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USB 3.0 OSX Support By Caldigit


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I noticed that Caldigit wrote their own drivers for OSX USB3.0 support for their new products, which include a PCIE/USB3 card and an Expresscard USB3 card option. Not only is this really cool, but I was wondering whether this development could help bring support for USB3 to some of the new USB3 motherboards out there?

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I noticed that Caldigit wrote their own drivers for OSX USB3.0 support for their new products, which include a PCIE/USB3 card and an Expresscard USB3 card option. Not only is this really cool, but I was wondering whether this development could help bring support for USB3 to some of the new USB3 motherboards out there?

 

That could be cool.

Is the driver opensource?

Any link?

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That could be cool.

Is the driver opensource?

Any link?

 

They haven't posted the driver on their site yet, probably happen very soon. I'll keep an eye out for the link. I was hoping someone far more advanced than I, could take a look at whatever kext pops up.

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  • 3 months later...
They haven't posted the driver on their site yet, probably happen very soon. I'll keep an eye out for the link. I was hoping someone far more advanced than I, could take a look at whatever kext pops up.

 

I just read about that myself. At the very least it is good to know that there is a solution out there for only $79. Who will be the first to try out their card on a hackintosh?

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an OSX driver for a device or peripheral like this, often really comes down to the chipset or controller. For example the RealtekR1000 LAN driver works for several LAN chipsets Realtek makes. The wireless driver for my AIRLINK101 usb dongle, has the same chipset as several other USB wireless dongles on the market, and the same driver works for all products, because the chipset is the same

 

Since Caldigit product and driver is working with the NEC chip that almost all other USB 3 products have, I can't imagine that it WOULD NOT work with other motherboards or PCI express cards.

 

I bought a USB 3.0 card from meritline 2 weeks back for $14 free ship, and as soon as I get my hands on that caldigit driver I will test it in my several Giga EP45 10.5 hackintosh's

 

I was curious if they are hesitating posting it, due to it being copied by other manufacturers who want to say their USB 3 product is now compatible with MAC...?

 

Hopefully if they dont post it, someone who buys their PCIe card will share it with the world soon

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  • 2 weeks later...

Don't wanna curb your enthusiasm guys but today I spent the whole day on the caldigit driver with no success.

 

Despite the fact their card is based on the same chip featured by gigabyte ga-x58a-ud3r rev 2....the subvendor ID is different (one is form China and the other is from JAPAN).

 

Even though I found the correct string to pass to the .plist file inside the kext....the driver doesn't work.

 

What drives me crazy is that my modded kext gets loaded with no errors but the unix driver inside it doesn't come up.

 

This means that the developers specifically prevented any other vendor/sub-vendor id from being recognized.

 

Result: IORegistry shows the chip as registered and matched but the kext doesn't work.

 

Too bad....

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To add to the above post, I tried an original Caldigit Expresscard in my 1st gen 15" unibody MBP.

 

It installs and works fine, except they also limit full USB 3.0 operation to their own external drives only. Any other flavour of USB 3.0 drive only runs as USB 2.0. That said it did work well.

 

Also, tried a Shintaro USB 3.0 Expresscard with the Caldigit driver loaded. Caused an instant kernel panic when inserted or on boot.

 

At least someone can get USB 3.0 on OS X going, just is a limited and pricey option. :)

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Hello guys.

I was working on a XHCI kext based on FreeBSD initial sources for making a universal usb3 kext for the OS.

As it is impossible to find such a board here in Brazil, could anyone share the kext/installer so we could maybe put some pieces together and provide a full xhci compliant universal kext?

 

Don't wanna curb your enthusiasm guys but today I spent the whole day on the caldigit driver with no success.

 

Despite the fact their card is based on the same chip featured by gigabyte ga-x58a-ud3r rev 2....the subvendor ID is different (one is form China and the other is from JAPAN).

 

Even though I found the correct string to pass to the .plist file inside the kext....the driver doesn't work.

 

What drives me crazy is that my modded kext gets loaded with no errors but the unix driver inside it doesn't come up.

 

This means that the developers specifically prevented any other vendor/sub-vendor id from being recognized.

 

Result: IORegistry shows the chip as registered and matched but the kext doesn't work.

 

Too bad....

 

i smell a little binary missing a hex editor inside this kext

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Some mod please pin out on news about this card and talk about this thread - This can be the start (or the end if what i did until now fit on this) of a XHCI project for Mac OS X - it would hit this patent-denial-agenda from apple on USB3/lightpeak in a totally legal form.

 

Just to share, I can initialize a usb3 port from U3S6 with my kext mods but i cant get a valid uim yet, even applying the known packs - my initial trial is to make the first version of the xhc be only a ehci mode port with 900mAh

 

Some mod please pin out on news about this card and talk about this thread - This can be the start (or the end if what i did until now fit on this) of a XHCI project for Mac OS X - it would hit this patent-denial-agenda from apple on USB3/lightpeak in a totally legal form.

 

Just to share, I can initialize a usb3 port from U3S6 with my kext mods but i cant get a valid uim yet, even applying the known packs - my initial trial is to make the first version of the xhc be only a ehci mode port with 900mAh

 

Well, ill blog asking for this

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Some mod please pin out on news about this card and talk about this thread - This can be the start (or the end if what i did until now fit on this) of a XHCI project for Mac OS X - it would hit this patent-denial-agenda from apple on USB3/lightpeak in a totally legal form.

 

Just to share, I can initialize a usb3 port from U3S6 with my kext mods but i cant get a valid uim yet, even applying the known packs - my initial trial is to make the first version of the xhc be only a ehci mode port with 900mAh

 

 

 

Well, ill blog asking for this

 

Good News:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NIVQI9BY

Good News #2:

http://www.caldigit.com/opensource.asp

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Lacie have released a USB 3.0 driver for OSX. I have installed it ok on my hackintosh (Gigabyte x58-UDR3 v2.0) board and it comes up in system profiler as a 'USB Super speed Bus' (See the attachment). The downer is I haven't got a USB 3.0 device to test it out.

 

You can get the driver from this link on the Lacie site:

 

http://www.lacie.com/more/index.htm?id=10112

 

Read the instructions and you can see the download link.

 

Can someone test it out?

post-669378-1288890608_thumb.png

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Lacie have released a USB 3.0 driver for OSX. I have installed it ok on my hackintosh (Gigabyte x58-UDR3 v2.0) board and it comes up in system profiler as a 'USB Super speed Bus' (See the attachment). The downer is I haven't got a USB 3.0 device to test it out.

 

You can get the driver from this link on the Lacie site:

 

http://www.lacie.com/more/index.htm?id=10112

 

Read the instructions and you can see the download link.

 

Can someone test it out?

 

Thaaaaaank you!

do you know if its NEC based?

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Thaaaaaank you!

do you know if its NEC based?

 

Since he installed the driver on his Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, and it seems to have picked up the device properly, I would say the LaCie PCIe USB3 card is indeed NEC-based (the X58A-UD3R has a NEC uPD720200 on-board).

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Lacie don't say exactly which chip it is, but they say:

 

LaCie USB 3.0 PCI ExpressCard main features

Add two USB 3.0 ports to your computer.

The fastest technology available on the market (up to 5Gb/s).

NEC component for the highest level of performance and compatibility.

Backward compatible with USB 2.0 devices

 

So it is NEC.

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Better then that, i could not see a subvendor id on this. it seems to simply match the 0330 class (usb3).

And also it does not modify the IOUSBFamily, so, or this is some kind of cosmetical kext to make the ports just work as normal and say they are 3.0 or they really made a great job on that.

 

I will test on U3S6 this weekend

 

PS asus also uses D720200F1 NEC chip.

these boards will sell like crazy if apple dont truncate the actual iousbfamily like they did with the ALC88x.

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Would be interesting to find out: USB 3.0 external HD "works" vs. USB 3.0 HD "bootable".

Also: "Windows bootable" external USB 3.0 vs. "OSX bootable" external USB 3.0.

Making Windows bootable on an external USB 2.0 (or 3.0) HD is possible, but seems to require some re-engineering of the install disc. Not sure about relative difficulty of a Windows vs. an OSX bootable external USB HD.

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Can some one also post there spec's of there hardware when posting benches and info if tested?

 

There are instances that hardware can't give optimal speed do to how USB3 is implemented. For instance if your drive or array can't technically reach speeds to saturated the WRITE/READ of a storage or device.

 

Also if one has external SATA2 or SATA3 is USB 3 running currently on a Hackintosh even worth the candle?

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