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It was only a matter of time before this happened. It is amazing news, but now I fear for my wallet's life. The 11" MBA sounds even more tempting now. Someone save me.
 
This is a awesome news. Not only does it destroy Apple's planned obsolescence, the Sandforce controller will boost performance as well. I think the 54 positive : 1 negative ratio speaks for itself.

Now that there are 3rd party options, it wouldn't be a bad thing if these SSD cards became an industry standard.

Downside:

Those of us who wanted the 2.13GHz CPU are locked in to purchasing the 256GB SSD. While I love the speediness of my Intel SSDs on my other installs and like what Sandforce is doing to push Intel, it's a lot less motivating to me when I already have 256GB onboard than if we were able to order 2.13GHz & only 64GB. :(
 
Downside:

Those of us who wanted the 2.13GHz CPU are locked in to purchasing the 256GB SSD. While I love the speediness of my Intel SSDs on my other installs and like what Sandforce is doing to push Intel, it's a lot less motivating to me when I already have 256GB onboard than if we were able to order 2.13GHz & only 64GB. :(
True.

But that 64GB SSD in the 11" MBA is going to be really space constrained.

At least the 256GB SSD has enough room for what most people need from a small laptop. And I'm sure large capacities will be available later, so maybe you can swap out that 256GB for a 512GB (or larger) at some point in the future, when the prices fall.
 
Downside:

Those of us who wanted the 2.13GHz CPU are locked in to purchasing the 256GB SSD. While I love the speediness of my Intel SSDs on my other installs and like what Sandforce is doing to push Intel, it's a lot less motivating to me when I already have 256GB onboard than if we were able to order 2.13GHz & only 64GB. :(

True. Apple is definitely playing the "upsell" game with this one, requiring the larger storage option to get either the 1.6GHz on the 11" or the 2.13GHz on the 13". That said, there likely isn't much difference between the 2.13GHz and 1.86GHz, so base 13" buyers may well be interested.
 
11" - 1,6Ghz - 4Gb - 128/256 Sandforce don't sound halfbad. Maybe it won't cost 200 euros like it does from Apple.

Excellent news and I hope they get the product finished and distribute in Europe!
 
True.

But that 64GB SSD in the 11" MBA is going to be really space constrained.

At least the 256GB SSD has enough room for what most people need from a small laptop. And I'm sure large capacities will be available later, so maybe you can swap out that 256GB for a 512GB (or larger) at some point in the future, when the prices fall.

Agreed. But knowing now that this option to upgrade is coming out makes me really wish ordering 2.13 & 64GB was an option.

But I know me. Depending on prices I'm sure at some point I'll at least entertain the idea of making the switch anyway. :D
 
This is good news, I think. Not just the third party offering, but how Apple designed the SSD. I think a new standard for SSD storage needs to be designed, something not based off of SATA. An ultra-fast card designed to be plugged into the motherboard would be VERY neat, and could reduce computer sizes further for anything not needing a ginormous GPU. Actually, with the right design even computers with a large GPU could be made much smaller (and faster!) with such an advancement. I can see it now. Multi-TB SSDs in RAID 0, just plugged right into the motherboard. Goodbye spinning beach ball!!!
 
Ok. My opinion of the new MBA has just had a shift. Being able to upgrade your MBA to this *after buying it* is a major step in making the new MBA awesome. Though 128 would do it for me, 256 is more than adequate. It's actually a great sweetspot, as long as this machine can actually run some of the bigger content creation utilties well enough.
 
Bravo!

Now let's see if someone can figure out how to expand the MacBook Air to 8GB of RAM (or even 6). An 8GB RAM/256GB SSD baby MacBook Air would be a very nice machine indeed.

Ohh that would be so sweet!!! Although Apple care would most likely be void in that case.
 
Nice!

Is the SSD connector on the new MacBook Air SATA 3 Gbit/s, SATA 6 Gbit/s, or something else entirely? What is the maximum data transfer rate for whatever that hard drive connector is?

It doesn't really matter, given the fastest you can transfer data to or from a MBA is limited by its ~30MB/sec USB ports.
 
One thing I don't get - is it possible to simply 'open' the macbook air and swap the SSD? Doesn't the unibody enclosure prohibit that? Is it just unscrewing a couple of screws and replacing the SSD? Simple as that?
 
Uninformed nonsense

So true, so sad.




Reread? I'm sorry to inform you but I would say half of your visitors don't even read the articles at all. They just read the headline only, look at the pictures, and then spout off uninformed nonsense.
 
One thing I don't get - is it possible to simply 'open' the macbook air and swap the SSD? Doesn't the unibody enclosure prohibit that? Is it just unscrewing a couple of screws and replacing the SSD? Simple as that?
The problem is that the screws on the bottom of the MBA case are non-standard. Not an insurmountable problem, but still a PITA. Once you get past those, it's smooth sailing.

And, no, Apple is not the only company to have ever used those. But I do wish they'd stop already.
 
Sorry guys

I decided to "push" the issue along, asking a prominent and trustworthy mac upgrade company who most of you probably know of if they had investigated this thing, and they said they had found something very fishy with the company and its claims and said they would not be involved with them and their products
 
Photofast website/link announcing the upgrade news given in this thread is either down or was removed. Fishy...???
 
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