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.The software hit of Macworld SF was definitely Connectix’s RAM Doubler. Roy McDonald, Connectix’s president, said that they sold about 3,000 copies at the show, and about another 3,000 through normal channels. Considering that RAM Doubler shipped the day of the show, that’s not too shabby. But I digress.You can never have enough hard drive space or RAM.

Hard drives aren’t all that expensive per megabyte though, whereas RAM is way up there, due in large part to the DRAM hoax of last year. You probably remember, the Sumitomo resin factory blew up, so prices on RAM reacted like commodity prices and skyrocketed. Like commodities, the prices were based almost purely on speculation, and as it turned out, a survey of existing stocks of the resin showed that the industry had almost twice as much of the stuff stockpiled as it was going to need by last December, when the plant came back on line.

In essence, then, there was no reason for those RAM prices to rise, but rise they did. In fact, the dealers we users buy from probably made no more money on RAM than they normally do, but being almost at the top of the RAM food chain, they had no choice but to raise consumer prices. But I digress again – now that we’re all irritated at the RAM manufacturers, let me explain what RAM Doubler is and why you’re likely to want a copy.RAM Doubler is a single small extension that literally doubles your RAM. It’s not guessing at a 2:1 compression ratio, like Salient’s AutoDoubler and DiskDoubler (now owned by Symantec) – you actually see your total memory being twice your built-in memory. Since RAM Doubler is an extension, there are no controls, no configuration.

You just install it and it doubles the amount of application RAM you have available.A number of people have expressed disbelief that such a feat is possible, saying that they’d avoid anything like RAM Doubler because it’s obviously doing strange things to memory, which isn’t safe. The answer to these naysayers is that a program like RAM Doubler either works or it doesn’t – it’s a binary decision. Since Connectix offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, you have nothing to lose if it doesn’t work, and since there’s almost nothing you can do to prevent RAM Doubler from working (remember, there’s no configuration), it’s an easy test. Tonya and I have both installed RAM Doubler to test it in low and high memory situations since her Duo 230 has only 4 MB of real RAM whereas my 660AV sports 20 MB.Needless to say, since RAM Doubler has only been out for a few days, we haven’t been testing for long, but I can honestly say that neither of us have noticed anything out of the ordinary during this time.

In addition, Roy said that he has been watching the nets for complaints and has seen essentially none. This isn’t to imply that RAM Doubler must be entirely bug free; in fact, there’s a known conflict with 4D that will be fixed in 1.0.1, due out in a week or so. ACIUS has apparently released a patch for some other problem that also solves the incompatibility with RAM Doubler, but if you use 4D, I’d recommend waiting for a short while.On our machines, though, RAM Doubler has performed perfectly.

Tonya runs a relatively slim system and only a few applications like Word 5.1a, the Random House Webster’s dictionary, and Eudora, whereas I have over two rows of extensions on a 16' monitor and a slew of applications, fourteen of which start up at boot time. To stress the system a bit, I launched Retrospect (4 MB of RAM), FreeHand, PageMaker, and Elastic Reality (a high-end morphing program from ASDG that likes 12 MB of RAM), and I still had about 6 MB free, so I started up speech recognition and switched to a larger uncompressed voice.

Everything worked fine, although as I started to push the boundaries of my 40 MB, the Mac slowed down a bit.In normal usage, Connectix estimates a two to four percent slowdown, although most people don’t notice such a small speed hit, in large part because other extensions can easily reduce your Mac’s performance that much as well. The speed hit will change slightly as you use more of the RAM that RAM Doubler provides since it must switch to more complex methods of providing the RAM it has promised to you.I’m no programmer, so I can’t tell you exactly how RAM Doubler works its magic, but the basic idea is that it uses Connectix’s virtual memory technology to divert memory not to a disk file, but to other locations in RAM. There are several techniques involved, depending on the current RAM situation.

RAM Doubler starts out by using the 'empty' space in the About this Macintosh memory bars, which is the memory that an application has reserved but not used. After that, it pokes around for holes in the 'used' space in those memory bars, or memory that the application has used but won’t again. Normally such memory is completely lost to other applications because applications generally require a contiguous block of RAM. If you keep launching programs, RAM Doubler will compress some of the contents of RAM using standard data compression techniques, and finally, if all else fails, it will swap some of the contents of memory out to disk, although I gather this primarily happens on Macs with less than 8 MB of real RAM.Because of these techniques, you can’t run other memory management tools, such as Apple’s VM or Connectix’s Virtual. In addition, you should not use RAM Doubler to run a single RAM hog like Photoshop – the speed hit will be hard and instantaneous since most of RAM Doubler’s tricks fail when using only a single application. However, if you have 20 MB and wish to run Photoshop in 20 MB, you should be able to effectively use the additional 20 MB that RAM Doubler provides for other, smaller applications.The more I think about RAM Doubler, the more I’m impressed by how simple and clever it is.

The best analogy I can come up with is that of a hard disk. You don’t need contiguous space on a hard disk to save a file – the Mac can track the different blocks that store various parts of a large file. Until RAM Doubler, RAM was the exact opposite, but with RAM Doubler, memory now works more like a hard disk so you can use every little bit that’s free.Of course, such a feat isn’t easy, and the only way RAM Doubler achieves it is to use the MMU, or memory management unit, that’s built into the 68030 and 68040 processors and keeps track of the entire contents of RAM.

Thus, if your Mac has a 68000 or 68020 (with the exception of some 68030-accelerated Mac II’s – ask Connectix for details), RAM Doubler won’t work. Those of you on older Macs like the Plus and LC have another option, though, OptiMem from Jump Development Group.

I’ll talk more about it in a future issue.The best testament to RAM Doubler’s simplicity is its nine-page manual, with three pages that introduce RAM Doubler and talk about installing and removing it, four pages that answer common questions, and two pages that discuss Connectix’s other products.Overall then, RAM Doubler is a no-brainer. You buy it (it lists for $99, sold for $49 at the show, and I suspect that Connectix has lower than list prices for online users and for users of other Connectix products), install it, and poof, you have twice as much RAM available for applications.If we’re lucky, RAM Doubler will prompt a lowering of RAM prices as well, since only people who need tons of real RAM (like Photoshop users) should pay for real RAM. It’s an easy decision, since if you have 8 MB of real RAM now, RAM Doubler costs somewhere around $50 and an 8 MB SIMM costs around $300.

For people like me, it’s even more worthwhile since RAM Doubler still costs $50 to up my RAM from 20 MB to 40 MB, but another 20 MB of SIMMs would probably run $750 or so. In other words, if you’re starting to feel the RAM crunch, get RAM Doubler. It doesn’t prevent you from getting more RAM later – it will double that just as happily – but for the moment it’s the best deal going.Connectix — 800/950-5880 — 415/571-5100 — 415/571-5195 (fax).

Add up to an additional 2.0TB of internal storage. Add a Solid State Drive (SSD) for near instantaneous boot and app load. Even create a RAID array! Includes bracket, 5 piece toolkit, screws, and detailed installation guide for complete all in one solution.Configuration flexibility is yours when you replace your MacBook or MacBook Pro's internal SuperDrive with the OWC Data Doubler. This custom engineered blue anodized aluminum bracket with attached PCB circuit board comes ready to mount any 9.5mm tall 2.5' SATA hard disk drive and even Solid State Drives.Then, just install the entire assembly into a MacBook or MacBook Pro 5.25' optical drive bay. OWC Data Doubler makes it easy to custom design how you want your internal storage to perform. Installed drives are recognized like any other high speed SATA storage device and can be setup and partitioned using the Apple Disk Utility Program.Everything you need in one package.

2011 MacBook Pro 13' (Model ID MacBookPro8,1)2011 MacBook Pro 15' (Model ID MacBookPro8,2)2011 MacBook Pro 17' (Model ID MacBookPro8,3)2012 MacBook Pro 13' (Model ID MacBookPro9,2)2012 MacBook Pro 15' (Model ID MacBookPro9,1). MAIN BAY: A 6G SSD may be utilized in main bay (move drive or second SSD into Optical Bay.) for reliable SATA Revision 3.0 6Gb/s performance in excess of 500MB/s.(Model ID MacBookPro8,3) models. After successfully applying this update, your Boot ROM Version will be: MBP81.0047.B1E. Please read our very informative for additional information.OPTICAL BAY: The optical bay interface may either be SATA Revision 2.0 3Gb/s (300MB/s max) OR SATA Revision 3.0 6Gb/s. There is no way to specify/order this data interface with Apple, but you can confirm what interface version your optical bay offers by using 'About this Mac, More Info, Serial-ATA' info display.Testing has demonstrated that Apple factory hardware does not reliably support a 6G (6Gb/s) Solid State Drive or Hard Disk Drive in the optical bay of 2011 and 2012 MacBook Pros (Model ID 8,1; 8,2; 8,3; 9,1; 9,2). If your OWC Data Doubler bundle comes with a 6G drive, you should ONLY install that drive in the main drive bay and utilize the Data Doubler to re-task your existing drive or install a new 3G SSD or HDD in the optical bay.

PRE-2011 models can utilize a 6G drive in the optical bay, but will do so at a reduced 3G (3Gb/s) speed.MacBook Pro 13' models: Apple does not support the use of 6Gb/s drives in the optical bay. While we have observed a high rate of success using SATA 3.0 6Gb/s drives in Apple 13' bays where 6Gb/s link is present, some systems may not operate properly with this setup. For guaranteed reliability/compatibility, we suggest 6Gb/s drives be used in the main drive bay only, and 3Gb/s hard drives or SSDs be used in the optical bay when a two-drive configuration is desired. We cannot guarantee proper or successful 6Gb/s drive operation in the Apple MacBook Pro 13' optical bay.2008/2009 MacBook/MacBook Pro 13', 15', and 17' models. (Model IDs: MacBookPro5,1; 5,2; 5,3; 5,4; 5,5 and MacBook5,1; 6,1; 7,1)While a 6G SSD does function, it will only do so at SATA Revision 1.0 (1.5Gb/s) speeds rather that the SATA Revision 2.0 (3.0Gb/s) speed the machine can deliver. Should owners of these machines desire another SSD option, the does run at the full SATA Revision 2.0 (3Gb/s) specification.NOTE: Apple's DVD Player application only works with an internal optical drive or Apple's external SuperDrive. To play DVDs with your removed optical drive after installing it in an external enclosure such as the, we recommend the free VLC Player, which can be downloaded from.

Reviewer: MBP17 Location: NY Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 4/5 Cured my ailment! December 30, 2019 Installed in my 2011 Macbook Pro 17' 8,3 with a Samsung EVO 840 in optical bay. I was getting 'Error -36' when trying to transfer data, as well as slow, erratic test speeds. Replaced cheap opt bay adapter with OWC Data Doubler and it works! I was worried about the disclaimer regarding 6G speeds in MBP 8,3 but BlackMagic test shows it fast and stable. One thing, though - since the DataDoubler is built so beefy and rigid, it actually had a problem laying flat in the computer. Tightening the left-rear screw it caused the right-front to raise up, putting stress on the ribbon cable and even preventing the rear from laying flat.

I solved this by putting a spacer under the left-rear of the bracket before tightening the screw.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: surfvh Location: USA Age: Over 65 Experience Level: IT Professional Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 The great install videos really make installing this item simple! August 12, 2018 The OWC Data Doubler Optical Bay Hard Drive/SSD Mounting Solution is easy to install, particularly using OWC's terrific install videos. I looked at install videos on other sites, and they made the install process needlessly complex and frustrating - kudos to OWC! I decided to install an SSD drive to replace my HDD; then install that HDD where my DVD drive had been, since I never use it.

At the same time I also installed 16GB of memory. Now my late 2011 Macbook Pro 17' has become a SuperMac. Thanks, OWCI would recommend this item to a friend!

Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: JackNYC Location: NYC Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 Excellent solid design - Tools included - Great price August 3, 2018 The data doubler is a excellent solid design with all the Tools included in the box at a Great price. My computer is transformed. I work on location and need a second Hard Drive at all times now my second drive is inside the computer and works at blazing fast speeds.

No more worrying about someone knocking the external drives cable out. Great price, an outstanding value. OWC offers easy to follow video directions for every model mac the data doubler works with.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: CrossPlatformAries Location: Florida Age: 35-44 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 Mostly smooth installation, but high quality product March 15, 2018 About the only issue I had with this was getting the drive installed to the bracket in such a way that didn't make it feel like I was going to snap the SATA connector in the process. It's made out of actual metal which was surprising and considering the design of the machine it's going it, it makes sense for heat dissipation.

The instruction book (while missing a tiny step) was outstanding as it was a full color product covering All possible installations. Between that and the metal, this was probably where the cost came from.

I didn't use the tools included, but they appeared to fit.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: Kentster Location: RuralMN Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Hobbiest Owned Product: 1-3 months Rating: 5/5 Easily Installed in a MacBook 5.1 March 5, 2018 Easily installed in my MacBook 5.1 running elementaryOS/Linux. It's a nice use for the space in my unit once occupied by a working optical drive. It's great to have all kinds of room on a very reliable spinning disc for redundant backups from my boot SSD, it (along with elementaryOS) gives new life to a piece of great hardware.that my eight-year-old can take advantage of.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Top 250 Contributor Reviewer: 377Ohm Location: Lausanne, Switzerland Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: over 6 months Rating: 5/5 The best designed and built product of its kind December 16, 2017 I have seen about a dozen similar products, and this one is the best designed and built of them all: slim yet sturdy, very solid and easy to install.

The design is efficient: there is no component or material bulk that would not be needed in the product. This is particularly appreciated by those whose fingers have thickened with age and sports.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: Meven Location: Lake in the hills Illinois Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: over 6 months Rating: 5/5 Great product December 6, 2017 Wasn’t sure at first if it would fit my Mac book I have the 13 inch early 2009 version and the instructions didn’t show how to take mine apart. So I looked it up on the internet and was able to find instructions on how to take mine apart.

So I was able to put it in my Mac and it works great.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: ShorePro Location: Washington State Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: over 6 months Rating: 5/5 OWC Data Doubler Optical Bay Hard Drive/SSD Mounting November 26, 2017 I ordered this product along with an OWC Multi-Mount: 2.5' to 3.5' (x2) and 3.5' to 5.25' bracket and cable set to upgrade my 2011, 17' MacBook Pro and my 2012, MacPro. The quality of these products is exceptional and the online videos, make installation a cinche.I've had prior experience with MacSales and was quite impressed with their after-sale service.

They have always gone out of their way to insure that the products I purchased were of the highest quality and ultimately served my purpose.MacSales is on the top of my Goto list for computer upgrades.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: Johnniemunz Location: Christchurch New Zealand Age: 35-44 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 This product is awesome I now have two hard drives in my MacBook October 18, 2017 The data doubler was a good purchase in my MacBook mid 2012 just have to say one thing the tools that came with it are very cheap and broke first time I use the Phillips screwdriver which was annoying apart from that very happy thanks OWC.I would recommend this item to a friend!

% package require uuid 1.0.5% package require html 1.4.4% package require tepam 0.5% package require math::bignum 3.1.1% tdom and itcl are provided by separate packages, namely. Package require tlautils 1.0 package require profilemanager package require tla::log 1.2 package require resmgr 1.1 package require resource 1.2 package require sysexits package require utils 1.5 package require testutil 1.0 package require profilemgr package require leakChecker package require testutil. Install package itcl. Complete documentation for ActiveTcl 8.6.9. ActiveTcl 8.6.9 Documentation. Get ActiveTcl Release notes Windows installation Linux/Unix Installaton macOS Installation License Get Started Package Reference Tcl 8.6.9 docs Contact Us Tcl8.6.9/Tk8.6.9 Documentation incr Tcl Package Commands, version 4.1.2 Tcl/Tk. Hello, I am new to TCL/TK and ITCL. I've installed TCL/TK 8.3.4 and just installed ITCL 3.2. Upon invocation, a message indicates that the package cannot be found. Download itcl-3.4-6.sdl6.i686.rpm for CentOS 6 from PUIAS Computational repository.

Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: Mac4Home Location: Queensland, Australia Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 This product was relatively easy to install. June 28, 2017 If undertaken with care removal of the optical drive and installation of the Data Doubler is a relatively straightforward task. There is, however, one issue. For a mid 2010 MBP the printed installation manual, in section 3.11 part 3, describes the removal of the 'silver' cable situated between the two ribbon cables while the online video makes no mention of this cable or its removal. I followed the vide rather than the manual and found it unnecessary to remove this cable.I would recommend this item to a friend!

Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: MarkDoby Location: Syracuse, NY Age: 45-54 Experience Level: IT Professional Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 Data Doubler June 27, 2017 I was quite surprised when I opened the box to find that the bracket used for mounting was actually aluminum! I was expecting plastic for the price so this was nice! Fit was perfect as is the case with anything from OWC. I should have ordered an external enclosure for the optical drive I removed.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: majahack Location: Watsonville, CA Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Hobbiest Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 4/5 Great Value June 19, 2017 My DVD drive was no longer working and I had recently upgraded my 750GB HDD with an SSD.

I was using the HDD with the external enclosure included in my SSD upgrade kit but it still wasn't as convenient as an internal drive. I went ahead and ordered the Data Doubler which has worked out great.

My Mac immediately recognized the drive.The install was a bit more complicated than I had thought it might be. You have to remove quite a few screws and connectors (tools included). About halfway through I thought I had bit off more than I could chew but I powered through with great results. No regrets now that it is done.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: JamesM669 Location: Burbank Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 MacSales/OWC ARE Awesome!!! April 28, 2017 Once again, these guys have proven themselves to be masters at what they do.

I highly recommend this company and their products for anyone wanting to buy replacement and updrade parts for their Apple products.And the icing on the cake?: Even with standard USPS shipping, my order arrived within 3 days - way before the 7-10 days!I'm extremely pleased. Can't praise these guys enough!I would recommend this item to a friend!

Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: plong0 Location: British Columbia, Canada Age: 25-34 Experience Level: IT Professional Owned Product: 1-3 months Rating: 5/5 Provided installation booklet makes installation process straight-forward March 19, 2017 I was ordering some new RAM and an SSD for my MBP 6,1 and decided to also get the data doubler as my optical drive was broken any way.By carefully following the instructions in the booklet that comes with the OWC data doubler, the installation process was very smooth and painless. The data doubler is working great so far, the HDD automatically mounts as a second drive in macOS and read/write operations work just fine.I haven't formatted the original HDD yet, so I can even boot to my old OSX install if I need to.I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos.