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Using a gaming part is a poor comparison because gaming parts get higher speeds at lower prices by sacrificing longevity/energy efficiency. Clearly not the tra

by Retric 2y ago

Using a gaming part is a poor comparison because gaming parts get higher speeds at lower prices by sacrificing longevity/energy efficiency. Clearly not the tradeoff Apple wants to make here. Which isn’t anything against the SN850x, it’s a great fit for the intended use case it’s just many people assume there’s zero trade-offs involved beyond speed/price/capacity. Apple is definitely raising storage prices to milk their customers and promote their iCloud cash cow, but it’s still worth considering when looking at ‘gaming’ parts in different situations.

rudedogg 2y ago
A Samsung 990 Pro dips to the same prices. I got a 2TB one for $150 this Black Friday. Apple is overcharging for storage. You get a lot of compute for cheap though :/
- Retric 2y ago
  A perfectly reasonable comparison and I agree with your point.
kayson 2y ago
Is it clear? Apple doesn't publish endurance specs for their drives so there's actually no way to tell. 600x full drive writes (what the 2TB SN850X is specced for) is probably enough for the vast majority of users to never have to worry about it. You can even get enterprise SSDs, which are rated in whole drive writes per day for less than that.
wtallis 2y ago
It's a fair comparison. Both Apple's computers and drives like the WD SN850x are using commodity SSD-grade TLC flash; there's no significant difference in quality, performance, efficiency, or durability in the flash itself. It's possible (maybe even likely) that a Mac with 2TB of built-in storage is using literally the same NAND flash dies that show up in a SN850x. SSD performance and power efficiency are significantly affected by the choice of controller. Apple's Macs have the controller built-in to the SoC, so it's a sunk cost that doesn't really factor in to upgrade pricing.
- Retric 2y ago
  I said poor not unfair. They might happen to end up with equal price per flash chip, but either could end up being more expensive it’s just not a good yardstick IMO. Anyway, what you might consider insignificant differences are things companies do consider these worth paying for. You not caring isn’t the same thing as nobody caring. > significantly affected by the choice of controller Aka it is more complicated than just slapping different controller on the same chips and calling it a day.
twoparachute45 2y ago
The SN850x isn't a "gaming part", it's a top-of-the-line consumer SSD that uses the exact same type of NAND chips (3D TLC) that Apple uses in its products.
- LukeShu 2y ago
  Western Digital themselves are literally calling the WD_BLACK line their gaming line[1], and their page for the SN850X in particular is dripping with "gaming"[2]. Maybe that doesn't make it a bad comparison, but the SN850X is def intended to be a gaming part. [1]: https://www.westerndigital.com/brand/wd-black https://www.westerndigital.com/brand/wd-black [2]: https://www.westerndigital.com/en-in/products/internal-drives/wd-black-sn850x-nvme-ssd https://www.westerndigital.com/en-in/products/internal-drive...
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    What is a competing part that you think would be more comparable? Gamers are the ones buying expensive parts so it makes sense to market to that. The next tier after this is basically server-class 10-20k machines which Apple is definitely not competing with (and SSDs are not really that much better in that class anyway). Dismissing SSDs as “gaming” parts as if it’s diminishing the quality misunderstands what’s happening here. It would be one thing if WD was ignoring fsyncs to achieve this performance but gamers don’t care about writes so much anyway and there’s no indication WD did that. Source: I have the WD and Samsung parts as well as cheapo random SSDs.
    - twoparachute45 2y ago
      The other product lines would be WD Blues (marketed at "creative professionals working with large files") and WD Reds (marketed specifically for use in NAS's), but neither of these really support the argument that the SN850x isn't a good comparison, because both the Blue and Red lines are cheaper and less performant (and the Blues are even rated for less longevity), and just make it seem like Apple is price gouging even more. The point I was trying to make by pointing out that the SN850x isn't a "gaming part" is that the SN850x is literally the top-of-the-line, most expensive consumer SSD sold by WD, and has practically the same specs as other top-of-the-line, most expensive competing parts like the Samsung 990 Pro. Being one of the most expensive SSDs on the market means that saying that the SN850x is a bad comparison because it's supposedly "lower price" is just false on its face.
wqaatwt 2y ago
Is something like the Crucial T705 or Samsung 990 or also “gaming” parts? Their manufacturers provide 5 years warranties unlike Apple. AFAIK Apple doesn’t even disclose endurance ratings. Wouldn’t you expect the opposite?
- nickjj 2y ago
  > Their manufacturers provide 5 years warranties Yep and it's possible to get much more out of it. I've been running a Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD for 10 years. It's at 63% health from a S.M.A.R.T. readout. It's been powered on 125 times over ~10 years and transferred 56 TB in that time. It's my main Windows partition and runs WSL 2 where I've built and ran thousands of Docker images. Basically, it hasn't been sitting here unused.
  - Retric 2y ago
    0.5% is a meaningful difference in defect rates, but simply isn’t meaningful on an individual scale.
- Retric 2y ago
  Samsung 990 is marketed as a PRO part and a reasonable comparison, hell it’s likely a better product than what Apple is shipping. But when a company slaps gaming 30 times on the product page, lists specific features to minimize load times etc it’s clearly targeting a specific demographic who in general wants different tradeoffs. At scale failures are more than just endurance ratings. Gaming laptops for example often cook their components due to prioritizing performance over long term stability. That doesn’t guarantee early failure, but it reduces the likelihood the system is working in 4 years.

by Retric 2y ago

rudedogg 2y ago

A Samsung 990 Pro dips to the same prices. I got a 2TB one for $150 this Black Friday. Apple is overcharging for storage. You get a lot of compute for cheap though :/

Retric 2y ago
A perfectly reasonable comparison and I agree with your point.

kayson 2y ago

Is it clear? Apple doesn't publish endurance specs for their drives so there's actually no way to tell. 600x full drive writes (what the 2TB SN850X is specced for) is probably enough for the vast majority of users to never have to worry about it. You can even get enterprise SSDs, which are rated in whole drive writes per day for less than that.

wtallis 2y ago

It's a fair comparison. Both Apple's computers and drives like the WD SN850x are using commodity SSD-grade TLC flash; there's no significant difference in quality, performance, efficiency, or durability in the flash itself. It's possible (maybe even likely) that a Mac with 2TB of built-in storage is using literally the same NAND flash dies that show up in a SN850x. SSD performance and power efficiency are significantly affected by the choice of controller. Apple's Macs have the controller built-in to the SoC, so it's a sunk cost that doesn't really factor in to upgrade pricing.

Retric 2y ago
I said poor not unfair. They might happen to end up with equal price per flash chip, but either could end up being more expensive it’s just not a good yardstick IMO. Anyway, what you might consider insignificant differences are things companies do consider these worth paying for. You not caring isn’t the same thing as nobody caring. > significantly affected by the choice of controller Aka it is more complicated than just slapping different controller on the same chips and calling it a day.

twoparachute45 2y ago

The SN850x isn't a "gaming part", it's a top-of-the-line consumer SSD that uses the exact same type of NAND chips (3D TLC) that Apple uses in its products.

LukeShu 2y ago
Western Digital themselves are literally calling the WD_BLACK line their gaming line[1], and their page for the SN850X in particular is dripping with "gaming"[2]. Maybe that doesn't make it a bad comparison, but the SN850X is def intended to be a gaming part. [1]: https://www.westerndigital.com/brand/wd-black https://www.westerndigital.com/brand/wd-black [2]: https://www.westerndigital.com/en-in/products/internal-drives/wd-black-sn850x-nvme-ssd https://www.westerndigital.com/en-in/products/internal-drive...
- vlovich123 2y ago
  What is a competing part that you think would be more comparable? Gamers are the ones buying expensive parts so it makes sense to market to that. The next tier after this is basically server-class 10-20k machines which Apple is definitely not competing with (and SSDs are not really that much better in that class anyway). Dismissing SSDs as “gaming” parts as if it’s diminishing the quality misunderstands what’s happening here. It would be one thing if WD was ignoring fsyncs to achieve this performance but gamers don’t care about writes so much anyway and there’s no indication WD did that. Source: I have the WD and Samsung parts as well as cheapo random SSDs.
  - twoparachute45 2y ago
    The other product lines would be WD Blues (marketed at "creative professionals working with large files") and WD Reds (marketed specifically for use in NAS's), but neither of these really support the argument that the SN850x isn't a good comparison, because both the Blue and Red lines are cheaper and less performant (and the Blues are even rated for less longevity), and just make it seem like Apple is price gouging even more. The point I was trying to make by pointing out that the SN850x isn't a "gaming part" is that the SN850x is literally the top-of-the-line, most expensive consumer SSD sold by WD, and has practically the same specs as other top-of-the-line, most expensive competing parts like the Samsung 990 Pro. Being one of the most expensive SSDs on the market means that saying that the SN850x is a bad comparison because it's supposedly "lower price" is just false on its face.

wqaatwt 2y ago

Is something like the Crucial T705 or Samsung 990 or also “gaming” parts? Their manufacturers provide 5 years warranties unlike Apple. AFAIK Apple doesn’t even disclose endurance ratings. Wouldn’t you expect the opposite?

nickjj 2y ago
> Their manufacturers provide 5 years warranties Yep and it's possible to get much more out of it. I've been running a Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD for 10 years. It's at 63% health from a S.M.A.R.T. readout. It's been powered on 125 times over ~10 years and transferred 56 TB in that time. It's my main Windows partition and runs WSL 2 where I've built and ran thousands of Docker images. Basically, it hasn't been sitting here unused.
- Retric 2y ago
  0.5% is a meaningful difference in defect rates, but simply isn’t meaningful on an individual scale.
Retric 2y ago
Samsung 990 is marketed as a PRO part and a reasonable comparison, hell it’s likely a better product than what Apple is shipping. But when a company slaps gaming 30 times on the product page, lists specific features to minimize load times etc it’s clearly targeting a specific demographic who in general wants different tradeoffs. At scale failures are more than just endurance ratings. Gaming laptops for example often cook their components due to prioritizing performance over long term stability. That doesn’t guarantee early failure, but it reduces the likelihood the system is working in 4 years.