13" and 15" MacBook Pros Have a Slower SATA Interface

[Tompkinson]

Again you miss the point of my original post in order to make your own. My comment went to the seller's marketing because the poster's comment I was commenting on was about the seller's marketing.

understood, I thought we were talking about the same thing, no worries

As for the ExpressCard slot...again. Should Apple design laptops based on your or my own personal use, exclusively? The fact is the ExpressCard slot is used by a lot of people -- for eSATA, for SD Cards, for RAID, etc. Maybe not everyday, but it's used and by people who don't want a 17". So unless Apple wants to make it's survey data public for independent verification I think they are puffing.

understand your point, but do you really think they are trying to save such a tiny amount of money on the slot? it seems either that there is a 'real' reason to drop the slot, or that apple are 'incredibly' stupid. and judging by apple's success in business i find it very hard to believe that they are incredibly stupid. but i have no data on this, so will keep quiet. to all those who miss the slot. good luck finding alternatives: i can not really see them reintroducing a slot. but you never know!

Now it's interesting that you claim to be a proponent of buyer's power, but then call potential buyers "whiners," and "cry babies," when Apple removes features they liked and use. So which position do you hold? Is the customer right or should they just suck up whatever slop Apple gives us and be happy with it -- praised be Apple?

hmmmm, seems i must be speaking very unclearly. what in any of my messages make you think i feel: "suck up whatever slop Apple gives us and be happy with it -- praised be Apple?" ????
very odd.
you know there are alternatives to:
A - apple is sh*t, and
B - apple is g*d.
there are shades inbetween and we can take responsibility for how we spend our money. they make good products, but they are also a money grabbing corp.

to correct you: i have not called all potential buyers "whiners," and "cry babies," that is a misrepresentation. i called the whiners "whiners" because they buy without doing proper research, thus happily taking on the unpaid and very expensive job of beta tester. if you pay 1000s to work free as a beta tester for a corp which has, - how much? 25billion dollars in cash or something similar? - and your first experience with an untested product is not good, i do not believe you have the right to whine that you've been screwed. you screwed yourself when you put the cash on the counter in the apple shop, days after a new product was announced.

how come apple does not have it's laptops tested in the wild before they go on sale? they should be tested by tech reviewers around the world for a few weeks before you they even appear in the shops. cars are tested by independent bodies, planes are tested, food gets tested. but MBP announced and i see lots of comments from consumers here that they've "ordered mine right away". and if there is a delay between jobs' messiah act announcing new laptops, and the date of sale, half the forum is up in arms "i want mine now", "come on apple, we can't wait" etc. apple could not be happier to have such voluntary beta testing fodder that will pay for the privilege. that is who i called whiners, not potential buyers.

to answer your question: the customer is right, but he must take responsibility for his actions or he gives up his rights

 

[harshw]

I think most of you all need to just calm the hell down for a second and start using some logic.

Apple's Sata drivers weren't written to handle the high speed of SSD's, that kinda speed causes saturation issues, which means you will experience problems, so the quick and dirty solution is to limit the bus to 1.5, instead of 3.0, think of it as throttling. At 1.5 you cant hit the speeds that cause issues and everything is gravy. Chances are this is something that will be fixed with a new driver that can handle the speed, and a firmware update to allow the bus to work at 3.0 since we already know its hardware capable. When? Possibly upon snow leopards release, maybe when 10.5.8 drops, who knows.

You need to use that logic yourself

Previous gen MacBooks and MacBook Pro's have been running fine with Gen 2 SSDs ( with speeds of over 230 mb/sec read and 160 mb/sec write ). Here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/664252/ ... have a look. Subsequent revisions of the OCZ firmware solved a lot of issues while making the drive faster

So please don't spread FUD

 

[jose1983]

Macbook Air

Just a quick question, is the Macbook Air affected by this SATAI downgrade issue? If NOT, shouldn't be a priority to extend battery life of a Macbook Air rather than the one of a laptop that just got 30%(13'')-46%(15'') more juice (it's just how much more energy batteries can store)? And, again, wouldn't be clever to downgrade even on the white Macbook IF it's for energy/saving reasons? And, my last point, wouldn't be more understandable even on the old Macbook unibody, since it has less battery capacity? Doesn't make sense... I was going to buy a new MBP 13'' with 128GB SSD, now I'm gonna wait until this issue is sorted out!

 

[ddTaylor]

Is this the "We need replaceable batteries!"-argument? That argument is stupid. You do not NEED replaceable batteries. What you need is longer battery-life. Replaceable batteries are just means to an end, not the end of means.

How could you get longer battery-life without replaceable batteries? How about external battery-pack? Seriously?



As far as the battery goes, their needs are not logical. They are so fixated at the means of getting more battery life (by replacing batteries) that they have forgotten the reason why they want to replace batteries in the first place. It's the reason that is important, not the method you reach it. And you can get longer battery-life through other means besides replacing batteries.

You just made my point - thank you for that. You dismiss others arguments out-of-hand and again - you may not need these features but others do. Get over yourself, man!

D

 

[errol]

When Apple downgraded a wide range of 13"/15" (standard or BTO) models, investors will also downgrade AAPL! Watch it nosedive!

This is a ridiculous comment. As furious as I am about my 13.3" MBP, and as an Apple investor myself, this makes no sense. Investors don't know the difference between SATAI/II. Only geeks do. This will hardly limit sales of the MBP machines, perhaps only to geeks... which doesn't amount to a lot of sales.

 

[jeme]

Post 929 here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/718516/

New MBP CTO with 256GB SSD at Sata 1.5gb. Unbelievable...

 

[Poirot818]

Just a quick question, is the Macbook Air affected by this SATAI downgrade issue? If NOT, shouldn't be a priority to extend battery life of a Macbook Air rather than the one of a laptop that just got 30%(13'')-46%(15'') more juice (it's just how much more energy batteries can store)? And, again, wouldn't be clever to downgrade even on the white Macbook IF it's for energy/saving reasons? And, my last point, wouldn't be more understandable even on the old Macbook unibody, since it has less battery capacity? Doesn't make sense... I was going to buy a new MBP 13'' with 128GB SSD, now I'm gonna wait until this issue is sorted out!

I wondered the same thing. Please read this reply by deconstruct60:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7817990/

Can you tell me what the hell he's trying to say? I'm not being sarcastic here, I really want to know. All he did was take every point I made and tell me I was wrong, and then proceeded to agree with me.

 

[VoR]

This is going to be fixed through a patch. I know it's irritating to have it happen to begin with, but Apple almost always comes through - I think everyone should have a bit of faith. You aren't going to notice a difference in performance unless you are using a SSD, and even then it's going to be a negligible difference. Just be patient! This isn't worth the aneurysm some folks are throwing....

It might not make a huge difference to an average user with a normal disk, but that's not just the point. Why are they releasing products with such bugs/limitations/etc? What other computer manufacturer has forums full of people recommending that you "don't buy rev A hardware"? It's not going to be an EMI issue, it's hardly going to be power consumption issue...a thermal issue? - More amusing than the QA testing dept. of your favourite multi billion dollar tech corporation.

You're recommending that people still buy them and wait for a software update? I agree that it's crazy that this 'standard' hardware is shipping at a reduced spec, but I certainly wouldn't buy or recommend one to someone who thinks that a limited sata throughput would effect them.

Of course it's worth the aneurysm. It's a tech forum where people can talk about these things. There's nothing wrong with people saying it's a rediculously bad move, the same way it's ok to spout rubbish tech opinion to try and justify products.

I don't know why they don't include esata ports on all their machines (another port to spoil the look?), might be more of an issue to some people then.

 

[bobbylols]

got an email from apple that my mbp 13" with a 128gb ssd drive should be here by this friday. personally, i got the ssd drive more for durability and not so much for increased speed - i crashed 3 drives on my blackbook in 2 years.

anyway, i'll post again as soon as i get it, and let you guys know what the deal is with my sata, unless the issue is resolved by friday, which it could be. i've read speculation that it could auto detect drives in this thread but we'll see.

 

[SimonTheSoundMa]

My old iMac G5 states it has a 3Gb/s SATA interface.

This is a little odd downgrade when other manufacturers are now moving to SATA 3.0 which is 6Gb/s.

This reminds me of the problems Apple bought onto itself with Firewire and ever since the introduction of Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro's. They downgraded the chipset for FW400 and 800 to a cheaper version, some devices did not work, and devices that were bus powered didn't get enough power so they had to be mains powered.

They still haven't fixed the firewire chipsets, I know plenty of sound recordists who can't use their sound interfaces out in the field without having to use an ExpressCard firewire interface.

 

[iAlex]

This is a ridiculous comment. As furious as I am about my 13.3" MBP, and as an Apple investor myself, this makes no sense. Investors don't know the difference between SATAI/II. Only geeks do. This will hardly limit sales of the MBP machines, perhaps only to geeks... which doesn't amount to a lot of sales.

I think a significant amount of endusers will reconsider purchases. Apple customers tend to be more tech minded as a demographic. Look at the iphone demographic. Furthermore, considering Apples new focus on enterprise solutions, I have already heard from several IT mangers that one of the concerns with a move or support of OSX across an enterprise is the monopoly Apple has on supporting hardware. ESPECIALLY when Apple makes seeming senseless and stupid moves like crippling laptop SATA performance what other surprise should they expect? X-Serv with no eternal connections? I can see it now, ~the new wireless xserv? "Ethernet and fiber was just a fad like SATA II". When a enterprise or IT manager stands behind a large political and monetary investment, knowing there is no hardware alternative, "surprises" like these are NOT something they look forward to.

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

1 week after the new Macbook Pro release, nVidia announces the release of these mobile GPUs:

 

[jose1983]

I wondered the same thing. Please read this reply by deconstruct60:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7817990/

Can you tell me what the hell he's trying to say? I'm not being sarcastic here, I really want to know. All he did was take every point I made and tell me I was wrong, and then proceeded to agree with me.

Ok, I read that post, I was reading that same post also ten mins ago but I had to give up: I'm italian but that doesn't seem to be the best english ever! It talks about an energy trade-off but since the Macbook unibody and the new MBP 13'' are virtually identical with respect to the HW (I can't understand why does he say that the consumption grows, which is the component to blame? Am I missing something?) I would go as far as to say that also the power consumption isn't that different either.
Back to the problem: I heard something about a heat issue. Same as before, a heat issue on a Macbook Pro 13'' would be at least a bit more serious on the Macbook Air (Still here I'm assuming the new one has a SATAII interface).

 

[gnasher729]

So I popped my 320GB Scorpio Black (7200rpm, 16MB cache, SATA II) into my new 13" MBP last night and it's working pretty damn fast writing all my files to disk from backups.

I haven't run any VM's yet but so far the machine seems to be working well, even with the 1.5Gb/s interface.

While doing the next backup, turn on "Activity Monitor" and watch disk activity. Make sure that the display shows "Megabyte per second". If you are limited by 1.5 GBit SATA then you will see that the transfer rate reaches 150 MB/second for read and write combined (unfortunately Activity Monitor shows them separate). If you don't reach 150 MB/second, then a 3.0 GBit interface wouldn't have helped you one bit.

I bet your drive never gets even close to 150 MB/second.

 

[Eidorian]

While doing the next backup, turn on "Activity Monitor" and watch disk activity. Make sure that the display shows "Megabyte per second". If you are limited by 1.5 GBit SATA then you will see that the transfer rate reaches 150 MB/second for read and write combined (unfortunately Activity Monitor shows them separate). If you don't reach 150 MB/second, then a 3.0 GBit interface wouldn't have helped you one bit.

I bet your drive never gets even close to 150 MB/second.

Can you even check on the disk activity of an individual process using Activity Monitor? Or of an individual volume?

 

[iAlex]

Change to Mac Pro workstations AKA: Crippled laptops and other supprise changes)

Oh i got it... Ok... ~Have you heard? The next REV of Mac "Pro" workstations will be dropping all Ethernet connectors will revert back to RJ11 dial-up connections and airport ONLY.

 

[kidtronix]

Oh i got it... Ok... ~Have you heard? The next REV of Mac "Pro" workstations will be dropping all Ethernet connectors will revert back to RJ11 dial-up connections and airport ONLY.

Yes but they will do it to save energy, so why complain?

 

[turkay]

Yes but they will do it to save energy, so why complain?

Pro line products are about performance, not energy efficiency.

 

[alabanco]

Perhaps it will be a repost but still.
Just to have a look at how fast SSD can be in comparison to HD hard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0agBXaODMiI

 

[Stevamundo]

ah, pointless.

so basically you are enjoying being upset, right?

maybe you can start another thread? maybe start your own blog somewhere? maybe called "disappointed mac loyalists with an unrealistic sense of entitlement"?

i can give you a template, you just need to copy paste and add your user names:

1 - I am upset
2 - apple has screwed us over
3 - i am really upset
4 - apple, this isn't fair
5 - i am feeling really sorry for myself now. more than ever.

copy paste these ad infinitum & ad absurdum.
drink warm milk with honey.
stop trusting big corporations.
there'll be a fix/update/solution to the 1,5/3.0 situation within 30 days - all will be well, you'll see.
PS do you really think apple give a d*mn how much you complain here?
they don't give a sh*t. get onto them. jam their phone lines, picket their stores instead. much more effective than this whinging nonsense on macrumors.com. but it is amusing to watch you all. haven't had many real setbacks in life, have you?

Now that's funny!

Except for Apple does care about their customers and they'll have a fix to this HORRIFIC problem.

They will live happily ever after again. They get about 3 second speed ups on their fastest SSDs again! Oh I just love an happy ending don't you?

BTW, SSDs have a lower disk space than HDDs right? So I would personally prefer more disk space than a little more speed any day.

 

[kidtronix]

Pro line products are about performance, not energy efficiency.

Sorry I forgot the [/Sarcasm]

 

[Akira1980]

1 week after the new Macbook Pro release, nVidia announces the release of these mobile GPUs:

I wonder when Apple is going to adapt these...

 

[surferfromuk]

II hope this is the case - and since they brought back FW800 to the uMB I can only hope and pray they bring back the mat display

Agreed. I won't buy an new MBP 15" without a matt screen.

 

[iAlex]

A macrumors story from the future: (Macbook Pro for 2010)

NEWS FLASH: Today, Apple Inc. introduces for 2010 its new line up of laptop computers. The Mac Book Pro for 2010 is being heralded a breaking new ground in laptop design and performance. Industry analysts, and Apple fans expressed concern about the lack of any kind of screen or keyboard in the newly designed Mac Book Pro, and whispered about the striking similarity to the another Apple Product called the Mac Mini. Apple representatives blew off criticism by promoting increased energy savings and performance by reverting to a single simplified RJ11 connection in the rear of the unit, and also stated that the lack of keyboard and screen in the new laptop will not make any real-world difference in performance for most users. In addition, Apple claims improved performance via adoption of SATA II standards :END NEWS FLASH

 

[xlii]

Pointer to sata spec

Here is the spec for the mcp79 ahci... on page 15 you will find in bits 23:20 the encoding for the interface speed 1.5g/3.0g/6.0g. Looks fixable in firmware.

http://download.intel.com/technology/serialata/pdf/rev1_3.pdf

In case no one saw it.