AuburnCom Weblog

The Macintosh line of computers, has, for many years implemented quick, simple and powerful networking technologies years ahead of other computer makers.This post is about the dual gigabit ethernet ports that have been standard on the Power Mac G5 and the recent Mac Pro computers.  Apple led the field in 2000 by shipping its PowerBook and PowerMac computers with Gigabit Ethernet.

 Initially, gigabit Ethernet was deployed in high-capacity backbone network links (for instance, on a high-capacity campus network). In 2000, Apple’s Power Mac G4 and PowerBook G4 were the first mass produced personal computers featuring the 1000BASE-T connection.^[1] It quickly became a built-in feature in many other computers.

But Apple innovated again when they shipped the Power Mac G5 in June 2003 with Dual Gigabit Ethernet Ports, praise reigned on the Power Mac for this:

 The Power Mac G5 supports up to 16GB of 533-MHz DDR2 SDRAM and now includes two Gigabit Ethernet ports. Multiple Gigabit Ethernet ports are well suited for users who plan to utilize their Power Mac in an Xsan environment — that’s Apple’s storage-area network technology for high-performance computing. 

But, what can these dual ports do for us in our day to day computing? Well, simply put, your Power Mac can connect to your Router through both of these ports simultaneously and instantly double your network bandwidth.Many operating systems including Unix, Linux and Windows XP require intelligent configuring on the part of the user or the “System Administrator”, on the Mac, however, It Just Works.This trick will work for you even on your laptop, where a windows laptop would become confused with a WiFi connection as well as a Wired Gigabit connection, the MacBook will happily use both network connections simultaneously to get the most efficiency from your home router. Remember, the greatest home routers are the Apple Airport line of routers available from the Apple Store, Amazon or AuburnCom, your San Francisco Mac Evangelist!  

I’ve recently witnessed the Airport Extreme, that is, Apple’s latest revision of the Airport Extreme, complete with Four Gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11n Wifi (Wireless Internet), performing in the extremely harsh and dusty environment of the Nevada Black Rock Desert.

One feature of the sleek Airport that hadn’t been noticeable till today was that it has no ports or holes for dust to come through, it is completely encassed in a beautiful Ivory white case that is impervious to dust. Contrasting this to the many other wireless internet routers on the market shows a vast difference in the design philosophies between Apple and other Tech companies.
The linksys routers are peppered with holes to keep them cool, as are the D-link and Cisco wireless routers, after all, a wireless router is going to warm up beaming 802.11n Wifi (Five times faster and Twice as Far as previous generation routers), despite this challenge, Apple designers figure out a great design that keeps the router cool without exposing it’s sensitive electronics to Dust. This is one of the reasons why Three year old Apple Airports still sell for $75 (See Pic) while Two Year old D-Links and Linksys routers are found for $25 and under.

Remember this wonderful quality of the Airport Extreme when you’re choosing your next wireless router, the Airport is almost perfectly hermetically sealed and retains perfect working operation for many years through dust and harsh environments and will concurrently retain it’s value when you’re upgrading in three to five years.