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13" Mbp Only 1.5gb Sata ? - SOLVED!!!!!!!!!
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They care about it but probably won't buy it either way. In my opinion the speed and battery life improvements when using an SDD are too small to justify the proce difference. And I need space with average performance (some of the 5400rpm 500GB 2.5" drives are damn slow). For me, 250GB will do for now, probably with an update in 2 years or so.
Now 1.5 Gbps is not reached by even the fastest 2.5" hard drives, and will probably not be in the coming years. Even most SSD a (I guess) are under that limit and since Apple doesn't do premium stuff (anymore), Even the highest end Macbook you can buy will have the main drive not faster than 1.5 Gbps. Have you ever reached 480 Mbit on USB2?
Besides, we're talking about MAXIMUM throughput here, a number that is ususally only reached in a controlled environment and far higher than what you'd get in typical use. To reach that maximum throughput, you'd need read a large file without accessing anything else on the drive. Response time should be exaclty the same.
Apple removed eSATA from the 15" MBP, so 3 Gbps is only really necessary on the 17" model that has the hard drive and express card slot on the same bus. There's no need to overdesign a part if it can't be used to its full potential. It's like putting racing-grade brakes in a stock city car; except fot the afficionados of downhill driving in neutral gear, this is completely unnecessary.
So congratulate Apple for choosing an appropriate mix of parts to make the hardeware more affordable and save battery life by using older but sufficient technology.
This is disheartening to hear. I ordered a 3.06 15" MBP on monday. I am curious if mine will be able different since I did not opt for the 500GB 5400 or 7200 RPM drive, I went for the 320GB 7200 RPM. Maybe there is an issue with the 500GB hard drives and a soft limit? Also, I find it interesting that all of the SSD orders said 1-2 weeks. Maybe Apple realized they needed to fix something. Well my computer is with Fedex and should be here sometime this week. I am curious if it will be any different since my configuration will be different than the usual (faster processor just smaller hdd). I really hope this is not a major deal since in the future I was looking to upgrade to a X-25 and 8GB RAM once prices fell. I suppose time will tell.
That might be somewhat difficult since the Mac OS X system image that will boot one of the new MacBook Pros may not work entirely correctly on older systems. Generally, the install DVD that comes with your system has a customized version of OS X for that particular hardware (which may not work on the previous generation of hardware). It's only the retail versions of Mac OS X that are "universal" (in a sense). Of course, after the next update to Leopard comes out (the rumored 10.5.8) you'll be able to produce a system that will boot any then existing Intel Mac.
However, having an exact match of system versions may not be required if the performance differences are significant.
Understand, that I'm looking for REAL WORLD results, not simple Xbench or hard disk tests.
Boot times would be one (which can actually vary quite a lot from trial to trial), application launch, directory/file duplication, and an export of a large file from iMovie would be good tests.
Hell yeah... let's have the world revolve around your silly ass lest you have to scroll through a little repetition.
If you don't expect this (and some ranting) in a 600+ post thread then you shouldn't be here.
The performance issue has been debated back and forth for the last 24 hours. However, until someone does some actual, REAL-WORLD tests and not just Xbench or raw hard disk i/o tests then the issue won't be put to rest (IMO).
Note, I'm actually on the side that it won't make that much difference even on an SSD (and no difference on an HD). The only thing that might be affected is large file copies. However, I suspect that boot times and application launch times will be largely unaffected. One might be able to construct a test with multiple i/o streams (simultaneous copy over 1Gb ethernet AND copy from USB2 drive AND ...) but there could be so many variables in such a test that you'd never get repeatable results (or you'd have to average multiple trials on each system).
The profiler of course - all on machines with hard disk drives as they don't display SSDs in the store. So yes I was limited to what I could do in the store. Not definitive confirmation like an actual test but not a good sign. Noise? maybe...
People who buy an Apple laptop with AppleCare are expecting their laptop to last at least 3 years. SSDs may not be affordable now but within 3 years they will be. And at this moment in time SSDs are getting to the point of saturating SATA2 available bandwidth.
Hopefully this is just a firmware issue because the 13" Macbook Unibody has the same NVidia MCP79 AHCI chipset with SATA2.
Compare on http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=MTE4NDY does not mention any differences in regard to SATA...
Hopefully this is just a firmware issue because the 13" Macbook Unibody has the same NVidia MCP79 AHCI chipset with SATA2.
Compare on http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=MTE4NDY does not mention any differences in regard to SATA...
Hey everyone I really hate to bother you guys with this. But this thread is to long to read through. Can someone post a summary of what in the heck is going on here? I know it's dumb but it would really help out us that are not so computer literate. Thanks guys! 
I can't believe people are defending apples position here
Facts are facts. Your SATA transfer rate is half of what every computer manufacturer ships today. Sure if you want to buy a used laptop one could argue that it's old.
Apple gimping the MBP so that you must buy their SSD is downright shady business practice.
That means that all future mbp owners who upgraded to SSD are going to suffer poorer performance
I noticed the difference immediately from my old umb with the same SSD.
Enough for me to return it.
Facts are facts. Your SATA transfer rate is half of what every computer manufacturer ships today. Sure if you want to buy a used laptop one could argue that it's old.
Apple gimping the MBP so that you must buy their SSD is downright shady business practice.
That means that all future mbp owners who upgraded to SSD are going to suffer poorer performance
I noticed the difference immediately from my old umb with the same SSD.
Enough for me to return it.
I think you only need to scan through the last two or three pages to get the overview. Not much has changed in the last 8 hours. It seems that mostly we're just getting new persons who are either confirming what has already been posted/known or new contributers who are arguing the same points that have already been beaten to death.Hey everyone I really hate to bother you guys with this. But this thread is to long to read through. Can someone post a summary of what in the heck is going on here? I know it's dumb but it would really help out us that are not so computer literate. Thanks guys!
Basically:
1.) It appears nearly certain that the new 13" and 15" MacBook Pros are all reporting a SATA interface running at 1.5Gb and not the faster 3.0Gb rate that has been in pretty common use for the last few years. These new models have the Secure Digital (SD) slot and also appear to have redesigned motherboards.
2.) Those who are using standard hard disk drives will probably see no difference in performance. If that is you, you can stop reading now.
3.) Benchmarks on FAST solid-state drives (SSDs) are showing a decrease in RAW disk i/o transfer rates on these same systems (in comparison to the previous generation MacBook Pros and MacBooks).
4.) The largest differences in the benchmark results seem to be in large, sequential disk READS (one of the traditional strengths with SSDs).
5.) To the best of my knowledge, no one has done any test with REAL-WORLD operations to show that the user experience (i.e. "performance") will be decreased with the 1.5Gb SATA interface. That is to say that thus far we've only seen benchmarks done with RAW disk i/o benchmarking tools.
6.) No one really knows why this has been done and no one knows whether it can be fixed with a software/firmware update (it may or may not be able to be fixed).
i do realize this, i have a retail leopard and i can test for real life difference, such as application loading times and install times , file copy tests ect.
i will do this with a 2.4ghz unibody macbook pro 3gb sata, x25m and 500gb 5400rpm
i will have to slow it to 1.5gbit...somehow
FPNC..if you only talking about boot up time and small applications running
nope sata 1.5 and sata 3 doesn't make a difference..it makes no different for me in boot up time using MB 13" or MBP 13"...load application is all the same. The only difference is really the large file transfer...
I think the discussion as to whether 3gb offers any advantage over 1.5gb should be moved to a different thread. The ISSUE here is that we are expecting these machines to run at 3gb. This is the ISSUE. Those who think 3gb offers nothing should perhaps open a separate thread.
I totally agree with you bigcat....................do u need the hardware to...this spose to be a upgrade from last version, and last version have
SATA 3 hence we expected this MBP 13" have SATA 3 is two difference issue
Thank you so much! That helped immensely. So how come this doesn't affect users with a regular HDD? Also, I read a couple posts saying that maybe the new 13" MBP with SSD will have the 3.0 as opposed to the 1.5, is this true? So basically if it's true, then apple is only giving those computers with SSD (or those that need 3.0) the 3.0. Makes sense to me, but those people who want to upgrade later are out of luck. This is of course, assuming that the SSD has the 3.0 and not the 1.5.
It doesn't affect hard disk users because the fastest notebook hard disks can't read data fast enough to saturate the 1.5Gb bus. New generation fast SSD can read faster than the 1.5Gb bus, but older SSDs can't saturate the 1.5Gb bus either.
In another post just above I said that same thing. But that's just my opinion and until someone actually posts some results showing this then it will continue to be debated (i.e. does it really make any difference?). Even though you say that it made no difference until we see some fairly detailed, replicated, and timed tests we probably aren't going to convince those who think it will make a difference.
One could raise another issue about what will happen in another six months to one year when there are yet faster SSDs. But I don't think we can really answer that question and in any case by that time Apple may have already resolved this problem (with a software/firmware update). Thus, we really shouldn't waste our own time on that question (or our "bandwidth").