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Incompatible or just inconvenient?

Putting out the "fire in a crowded theater"
Puttin' out the "fire in a crowded theater."

There’s nothing quite like a juicy Apple related headline to get the masses going all atwitter…yes the word definition, not the app! The latest case of perhaps blowing  a minor inconvenience out of proportion and getting Mac users unduly concerned was a forum posting claiming the 2010 Mac Pros are “incompatible” with some external hard drives, specifically “quad interface” models with Oxford 934 chipsets.

The fact that puts out the “fire” alarm on the world’s stage “crowded theater” is that the Mid-2010 Mac Pros will work with drives containing this chipset. The only small “concession” that users will need to make, at this time, is that they will need wait to turn on their external drives until a few seconds after booting. Of course, it’s practically a certainty we’ll soon be seeing a firmware update to address this very minor inconvenience, be it from Apple for the Mac Pro or from Oxford for their bridge chipset.

It just goes to show that the old adage could be revised to “where there’s smoke, you should look through it to see there’s no fire.” Or, perhaps, turn to the OWC blog to get the straight facts. They may be boring…but at least we don’t get you running for the exits. ;-)

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UPDATE 7:09 PM Well, we couldn’t leave enough alone…we’ve tested every one of our Oxford 934 based solutions and none of them exhibit any operating issues with the new Mac Pro. If Globeman could talk, he might be saying, “move along, nothing to see…keep moving.”

Rocket Yard Contributor
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6 Comments

  • these guys really want to make their quota or profit on these new chipsets at any cost… even if it means losing the trust of their customers.

    UPDATE 7:09 PM Well, we couldn’t leave enough alone…we’ve tested every one of our Oxford 934 based solutions and none of them exhibit any operating issues with the new Mac Pro. If Globeman could talk, he might be saying, “move along, nothing to see…keep moving.”

    • Frank, I’m a little confused by your post. Who are you referring to on losing the trust of customers?

      The article this blog post refers to was so sensationalized (way back in August) that we did the legwork for our customers and tested every enclosure we produce with the Oxford 934 chipsets (all of them, not just the OXUF934DSB that the Apple TechNote mentioned specifically). Not only did we find no issues with any Oxford chipset, but two days later Apple themselves removed the Apple TechNote indicating that it was a non-issue.

      I hope that clears up any ill you may be feeling towards Oxford, OWC, or Apple.

  • Strange, that you mention this problem… being the 2010 is NOTHING more than a 2009 with westmere support through a firmware flash.. the 09’s should also be affected by this as well.. this isn’t new… there are reports of this on the 09 as well…

    As I said.. the 10 is an 09 just with westmere support and new gpus. Why hasn’t this problem been addressed on the Nehalems?

  • While I love firewire, I would think that anyone who buys a Mac Pro these days would be wanting the performance of eSATA. :-)