Macs get USB 3.0 thanks to LaCie
Well, some Macs...
A week after Apple CEO Steve Jobs allegedly emailed a Mac user to say that native USB 3.0 support for the platform was a long way off, storage specialist LaCie has rolled out Mac drivers for its USB 3.0 expansion cards.
The drivers allow Mac OS X to talk to the SuperSpeed USB versions of LaCie's 2big, d2, Miniumus, Rugged and Rikiki external hard drives. Since Mac desktops and laptops lack USB 3.0 ports, you'll need one of LaCie's ExpressCard or PCI Express add-in adaptor boards.
Which limits you to the Mac Pro or 17in MacBook Pro - none of the other modern Macs have suitable expansions slottage. Some old ones do.
Kitted up, you can download the drive from LaCie's website, free of charge. ®
Special Report Inside USB 3.0
COMMENTS
Hmmmm
Surely that's a twin socket? The USB 3 pins are marked in red at the front of the socket facing outwards, and the standard USB 2 pins in magenta in the normal place facing downwards. The picture you have linked to shows a double height twin socket. So the USB socket form factor is unchanged for USB3 and adapting the USB sockets on a MBP should be as straight forward as it would be for any other computer?
Dishonest reporting
You "reporters" are intellectually lazy. A major player like LaCie comes out with an announcement that they are first to the table with USB 3.0 and you basically republish their press release as news. You don't even bother to change the headline (google USB 3 os X and you will see how many of you write the same headline). Fact check much?
If you had, you would have realized that CalDigit had already released 2 USB 3 products for the Mac over a month ago (and theirs does not need their companion drive):
http://www.caldigit.com/avdrive/Card_PCIex.html
more laptops than you think....
the late 2008 / early 2009 15" macbooks have pci-express slots too .... it was the main reason i bought mine ... the 17" is just too big ...
anyway ... apple obviously thinks firewire 800 is sufficient ....but when compared to esata through the pci-express slot ... it pales..
Jobs' 'thin' laptop fetish renders USB3 too big to fit
The bare-bones USB3 socket < http://www.geekstreamonline.com/Images/CES%20images/usb3_socket_dia.jpg > is essentially precluded from being built in to an Apple laptop.
Still, the potentially offers Jobs' yet another revenue stream - more adapter cables!
