Comments on: Yes, USB Target Disk Mode is Needed… Badly.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:38:27 +0000

On enclosures for the MacBook Air hard drive, seems like they do exist:
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000CFD-1265298493
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000D7A-1270043844

By: Christopher Price

Christopher Price — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:44:19 +0000

A-A cables typically serve as extension cables. As I noted above, you would need one of those “in the middle” chipsets to handle communications… but an Apple-built cable that communicated with a driver in EFI is certainly possible.

As to supporting G3′s, sorry, that’s dreaming… er… hallucinating. It would be stupid of Apple to spend time going back and adding TDM to a firmware platform (OpenFirmware) that they don’t support anymore.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:36:49 +0000

I would love usb TDM in all of the mac’s including G3′s that would make my life so easy, I have seen a cable that is USB A-A and there is no box in the middle, its A-A (the end you plug in to the computer) I am hoping apple alows us to do that, or put fire wire back in all of the line of computers, or make usb TDM in all of the computers

By: Marcel Dietzmann

Marcel Dietzmann — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:16:36 +0000

I agree, the Target Disk Mode is essential for support! Apple, add USB and/or Ethernet Target Disk Mode into EFI!

By: Andreas Carlsson

Andreas Carlsson — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:30:48 +0000

YES – USB Target Mode IS needed.

Please please please Apple – Fix this. Nowadays it takes us one day, what took one hour before.

By: Christopher Price

Christopher Price — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:42:28 +0000

Depends on the Mac. The MacBook 13-inch and the MacBook Air are the only two systems without TDM (for now).

For the MacBook 13-inch, it’s pretty simple. The hard drive is easy to remove, and I’d suggest that any tech-savvy owner that runs/admins one have a 2.5-inch SATA-to-USB adapter. That will let you plug the drive directly into another system, and try to recover data from it.

For the MacBook Air, removing the hard drive probably isn’t an option (since the drive uses a special connector). So, you’re going to be stuck with using a USB 2.0 hard drive with a copy of OS X installed on it. Then, you’ll just have to cross your fingers that the drive failure isn’t bad enough to screw with the boot process from the USB drive.

A USB 2.0 hard drive (with OS X installed) should be able to boot any Intel-based Mac, so it’s a good idea for any sys admin to have a spare install ready (and up-to-date) for emergency use.

By: Tree Man

Tree Man — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:55:30 +0000

So in anybodies’ expert opinion… what is the “new/best” alternative to TDM when i comes to servicing the new macs quickly and effectively?

By: Modo Target, el modo Dios de OS X, Carrero

Modo Target, el modo Dios de OS X, Carrero — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:11:07 +0000

[...] lo ha probado, quizás sea la razón de eliminar el puerto en algunos equipos. Parece ser que de momento no, pero es realmente [...]

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:47:41 +0000

I couldn’t agree more about the need for USB Target Mode. I support over 130 macs at a small school – laptops with a few desktops and servers. I use Target Mode for support EVERY day. It’s not unusual that a laptop will not boot, but it’s drive will mount in Target Mode with no problem, or at least be accessible to another Mac for repair or recovery with Disk Utility, Diskwarrior or Data Rescue II. It also makes quick manual data backups or migrating a student to a new machine much easier. In the future I will need to pull drives to do what I currently do with target mode or rework my support procedures.
Time for Apple to Think Different on this issue.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:21:14 +0000

I was thinking the same thing, hence I found this post via Google. I can’t see how throughput can be an issue since computers can already boot from USB devices and it’s not like the host computer would have anything else to do with its CPU.

Though the need for special cables does seem to be another reason as to why Firewire has been replaced my a superior technology. Though perhaps USB could be re-engineered for connecting two computers together. We now have auto-sensing ethernet ports that eliminate the need for crossover cables, yet Firewire never even had this trouble from the beginning (I use the same cable for my FW hard disk enclosure as with TDM between two macs), so I can’t see why USB couldn’t be updated to do the same.

Though ultimately this some of these tasks could be done over the network as well. Even with all the greatness of Firewire and TDM, there was an instance where I couldn’t get it to work between two macs of a different generation. Yet if Migration Assistant could have worked over the network, my problem would have been solved. We’re already seeing some of the former FW TDM functions being provided over the network with the Macbook Air computers. It’s just those emergency situations where you can’t boot one of the computers. If EFI has network support like Open Firmware did, then perhaps it could even provide access to the hard drive via the network. Still I like the idea of USB as an alternative/backup method.

I also don’t see why third parties couldn’t implement such add-ons for EFI.