13" Mbp Only 1.5gb Sata ? - SOLVED!!!!!!!!!

[zsnow]

Originally Posted by LEOMODE

2. If you order 128gb or 256gb SSD as a CTO, you will be sure to get the 3.0gbps speed.

wow!
1:that means Apple want kick every 3rd party SSD company out.
Bye byte Intel, OCZ,GSkill ..... If you want continue the play, come and join me.
2: that also means apple will have to make 2 different hardware and(or) firmware.
If you have a uMBP without ssd and go to a genius bar for upgrading to SSD. The genius will have to help you flash that firmware and make sure these firmware won't leak out. Or if it's a special hardware board, they have to replace it for you.
All doesn't make any sense.

[applevx]

Here's my thought, after skim so many post above...


Maybe the 1.5Gbps interface and 3.0Gbps interface are the same interface, and system will show 1.5/3.0 depend on which type of hard disk connect to the interface. For instance, if you connect 1.5Gbps HD, so you will find that interface shows 1.5Gbps, and if you use 3.0Gbps HD, then you will get 3.0Gbps connection after all.

That'll explain why someone order SSD and get 3.0Gbps connection.

I don't think Apple will make two different design of SATA 1.5 / SATA 3.0. That'll costly and not easy to manage all products anyway.


So, I guess that any of you has SATA 1.5 showed in your system profile means that Apple just shipped a slower hard disk for you (the SATA 1.5 interface hard disk).

You can simply change your Hard Disk with SATA 3.0 interface one and you might find the speed goes up to 3.0 Gbps in the system profile later.


Please let me know if I am wrong.

Thanks

[bcaslis]

Originally Posted by applevx

Here's my thought, after skim so many post above...


Maybe the 1.5Gbps interface and 3.0Gbps interface are the same interface, and system will show 1.5/3.0 depend on which type of hard disk connect to the interface. For instance, if you connect 1.5Gbps HD, so you will find that interface shows 1.5Gbps, and if you use 3.0Gbps HD, then you will get 3.0Gbps connection after all.

That'll explain why someone order SSD and get 3.0Gbps connection.

I don't think Apple will make two different design of SATA 1.5 / SATA 3.0. That'll costly and not easy to manage all products anyway.


So, I guess that any of you has SATA 1.5 showed in your system profile means that Apple just shipped a slower hard disk for you (the SATA 1.5 interface hard disk).

You can simply change your Hard Disk with SATA 3.0 interface one and you might find the speed goes up to 3.0 Gbps in the system profile later.


Please let me know if I am wrong.

Thanks

Your wrong. I've connected an Intel X25M SSD and it still shows 1.5Gb.

Why do these posts keep coming up? Several people have posted with SSDs that still show the slower speeds.

[applevx]

Originally Posted by bcaslis

Your wrong. I've connected an Intel X25M SSD and it still shows 1.5Gb.

Why do these posts keep coming up? Several people have posted with SSDs that still show the slower speeds.

Sorry for blind guess dude.

And thank you for point me out.

So, we still have the issue here...

[macat]

I should first say that I love my new 13" mbp. It is fast, looks great and is an improvement to our previous macbook.

That aside, I was planning on upgrading the hard drive to an Intel x25m, it is on its way and I should receive it sometime this week, but I'm very disappointed that the new mbp does not support SATA 2.

I do realize that I will never notice the performance limitation to a SATA 1 interface, its not like I boot my machine every day or run apps that require long startup time. But I think this machine has the potential to last longer than a few years and I expect the technology to progress to the point where we might see affordable SSD drives that max out the SATA 2 interface on reads and writes. So why get stuck with a machine that is practically obsolete...

Anyways, I called apple support and they are escalating the issue to an engineer and I hope to hear back from them Monday or Tuesday. The rep told me that they might have chosen SATA 1 because of thermal issues with the new chip and the interface. Not sure if this is accurate but I'll post whatever I hear back from Apple support.

Now, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I might keep the machine and return the SSD drive(when it arrives) because I will probably upgrade when the new CPUs are available. Or I might return the machine and wait until the issue is resolved from Apple. If it is a thermal issue related to the design of the chip and interface then I don't expect a firmware update to solve this problem. If that is the case, then we will be waiting a long time for a fix to this problem...

Oh well, Apple came close to making me a very satisfied customer!

[SportyMac]

so, this boils down then to a simple question:
How is the speed of one and the same controller, from within the MB466 and the MB499, managed?
Is it a firmware thinggy or a switch?
How is firmware manged by apple?- thinking if the MB466 is Sata2, can we simply "take"the firmware from somewhere? (i am thinking in windows / ibm terms!)
greetz

[Ender17]

my unibody macbook MB466LL/A with Intel X25-M is running at SATA 2

[Customhobo]

Originally Posted by Ender17

my unibody macbook MB466LL/A with Intel X25-M is running at SATA 2

Not to be a dick, but I believe we are talking about the new 13" Macbook Pros

[winterspan]

Originally Posted by applevx

Here's my thought, after skim so many post above..
Maybe the 1.5Gbps interface and 3.0Gbps interface are the same interface, and system will show 1.5/3.0 depend on which type of hard disk connect to the interface. ...

Nope. Unless this can be fixed by firmware (doubtful), they really screwed this up! Here is the data from the test pictures linked from the Macrumors article about this issue: (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/06/14/...sata-interface)


Test: Sequential File Read and Write Throughput
App: HD Tune Pro 3.50
Drive: OCZ Vertex 128GB (MLC)

SATA II: 13" MBA, 13" MB, 17" MBP (and old versions of 13"/15" MBP)

Sequential READ = 225 MB/sec
Sequential WRITE = 180 MB/sec

SATA I: new 13" MBP, 15" MBP

Sequential READ = 115 MB/sec
Sequential WRITE = 95 MB/sec


The speedup from the SSD's fast random access will still be felt, making the user interface and applications snappier. However, the SATA I/SATA150 in the new 13"/15" MB Pro will cause an enormous performance degradation when copying large files to same disc or transferring files from fast external hardddrives, external SSDs, or RAID arrays that support over 95MB/sec. on the order of losing >50% of your throughput!

** Edited to reflect fact that file copy to and from normal 7200RPM external drives won't be affected as they aren't fast enough. However, it is important to remember that SSD drives are not simply being limited to 150MB/sec. Because of overhead, controller architecture, firmware, SATA II improvements, or whatever else --- the SSD in the benchmark above is being limited to 115MB read and 95MB write.

[aleksandra.]

Originally Posted by macat

Anyways, I called apple support and they are escalating the issue to an engineer and I hope to hear back from them Monday or Tuesday. The rep told me that they might have chosen SATA 1 because of thermal issues with the new chip and the interface. Not sure if this is accurate but I'll post whatever I hear back from Apple support.

I think it's safe to say that if using SATA 1.5 Gb/s over 3 Gb/s gave any thermal (and thus power-saving) benefits that aren't completely negligible, it would find its way to MacBook Air by now. MBA uses SATA-LIF drive, which makes it practically non-upgradeable, so there's no reason for 3 Gb/s in it. Either Apple ran into technical issues with new MBPs or they're limiting upgrade possibilities on purpose - I find the latter unlikely, simply because most customers probably don't even consider upgrading the drive out of the box.

[Phil A.]

Originally Posted by winterspan

However, the SATA I/SATA150 in the new 13"/15" MB Pro will cause an enormous performance degradation when copying large files or transferring large files to and from external drives --- on the order of losing >50% of your throughput!

Not trying to defend Apple here, but I don't think copying to and from external drives will be affected - even SATA I is faster than Firewire 800.

[tdream]

Originally Posted by Phil A.

Not trying to defend Apple here, but I don't think copying to and from external drives will be affected - even SATA I is faster than Firewire 800.

Unless you're copying to an external SSD, yes most conventional external disks are mechanical and wouldn't reach the SATA ceiling. But the problem isn't using external disks, it's the bandwidth limitation.

[tarasis]

Ordered a 13" MBP (2.53GHz model - stock setup) and it has 1.5gb SATA.

[OmegaF]

Hi, I was on the market for a small laptop and I was literally moments away from buying my first Mac ever until I saw this.

I have a couple of things to add in order to clarify what is happening here.
First of all about 10% of the SATA bandwidth is used for handshakes and other commands sent by the system to the hard disk. Stuff like, "what is your status", "get my this file", "send me SMART metrics" etc. If you remove that 10% from SATA you end up with bandwidth that some of the fastest hard disks can actually saturate let alone an SSD.

Second thing to keep in mind is that SATA-II has the same power specification as SATA and after a couple of hours of digging I could not find anywhere stating otherwise. I actually went through the spec PDF from SATA org. So battery life is not an argument

Third thing to note: Kiss your NCQ goodbye. And yes this really hurts both HDDs and SSDs in multitasking scenarios.

4th thing in order: SATA-II increases bandwidth by doubling the clock speed of the link. Double the clock speed means half the cycle time. Add to this overheads and wasted cycles before actual transfer can begin and you fine that SATA is not only slower in bandwidth but also in latency.

5th observation: If the DVD drive on the MBP does indeed share the same SATA bus you will indeed hit the SATA limit any time you install or copy anything from disk to DVD and vice versa.

Now there is one thing that came to mind as I would like to believe this is not done because Apple is evil although Jobs has the reputation of the biggest arse in the industry: Those of you with the 1.5 link who have replaced the disk with a SATA-II or SSD, could you please do a BIOS reset? I think it is something like ctrl/alt/r/u or something silly along those lines. I wonder if they made the link adaptable (which should be by SATA specs) but it fails to change mode for some reason unless the CMOS is cleared with the new drive attached.

Good luck guys.

[MacModMachine]

Originally Posted by OmegaF

Hi, I was on the market for a small laptop and I was literally moments away from buying my first Mac ever until I saw this.

I have a couple of things to add in order to clarify what is happening here.
First of all about 10% of the SATA bandwidth is used for handshakes and other commands sent by the system to the hard disk. Stuff like, "what is your status", "get my this file", "send me SMART metrics" etc. If you remove that 10% from SATA you end up with bandwidth that some of the fastest hard disks can actually saturate let alone an SSD.

Second thing to keep in mind is that SATA-II has the same power specification as SATA and after a couple of hours of digging I could not find anywhere stating otherwise. I actually went through the spec PDF from SATA org. So battery life is not an argument

Third thing to note: Kiss your NCQ goodbye. And yes this really hurts both HDDs and SSDs in multitasking scenarios.

4th thing in order: SATA-II increases bandwidth by doubling the clock speed of the link. Double the clock speed means half the cycle time. Add to this overheads and wasted cycles before actual transfer can begin and you fine that SATA is not only slower in bandwidth but also in latency.

5th observation: If the DVD drive on the MBP does indeed share the same SATA bus you will indeed hit the SATA limit any time you install or copy anything from disk to DVD and vice versa.

Now there is one thing that came to mind as I would like to believe this is not done because Apple is evil although Jobs has the reputation of the biggest arse in the industry: Those of you with the 1.5 link who have replaced the disk with a SATA-II or SSD, could you please do a BIOS reset? I think it is something like ctrl/alt/r/u or something silly along those lines. I wonder if they made the link adaptable (which should be by SATA specs) but it fails to change mode for some reason unless the CMOS is cleared with the new drive attached.

Good luck guys.

the power consumption on the sata bus has to do with the chispet and the load that is put on it from the actual drive i would think.

[OmegaF]

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

The primary speed benefit of SSD is avoiding rotational latency problems. So substantially better on random I/O (especially random and/or concurrent access ) workloads. The read sequential I/O is coming out better for SSD deciveces because their native block size is closer to the large block sized used in several of these benchmarks. That large block size is what will hurt in the write speeds when blocks are smaller than the native size ( so again the bigger block writes better , but the smaller blocks are more slower on SSD). Unless a program is mucking with its own blocks most of the time the filesystems have 4K, 8K blocks.

If you are clever and lay the data onto a hard disk, you can get rid of rotational latentices. You need an mostly empty disk. And you laid down the data sequentially so that when you finish with one cylinder of data the next sequential data cylinder is right next to the one you just used. That minimizes seek time and if there is no concurrent workload request to make access more random you can go faster. Under real life usage, that is very rare.

Actually it is the seek latency that kills you on a HDD. Rotational latency is the time it takes for a particular sector to move under the head which at more than 5k RPM is negligible. Moving the head to the correct track on the other hand is what takes ages.

[SportyMac]

Just having phoned the German Apple Support tech section,
their answer is that they know of nothing concerning the sata1 thing !!!

[OmegaF]

Originally Posted by MacModMachine

the power consumption on the sata bus has to do with the chispet and the load that is put on it from the actual drive i would think.

Correct. This is entirely dependant upon the chipset. Anyway, I have never heard of anyone underclocking or undervolting a bridge like that before and this is closer to madness than it is to genius.

[MacModMachine]

Originally Posted by OmegaF

Correct. This is entirely dependant upon the chipset. Anyway, I have never heard of anyone underclocking or undervolting a bridge like that before and this is closer to madness than it is to genius.

yep, but the less bandwidth a chipset incurs the less power in consumes...right ?

[Joruus]

Originally Posted by MacModMachine

yep, but the less bandwidth a chipset incurs the less power in consumes...right ?

Its 0.1W more... (sata 3000 to sata 1500) thats like 1/250 of what the CPU uses.

[MacModMachine]

Originally Posted by Joruus

Its 0.1W more... (sata 3000 to sata 1500) thats like 1/250 of what the CPU uses.

is that for every chipset...or are you just guessing ?

besides...thats as much as my ssd's consume

[Joruus]

Thats for the HDD's the chipset is a SataII one so it doesnt really matter.

[Joruus]

SSDs consume 0.1 in idle and around 1w when under load. The faster ones 0.5w idle and 2w under load.

[MacModMachine]

Originally Posted by Joruus

SSDs consume 0.1 in idle and around 1w when under load. The faster ones 0.5w idle and 2w under load.

not mine,

.06watt idle
.15 under full load.

intel x25-m 80gb

[Joruus]

And here i thought samsung made the ones with the least power consumption :P