Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Building 2TB Solid State Drives for Next Mac Pro Release?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I started out on Commodore, then to DOS (briefly to DR DOS), Windows 3.1, 3.11, MacOS 6.0,7.1, Windows 95, 98, 2000, MacOSX 10, Windows XP, XP64, OSX 10.1..10.4 on MacBook G4+ XP64 on gaming system/work system.
Then hackintosh out of curiousity. Loved the OSX on Intel so much that I started using the hackintosh for production. Then... my nightmare happen. It's complicated as heck to upgrade. Any accidentally upgrade would render my hackintosh unusable... but by then I was already a BIG Mac OSX on Intel fan with VMware fusion. I didn't want to go back to straight native Windows XP/7 again (rather have those on a VM).
After two very challenging upgrades, I decided to end the headache and get a 8-core Mac Pro on 2010.
Been happy ever since. I still build my own x86 gaming system -- heck I just built a LANBox for gaming, but I do the majority of my work on the Mac Pro; I even do the majority of my "windows 8/7" under the mac pro under Fusion.
I was being a stingy and cheap before for trying to save a few bucks on the hackintosh route, but now buying the real deal mac pro was worth every penny!
3years later, it still runs perfect and snappy. It doesn't feel slow at all! -- thought I did put 1.1TB of SSD on it. ;-)
So be warn... hackintosh can lead to mac pro....
To illustrate the point, here's what someone using their system for audio can expect for their money:
Option 1
Quad-Core Mac Pro (Geekbench: 9840)
One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6GB (three 2GB) memory
1TB hard drive
18x SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB GDDR5
£2,049.00
*Not for sale in Europe anymore
Option 2:
Quad-Core Mac Mini (Geekbench: 11759)
2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
4GB memory
1TB hard drive
Intel HD Graphics 4000
£759.00 (£1,290.00 remaining)
You could buy a lot of software synths or expensive audio hardware with the change. In fact, you could buy the 2.3Ghz Mac Mini for £679 and a UAD Apollo interface to go with it because they're as low as £1,325 at some online stores.
With either Quad Core i7 Mac Mini that's more CPU power from the outset AND a high end 192Khz/24 bit audio interface with onboard DSP for even more CPU power for the cost of a Mac Pro with less CPU power.
There's even Thunderbolt versions of Pro Tools HD hardware now and add 19" Rack solutions like the Sonnet Mini Rack (not to be confused with the Thunderbolt systems they offer) and you have yourself a rackmounted Mac Mini right above a rack mounted, high end audio interface with onboard DSP!
Last edited:
Most likely meant: Battery life on a laptop using an SSD compared to one using a HDD...
maybe...
Whether a "real desktop" at mid-range price would cannibalize many iMac sales or any other part of the product line is a good question. While I haven't seen break-downs between conventional desktops and iMac/all-in-ones, the overall trend towards laptops and tablets suggests that folks aren't particularly worried about repairability, upgradability, or expandability.
The last Apple desktop that physically resembled a mid-range desktop PC was the PowerMac G3, and you can't say its price or performance was mid-range at all in its day. That model just barely pre-dates the original iMac. Since the Power Mac G4, introduced in 1999, the only middle ground between the whoppin' big tower and the iMac had been laptops (not exactly what you have in mind), and these days the laptops and iMacs are pretty comparable on price and performance (a 27" iMac with 3.4GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 768GB Flash storage $3299, vs. 15" MacBook Pro Retina, 2.8GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 768GB Flash storage $3449) - it all comes down to portability vs. screen size.
While there are certainly folks who feel the way you do - there will always be some who legitimately need the extra drive bays, multiple processors, and PCI card slots... the vast majority of computer users never do. They never open the case, certainly would not install a new card or drive or know how to isolate a system fault, can barely figure out where to plug in the monitor and speakers... And there's nothing wrong with that. There aren't many folks out there who know how to butcher a hog, replace piston rings, or spin, weave, and sew their new blue jeans, either. Early adopters like to get under the hood, fix things, and tweak performance. The masses just want it to work.
Modularity and ease of repair drive up unit costs, for features only a fraction of users will ever need. Performance is far more important. Want expandability? Plug into the USB and Thunderbolt ports (ah, I remember the days when I had 4 external SCSII drives daisy-chained off a Q950...)
Out-of-box experience? Some of us like to solve puzzles, but the majority want their new toys to be up and running a minute after they open the box (or have the IT guy able to set up dozens of desktops in a day).
It's often said that Apple succeeds by giving us what we didn't know we needed. True enough. Elegance, another famous Apple trait, is often the art of paring away what is not needed.
The net result in the case of iMac is a device that takes up little desktop space, no under-desk space, sets up in minutes, yet has a big-ass monitor and full-size keyboard. Yep, it's an over-grown laptop!
"Disadvantages of a laptop?" To nearly all users, the disadvantages of a laptop are a small screen, small keyboard, a less-powerful CPU... the very things the iMac addresses. Expandability, repairability, upgradability? Way, way down the list. And a better GPU? That's hardly dependent on card slots and drive bays. You may just have to wait for the next product refresh.
While Apple didn't have a "mid" model in terms of size, the base G4 towers were certainly priced as midrange boxes, at $1499-1699. If Apple announced a base tower in that price range, I suspect most of the requests for a specific "mid" model would go away.
Lower rpm = less heat, better battery life, longer hard drive life and is usually an adequate speed for most people.
Size of the cache is usually more important.
Why is battery life a concern in an iMac? Heat should be a non-issue in todays 7200rpm hard drive technology. In fact, the new iMacs should have been at least 128GB SSD standard, instead of a hard drive.
If the iMac already has a 2 & 3TB Fusion Drive option, why would Apple be developing a 2TB one?
Probably they just want another proprietary connector for the Mac Pro one. It is forbidden to use an iMac one in a Mac Pro one.
LOL, no not for SSDs direct from Apple, I'm sure they will still be x2.5 the market average. I mean as Apple pushes the industry forward on making these standard on pro machines, that will drive prices down.
Fair enough...
Moving on...
Something that I was thinking about the other day while ripping apart a Hitachi Touro portable drive...
Big companies such as Apple & Samsung are pretty much the companies that have control over the cost of things like processors, ram, LCD displays and hard drive. Apple can order up a truck load of 512GB SSD drives and charge whatever they want. Buy this stuff in bulk allows them to price them as they please. Apple can (will) easily drive the price down. They've been falling rapidly since summer of 2012.
Last edited:
Seagate should have 2 TB hybrid hard drives in the retail channel soon. They are even developing a new version that will be compatible with Intel's SRT technology for caching instead of their internal controllers + algorithm.
No Intel processors support T-Bolt - none of them. They all require separate discreet T-Bolt controller chips.
The issue is the colossal mistake that Intel made in requiring T-Bolt to carry DisplayPort graphics signals.
However, some of the Xeon processors do have integrated GPUs (e.g. the E3-1275 v2), so supporting T-Bolt would be possible without off-board jumper cables.
Last edited: