In the last couple of weeks I've been playing around with a few different bits of technology, one of them being iSCSI. iSCSI is a relatively cheap and efficient method of adding storage to a computer that uses your existing network infrastructure. If you have a gigabit network and a Linux server (I haven't tested other solutions) you can add as much storage to your Mac as you can fit in your Linux system.

You might be thinking, "I have a 2TB USB/FW drive why would I want iSCSI?" USB and FireWire drives are a fine thing but lets look at some of their disadvantages.


USB2 is actually slower than many FW400 devices
If you have a mac with just one FW port and your external drive doesn't include a FW port, you can't attach anything else to that FW port AND use your drive
External drives add noise
External drives must be located close to the computer, not ideal in a HTPC setup


Here a really quick overview of how it is done, I can certainly provide more detailed information however. Here is a list of what you need to get the job done.


Linux server with gigabit ethernet
A hard drive or RAID set that you want to share to your Mac
gigabit switch
Mac with gigabit, the more recent the better
GlobalSAN iSCSI initiator for Mac
iSCSI Enterprise Target for Linux


Setup your Linux system and install IET. If you're using Ubuntu, IET might be available in apt. I use Fedora so I compiled IET from source. Edit the /etc/ietd.conf file to point to your disk or RAID set (or even a file that was made using dd if=/dev/zero of=filename bs=1024 count=1 seek=n where n is the size of file you want in bytes). Start the ietd service, /etc/init.d/iscsi-target under Fedora.

Install the GlobalSAN iSCSI initiator on your Mac. Enter System Preferences and click the new GlobalSAN button. Add your Linux server's IP address to the Discovery screen. Click on the target tab and your disk should be shown, click it and logon to it without a username or password UNLESS you configured one in IET. Be sure to check the persistent tab if you want this drive to appear each time you boot your Mac.

Open Disk Utility and format the iSCSI disk. Your Mac will format the new drive and it'll soon appear on your desktop. You can use it like any other disk you've ever used. You can partition it, copy/delete files, whatever. As far as the Mac is concerned it is a normal hard drive.

In my setup I have an Intel Mac mini, 1.83Ghz C2D and a Linux server built in late January, 2.2Ghz C2D. The disk being shared to my mini is a single 120GB PATA drive. I am able to copy files to the drive with a top speed of 44MB/s. Reading is actually slow but I attribute that to a limitation with the mini's internal drive. I haven't been able to test using OpenSolaris as the iSCSI target though OpenSolaris would be a fantastic choice as a storage server.

To be fair, there are some negatives to this setup. The biggest one being you can't have multiple Macs using the same disk at the same time. You can unmount the disk on one mac and mount it with another one, but having two macs connected at the same time risks your data.

Not going to lie, I thought this would get a bit more feedback...after 80 reads

Not going to lie, I thought this would get a bit more feedback...after 80 reads

Well, I can only offer my opinion on this topic: while interesting and tempting from a tinkering point of view, it would add another order of magnitude of complexity to my setup (mini with 2 fw drives hooked up). This, in turn, leads to more potential problems, things that (occasionally) don't work etc. Many on this forum, and myself included, use a mac because it's mostly painless and needs little maintenance.

You're totally right with your line of argument about limitations of usb and the single fw port on the mini, but I'm not sure if the added complexity (plus electricity needed for the server) would (for me) make up for this.
I'm already pissed that in my setup, eyetv occasionally (like once every 4 weeks or so) looses the connection to the hdhomerun. Needless to say, that the wife isn't pleased when I tell her we can't watch the newshour 'cause it didn't record for whatever reason.

So, again, this is interesting and the tinkerer inside me is tempted to do this. But for me, this isn't living room-certified; (neither is eyetv/hdhomerun really, sadly, but I'm kinda forced to stick with that for the moment... and praying the elgato will eventually fix some of the major bugs).

Best,
Dino

Thanks for the input.

Which side of the equation makes the HDR fail? What fixes it, rebooting the Mac or the HDR? I have an HDR at home and have never had it fail....yet. All my shows are starting up this month so if there is something I can do to prevent issues, I'll do it.

Thanks for the input.

Which side of the equation makes the HDR fail? What fixes it, rebooting the Mac or the HDR? I have an HDR at home and have never had it fail....yet. All my shows are starting up this month so if there is something I can do to prevent issues, I'll do it.

restarting the hdr helps. Never tried restarting the mini.... I only tried restarting eyetv, which didn't help. But power-cycling the hdr so far always did the job.... and I've no idea what it could be. But like I said, it's not happening very often... once every few weeks.

for non-linux gurus, you can use GlobalSAN iSCSI initiator very easily with freeNAS. FreeNAS has built in support for AFP and can almost entirely be managed via a web browser. It supports software raid 0, 1, 0+1 and 5. FreeNAS can run on pretty low system requirements.

I used it for a while and then decided to switch to one of the new Drobo's with Firewire 800. For me, this was a better option then managing freenas & iscsi. I wanted a mac media server that my wife and kids could use without me fiddling with it all the time and figuring out what is wrong. iSCSI just added an extra layer of unnecessary complication, not to mention it is another computer running 24/7. It was just easier to share the drobo on the network and the ability to add more storage to the drobo is great.

If someone has a lot of ATA drives that they want to use, i would seriously consider freenas (drobo only supports sata).

Though one last thought, you don't *have* to use iSCSI. You could just use freenas's AFP file share. Set up the shared folders on your network and you are golden.

Why iSCSI? You can do the same thing with NFS on the Linux box. NFS is built into Mac OS X, and is very well supported in Linux. You can just pick any disk/directory to export via NFS, and use it from linux and the NFS clients.

You can similarly share disks via Samba, which works well with Windows clients.

Why iSCSI? You can do the same thing with NFS on the Linux box. NFS is built into Mac OS X, and is very well supported in Linux. You can just pick any disk/directory to export via NFS, and use it from linux and the NFS clients.

You can similarly share disks via Samba, which works well with Windows clients.

Speed mostly and the ability to format the volume in OS X's native filesystem. Which also enables time machine without BS work arounds.

how much faster can iSCSI be? I mean, assuming that everything is identical, a mac with file sharing to a drive using afp, smb or nfs; verses a mac connected to the same drive connected via iSCSI natively formated as HFS+. The real constraint here isn't afp, smb, nfs or iSCSI... it is how you are connecting to the drive (802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, ethernet 100 or ethernet 1000). It is my understanding that with any give connection type, you really won't notice a huge difference between afp/smb/nfs vs iSCSI.

So if you are asking what the benefit of iSCSI is: It allows a network drive to be shared to a computer in such a way that the computer thinks that drive is actually physically connected to it. There are uses of this that are very benifical, and time machine may be considered one of them. Although this could be debated too.

Keep in mind one other thing, since the drive appears to be physically connected to your computer, if that drive goes off line, you get all types of error messages. I am not sure how this affects data if you were writing to it and then it suddenly disappears. I think Leopard address this issue differently with attached shared drives then it would with drives that are physically connected (and iSCSI). Meaning it is more tolerant of share drives disappearing.

But again, going back to the real point here, afp is just so easy to set up and use and built into every mac. given the preference for ease of use you should really pick this.

i thought I should add about afp smb and nfs. As far as I understand, If you have a mac native network, choose afp. If you have a mixed one, you can either pick smb or nfs. Your other choice is to set up 2+ protocols so your macs are still doing their sharing via afp and windows or linux can connect to the same share point via smb/nfs. although running too many protocols could slow things down, so run only what you need and not all three just because you can.

Well I thought I'd do some unofficial testing to see where things sit. I can't comment too much on a Mac only network as I have just one mac that is really capable of anything...and it isn't much. My setup consists of my mini and a Linux based server. I tested a number of drives and network setups using Xbench and averaged the results across three tests and then averaged those results again (it'll make sense in a minute). What I did manage to find is that you're right, AFP IS faster though not by much and unlike AFP with other Macs you can't easily use an AFP share as a time machine share. Anyway, on to the results.

I tested my mini's internal drive and then iSCSI, SMB and finally AFP to the same set of disks on my Linux system. Here is a legend for the abbreviations used below.

SUW 4k Sustained Uncached Writes 4k chunks
SUW 256k Sustained Uncached Writes 256k chunks
SUR 4k Sustained Uncached Reads 4k chunks
SUR 256k Sustained Uncached Reads 256 chunks
RUW 4k Random Uncached Writes 4k chunks
RUW 256k Random Uncached Writes 256k chunks
RUR 4k Random Uncached Reads 4k chunks
RUR 256k Random Uncached Reads 256k chunks


Internal drive results, all values MB/s


28.03 SUW 4k
25.36 SUW 256k
18.33 SUR 4k
23.68 SUR 256k
00.97 RUW 4k
16.71 RUW 256k
00.45 RUR 4k
14.28 RUR 256k


Average across all scenarios = 15.98MB/s

SMB to 3 disk software RAID5, all values MB/s. Drives are Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA drives, about 8 months old.


09.80 SUW 4k
35.74 SUW 256k
10.14 SUR 4k
45.41 SUR 256k
11.79 RUW 4k
22.35 RUW 256k
09.17 RUR 4k
45.28 RUR 256k


Average across all scenarios = 23.71MB/s

iSCSI to 3 disk software RAID5, all values MB/s


56.57 SUW 4k
51.52 SUW 256k
10.95 SUR 4k
85.05 SUR 256k
00.90 RUW 4k
33.40 RUW 256k
10.57 RUR 4k
85.23 RUR 256k


Average across all scenarios = 41.77MB/s

AFP to 3 disk software RAID5, all values MB/s


11.87 SUW 4k
61.60 SUW 256k
15.65 SUR 4k
92.84 SUR 256k
12.22 RUW 4k
69.52 RUW 256k
15.20 RUR 4k
92.32 RUR 256k


Average across all scenarios = 46.40MB/s

As a bonus, I also tested the single disk shared out using iSCSI. 120GB PATA drive, about 4 years old.


39.44 SUW 4k
36.82 SUW 256k
07.11 SUR 4k
30.96 SUR 256k
01.19 RUW 4k
22.47 RUW 256k
00.54 RUR 4k
40.75 RUR 256k


Average across all scenarios = 22.41MB/s

What I can't test is latency. I can't find any sort of benchmark program for Mac that shows latency.

ok, i am not an iSCSI expert, so what i am about to say is just my theory. But i think the reason why is iSCSI is a bit slower, is some throughput is used to establish and maintain the permeant connection between the host and client.

also, because afp is built into the OS, and optimized for a mac, you could be getting better performance. iSCSI on the other hand is using the Global SAN initiator.... which may not be as optimized as it could be.

ive heard about iscsi but have never really bothered to read up on it. why when u can have drives connected w/ esata with output 3gb/s?

for a single desktop/laptop, iscsi has no benefit. it is designed to be used in a multi client environment.

ive heard about iscsi but have never really bothered to read up on it. why when u can have drives connected w/ esata with output 3gb/s?

I have a mac mini, eSATA is not an option without serious hacking. I like that I can add storage that is high speed, works correctly with time machine and is away from my setup (less noise)

EDIT: short of a mac pro, show me a mac with esata anyway.

for a single desktop/laptop, iscsi has no benefit. it is designed to be used in a multi client environment.

To say it has no benefit is a bit naive. Also, it only works in a multi-client environment when you're using a cluster aware filesystem.

ive heard about iscsi but have never really bothered to read up on it. why when u can have drives connected w/ esata with output 3gb/s?

for a single desktop/laptop, iscsi has no benefit. it is designed to be used in a multi client environment.

To say it has no benefit is a bit naive. Also, it only works in a multi-client environment when you're using a cluster aware filesystem.

First and foremost, I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade. mym6 is happy with his implementation of iSCSI. You may have experience with it that aides you in this choice.

That beings said, I stand by what I said earlier. If you have one computer that you are going to use, and that is all you are going to have. Then, YES, iSCSI has no benifit. There is a lot of cost & configurations that need to be done. When you compare this to just connecting an external drive - in this case J-e-L-L-o mentions an esata drive. You could do firewire 800 or even firewire 400 and have similar real life speeds verse transferring data across the network at 10/100 or even gigabit speeds.

If it were me, I wouldn't think about using iSCSI for a single computer. Since his question was very vague, so was my answer. If you are talking about multiple machines, then iSCSI may be different.

Granted, as I said from the beginning of this discussion, I am not an iSCSI expert. When I used it, I was using freenas on the backend and the globalsan client on two desktop computers. If I am not mistaken, globalsan is the same one that you mention at the begining too.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, is when you set up an iSCSI drive, the local computer thinks that this drive is physically connected. This has various benifits. Although there are many situations that this may cause problems.

For example, if the drive goes offline, the OS will give you the nasty-grams about the drive disappearing. This can be caused by many things common in a home environment:

• If you are using a wireless connection that is not reliable
• If you are using a laptop and leave without disconnecting the drive.
• Cheap networking gear or bad cabling may cause network issues.
• Bad network card drivers.
• Network collision (this is part of the reason that people buy expensive managed switches with QoS).

Look, I am not knocking iSCSI. It is a great option in many cases. I just think it isn't designed for home use. Should someone be thinking about using it in for personal uses, I would HIGHLY recommend looking at other options. Especially if you don't have any experience with iSCSI or Linux. But hey, that is just my 2¢. To each their own.

Looks like the new Macbook makes this howto a bit more relevant

Looks like the new Macbook makes this howto a bit more relative.

Apparently, you and I have different outlooks on this. Before I begin, I would like to say that in no way am I trying to start a flame war. I feel like we are both expressing our personal opinions about a topic in hopes that other people can benifit. It is in that spirit that I offer these simple suggestions to anyone who is thinking about ISCSI.

If you have 1 computer and want a simple solution for storage: A Firewire or USB2 Drive. Firewire is better, but if you don't have it USB2 is no slouch. This is the easiest solution - plug it in, format it, and begin using it. If you computer is portable, you would probably be best with something that can be powered by the laptop & carried with you rather then something that is bigger and needs to plugin it in.


If you have one or more computers and want a simple shared solution for network storage: A network hard drive (like Time Capsule or one by any other HD manufacturer). They are inexpensive and relatively simple.


If you want something with fault tolerance (protection in case a drive fails): look at the drobo. It isn't cheap, but it is very simple and will grow with you.

OR

Look into a device that does mirroring or raid5 that has a network adapter. These can either be purchased with drives already included or just empty bays for the DIY'ers. Some of these do it yourself options may increases the technical requirement, but they aren't too bad. Most of them use a web interface. So if you can configure your router, this should look somewhat familiar.

If you want the drobo or a usb drive to be shared on the network: You can either plug it into a computer and share the drive, get the drobo network adapter or use another device that shares a USB drive on the network (like a airport basestation). This is also pretty easy.

For those looking to be a little more adventurous:
• Windows Home Server: They have worked out some of the v1.0 bugs and it works pretty well. Many people here will turn up their nose to this one (not that I blame them) but it is a decent option that can work pretty well.

• FreeNas: this turns an old PC into a pretty robust NAS. Based on It is not as easy as other solutions, but far more robust. Once this is set up, the entire thing is controlled via a browser.

Some reasons I still think that ISCSI is not the right choice:
• This is enterprise grade solution and may require a lot of time, effort & patience to get it to work.
• It should only be connected to one computer. why go to all this work to only work with one computer where there are so many less expensive, more reliable and easier solutions?
• Is far more costly then many of the solutions listed above. This also means you need to have a second computer running 24/7 and must be extremely reliable.
• Should either the computer hosting the drives go off like, or a client computer disconnect from the network without remembering to disconnect the ISCSI drives.... well this isn't a fun result, especially if the drives were in use.

----------------

Well, I suppose mym6 and I could debate this over and over. but hopefully from these 2 differing opinions, people will have a better idea of network storage choices.

Oh - and in no way am I saying that any one of these ideas listed are the best one. In fact there may be something else not listed here that is even better. Ultimately, each person needs to figure out what is best for them based on what they have laying around, how much time and money they want to invest, what the level of redundancy needs to be, how technical they want to make it, what the storage will be used for and how many computers need to share it.

I have never seen anyone rail so hard against an idea. Look, I think it's really dumb that people put together multi terabyte RAID sets so they can rip their DVD set to hard drive. I mean, why pay that much in initial costs plus the costs of running all those disks? What about all the supporting equipment you need in order to access said collection? In the end you've probably spent four times as much money as you'd ever spend replacing broken or missing DVDs. It just doesn't make sense....to me.

But you know what? I don't argue against doing it at all it because my view on whether or not something can be of use to you or them is irrelevant. I can still comment on why I'd choose to use Macs, Windows or Linux machines in such a setup to assist the other guy (or gal) in making some decision to reach his (or her) goal.

I also think you missed the point of my previous post. The new Macbook lacks firewire at all. This is something that really ticks me off. In a way, I was hijacking my own thread. This leaves you with JUST USB2 for peripherals. I don't care what anybody says, USB2 is NOT great. It is acceptable, but not great.

Removing firewire removes one of the best ways to attach storage to a Mac. You mention the networked Drobo. Again, this isn't a great solution because the network device that interfaces with the Drobo is USB2 based, not firewire and not eSATA. So unless they've changed something since I last looked, the weakest link is USB2. We've already discusses the merits of the other network file systems and in some really simple, unscientific tests we found that iSCSI is a viable method for attaching storage to a Mac. The point of my thread was to raise awareness of this fact, not to say it was the end all solution to everyone's storage needs.

I would not be at all surprised to see a new device hit the market because of the new Macbook that allows you to add storage to your Mac using iSCSI that makes it as easy as plugging in a firewire drive. There is no reason you couldn't.

The new Macbook lacks firewire at all. This is something that really ticks me off. In a way, I was hijacking my own thread. This leaves you with JUST USB2 for peripherals. I don't care what anybody says, USB2 is NOT great. It is acceptable, but not great.

Removing firewire removes one of the best ways to attach storage to a Mac.

I agree, that Apple removed firewire from the new MBs really ticks me off, too! But, if you had to lose firewire somewhere, a Mac in the home theater is a pretty good place to do without it as long as that Mac was wired up to your gigabit home network. And if losing FW came at the expense of significantly improved graphics, again, the home theater is THE BEST place to make that tradeoff.

With that said, attached to the Macbook permanently wired up in my theater are two USB external drives and a firewire daisychain consisting of two EyeTV 500s, a LaCie dvd burner, and two other external hard drive enclosures. But, that's just a personal choice, none of them "need" to be there directly attached to that particular Mac. They can be attached to any other Mac in my house and the Macbook could still find and play back everything, including high def, over gigabit, simply and easily with sharing built in to Leopard.

Look, I think it's really dumb that people put together multi terabyte RAID sets so they can rip their DVD set to hard drive. I mean, why pay that much in initial costs plus the costs of running all those disks?

On demand convenience throughout the house? Backup? With 500GB drives costing $70 now, really, this has never been more within reach.

In the end you've probably spent four times as much money as you'd ever spend replacing broken or missing DVDs. It just doesn't make sense....to me.

But you eliminated the living room storage space required to maintain all those boxes of dvds, the time it takes to find particular discs, carry them to where you want to watch them, etc. With everything ripped and stored on drives, everything is accessible via the Apple remote. That's quite nice. All your cds and dvds can be boxed up and stored down in the basement.

Now, I think your larger point is valid--that's NOT gonna be enough to convince some people to do it, and that's a choice everyone can make for themselves. No argument there.

You mention the networked Drobo. Again, this isn't a great solution because the network device that interfaces with the Drobo is USB2 based, not firewire and not eSATA. So unless they've changed something since I last looked, the weakest link is USB2

well, no--connect the new Drobo to any old Mac with a FW800 port and gigabit and you're good to go--even like the old MDD Power Macs that some of us just can't let go because they still get the job done.

I like that I can add storage that is high speed, works correctly with time machine and is away from my setup (less noise)

EDIT: short of a mac pro, show me a mac with esata anyway.

Plenty of eSATA cards still available for older Power Macs, some with internal and external ports. Not to overly beat that dead horse, but you can stick all of this out of the way, in any part of the house, as long as you can run wire to it. And I think the larger point that mmcxiiad keeps driving home is, all of these options are better and simpler to set up than iSCSI because frankly, there's nothing we do in the home theater that requires anything faster than FW 400 and sharing over gigabit.

Originally Posted by mym6
Not going to lie, I thought this would get a bit more feedback...after 80 reads

I remember reading this and thinking the exact opposite--I'm not surprised this approach didn't gain much traction around here. I agree it's an option, and that everyone should be encouraged to experiment, I just wish I had the time for what seemed to me, in my limited awareness of this, a complicated end result which offered little to no gain.

You might be thinking, "I have a 2TB USB/FW drive why would I want iSCSI?" USB and FireWire drives are a fine thing but lets look at some of their disadvantages.

1. USB2 is actually slower than many FW400 devices
2. If you have a mac with just one FW port and your external drive doesn't include a FW port, you can't attach anything else to that FW port AND use your drive
3. External drives add noise
4. External drives must be located close to the computer, not ideal in a HTPC setup

Observations 1. and 2. are most certainly correct, but only if you don't have any other computers or hardware in the house and only if that Mac is your only Mac. Which probably applies to zero users that hang at AVS.

3. and 4. also true, but using an external can reduce the heat inside your Mac, which'll reduce noise, and plenty of externals don't have a fan, and are relatively quiet. IME it's the fans that make most of the noise in externals. But, back to the gigabit network thing, nothing actually needs to be IN the home theater or attached directly to that Mac.

To be fair, there are some negatives to this setup. The biggest one being you can't have multiple Macs using the same disk at the same time. You can unmount the disk on one mac and mount it with another one, but having two macs connected at the same time risks your data

Right, which to many is a huge...inconvenience. Whereas most of the other options being discussed, all the way from simple, basic volume mounting and sharing in Leopard to networked storage like a NAS all can be shared simultaneously. Multiple Macs and aTVs can draw from the same single instance of iTunes running somewhere, anywhere, in the house. EyeTV can write two high def streams to a plain old firewire hard drive AND be playing back a third from that same drive, let alone using shared libraries over the network which is now built into EyeTV 3.

Here a really quick overview of how it is done...

frankly, here's where you lost me. That seemed like a lot of pain to inflict on yourself...as I get older I want to maintain less and enjoy/experience more. What's nice about this place is free exchange, throw something out there, hope that other experienced folks provide a counterpoint, and everyone makes up their own mind. I don't interpret any of the responses on this thread as "railing against" any idea or anyone--mmcxiiad came the closest but I have feeling most users here would be swayed by his logic. And I'm glad he kept weighing back in.

Frankly, think of all the good to come out of Apple's terrible decision to axe FW from the Macbook--now more people know what you can do over USB2, like booting off a SuperDuper backup clone on a USB drive, what you can do with Migration Assistant over ethernet, etc. Prior to this, many just knew what you could do over firewire...

I too agree that the lack of firewire severely cripples the macbooks. In fact I was ready to plunk down the cash on the macbook - but like you said no firewire was the deal breaker. I am extremely disappointed that USB has won out. It certainly is slower connection. (Thus I am typing this from my new Macbook Pro.... HAD to have firewire 800).

Incedently, I think the reason firewire is left off is to help differentiate the macbook and the pro models. And to give people a reason to jump up to the pro line. I think that the reality of things is for the average user, firewire doesn't matter and isn't a big deal at all.... suckers.

Now, If you are accessing a USB drive over the network, the speed issue of USB drives may not be a real issue. If you are on a wireless network or a 10/100 wired connection, USB is not going to cause any bottleneck problems transferring data. On a gigabit network, then a drive that is connected to the network through USB2 would definitly be a bottleneck. So again, it depends on what you have, how you are connecting it, and what time of network you will use to access it.

Maybe, as you said the lack of firewire may open up a whole new type of connection. Maybe ISCSI, maybe something else. It will be interesting to see.

As far as putting terabytes of data to make DVDs accessible.... well I am guilty of this. I have small children who have ruined many dvds & a pregnant wife who will be having a c-section. So the network setup is very appealing for my situation. Plus, I had a lot of the things I need laying around so it has helped offset much of the cost. This says nothing of the fact that the geek in me loves the semi-automation of the whole thing.

Finally, I hope that this discussion as been viewed as a friendly discussion and not a flame war. While I personally don't think that ISCSI is the best method to use.... others may. Hey that is great for everyone. I think that in the process of you and I going back and forth has be great. I have learned many things from this process.

I have enjoyed it because I don't get to have this type discussion much. I work from home as part of our small family company. Honestly, it has been fun debating the merits of ISCSI. I hope that you didn't think I was just trying to be argumentative.

Hopefully, other people will benefit from this discussion and make the best choice for them.

I too agree that the lack of firewire severely cripples the macbooks. In fact I was ready to plunk down the cash on the macbook - but like you said no firewire was the deal breaker. I am extremely disappointed that USB has won out. It certainly is slower connection. (Thus I am typing this from my new Macbook Pro.... HAD to have firewire 800)..

I felt the same way and said as much over on the apple discussions site. I was also quoted on computerworld.com http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9117339. The last paragraph of the first page.

I've seen the Macbook in person and I'm almost impressed enough with the build quality of the machine to overlook FW. I would still have my mini and I am interested in an HD camcorder.