9 ms·

Any way to find out what "solid state drive" they've got? Is it Intel's X2? That'd make a big difference in how much I'd want to spend/how much time I'd want to

by ihodes 17y ago

Any way to find out what "solid state drive" they've got? Is it Intel's X2? That'd make a big difference in how much I'd want to spend/how much time I'd want to spend installing my own.

jbellis 17y ago
All of apple's SSDs are Samsung, by a large margin the worst on the market. http://it.anandtech.com/show/2829/19 http://it.anandtech.com/show/2829/19
- ihodes 17y ago
  Good to know. Waste of a thousand or so $. Was hoping it had changed for this release, but I suppose that's hoping too much.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    The best strategy with Apple is to skimp on everything and upgrade it yourself. The price difference will cover a second laptop if you fuck the first one up.
    - edj 17y ago
      This is what I've always done. I managed to keep my first Mac (a TiBook) feeling fresh for 6 years, and my second (a MacBook) still seems basically new at 2 years. But can you do this with the unibody MBPs? The battery's not user replaceable, right? What about the HD and RAM?
      - rbrcurtis 17y ago
        The ram is absolutely replaceable and easy to do. From reading above, it looks like the HDD is pretty easy as well.
    - DenisM 17y ago
      The 8Gb RAM upgrade now is $400 - same price if you buy it on newegg. You could argue that you will still have 4Gb laying around, but I personally have no use for that and can't be bothered to sell it.
      - astrodust 17y ago
        Upgrade retailers like MacSales.com will buy the stuff back from you, so at least it's not entirely worthless.
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    Except for the part where he's wrong: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262310 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262310 How to find out what kind of SSD is in an MBP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262981 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262981
- jrockway 17y ago
  Samsung's rotating disks are the worst disks I have ever owned. I bought 2 and then 1 more, and all 3 need to be RMA'd. To keep my RAID array alive, I am doing them 1 at a time, and they are not fast. Worst disks ever.
- jayroh 17y ago
  The question now is - how difficult is it to replace a regular hd in this generation of Macbooks? In my 3yr old laptop it was a manageable, although a bit stressful, to pull out the hd and replace with an SSD.
  - generalk 17y ago
    Super-easy. I have the first-gen unibody Macbook Pro, and it's right next to the battery as you take the cover off. Just one screw and it's out. I can't speak for the newer, non-user-replaceable-battery models, but I can't imagine they made it harder to replace the HDD.
    - mike-cardwell 17y ago
      Tip. Don't put it in upside down and then push hard or you'll end up having to undo a whole lot more screws.
    - jbellis 17y ago
      "I can't imagine they made it harder to replace the HDD." Start imagining. You need a mini-torx screwdriver to get the hdd out, once you get the cover off (8 phillips screws). Not the end of the world, but not too many people have a T8 sitting around. I didn't.
      - masomenos 17y ago
        I agree that this is a minor annoyance, but your local hardware store probably has one available for $5. In other words, it's still orders of magnitude better than replacing the HD in, say, an iBook.
      - chrisbolt 17y ago
        The Torx has always been required. At least with the unibody MacBooks they made it far easier to replace the hard drive. I just did a pre-unibody MacBook Pro yesterday, you have to pull the entire top part with keyboard.
- 9oliYQjP 17y ago
  Not only that. I've been a Mac user for almost 10 years now but I'm waiting for them to add TRIM support to OS X before taking the SSD plunge. Everybody using an SSD on OS X should understand that its performance will degrade more quickly than on another modern OS. It's quite disappointing to me.
  - generalk 17y ago
    For those curious as to why performance will degrade quicker on OS X: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM Just had to look that up myself. Shocking that OS X doesn't support it natively, although the article suggests there may be utilities that can replace that functionality.
    - enterneo 17y ago
      Intel X-25M has TRIM support in the controller itself, and thats the way it should be I believe
      - sorbits 17y ago
        The drive does not know when data stored on the drive is “deleted”. This is what TRIM is for, i.e. when you delete a file you just unlink the inode. You need to tell the drive that the blocks that the file occupied are no longer needed, so the disk can ignore that data when reorganizing or later rewriting part of the block.
      - 9oliYQjP 17y ago
        Unfortunately while there are strategies to mitigate the problem in hardware, proper TRIM support is still best. You might be getting confused by the TRIM enabled firmware that was released in December '09 for that SSD? It just means that the Intel drive will obey TRIM commands from the OS. But if the OS doesn't send any commands, which OS X won't, then you're not taking advantage of TRIM. For what it's worth, if you were going to choose a drive that would degrade the least in performance without the use of TRIM, you probably chose best with the Intel X-25M. But it would still perform better over time in Linux or Windows 7.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  All of apple's SSDs are Samsung This is incorrect; at least with the MBPs they were shipping until today it was a bit of a toss-up as to whether you'd get a Samsung or Toshiba SSD, and the only way to know what you got is to boot up the system and look at the drive's model number in System Profiler. FWIW, the one that came in my MBP is Toshiba, and is still awfully zippy after eight months of heavy use (during which I'm quite certain I've written enough to the drive to start noticing any real degradation).
hackermom 17y ago
The time you spend putting a new drive in and putting OS X on it is less than 30 minutes (unless you were born with your thumb in the middle of your palm, that is :) The money is roughly the half, and as a bonus you also get to keep the drive that came with the computer and use that as backup or additional, external storage, or even sell it to someone to get a few bucks back. A simple rule of thumb for the Apple customer - NEVER get upgrades along with the order. It's just a waste of your money. You really don't have to be much of a "DIY" to replace memory or storage in a MacBook - they are all much, much more user friendly than your average HP/Dell/Whatever laptop.
- jokull 17y ago
  Except you'll void the warranty, am I right?
  - zefhous 17y ago
    No, RAM and hard drive installs are almost always considered user-replaceable parts. I believe the exception to this is replacing the HD in iMacs, where you have to take the screen off.
  - akgerber 17y ago
    I've gotten warranty service just fine with random RAM and hard drives in my machine.
  - hackermom 17y ago
    Nope. Replacing drive and RAM is not a warranty issue. Apple clearly details how to perform it in the user's manual, labelling it all as "user-servicable".
ubernostrum 17y ago
Any way to find out what "solid state drive" they've got? In advance, no, they don't tell you. However, up until now every SSD Apple has shipped has been either Samsung or Toshiba, and you can find out which it is by opening OS X's System Profiler. Look under "Serial ATA" and you'll see the drive's description, which will be in the format "APPLE SSD (manufacturer code)(capacity)". Toshiba drives will have a manufacturer code of "TS" (so my 256GB Toshiba SSD shows up as "APPLE SSD TS256A", for example). Samsung drives will have "SM". When I was shopping around last year trying to find out about this, it seemed that most of the 128GB drives were Samsung, most of the 256GB drives were Toshiba. What they're using for the 512GB drives is anybody's guess, but System Profiler will be the way to find out.

by ihodes 17y ago

Any way to find out what "solid state drive" they've got? Is it Intel's X2? That'd make a big difference in how much I'd want to spend/how much time I'd want to spend installing my own.

jbellis 17y ago

All of apple's SSDs are Samsung, by a large margin the worst on the market. http://it.anandtech.com/show/2829/19 http://it.anandtech.com/show/2829/19

ihodes 17y ago
Good to know. Waste of a thousand or so $. Was hoping it had changed for this release, but I suppose that's hoping too much.
- jrockway 17y ago
  The best strategy with Apple is to skimp on everything and upgrade it yourself. The price difference will cover a second laptop if you fuck the first one up.
  - edj 17y ago
    This is what I've always done. I managed to keep my first Mac (a TiBook) feeling fresh for 6 years, and my second (a MacBook) still seems basically new at 2 years. But can you do this with the unibody MBPs? The battery's not user replaceable, right? What about the HD and RAM?
    - rbrcurtis 17y ago
      The ram is absolutely replaceable and easy to do. From reading above, it looks like the HDD is pretty easy as well.
  - DenisM 17y ago
    The 8Gb RAM upgrade now is $400 - same price if you buy it on newegg. You could argue that you will still have 4Gb laying around, but I personally have no use for that and can't be bothered to sell it.
    - astrodust 17y ago
      Upgrade retailers like MacSales.com will buy the stuff back from you, so at least it's not entirely worthless.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  Except for the part where he's wrong: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262310 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262310 How to find out what kind of SSD is in an MBP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262981 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262981
jrockway 17y ago
Samsung's rotating disks are the worst disks I have ever owned. I bought 2 and then 1 more, and all 3 need to be RMA'd. To keep my RAID array alive, I am doing them 1 at a time, and they are not fast. Worst disks ever.
jayroh 17y ago
The question now is - how difficult is it to replace a regular hd in this generation of Macbooks? In my 3yr old laptop it was a manageable, although a bit stressful, to pull out the hd and replace with an SSD.
- generalk 17y ago
  Super-easy. I have the first-gen unibody Macbook Pro, and it's right next to the battery as you take the cover off. Just one screw and it's out. I can't speak for the newer, non-user-replaceable-battery models, but I can't imagine they made it harder to replace the HDD.
  - mike-cardwell 17y ago
    Tip. Don't put it in upside down and then push hard or you'll end up having to undo a whole lot more screws.
  - jbellis 17y ago
    "I can't imagine they made it harder to replace the HDD." Start imagining. You need a mini-torx screwdriver to get the hdd out, once you get the cover off (8 phillips screws). Not the end of the world, but not too many people have a T8 sitting around. I didn't.
    - masomenos 17y ago
      I agree that this is a minor annoyance, but your local hardware store probably has one available for $5. In other words, it's still orders of magnitude better than replacing the HD in, say, an iBook.
    - chrisbolt 17y ago
      The Torx has always been required. At least with the unibody MacBooks they made it far easier to replace the hard drive. I just did a pre-unibody MacBook Pro yesterday, you have to pull the entire top part with keyboard.
9oliYQjP 17y ago
Not only that. I've been a Mac user for almost 10 years now but I'm waiting for them to add TRIM support to OS X before taking the SSD plunge. Everybody using an SSD on OS X should understand that its performance will degrade more quickly than on another modern OS. It's quite disappointing to me.
- generalk 17y ago
  For those curious as to why performance will degrade quicker on OS X: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM Just had to look that up myself. Shocking that OS X doesn't support it natively, although the article suggests there may be utilities that can replace that functionality.
  - enterneo 17y ago
    Intel X-25M has TRIM support in the controller itself, and thats the way it should be I believe
    - sorbits 17y ago
      The drive does not know when data stored on the drive is “deleted”. This is what TRIM is for, i.e. when you delete a file you just unlink the inode. You need to tell the drive that the blocks that the file occupied are no longer needed, so the disk can ignore that data when reorganizing or later rewriting part of the block.
    - 9oliYQjP 17y ago
      Unfortunately while there are strategies to mitigate the problem in hardware, proper TRIM support is still best. You might be getting confused by the TRIM enabled firmware that was released in December '09 for that SSD? It just means that the Intel drive will obey TRIM commands from the OS. But if the OS doesn't send any commands, which OS X won't, then you're not taking advantage of TRIM. For what it's worth, if you were going to choose a drive that would degrade the least in performance without the use of TRIM, you probably chose best with the Intel X-25M. But it would still perform better over time in Linux or Windows 7.
ubernostrum 17y ago
All of apple's SSDs are Samsung This is incorrect; at least with the MBPs they were shipping until today it was a bit of a toss-up as to whether you'd get a Samsung or Toshiba SSD, and the only way to know what you got is to boot up the system and look at the drive's model number in System Profiler. FWIW, the one that came in my MBP is Toshiba, and is still awfully zippy after eight months of heavy use (during which I'm quite certain I've written enough to the drive to start noticing any real degradation).

hackermom 17y ago

The time you spend putting a new drive in and putting OS X on it is less than 30 minutes (unless you were born with your thumb in the middle of your palm, that is :) The money is roughly the half, and as a bonus you also get to keep the drive that came with the computer and use that as backup or additional, external storage, or even sell it to someone to get a few bucks back. A simple rule of thumb for the Apple customer - NEVER get upgrades along with the order. It's just a waste of your money. You really don't have to be much of a "DIY" to replace memory or storage in a MacBook - they are all much, much more user friendly than your average HP/Dell/Whatever laptop.

jokull 17y ago
Except you'll void the warranty, am I right?
- zefhous 17y ago
  No, RAM and hard drive installs are almost always considered user-replaceable parts. I believe the exception to this is replacing the HD in iMacs, where you have to take the screen off.
- akgerber 17y ago
  I've gotten warranty service just fine with random RAM and hard drives in my machine.
- hackermom 17y ago
  Nope. Replacing drive and RAM is not a warranty issue. Apple clearly details how to perform it in the user's manual, labelling it all as "user-servicable".

ubernostrum 17y ago

Any way to find out what "solid state drive" they've got? In advance, no, they don't tell you. However, up until now every SSD Apple has shipped has been either Samsung or Toshiba, and you can find out which it is by opening OS X's System Profiler. Look under "Serial ATA" and you'll see the drive's description, which will be in the format "APPLE SSD (manufacturer code)(capacity)". Toshiba drives will have a manufacturer code of "TS" (so my 256GB Toshiba SSD shows up as "APPLE SSD TS256A", for example). Samsung drives will have "SM". When I was shopping around last year trying to find out about this, it seemed that most of the 128GB drives were Samsung, most of the 256GB drives were Toshiba. What they're using for the 512GB drives is anybody's guess, but System Profiler will be the way to find out.