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This week, we speak with Paul Kent, general manager for Macworld Conference and Expo about some of the major changes coming to the show in 2010. David, Tim, and Guy then hold a discussion on the future (or lack thereof) of Firewire 400, Firewire 800, USB 2.0, and USB 3.0. Finally, we look at the state of Macintosh gaming to wrap the show.

Check out the NewerTech miniStack at OWC!

Links:
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G-Raid 3 Quad Interface Dual-Drive RAID 0 Array
Company: G-Technology, Inc.
Price: 2 TB model $499 3 TB model $649
http://www.g-technology.com/Products/g-raid3.cfm

Digital images, video and audio files are like the creature from Star Trek, consuming every free gigabyte it encounters. While consumer-level internal hard drive capacities have crossed the 2 TB barrier, many users need even more storage space, and they need it to be portable.

G-Tech’s G-RAID3 is one solution. MyMac Labs used it for several weeks; here are our impressions.

Before diving into the G-RAID3, a quick explanation of RAID 0 is in order.

If you didn’t wade through the entire article, there are a few take-away points about RAID 0:

1) RAID 0 provides no data redundancy.
2) RAID 0 is normally used to increase performance.

Why would one want to use a RAID 0 array? In my opinion, the driving reason to use a RAID 0 is that you have a single very large "logical" disk. The G-RAID3 appears as one disk (2 or 3 TB depending on the model), and you won’t have to deal with having to split your large data files across multiple disks. You may not see the "this disk is almost full" message during your natural lifetime!

$499 seems pricey for two hard drives in a nice aluminum case. What does the G-RAID3 provide for your heard-earned money?

• Quad interface eSATA, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and USB 2.0. The G-RAID3 is capable of over 200 MB/second transfer rates when connected to any Mac or PC via eSATA. G-Tech notes that only FireWire 400 is supported in Mac OS 9.

• “Smart” fan for long life and reliable, nearly silent operation.

• The latest generation Oxford 936 chipset.

• (2) 7200 RPM SATA II drives each with up to 32MB cache.

To call the case "nice" is an understatement. You get your money’s worth with this enclosure. It’s a solid, nay, a heavy aluminum case that provides great protection for your valuable bits and bytes within. No cheap plastic substitutes here; the aluminum has a great finish to it.  Even the power button has a satisfying "click" when depressed, and it flashes during disk activity, as well.

The Lab was pleased that G-Tech includes a one meter long cable for every port; FireWire 400, FreWire 800, USB 2.0, and eSATA. You won’t need to buy a cable after buying the G-RAID3, unless one meter is too short for your needs.

Alas, the G-RAID3 has an external power supply. I suspect there’s no easy way to use an internal power supply without the case getting hotter and more crowded.

If you’ve never used a large RAID array before, you don’t know how pleasing it is to find a vast expanse of virgin disk space awaiting you when you start the drive for the first time. The G-RAID3 popped up on the Desktop, and a Get Info showed 1.82 terabytes available. Ahhh, so much space for so many files. At this point, I waxed nostalgic, and I felt compelled to dig out my sole remaining 400K floppy disk, and gaze lovingly at it. Macintosh personal computers have progressed from 400K floppies to affordable multi-terabyte RAIDs in just over 25 years.

Once connected, there’s little to do wrong. If you have questions, G-Tech has a comprehensive FAQ online.

To load data on the G-RAID3, I used Carbon Copy Cloner 3.2 to clone my 1 TB boot drive to the G-RAID3. FireWire 400 pushed the data from the internal to the G-RAID3 at roughly 20 MB/second, depending on the size of the files being copied. I saw peak speeds if 35 MB/sec, as I watched the copy progress using Activity Monitor. Larger file chunks transfer more quickly than do smaller chunks. I regret that my Mac Pro has no eSATA card; eSATA is probably the fastest interface available for Macs. The G-RAID3 was nearly silent in operation, with the drive read/write sounds barely perceptible beneath the soft hum of the fan. We’re noise-sensitive, so the quiet operation of the G-RAID3 is a major plus.

I used the G-RAID3 as a backup device for several weeks. It performed its backup responsibilities very quickly, with no muss, no fuss.

As noted above, your data’s security in a RAID 0 array depends on both drives operating normally. If one drive kicks the proverbial (bit)bucket, your array is gone, and so is your data. The G-RAID3 comes with a three-year factory warranty, so the hardware is covered, but there’s no way to get a warranty replacement for your data. My opinion is that the risks of using RAID 0 are not as significant for a backup device as for primary boot drive. Backup drives are used for backup, and that means restoring data when needed. If you elect to employ the G-RAID3 as a primary boot or storage drive, make sure you maintain good backups, and use tools such as Alsoft’s Disk Warrior to keep the directory in top shape. Unfortunately, both Disk Warrior and Apple’s Disk Utility could not check the SMART status of the array ("unsupported"), so it appears this useful tool for monitoring hard drives can’t be used with a RAID 0.

Speaking personally, I have run a Mac Pro from a RAID 0 array for close to a year, with no troubles. Granted, that’s a short time, statistically speaking, but my experience with RAID 0 has been good. I keep comprehensive backups, and check the drives with Disk Warrior once a month, at a minimum.

Pros:
The G-RAID3 is a fine, high-capacity RAID 0 array. The case is one of the best I’ve ever seen. The G-RAID3  comes with a full set of cables. The hardware has a three-year warranty. Performance is very good.

Cons:
RAID 0 depends on both drives working; this additional risk may not be acceptable to some users. The G-RAID3 is expensive.

Conclusion:
The G-RAID3 is a classic example of paying a higher price for a top-of-the-line device. You can find cheaper, but you won’t find better.

MyMac.com rating 4 out of 5

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Sonicfire Pro 5

System Requirements:
OS X 10.4.0 or higher
Intel or Power PC (G4 or better)
DVD drive
256 MB available RAM
50 MB hard disk space

Bundled with this release of Toast Titanium 10 come two excellent applications to enhance, manipulate and edit sound files.

SonicFire Pro 5 is marketed by SmartSound and is a competitor to GarageBand. It claims to be ‘the most innovative music scoring software in the world’. It’s a relatively complex package aimed at users who want to produce and output sound files (to accompany videos, for example) made up of canned effects and tracks.

Yet the interface, menu structure and workflow have been so well built that what could have been a series of bewildering procedures with many options really does sponsor greater concentration on your creative ideas than on having to pick your way through perhaps bloated features. Once you have become sufficiently familiar with it SonicFire Pro 5 allows you to strike an excellent balance and achieve professional output that sounds well in most appropriate contexts… you’ll hardly write a string trio; but you will make a convincing pop video.

Complex
Yes, it does take some time to work your way through the various components of the package. There can be up to six floating windows open at any one time with various degrees of interrelatedness one to another.

There are also various ‘editions’ of the software with a variety of new features:

Express Track is a searching tool that allows you to incorporate effects, snippets and short musical themes into your score from an online collection of (purchasable) music: scoring for SonicFire doesn’t mean the same as it does for a stave-based program like Sibelius. (The search for) these ‘mixes’ can be enhanced and refined: you advise SonicFire of musical characteristics (faster, slower, more with this instrument, more by that composer etc.) which you would like to emulate or have reproduced in your piece and it matches them. The software emphasizes mood – again not something that will be of immediate appeal to all music lovers; but as a way to put sound with vision, it more than does what it’s supposed to.

‘Tap Tempo’, for example, lets you state how many beats per minute you want to use. The Jukebox playback feature previews a set of search results without a break. Your resulting piece (whose tempo and pitch can easily be changed) can then be exported to work with a variety of industry-standard video and audio editing apps. (The documentation says "all" such software.)

The Scoring Edition additionally has a timeline-based editor further to customize your composition. This supports keyframes, timing controls (to sample a beat and alter it to match a video), offset from the start, spotting and timing even more precisely to synchronize points in a video (such as ‘hit points’) to markers in the soundtrack.

A network add-on is available for a further $99.95, which will allow you to share and distribute your work amongst multiple users.

When first run, SonicFire Pro looks for available data and program updates, downloads them and invisibly installs them. This is typical of the streamlining that has gone into making the product as easily usable and flexible as it is.

Most of your work will be done in the main project window. It’s a testament to the conception and design of the package that the documentation (which runs to under 150 pages) can nevertheless thoroughly explain its use and features. You quickly get used to a sequence of add – listen – refine – listen – export without interference from controls and options. Commendable.

If you have a need to work with a highly transparent and simply thought-out music editing application, SonicFire has a venerable history, was robust and reliable during testing and may well be for you. As a bonus when buying Toast Titanium 10, it’s hard to turn your nose up at.

SoundSoap

System Requirements:
G4, G5, or Intel-based Mac (> 500MHz processor recommended)
Mac OS 10.3.9, 10.4.3, 10.5.1 or higher (Intel-based Macs require 10.4.3 or higher)

SoundSoap (the SE edition – which is standalone) is the second audio product to be bundled with Toast Titanium 10). It’s a noise reduction and sound restoration tool. And a good one.

The idea is that, using as few controls as possible, hiss, ambient noise, rumble, (electrical, 50 & 60 Hz) hum, clicks and pops, crackles, and other background noise can be removed from files now digital of course and likely originally to have been analog… those from tape cassettes, vinyl LPs and conceivably broadcast material spooled to your computer. Their tone can even be ‘enhanced’ using a slider in the same way as graphics software boosts colors and contrast etc. This version also allows the mouse scroll wheel to control knobs and sliders.

Using a single window you control all the features of SoundSoap. In fact, it could hardly be simpler to use. A rather attractive, ‘brushed charcoal’ interface has two ‘knobs’ – for noise ‘tuning’ (threshold) and noise reduction. Two vertical sliders control the degree of click/crackle, and enhance the result. Six buttons then allow you to reduce broadband noise (more random: the interference doesn’t respect a regular time frequency) and hum.

Intelligence
Given the fact that almost every sound source will be different, such tasks as those performed by SoundSoap are likely usually to be manual. Nevertheless, the software also has a ‘learn’ feature that automates the process: from even a short extract it anticipates the cleanup likely to be needed throughout the rest of the file.

Similarly, in the case of media with prominent voice content, a specialized filter, ‘Preserve Voice’, preprocesses such sound to avoid the risk of losing the unique profile of the voice when other imperfections are dealt with.

This software is a pleasure to use – not only because of its simple interface, but also because it is as effective as it is. There’s rarely something for nothing in life. And to remove something almost always results in less than you started with. But if you want to improve on old, treasured media with all their imperfections, this is as good a way to do it as anything else of its kind available. And to have it ‘free’ with Toast makes the bargain especially sweet.

The documentation is thorough and easy to use: the induction into this area can be painful – it’s technically quite complex. But by using ‘real world’ examples and illustrating all the steps carefully, you quickly become something of an expert. Or enough of an expert significantly to improve on your older and noisier media.

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