Firewire To Usb Cable

Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt make it worth that Mac upgrade

The parameters of the PC versus Mac debate haven’t really changed in the past five or ten years. As an OS, Windows is functional at best and seriously dysfunctional at worst. But fierce competition between a dozen major manufacturers practically guarantees that you can find a great PC with all of the features you want at a terrific price...in leopardskin, if that’s what turns you on.

Apple maintains a ruthlessly lean lineup of Mac hardware and they’re the only game in town. So if you don’t see the Mac you like, like one of the Macs you see. And Macs are almost always anywhere between 10% and 40% more expensive than comparable PC hardware.

But they don’t make any junk. And Apple’s the only company that sees the computer, the OS, and the apps it runs as three interconnected expressions of the same thought. There’s an order, a logic, and an elegance to the Apple ecosystem that can’t be found anywhere else.

Which is why it’s sometimes very correct to write about the Mac hardware lineup as a whole instead of as a series of isolated updates. And this year, it’s almost a must. Apple has applied two new, basic technologies across the entire line. Intel’s next-generation Sandy Bridge CPUs are now in every Mac, not just the “pro” models. And everything now ships with Thunderbolt, a new high-speed peripheral interface.

Sandy Bridge

If this were early winter, say, you and I might both have the patience for several paragraphs about CPU die sizes and transistor counts and performance-per-watt targets. But it’s the middle of summer and it’s very nice outside so I think we can both agree that broad comments will suffice. More sweet tea, anyone?

There’s nothing subtle about the speed improvements that this year’s i5 and i7 CPUs deliver. I happen to have access to 2010 iMacs and MacBook Pros -- which were the first models shipped with Sandy Bridge -- and the same models Apple sells at the same-ish prices performed anywhere from 15 to 40 percent faster, based on a series of processor-thrashing tests (like transcoding video files, redrawing complicated vector illustrations, and compressing a huge folder of documents). When you compare this year’s i5-based MacBook Airs to last year’s, the old Core Duo Airs perform like they run on coal. Ditto for the Mac Mini, which now performs like a true desktop.

Sony DRX710UL DVD+R Double Layer External DVD+-RW Drive (16x ...

Included in the box is a USB cable, and a Firewire cable with a 4 pin connector on one side, and a 6 pin on the other (the back of the drive has both a 6 pin firewire connector, and a 4 pin, so if you only have one type on your computer, you can just flip the cable around). Btw, Sony calls the firewire cable an "i.LINK" cable for some reason. Also included is a packet with the warranty, and seperate packet for the manuals and software CD.On the software CD: The drive is purely plug and play, there are no drivers on the CD at all. Connect it by either the firewire or USB cable and it recognizes it very quickly. After the drive showed up in my computer, I popped in the software CD and installed the Nero software suite. I'm very happy that they included Nero, considering it's one of the best CD/DVD burning programs out there.Performance: I went out and bought a generic brand of 4x DVD-R's to test the drive out, put in Kill Bill Vol 2, and started burning. Even at 4x, the entire process took 15 minutes. I was anxious to try out the Dual Layer feature, so I went out and bought a pack of DVD+R DL's. These things are not cheap, each one retailing around $10 a disc. After deciding on what to back up, I went to burn it. It took a bit of time, since it's burning at 2.4x, but it went flawlessly. I was a bit nervous, since I would've been annoyed (to say the least) at coastering a $10 disc.In conclusion, I am extremely satisfied with this product. I can't find a reason not to give it less than 5 stars. It's easy to setup, it's easy to use, and it performs like a dream. Sony DRX-710UL External Dual-Layer DVD+RW Drive - This external DVD recorder lets you burn data & video to Dual-Layer DVD+R & +RW media. This gives you up to 8.5GB of storage on just one side! Leaving room for printed labels, or marking with a Sharpie on the other. It also records to nearly every other DVD & CD media type available!

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