By the way, really enjoy reading your blog about your family and Japan. Been there about 4 times and love the country. – Harv

The drives have standard screw holes…. which don’t match up, so I just aligned one screw up and held it in that way. It’s not heavy, so seems to be fine. —Jeffrey

I use a Samsung PB22-J 256GB SSD (and before that, a SLC 32GB Intel X25-E). SLC is more durable (100,000 write cycles per cell vs. 10,000 for MLC) and faster, and usually has more cells set aside for bad blocks because it is used in more demanding enterprise applications. Be very careful with Intel firmware upgrades, as twice they released X25-M firmware that caused massive data corruption.

Unfortunately Apple abandoned ZFS in Snow Leopard. I have a Solaris home server running ZFS for backups (using rsync takes less than a minute over GbE), there is nothing remotely close, but there seems to have been some sort of licensing disagreement.

If you use a US credit card, beware of increasing fees on international transactions, even when denominated in US dollars. I got a Capital One credit card as they are the only ones with Charles Schwab who do not add surcharges to international transactions, after paying nearly $200 in such fees to Bank of America last month (I bought flights from British Airways, they were denominated in USD but the vendor is foreign so the surcharge still applies).

Finally, I would recommend you configure it to boot a 64-bit kernel:
http://macperformanceguide.com/SnowLeopard-64bit.html

I have made this the default, the only problem I experienced was with VMware Fusion 2.0. Parallels 4.0 and Fusion 3.0 will work on a 64-bit kernel, and you gain quite a bit in performance. One of the big benefits of x86_64 is that it has doubles the registers available from 8 to 16, and a good compiler can exploit this to speed things up more than simply widening data types would.

Enjoy the terabytes. I remember when I started at Y! in 2001 I had a few massive 2 TB file servers that each took up an entire rack.

I currently backup my photos to a server 8,000 miles away, but as I mentioned, I’m considering a service like backblaze.com to back up everything. —Jeffrey

I am having some issue with it, mainly it’s shape. It is too flat for me. When playing with it at the Apple store, I was standing up, so the angle is not too bad. But sitting at home, I find my wrist too flat to the desk, the mouse just doesn’t offer too much of a grip for me, this gets fairly uncomfortable after awhile. I think I’ll try out Microsoft wireless mouse.

Mine was on a truck heading my way when your comment came in, but I’ve had a chance to try it for a while today. I was thrown a bit by the need to first pair it to the computer, then do a software upgrade. I had to do it twice before it stuck. Like every Apple wireless mouse I’ve ever tried, even if I ratchet the “tracking” speed to full-on “fast”, it’s still too slow. (By comparison, any other mouse is perfect right at the default center location). I don’t get it. As for the shape/feel, it’s fine for me. Scrolling is a pleasure. The two-finger sideways wipe is not something I can do yet… it just pushes the mouse itself, so I’ve still got to figure that out. If you’d like to try something else, try one of the Logitec wireless mice… just be very sure to understand how it tracks (ball, IR, laser), how it communicates (line-of-sight IR, bluetooth, some proprietary technology), and how far away it can be. You really have to read the fine print… sometimes the max distance is one foot (I kid you not) and sometimes it’s 10. If they don’t mention something, assume the worst. My prior mouse is a Logitec that, unbeknown to me when I bought it (despite reading the details on the box carefully, I thought) one that required line-of-sight to a wired receiver unit you had to place on the desk. I was a bit upset, to say the least. But other than that, the ergonomics and feel and everything else is superb, and I’ll keep it around in case I get bored with the Magic Mouse. —Jeffrey

It is. As I’ve mentioned several times on this blog over the years, including last week, that a negative side effect of Apple pushing the boundaries on what hardware can be packed and arranged into what spaces is that they can sometimes be fragile. Especially laptops. They give a 10% discount to those wishing to take a risk, but it’s really required. I think they really miss an good marketing opportunity by doing it this way, but they’re trying to compete on up-front price, and in the end, it just makes them look bad. But laptop issues are not limited to Apple: my Mom’s relatively new klunky Dell laptop has a screen that flickers on and off as you jiggle the screen, or walk by, or breath. My new Mac Pro seems to push the boundaries much less (it’s built to the size and sturdiness specifications of a tank) so maybe I wasted the 10% on the warranty. About Bose, the only product of theirs I’ve ever owned is a pair of desk computer speakers I bought almost 15 years ago. Still use them, moving them from the Dell to the Mac Pro last night. They are wonderful. —Jeffrey

Just keep in mind that Apple computers are just as prone to issues as others, but you also get the added benefit of outrageous repair costs. There is nothing “awesome” about this I’m afraid. It’s just like Bose, crappy hardware in a shiny white case and over-the-top marketing makes for good sales with the uneducated masses. I’m surprised you fell for that one, because as a developer you’re obviously tech-savvy.

I hope I’m wrong in thinking you might post a Mac rebuttal piece a year and a month from now when it fails on you… Keep your fingers crossed.

I am planning to get SLC SSD for my PC but I am happy with my RAID zero setup now… For games that is…

I don’t know what MLC/SLC is, but according to my purchase, it’s MLC. —Jeffrey

Well, it should be, considering I was advised by the venerable Paul Saab. —Jeffrey