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SSD 256 Seems Small in nMP when so cheap nowadays

VirtualRain

VirtualRain

macrumors 603
Aug 1, 2008
6,304
118
Vancouver, BC
englishman said:
256 for app storage etc scratch still seems so small especially if dividing 50:50 with bootcamp for such an expensive pro machine.

http://www.ebuyer.com/644025-crucia...nch-7mm-with-9-5mm-adapter-ssd-ct512mx100ssd1
Click to expand...

Can't argue with that... even the higher-end MacBooks come with more solid state storage. However, the reason is pretty simple, they wanted to hit a $2999 price point while still maintaining a healthy margin. That obviously wouldn't have been possible with a larger SSD.
 
Small White Car

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
1,463
Washington DC
englishman said:
256 for app storage etc scratch still seems so small especially if dividing 50:50 with bootcamp for such an expensive pro machine.

http://www.ebuyer.com/644025-crucia...nch-7mm-with-9-5mm-adapter-ssd-ct512mx100ssd1
Click to expand...

Except this drive claims to have 550 MB/s read speeds whereas the Mac Pro's SSD claims to get 1,200 MB/s.

Now I have no clue if they cost any more to build than the slower drives. Maybe they don't and Apple's making more profit off of them. I have no clue. But as a customer you're certainly getting more value for your money with the Mac Pro boot drive and should only compare them to other similarly fast drives.

As an example, this drive "only" gets 800 MB/s and it's the equivalent of £223. So that's still not as fast as what the Mac Pro has and we're already paying almost 50% more than what you originally found.
 
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V

Vanilla Face

macrumors 6502
Aug 11, 2013
471
150
The drive in the Mac Pro has a proprietary connection but is most comparable to a PCIe ssd IMO, Such as any of these from new egg. As you can see they are very costly. Comparing them to Sata3 drives doesn't do them justice.

The 256Gb drive is enough for someone running OS X, OS X applications, and if they have a lot of data, their data stored on external drives. I know plenty of people that have 256Gb MacBooks who are perfectly content.

Windows and Windows applications take a lot of storage. You're instantly talking about at least twice the storage requirement when you talk about dual booting. I don't think Apple ever intended the 256Gb drive to be enough to dual boot windows and be storage for data. Frankly, it's silly to even think that.
 
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Riwam

Riwam

macrumors 65816
Jan 7, 2014
1,095
244
Basel, Switzerland
englishman said:
256 for app storage etc scratch still seems so small especially if dividing 50:50 with bootcamp for such an expensive pro machine.

http://www.ebuyer.com/644025-crucia...nch-7mm-with-9-5mm-adapter-ssd-ct512mx100ssd1
Click to expand...

Many people who could not wait for business reasons, bought several months ago stock nMP and therefore had to accept the 256 GB drive.
I read some posts of people trying to upgrade it to a larger one by contacting Apple and this was not granted regardless of money.
Since now the delivery has caught up with the orders there is no need to have a nMP with such a size of drive.
 
P

paulrbeers

macrumors 68040
Dec 17, 2009
3,963
123
englishman said:
256 for app storage etc scratch still seems so small especially if dividing 50:50 with bootcamp for such an expensive pro machine.

http://www.ebuyer.com/644025-crucia...nch-7mm-with-9-5mm-adapter-ssd-ct512mx100ssd1
Click to expand...

Sure if comparing a relatively slow SATA SSD vs a super fast PCIE SSD. Further, why are you dividing in half with windows? My guess is most buying the Mac Pro aren't running windows AT ALL! Most want a huge amount of storage if doing video thus 256GB is fine when pares with 8+TB of fast external storage. Just saying
 
lemonade-maker

lemonade-maker

macrumors 6502
Jun 20, 2009
497
4
Riwam said:
Many people who could not wait for business reasons, bought several months ago stock nMP and therefore had to accept the 256 GB drive.
I read some posts of people trying to upgrade it to a larger one by contacting Apple and this was not granted regardless of money.
Since now the delivery has caught up with the orders there is no need to have a nMP with such a size of drive.
Click to expand...

My 256GB drive is a third full. Everything important is NAS/cloud.
 
paulsdenton

paulsdenton

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2010
474
38
Barton, Vermont USA
Riwam said:
Nice! :p
I wish I would be so reasonable in my choice of installed Applications.
Unfortunately I am week :eek: and installed many things I never used... not reasonable at all, I agree.
Congratulations for your power of will! :)
Click to expand...

Also there's a lot of stuff I can't seem to get off my boot drive, like iPhoto files, These take up an enormous amount of space. My 256 GB SSD is already half full. I am offloading everything I can but some stuff (CS6 program files and other stuff) just takes up a lot of space.

I got a program called Grand Perspective that shows the biggest space hogs. I am thinking of putting iPhoto on my old MacMini and connecting the two machines by Thunderbolt. Saw an article in MacWorld (I think) about how to do this.

Advice to anyone buying a Mac Pro 6,1: Get the 1TB version. I also think (correct me if I'm wrong) that using less capacity both makes data retrieval faster and extends the life of the drive.

I just had to have my nMP ASAP so I ordered it within minutes of it being available. Dumb, I now realize. But I had it on December 27!
 
Riwam

Riwam

macrumors 65816
Jan 7, 2014
1,095
244
Basel, Switzerland
paulsdenton said:
Advice to anyone buying a Mac Pro 6,1: Get the 1TB version. I also think (correct me if I'm wrong) that using less capacity both makes data retrieval faster and extends the life of the drive.

I just had to have my nMP ASAP so I ordered it within minutes of it being available. Dumb, I now realize. But I had it on December 27!
Click to expand...

......
It was not dumb at all since you needed it and you had it so quickly.
In the future one day you can sell it and buy a new one.
Luckily, for a second hand Mac one still gets after some time a reasonable percentage of the price one paid when buying it.
I received after 2 1/2 years a good price for my mid 2010 cMP.
PC users get much less...
 
fuchsdh

fuchsdh

macrumors 68020
Jun 19, 2014
2,017
1,813
paulsdenton said:
Also there's a lot of stuff I can't seem to get off my boot drive, like iPhoto files, These take up an enormous amount of space. My 256 GB SSD is already half full. I am offloading everything I can but some stuff (CS6 program files and other stuff) just takes up a lot of space.

I got a program called Grand Perspective that shows the biggest space hogs. I am thinking of putting iPhoto on my old MacMini and connecting the two machines by Thunderbolt. Saw an article in MacWorld (I think) about how to do this.

Advice to anyone buying a Mac Pro 6,1: Get the 1TB version. I also think (correct me if I'm wrong) that using less capacity both makes data retrieval faster and extends the life of the drive.

I just had to have my nMP ASAP so I ordered it within minutes of it being available. Dumb, I now realize. But I had it on December 27!
Click to expand...

The larger capacity drive, yes, the "further to fall" the drive can go before becoming unacceptably slow and low-capacity. The good news is that there's evidence that SSDs these days last longer than conventional wisdom suggested (and definitely have fewer failures than HDDs) so I don't think size should be done on some idea of "future-proofing" your Mac in that sense.
 
SuperMatt

SuperMatt

Suspended
Mar 28, 2002
1,569
8,281
paulsdenton said:
Also there's a lot of stuff I can't seem to get off my boot drive, like iPhoto files, These take up an enormous amount of space.
Click to expand...

Move your iPhoto library to an external drive. Then hold down the option key when opening iPhoto. It will ask you to select a different iPhoto library, and whatever one you select, it will go to that one by default on each launch.
 
alphaod

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
I agree the base 256GB model is a bit small.

I would have hoped Apple sold the 512GB or the 1TB option in stores. Alas they do not.
 
SuperMatt

SuperMatt

Suspended
Mar 28, 2002
1,569
8,281
I wonder if the new Photo system in Yosemite will allow you to easily offload your photo library to external storage too...
 
alphaod

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
SuperMatt said:
I wonder if the new Photo system in Yosemite will allow you to easily offload your photo library to external storage too...
Click to expand...

You can already move your iPhoto library to an external drive...

Anyways I use Lightroom and it lets me split my library into multiple drives so I can archive some older stuff into HDDs and keep recent stuff on SSDs.
 
J

joelypolly

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2003
511
218
Bay Area
I got the 1TB drive and already there is only 180GB of space remaining. I hope the next version of the nMP has space for 2 SSDs or 2TB+ drives are available.
 
B

Bazu

macrumors regular
Mar 7, 2013
101
0
Warsaw, Poland
englishman said:
256 for app storage etc scratch still seems so small especially if dividing 50:50 with bootcamp for such an expensive pro machine.

http://www.ebuyer.com/644025-crucia...nch-7mm-with-9-5mm-adapter-ssd-ct512mx100ssd1
Click to expand...

As for graphic, web designer / developer and hobbyist photographer I've got 6c 256GB SSD. Installed all Adobe and non Adobe software I need for my work plus World of Warcraft for spare time entertainment. I have 175GB of free space left.

Using internal drive for software and most recent projects then I store the rest on external Lace 2Big 3TB. Where i have 1TB for TM and 2TB for the rest of stuff.

Only can see where I'd run to an issue with internal drive space is when I'd want to install W8.1 on via Bootcamp. Other than that for my type of work / usage it's pretty fine. Can upgrade it later on if necessary.
 
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