks the question as to why you should pay more for a MacBook Pro. A free upgrade to Mountain Lion will be available in a few days when the latest version of OS X is released.

MBA as your only computer?

For those on a budget, the 2012 MBA can be used as your only computer for photography and all other general tasks. As all MBAs now come with at least 4Gb of memory, the cheapest point of entry is the base 11″ model with a 64Gb SSD ($1,000), a SATA3 500gB external notebook drive ($65), a USB3 enclosure for the drive ($25) and a cheap external 21″ monitor for home processing of snaps ($140) with the required cable ($14). The total of $1,244 gets you a capable Lightroom and Photoshop powerhouse with a large external display for home use. The OS and apps will start very fast owing to the MBA’s SSD. Not at all bad, and with lots of storage not affordable in SSDs at present.

* * * * *

Now I have to go for a hamburger and apple pie, seeing as it’s the anniversary of the greatest day in modern history!

Photoshop CS5 use is addressed here.

Disclosure: Long AAPL January 2013 call options.

Sergio Pininfarina

Photographs

A great designer passes.

You do not need to know anything about cars to appreciate the beauty of a Sergio Pininfarina body. All you need to know is that, often as not, it came with a Ferrari motor under the hood (or trunk!), it was painted red and it was right. The great man died today and leaves behind a catalog of design and beauty as will never be seen again.

Pininfarina Ferrari. 5D, 100mm Macro.

Ferrari 550. 5D, 85mm.