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Which connector is your new unibody Macbook pro

  • Sata I - 1.5Gbit

    Votes: 218 69.6%
  • Sata II - 3.0Gbit

    Votes: 95 30.4%

  • Total voters
    313

SnowLeopard2008

macrumors 604
Jul 4, 2008
6,772
18
Silicon Valley
You're all very wrong. Even in the best scenario, you can't possibly reach the 1.5GB speed, much less the 3.0GB speed. 3.0GB vs 1.5GB just tells you the theoretical max, which is never reached under any conditions.
 

bcaslis

macrumors 68020
Mar 11, 2008
2,184
237
You're all very wrong. Even in the best scenario, you can't possibly reach the 1.5GB speed, much less the 3.0GB speed. 3.0GB vs 1.5GB just tells you the theoretical max, which is never reached under any conditions.

Yes you can with a fast SSD like the Intel X25M. Keep in mind it's 1.Gbits (not bytes).
 

Anuba

macrumors 68040
Feb 9, 2005
3,790
393
Just throwing this odd idea out there, FWIW... it's not part of some power saving scheme, like the 9400/9600 toggling?
 

MGLXP

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2005
271
26
13" UMBP 2.53 here also showed 1.5 Gigabit. :confused:
Could it be the special edition 10.5.7 build 9J3050 that reported wrong SATA-II speed on all the SD enabled UMBP? It doesn't make sense on higher end 15" UMBP with 1.5 Gigabit!

It appears that it's not a reporting error, but something that is being limited in firmware. The speed of fast SSDs are being limited by the 1.5 Gbit/s SATA I bus.
 

iAlex

macrumors member
Mar 10, 2006
93
0
FEMA District X
Please explain to us why this "sucks".

I'm guessing your reason is something like this: 3.0 iz betterz than 1.5!!!111one11!! WTFLOLBBQ!!! :rolleyes:

Current notebook drives don't come even close to the 1.5 Gbit SATA specification's limit. Going to the 3.0 Gbit speed gains you *absolutely nothing* in performance. Did you hear that? Absolutely Nothing!!

Further, 3.0 Gbit SATA requires a lot more power than 1.5 Gbit sata. Yes - you get BETTER battery life with 1.5 Gbit SATA.

So basically there's NO advantage at all to use 3 Gbit sata in a notebook. None. And there's a distinct disadvantage when it comes to battery life. I'm glad Apple has the sense to realize that. Too bad you don't.


I'll tell you why this sucks. It sucks because in 24 months SSD will be all the rage, and no one will think about using a conventional HD. With the current buss and CPU speeds conventional HDs remain a major bottleneck in system performance. People are spending good money for MBPs today, that will hold a significantly lower value-add because they will be unable to benefit from the additional performance SSDs offer. In addition, people are paying big dollars NOW for SSD upgrades from Apple, of which the main benefit is SPEED, speed that they are not getting because of SATA bottleneck.

....and I think, that SUCKS.
 

iAlex

macrumors member
Mar 10, 2006
93
0
FEMA District X
Well then I'm done. I'll just waste money and keep my badge as an elitist ******* so I can have a 3.0 SATA connection.

I'll go into the apple store, buy a 17", open it in the store, check system profiler and if it's not 1.5, I'll return it right there and continue paying the effing restocking fee until I get one with 3.0 because that's how I roll.

A) I don't care about battery life
B) I don't care if my SSD even takes advantage of that much bandwidth
C) I don't care what Apple thinks is good for me.

The fact is, they downgraded and I'd like an explanation. In the meantime, I have cash to burn and that's what I'm going to do.

Gods Speed! The MBP is still a marvel of engineering as you made mentioned in your prev post. :)
 

MGLXP

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2005
271
26
I'll tell you why this sucks. It sucks because in 24 months SSD will be all the rage, and no one will think about using a conventional HD. With the current buss and CPU speeds conventional HDs remain a major bottleneck in system performance. People are spending good money for MBPs today, that will hold a significantly lower value-add because they will be unable to benefit from the additional performance SSDs offer. In addition, people are paying big dollars NOW for SSD upgrades from Apple, of which the main benefit is SPEED, speed that they are not getting because of SATA bottleneck.

....and I think, that SUCKS.

The funny thing is that if Apple still uses the Toshiba 256GB SSDs or the older gen Samsung 128GB SSDs, they don't saturate the 1.5Gbit/s SATA I bus. Only the fast SSDs such as the Intel X25 or OCZ Vertex can fully saturate the SATA I bus.
 

SnowLeopard2008

macrumors 604
Jul 4, 2008
6,772
18
Silicon Valley
Yes you can with a fast SSD like the Intel X25M. Keep in mind it's 1.Gbits (not bytes).

Well let me make one thing clear. Outside of the geek world, how many people 1) knows this stuff 2) buys a SSD drive 3) has the know-how to install it and last but not least 4) cares about it?

I understand the frustration, but WHO CARES. So the people that actually have a fast SSD that can take advantage of the speed, lose out on 50Mb of transfer speed? Is it really that important for that person to go out and write a post on a forum? Unless you run a file server than transfers files 24/7, you lose maybe a few seconds here and there transferring your files. In the big picture, 2 hours of extra battery life is more important than a few second time saver transferring files. For everyone except a select few, the speed is fast enough.
 

fuzzielitlpanda

macrumors 6502a
Mar 24, 2008
834
0
yah it looks like the correct hardware is there, something is just limiting the performance. i am very much hoping for a simple firmware fix.
 

MacModMachine

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 3, 2009
2,476
392
Canada
sorry for the delay guys

just did a screen replacement on a customers bto 13" with ssd....low and behold 1.5gbit sata connection speeds.
 

nylon

macrumors 65816
Oct 26, 2004
1,393
1,029
It appears that it's not a reporting error, but something that is being limited in firmware. The speed of fast SSDs are being limited by the 1.5 Gbit/s SATA I bus.

I also tested my 500GB 7200 rpm Seagate on Win 7 X64 (13" MPB 2.53 GHz). It is reporting Sata II. I believe this is probably a power management feature implemented by Apple. Probably something that is software controlled. That is the only logical conclusion I can come to.

I don't think they even bother making Sata I only controllers anymore. It would be pointless.
 

Ruahrc

macrumors 65816
Jun 9, 2009
1,345
0
People just need to stop jumping to conclusions. We've got one guy who claims with no proof that BTO MBPs with an SSD will come magically "unlocked" for 3GB/s and now we've got wild-@$$ theories about Apple punishing buyers for going 3rd party. There would be no logical reason why motherboards with SSD BTOs would come unlocked like this. They're all coming from the same factory it's not like Apple called nVidia and said "oh give us the crappy chips because we've got a lot of users who are not buying BTO from us". But while you're at it ship some of the good ones too for those loyal customers who do". It's just completely nonsensical.

Somebody called the apple store who claimed that some of the 13" MBPs had 3GB/s connections and others not, yet no evidence thus far of any actual users (i.e. reliable data) with one.

Cutting the feature out for battery life- doubtful but more plausible than the previous theory. I just did a full discharge of my MBP 13" today and the battery lasted a little over 8 hours. That was screen brightness on half, display or computer never sleep, wireless connected, and every 5 mins have iCal sync with my Google calendars. About the final 2 hours I was doing some standard browsing on the machine. I'd say their advertised 7hrs is accurate.

Lastly take a look at the measured performance numbers. Random uncached 4K writes 10-20MB/sec. Reading back on past discussions regarding SSDs on this forum people were taking the 4K writes as the ultimate indicator of improved performance, and you can see that even on a 1.5GB connection it is far from maxing out the bus. So why is it that all of a sudden people are completely ignoring the indicator they previously said was the only accurate one and focusing on the indicator that people put the least stock in to measure the performance? And as a result people now spread more FUD that the computer is "severely bottlenecked" and that getting an SSD is a waste. Everybody just slow down and think for two seconds before you post- I know it's hard but try.

Please stop posting random theories without substantial logical explanation or proof else things will really get out of hand. Macrumors is bad enough with wild speculation and FUD as it is let's keep it constructive and informative.

Ruahrc
 

Tornitron

macrumors newbie
Jun 12, 2009
6
0
Well let me make one thing clear. Outside of the geek world, how many people 1) knows this stuff 2) buys a SSD drive 3) has the know-how to install it and last but not least 4) cares about it?

I understand the frustration, but WHO CARES. So the people that actually have a fast SSD that can take advantage of the speed, lose out on 50Mb of transfer speed? Is it really that important for that person to go out and write a post on a forum? Unless you run a file server than transfers files 24/7, you lose maybe a few seconds here and there transferring your files. In the big picture, 2 hours of extra battery life is more important than a few second time saver transferring files. For everyone except a select few, the speed is fast enough.


People are spending upwards of $600 on SSDs to get that level of performance. I'd say its a pretty big deal.
 

SnowLeopard2008

macrumors 604
Jul 4, 2008
6,772
18
Silicon Valley

Actually, the transfer speed is never constant. It increases over time until it saturates. Even if you have the 3.0Gb connection, you basically waste around 99Mb of the 300Mb. Even the fastest SSD is around 200Mb. So what you are saying is that all of that trouble just saves you a few seconds, assuming you have the ideal conditions (fast enough SSD, controller, big enough file to saturate speed, time to waste).
 

entatlrg

macrumors 68040
Mar 2, 2009
3,385
6
Waterloo & Georgian Bay, Canada
...No one who ordered a 13" MBP with an SSD has gotten it yet. The ship dates are all in late June.



Look, he came in here stating that people who ordered the SSD get the 3 Gbit/s connection. Now obviously he doesn't have one himself, so I wanted him to provide a source for his statement. I'm 100% sure now that it's ********. We don't need that kind of crap in this thread. Why are you defending him?


PHONE APPLE, the order line, not retail store, wait 30 - 40 minutes and you'll find out.... that's what I did the second I read this, otherwise I was going to cancel my ssd and get the 7200 of course.... they ASSURED this was the case so I posted it real quick before heading out the door earlier...

now if my MBP arrives otherwise everything is noted and we'll go from there....

too bad this forum couldn't somehow have a kids and an adult section...
 

SnowLeopard2008

macrumors 604
Jul 4, 2008
6,772
18
Silicon Valley
People are spending upwards of $600 on SSDs to get that level of performance. I'd say its a pretty big deal.


Say you have 1 billion people using computers in the world (that probably isn't the correct number). What's the percentage of people that actually use this? Don't reply saying businesses, government, etc. I'm talking consumer world.

I don't know about you, but I care about how long this thing will be on until the battery dies over a indistinguishable improvement in speed that majority of people don't even know or care about.
 

bcaslis

macrumors 68020
Mar 11, 2008
2,184
237
Say you have 1 billion people using computers in the world (that probably isn't the correct number). What's the percentage of people that actually use this? Don't reply saying businesses, government, etc. I'm talking consumer world.

I don't know about you, but I care about how long this thing will be on until the battery dies over a indistinguishable improvement in speed that majority of people don't even know or care about.

You seem to be getting overly defensive about this:

1.) You were wrong about never being able to get faster than 1.5 Gbits. Sorry.
2.) A fast SSD will go faster than 1.5 Gbits, but not faster than 3.0 Gbits.
3.) Does it matter to vast majority of people? No.

I think it's time to move on from this.
 

Tornitron

macrumors newbie
Jun 12, 2009
6
0
Say you have 1 billion people using computers in the world (that probably isn't the correct number). What's the percentage of people that actually use this? Don't reply saying businesses, government, etc. I'm talking consumer world.

I don't know about you, but I care about how long this thing will be on until the battery dies over a indistinguishable improvement in speed that majority of people don't even know or care about.

All irrelevant. You are just trying to deflect because you were incorrect earlier. Let it go. People are paying for a certain level of performance, whether they need it or not simply isn't the the issue. I'm sure many people (those that take the time to learn about their machines) would like to enjoy the maxium performance possible for the money they spent, especially when you consider the prior models offered full SATA II support.
 

Anuba

macrumors 68040
Feb 9, 2005
3,790
393
Well let me make one thing clear. Outside of the geek world, how many people 1) knows this stuff 2) buys a SSD drive 3) has the know-how to install it and last but not least 4) cares about it?
But MacBook Pro isn't outside the geek world, it's very much a part of the geek world. MBPs are premium computers that cost a lot of money -- you'd have to be a geek or Paris Hilton to cough up $2000-3000 for a laptop. And a disproportionately large portion of the Mac user base are creative professionals who are often anal about performance for work related reasons, not geek reasons, and they're already paying truckloads to shave off a few minutes of rendering time here or there. What is the performance gain from upgrading from 2.93 Ghz to 3.06 GHz? Virtually none. The difference is probably smaller than the difference between 1.5 and 3.0 Gbit SATA when using a fast SSD drive. But people pay for that upgrade anyway.
 

yetanotherdave

macrumors 68000
Apr 27, 2007
1,768
12
Bristol, England
This seems to be the new 15" too. I have the mid model, the 2.66 with the 9400 and 9600, it's showing 1.5 gigabit.

It's still as fast as before I started reading this thread though :D
 

knownikko

macrumors 6502
Jan 9, 2009
282
220
I'd happily trade SATA 3.0 for 10% more battery life (just made up numbers, but certainly feasible).

IMO so would ~95% of the people buying these machines had they any idea what they were harping on.

From Apple's perspective (hypothetical, since not a damn thing about this has been confirmed or proven to be the vast conspiracy people are suggesting in here), they made a change that didn't affect a single possible shipping configuration in the least (not a single drive they offer will saturate a 1.5Gbps SATA bus), yet presumably offers an increase in power efficiency, which every customer can notice and appreciate.

Some of you are WAY too caught up in image and numbers.
 
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