News for Tuesday, 11 December 2007

While we do not have fully investigated the issue, we want to publish 2 independent reports about this problem as it seems to be not isolated.

After several for installing NetInstall on Mac OS X Server 10.5.1 and as well as controls on several Mac clients running 10.5.1, I noticed that transfer speed of large files were 3 to 4 times slower with 10.5.1 than with 10.4.
AS an example, backups performed with Superduper take 28 minutes with 10.5 while it was only requiring 10 minutes when running 10.4 for the same amount of data. If Leopard is a nice OS, there is a problem with ethernet transfer speed...

A report from Philippe provides some hints.

I also noticed that ethernet was faster with Tiger than with Leopard, but it is not only a transfer speed issue, but also loading issue. I have servers with Zope and MySQL. When using Ethernet from my Mac running Tiger, I did not encounter any issue, but after migrating to Leopard, it does not support simultaneous connexions for large volumes. I then simply lose the network, the connexion is still active, but there is not data flow anymore.
I quickly identified the problem: loading of ethernet requests saturates SynFlood type web attack, and the TCP/IP pile of my Mac simply drops. To fix it, you simply need to inactivate/activate the connexion, as it resets the pile, however, it is not a viable solution as avery new request will fill up the pile.
This issue was not in Tiger as the system was much more robust. I do not know what Apple modified in Leopard, but it affects the ethernet behavior, functionality and speed.

We will keep posting information about this issue as soon as we obtain additional information. Users requiring fast ethernet connections should be the first one to be affected by this issue.

ComScore published a recent study aiming to analyze keywords used by French, English and German customers when browsing the web for Christmas shopping season. The Wii captures the top position, with more than 4.9 millions searches, while the iPod secures the second position with "only" 3.5 millions hits. Then come Nintendo DS, SONY PSP and Apple iPhone.
This study illustrates how Apple and Nintendo have both released popular products on dedicated markets. Both companies have made the choice of friendly user interface, bringing ease of use and customer satisfaction instead of pure hardware performance; in other words, how to bring an enjoyable experience with a device, instead of being unable to use a feature-loaded product. Let's hope that this lesson delivered by both companies to the rest of the consumer electronic and entertainment industries will push other brands to integrate those factors in their future products.

Apple published a TechNote related to performances levels of web servers running Leopard Server.
It is recommended to inactivate the cache memory module to improve performance of heavily loaded Apache servers.

Open Server Admin.
Go to Web.
Click Settings.
Click the Modules tab.
Deselect (uncheck) "mem_cache_module".
Click Save.

Following their previous announcement about high-k/metal gate semiconductor process technology last January, IBM announced to have reached a new milestone in order to deliver 32nm engraving and low power consuming CPU. Among IBM's partners on this project one can find AMD, Freescale, Infineon, and Samsung. By summing of this technology, IBM expects to deliver 30% speedup potential for existing chip. It should be available to IBM alliance members by H2 2009.
This is IBM's answer to the similar Intel's hafnium-based high-k/metal gate technology, being currently used in all 45nm-based CPUs from Santa Clara's giant. Intel also claims that this technology allowed performance level to be boosted by 30% while maintaining power consumption identical. Intel should also move to 32nm engraving process in 2009.

As it already happened in the past, DivX is currently offering DivX Pro 6.7 for free, but the offer runs only for an unknown limited time.
To download the application and obtain a license, you simply need to enter a valid email address in the following webpage:
http://www.divx.com/dff/index.php?lang=fr&version=mac

Among giants of IT manufacturers, Toshiba is part of the companies producing NAND flash themselves while having a dedicated 1.8" and 2.5"HD division.
Toshiba was the first company to offer hybrid HD, featuring a storage unit based on both plates and NAND flash, even though the success was limited due to the low performance gain encountered with Vista.

The company decided to go one step beyond by announcing its first SSD in 2008. It will be based on 56nm-engraved MLC NAND flash memory, not as fast as the SLC, but offering 1.8" SSD with 128GB. On the performance level, we could expect 40MB/s and 100MB/s in writing and reading mode, respectively. If those values might look lower than those announced for other SSD, one should not forget that it is in any case much faster than any plate-based HD of such format.
The company expects to offer 2.5" SSD, both should arrive in May 2008.