Going to buy rMBP 15".. 1TB SSD is a worth upgrade?

Xylian · Oct 24, 2013

Hi,
I'm going to upgrade my MBP from a mid-2010 Core i5 2.4Ghz with 8GB of ram and OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD to the high-end rMBP 15" with 16GB of ram and I was wondering about the SSD upgrade.. with the previous release they asked too much to upgrade from 512GB to 758GB SD (about 500$) but now they're asking for the same amount of money for a bigger step-up, since they offer 1 TB SSD.. usually the Apple-prices were far higher than the competitors'ones but now +500$ for +500GBs of ultra-high speed PCIe SSD is not high (I'm not saying it is a small amount of money, it's just the right money for what you would get).

What do you think about the SSD upgrade? Since it is a machine with a really high price maybe it is worth to buy the upgrade which will make the rMBP life surely longer in time..

A bit OT: I'm almost sure that it is a good update for me, that I use my MBP for photo (Lightroom) and video (iMovie) editing, but what do you think about the replacement of my MBP with this rMBP model? Will I have a "wow, that's a completely new world" experience, due to the increased SSD and discreet graphic performance and the bump from a 2.4 Ghz Dual-core 2010-i5 CPU to the latest 2.3 Ghz Quad-core CPU?

chakdey · Oct 24, 2013

I upgraded my order to the 1TB ssd, I'm currently on a late 2008 uni body macbook pro with 500GB and i have filled that up and was forced to delete lot of stuff to free up space. I don't think you can upgrade the ssd very easily, so i rather not have to worry about space in the coming years. Also I do plan on using this computer for more than 3 years. I rather pay the money rather than have to carry a external hard drive every where I take my macbook.

These were my reasons to paying extra $500

reery · Oct 24, 2013

Better max it out. I'm on a rMBP 2012 and a year later there is still no real alternative upgrade for the SSD out except of used ones. These are extremly expensive so better pay the extra right to apple instead.

Ifti · Oct 24, 2013

Xylian said:
A bit OT: I'm almost sure that it is a good update for me, that I use my MBP for photo (Lightroom) and video (iMovie) editing, but what do you think about the replacement of my MBP with this rMBP model? Will I have a "wow, that's a completely new world" experience, due to the increased SSD and discreet graphic performance and the bump from a 2.4 Ghz Dual-core 2010-i5 CPU to the latest 2.3 Ghz Quad-core CPU?

Just a note - when editing you should really REALLY consider an external drive - Thunderbolt drive preferably. Things will run much nicer as your system will have a separate drive for running the program, and a separate drive for render files etc.
This is how I always worked with iMovie, and how I work with FCPX etc. I connect to either an external Buffalo MiniStation ThunderBolt, or a Drobo 5D, both via ThunderBolt.

Nevertheless I still upgraded to the 1TB storage option also because I intend to keep the system for as long as possible and I dont want storage to be a limiting factor in a couple of years. Even though external drive interfaces have hit internal drive speeds, Im still comfortable knowing I have the internal storage space should I need it for when the system is mobile and external device use is impractical.

ValSalva · Oct 24, 2013

Ifti said:
Nevertheless I still upgraded to the 1TB storage option also because I intend to keep the system for as long as possible and I dont want storage to be a limiting factor in a couple of years. Even though external drive interfaces have hit internal drive speeds, Im still comfortable knowing I have the internal storage space should I need it for when the system is mobile and external device use is impractical.

This is pretty much the exact reason I upgraded to the 1TB SSD on my 13" rMBP.

Also, I've had no problem opening the backs of my cMBP's over the years to do upgrades myself and have built multiple PC's too. But I consider these new rMBP's to be essentially solid state and I'd rather not be poking around inside them. It's not like it used to be.

bniu · Oct 24, 2013

considering that when I bought my 17" MBP, I paid $2500 for it, and then subsequently paid $800 in upgrades (16GB RAM, 960GB SSD) not to mention another $700 in interim upgrades to it, I've easily thrown $4000 at it. For $3300 fully maxed out rMBP, doesn't seem so bad of a deal!

Ifti · Oct 24, 2013

ValSalva said:
This is pretty much the exact reason I upgraded to the 1TB SSD on my 13" rMBP.

Also, I've had no problem opening the backs of my cMBP's over the years to do upgrades myself and have built multiple PC's too. But I consider these new rMBP's to be essentially solid state and I'd rather not be poking around inside them. It's not like it used to be.

100% agree!

Xylian · Oct 24, 2013

Thanks for your opinions! And what do would you say about the upgrade from the MBP I'm using now? Will I notice a big boost in performances? I think I'll be able to sell my own MBP (paid 1900 euros) for about 8/900 euros, and with student discount (thanks to my girlfriend

I'd do the upgrade for about 2200 euros..

agaskew · Oct 24, 2013

Xylian said:
Thanks for your opinions! And what do would you say about the upgrade from the MBP I'm using now? Will I notice a big boost in performances? I think I'll be able to sell my own MBP (paid 1900 euros) for about 8/900 euros, and with student discount (thanks to my girlfriend I'd do the upgrade for about 2200 euros..

Performance wise, your new rMBP should kick the a$$ of your old MBP up one side of the street and down the other. Not very scientific but I think you'll be grinning for weeks.

Xylian · Oct 24, 2013

agaskew said:
Performance wise, your new rMBP should kick the a$$ of your old MBP up one side of the street and down the other. Not very scientific but I think you'll be grinning for weeks.

I think I'll stick with the 512 GB SSD... it's a little too expensive to buy the high-end with 1TB.. I think I'll have the same "wow" experience and with the saved money I'll buy an external USB3 or thunderbolt HDD to offload the 512 GB SSD when it will have too few free space left

aoaaron · Sep 11, 2014

I bought a 256GB rMBP.

iCloud stores my music. I have a 10TB HTPC server to store my movies and TV Shows. I have a 2TB gaming PC which stores my games (and I'd never game on a mac anyway).

In the next 1-2 years, I see 256GB SD cards being the norm and being very cheap. Therefore for storage of any media I do need on the go, I think I'll opt for just carrying around an SD card wallet rather than drop the ridiculous money needed to upgrade the space.

Rizvi1 · Sep 11, 2014

I read through this thread because I have the same question for a 2014 Retina MacBook Pro I want to buy. One year later, is everyone still thinking it's worth it to just get the bigger hard drive from Apple if I know that 256GB PCIe-based flash storage won't be enough?

If I get the $1999 2.2Ghz model which has the 256GB by default and replace it with the 512GB instead, it's $300 more. I'd love the 1TB HD but that's $800.

One scenario I was thinking was to just go with the base $1999 2.2Ghz and just take out the 256GB and replace with a bigger one. But this assumes that I can upgrade the SSD on its own. I don't know if anything is soldered on in the rMBP. Also it assumes that the 500GB, 750GB, or 1TB are cheaper separate than the replacement cost Apple is giving.

Maybe with the 256GB that I pull out, I can throw it into my wife's MacBook Air 1.7GHz i5 (I can't remember if it's a 2011 or 2012). I'm pretty sure her HD size is only 128GB. (Assuming the MBA's hard drive is upgradeable).

funwithdesign · Sep 11, 2014

^

You can't do any of those things currently. No third party replacements exist for the 2014 rMBP drive and it would not work transplanted into an older model.

I bought the 256GB version. I have a macpro with lots of space for archiving so I'm betting on 256 being enough for my day to day working. I might look into Trandscend's SD card expansion drive if I need a bit more integrated space.

I'm sure OWC and others will have replacement drives in the near future.

TechZeke · Sep 11, 2014

I only use 100GB on my 256 rMBP. Half of that is steam, games take up a (s)-load of space. Work apps and files barely take up 30-40GB. External 256 SSD for back ups, music library, and photos. No need to keep 200GB worth of crap that I only use/play once a month on-board.

Rizvi1 · Sep 11, 2014

funwithdesign said:
^

You can't do any of those things currently. No third party replacements exist for the 2014 rMBP drive and it would not work transplanted into an older model.

I bought the 256GB version. I have a macpro with lots of space for archiving so I'm betting on 256 being enough for my day to day working. I might look into Trandscend's SD card expansion drive if I need a bit more integrated space.

I'm sure OWC and others will have replacement drives in the near future.

Crap. If I had some more time, I'd try to really buckle down and go through all my files and figure out what I should keep and not keep on my primary laptop's hard drive. I'm sure I could get rid of a lot of stuff - but I don't know if I Could THAT low to be within 256GB. Having a kid with all the pictures and videos alone eats up a lot of space.

But I need to do this asap so I think I should just get a new 2014 rMBP with a 512GB HD. I can do the upgrade route on the 2.2GHz base model, but with the (using student discount pricing) $270 add-on to go from 256GB to 512GB,I may as well pay an extra $130 on top of that and get the 2.5Ghz and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB GDDR5 memory as well.

*sigh If only the ability to swap out the hard drive of the new rMBP existed right now
(AND its cost was cheaper than Apple's current HD upgrade cost)
(AND I had something useful to do with the 256GB SSD I'd pull out)

ColdCase · Sep 12, 2014

Since I'm currently using 650GB of my 1TB internal drive, I guess its worth it to me. I used to try to scrape by, I even tried to cheap out by augmenting with SD cards on my last rMBP... but not having to worry about running out of disk space or dealing with it when I run low, relieves some stress. Not having to carry around a portable drive and retracing my steps to find it is also nice. Time is money

My experience with SD cards are that they are nice for cameras, not so nice to use on a laptop for real work. Of course I do a lot of video work on my rMBP. If you are not into HD video or much hi res photo editing, a smaller drive would fit your bill... but it is near impossible to upgrade other than replacing the laptop with a more capable model.

selfilm · Sep 30, 2015

Re: 1TB on Macbook Pro 2015 - Important, please read:

Hello all, first time posting here but I had to set the group straight - from the mouth of Apple:

I spoke to a Mac Expert who usually supports the staff at Apple, this conversation happened 2 days ago.
These new drives in the Macbook Pro 15" units are NOT SSD'S, they are technically the same as a SOLDERED CHIP ON THE BOARD. You will NOT be able to upgrade these drives according to Apple. That said, they run at 1.1 Gigabytes Per Second Read / Write time! That is RIDICULOUS speed - and since they set the drives up to match bussing etc. and it's "hard soldered" into the system, you would NEVER WANT TO REPLACE such an incredible drive. In conversing about editing, you would DEFINITELY want to edit off of your new MBP internal drive because it's so friggin' fast you would save tons of time and energy (a regular SSD drive runs around 480 Megabytes per second in comparison unless you are using a raid configured set of multiple SSD's). All of this said, you get one shot to buy the right size drive, and if I were you, I would get the 1TB and enjoy the ridiculous speeds and benefit of not worrying about if they can ever figure out a way to unsolder chips from a MBP to install a cheaper drive. I personally bought a 2.5GHZ w/512GGB and am returning it for the 1TB (I never opened it) model with the Upgraded Video card - but I am staying with 2.5 instead of 2.8ghz as I don't think those differences affect me enough.

Please call Apple directly and speak to a true Mac Expert to confirm what i am saying if you do not trust what these findings are - I am upgrading a 2006 model so I am completely psyched, I am actually replacing my old intel Mac Pro with this computer and continuing to use the Mac Pro as a storage hubj.

Hope you all read this and good luck!
Scott

Samuelsan2001 · Sep 30, 2015

selfilm said:
Re: 1TB on Macbook Pro 2015 - Important, please read:

Hello all, first time posting here but I had to set the group straight - from the mouth of Apple:

I spoke to a Mac Expert who usually supports the staff at Apple, this conversation happened 2 days ago.
These new drives in the Macbook Pro 15" units are NOT SSD'S, they are technically the same as a SOLDERED CHIP ON THE BOARD. You will NOT be able to upgrade these drives according to Apple. That said, they run at 1.1 Gigabytes Per Second Read / Write time! That is RIDICULOUS speed - and since they set the drives up to match bussing etc. and it's "hard soldered" into the system, you would NEVER WANT TO REPLACE such an incredible drive. In conversing about editing, you would DEFINITELY want to edit off of your new MBP internal drive because it's so friggin' fast you would save tons of time and energy (a regular SSD drive runs around 480 Megabytes per second in comparison unless you are using a raid configured set of multiple SSD's). All of this said, you get one shot to buy the right size drive, and if I were you, I would get the 1TB and enjoy the ridiculous speeds and benefit of not worrying about if they can ever figure out a way to unsolder chips from a MBP to install a cheaper drive. I personally bought a 2.5GHZ w/512GGB and am returning it for the 1TB (I never opened it) model with the Upgraded Video card - but I am staying with 2.5 instead of 2.8ghz as I don't think those differences affect me enough.

Please call Apple directly and speak to a true Mac Expert to confirm what i am saying if you do not trust what these findings are - I am upgrading a 2006 model so I am completely psyched, I am actually replacing my old intel Mac Pro with this computer and continuing to use the Mac Pro as a storage hubj.

Hope you all read this and good luck!
Scott

That is the biggest pile of twaddle I have read on macrumours in months, literally everything you say is a lie. Yes they are just an SSD (a samsung one at that), they are connected by a 4 lane PCIe interface (found on most modern motherboards) with an apple proprietary connector that is all.

They are not soldered but no one makes one with apples connector so the only way to change one is with one from another macbook pro, these pull out with ease and are available on eBay at ridiculous prices. You got the speeds for the higher storage space ones wrong by almost 1Gb/sec with the 1TB getting read speeds up 1.9Gb/sec and writes up to 1.8GB/sec. See OWC benchmarks here http://blog.macsales.com/30971-owc-tests-show-1tb-ssd-in-2015-15-rmbp-outperforms-256gb-model

See replacement SSD units from other macs herehttp://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-655-1860H-MZ-KPV1T00-0A4-Apple-1TB-PCIe-SSD-for-MacBook-Pro-Retina-Late-2015-/191685027289?hash=item2ca15165d9

selfilm · Sep 30, 2015

Well Samuelsan2001, because of your response I called back Apple and spent 30 minutes on the phone with them. Again, a different tech noted, after checking on the situation with their manager, that the drives were soldered in... this was after checking with their manager as noted - so I asked them to follow up because I am communicating in a community and I wanted to be very clear. Then she came back and said that they were not soldered. Hmmmm, two different answers in the same conversation. Well, I made her confirm and her final answer was that they were not soldered. She confirmed a lot of the drives are Samsung as you noted. She confirmed lower GB transfer rates than actual but maybe they are being conservative (you noted actual of 1.97 GBs read times, she had something like 1.4 GBs which is even different than what they told me last night). If you think I should remove this part of the thread, then I am happy to do it so that people are not mis-informed. Don't kill the messenger, I was just passing forward what Apple said, and it appears that they have changed their minds! They did say if in the future the drive is available for sale and you change it that it does void the warranty which I think has always been their policy. Sorry for any confusion.

austinpike · Sep 30, 2015

selfilm said:
Hello all, first time posting here but I had to set the group straight - from the mouth of Apple...

What compelled you to register and dig up a year old thread just to post this?

You could spend 5 minutes on a site like iFixit and see the internal SSD Apple uses for yourself, rather than badgering reps who probably aren't trained to answer those types of questions.

Samuelsan2001 · Oct 1, 2015

selfilm said:
Well Samuelsan2001, because of your response I called back Apple and spent 30 minutes on the phone with them. Again, a different tech noted, after checking on the situation with their manager, that the drives were soldered in... this was after checking with their manager as noted - so I asked them to follow up because I am communicating in a community and I wanted to be very clear. Then she came back and said that they were not soldered. Hmmmm, two different answers in the same conversation. Well, I made her confirm and her final answer was that they were not soldered. She confirmed a lot of the drives are Samsung as you noted. She confirmed lower GB transfer rates than actual but maybe they are being conservative (you noted actual of 1.97 GBs read times, she had something like 1.4 GBs which is even different than what they told me last night). If you think I should remove this part of the thread, then I am happy to do it so that people are not mis-informed. Don't kill the messenger, I was just passing forward what Apple said, and it appears that they have changed their minds! They did say if in the future the drive is available for sale and you change it that it does void the warranty which I think has always been their policy. Sorry for any confusion.

No thats cool mate, just remember that apple techs in general have less knowledge of the machines they supposedly are geniuses for than the people on macrumours.
Until the rMBP was released RAM and HDD were user replaceable parts on the MBP without voiding your warranty.
The 512 GB SSD runs at 1.4Gb/sec but the 1TB you were discussing has the nearly 2GB/sec speeds.

selfilm · Oct 2, 2015

Samuelsan2001 said:
No thats cool mate, just remember that apple techs in general have less knowledge of the machines they supposedly are geniuses for than the people on macrumours.
Until the rMBP was released RAM and HDD were user replaceable parts on the MBP without voiding your warranty.
The 512 GB SSD runs at 1.4Gb/sec but the 1TB you were discussing has the nearly 2GB/sec speeds.

Just to wrap up this part of the thread, I found something that answers the question as to why the Apple Team keeps saying the chips are soldered, because Apple is refereing to the "chips" which are "on the card". Here is something from another thread which notes that:

The mid-2015 Retina MacBook Pro comes only with "PCIe-based flash storage" (a quasi-proprietary card with flash chips soldered onto it, rather than a 2.5-inch form-factor device). Apple offers no HD-based models. So it appears your question is whether you can replace the 256 Gbyte flash card with a 512 Gbyte card. If you can find the higher-capacity card through eBay or a certified Apple repair facility, then yes, with the typical IFixIt methodology and a Pentalobe screwdriver, you can open the case and replace the flash card.

Make sure the flash card is for the right model; supposedly, it's up to twice as fast as the one in the previous model.

See:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnT967BM...for the location of the flash card at around 3:10.

Thanks for sticking with this. I am going to purchase the 2.5ghz i7, 16gb, 1TB Drive with AMD Radeon Card and calling it a day!
Thanks for all the support

bniu · Oct 3, 2015

selfilm said:
Just to wrap up this part of the thread, I found something that answers the question as to why the Apple Team keeps saying the chips are soldered, because Apple is refereing to the "chips" which are "on the card". Here is something from another thread which notes that:

The mid-2015 Retina MacBook Pro comes only with "PCIe-based flash storage" (a quasi-proprietary card with flash chips soldered onto it, rather than a 2.5-inch form-factor device). Apple offers no HD-based models. So it appears your question is whether you can replace the 256 Gbyte flash card with a 512 Gbyte card. If you can find the higher-capacity card through eBay or a certified Apple repair facility, then yes, with the typical IFixIt methodology and a Pentalobe screwdriver, you can open the case and replace the flash card.

Make sure the flash card is for the right model; supposedly, it's up to twice as fast as the one in the previous model.

See:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnT967BM...for the location of the flash card at around 3:10.

Thanks for sticking with this. I am going to purchase the 2.5ghz i7, 16gb, 1TB Drive with AMD Radeon Card and calling it a day!
Thanks for all the support

Go for it! I have the 2.3GHz i7 model with 16GB ram, 1TB drive, and 750m graphics, and the thing is a beast! My only complaint is that there wasn't a 32GB and 2TB option!

selfilm · Oct 4, 2015

bniu said:
Go for it! I have the 2.3GHz i7 model with 16GB ram, 1TB drive, and 750m graphics, and the thing is a beast! My only complaint is that there wasn't a 32GB and 2TB option!

Thank you Bniu! I never opened the box of the one I received and will be getting the 2.5GHz i7 165GB with the AMD Radeon Video Card (this is the cheapest part of the upgrade) and going for the full 1TB drive to enjoy its speed without having the worry that future upgrade options just won't play as perfectly well as the originally speced drive. Appreciate the insight from you and everyone else!

Going to buy rMBP 15".. 1TB SSD is a worth upgrade?

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