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MagSafe 2 Power Supplies More Powerful than Previous Models

Monday, June 18th, 2012 | Author:

Along with all the other bells and whistles covered last week, the new MacBook Pro with Retina display and MacBook Airs also sport MagSafe 2 power connectors. It’s a slight redesign on the current models, so your old spare MagSafe adapter or the ones from an Apple display won’t fit in the new ‘Books.

This isn’t something insurmountable; Apple offers a $10 converter that allows you to connect a MagSafe adapter to a MagSafe 2 equipped MacBook. There’s only one small thing you’ll want to be mindful of.

While the wattage for both adapters is the same 45W, the voltage is different. The new MagSafe 2 adapters output at 20 volts, while the original MagSafe adapters only output at ~18 volts. So if you use that converter to hook an older MagSafe adapter to your MagSafe 2 MacBook, charging can potentially take longer, due to the lower voltage output compared to the newer adapters.

We don’t foresee any catastrophic problems from this, just the minor inconvenience of longer charge times when using the older adapter with the converter. How much of a difference there will be, we can’t say at the moment; we’ll have more info once the adapters are available and we can test it.

Category: Apple News

Newer Technology eSATA To USB 3.0 Adapter Offers High Performance Link Between Existing External Drives And New MacBook Computers

Thursday, June 14th, 2012 | Author:

Newer Technology, Inc. announced today its eSATA to USB 3.0 Adapter as the high performance, Plug and Play link between existing eSATA interface equipped external drives and the new ‘SuperSpeed’ USB 3.0 equipped MacBook and MacBook Air computers introduced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) this past Monday.

Updates Existing Drives With 3x Faster Performance

The $29.95 MSRP adapter has been benchmark test proven to deliver over 240MB/s real-world data rate performance from the following NewerTech and OWC eSATA interface equipped solutions: Newer Tech Guardian MAXimus, Guardian MAXimus mini, and Voyager Q; OWC Mercury Elite Pro, Mercury Elite Pro Dual Drive, Mercury Elite Pro mini, Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini, Mercury Qx2, and the Mercury Rack Pro; as well as other brand external drives when used with the new 2012 Mac models. For comparison, FireWire 800, the most prevalent high-speed Macintosh computer interface, offers a real-world maximum of 82MB/s transfer rate. Article Continues…

Category: Press Releases

The Right Adapter for the Job.

Thursday, May 17th, 2012 | Author:

Sometimes we forget about the basics in life like flossing, ejecting our USB devices before removing them, or calling Mom on Mother’s Day (this one hurts most – trust us). The same can be said when choosing an external desktop drive. The power supply is an often-overlooked component when making your decision – but it’s one that OWC doesn’t take lightly.

At OWC, we’re always trying to bring more power to you. And one way we do that is by making sure the external storage solution you buy from us has a power adapter that can give you more than enough power to make your device run. This works twofold: not only will your drives be sure to have enough power for typical use, but there is also plenty of headroom to ensure the power adapter isn’t overtaxed during heavy usage times.

It’s kind of like a pulling a water skier; both an 85hp engine and a 150hp engine can pull a skier out of the water, but to do it, the 85hp engine has to work at it’s full capacity, while that 150hp engine isn’t anywhere near red-lining. As a result, the 150hp engine has a less chance of overheating. It’s the same thing with the adapters; while they both run fine for normal operation (while the skier is skiing) the energy required to spin up the drive (pull the skier out of the water) is much higher for the lower-powered adapter (85hp engine); it has to work at or very close to its maximum output, which can result in overheating. Our adapters (150hp engine) have a higher maximum output, so using the same amount of energy taxes the adapter less, resulting in lower heat levels in your adapter, which is a major contributor to failures, and ensures that nothing in your device “gives.” Article Continues…

The Other World – Episode 38

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 | Author:

Category: The Other World

Sometimes, “Recommendations” Are Actually “Requirements”

Friday, October 14th, 2011 | Author:

About a month ago, we talked about how MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.2 “secretly” resolved problems that 2011 MacBook Pros were having with 6.0Gb/s SATA performance.

Since we posted about the fix, we’ve been hearing from customers that some firmware updates are not fully completing… even though it appears that it is. These failed updates offered no indication that the update didn’t complete.

So a bit of sleuthing on our behalf turned up the culprit. When installing the update using Software Update, the installer informs you that it is recommended that you plug in your MacBook Pro to working power source while installing. This makes sense – the one time you don’t want your battery to go out is when running a firmware update.

However, if you download the update via its Apple KnowledgeBase page, though, the description there states that you must have your MacBook Pro connected to the power connector for installation.

From all the reports we’ve seen, it would appear that the KnowledgeBase instructions are the more accurate or at least more specific. Connecting the power supply while updating your firmware isn’t a recommendation; it’s a requirement.

Taking that requirement mindset even further is that when installing any firmware update on any Mac notebook, make sure you have it connected to its wall outlet power adapter before you start the update. Then, after running the updater, check the Hardware Overview screen in System Profiler and see if the the correct new Boot ROM or SMC version number for the update you’re running is present. If you still have the old version, then you will need to run the update again.

Naturally, this connect to power requirement is already solved for desktop machine users. But if you can think of a way to update a desktop machine like an iMac, Mac Pro, or mini without being connected to power, we’d like to hear about it!

Category: Tech Tips