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Should be doing the same thing you'd do if it was removable: backup to portable drives.

If the SSD fails (which is more likely than a logic board), you're ****ed without a backup even if the drive was removable. Plan for the worst case scenario.

I'm assuming USB3 off site backups to quote another forum member who is a better words smith than me:

"I have no idea what your industry is , nor do I care frankly, but in mine we have a major problem with the new MacBooks pros, because our researchers spend a lot of time in remote locations , so when their machines fail and have regularly in the past, we could remove the SSD and recover the valuable data . And loosing a days research before you get back to base camp is a major issue!!!!"
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Carry a drive. Seriously. This is exactly what I used to do when working offsite before the days of cloud backups and ubiquitous broadband. Know your tools and plan accordingly. (Of course, I'm talking to the crowd that seems to think carrying a dongle on their daily commute is some kind of Herculean task so maybe I'm asking too much.)

If the next hour of data is so sensitive you can't afford to lose it AND are in a situation where loss is likely, you have planned poorly.

There is almost no excuse to ever need data recovery these days. Only the most contrived circumstances can't be managed by a backup drive and those circumstances are probably sufficiently niche and rugged that a MacBook Pro is the wrong tool.

Encrypt and backup. It solves basically every potential issue here. If you aren't already doing both of those on a modern mobile computer, no one can save you from your own foolishness.

I cannot even understand all the rage. This is just complaining to complain. (And the complaints are literally related to the fact that a data recovery tool exists. Uhhh... yeah... that sucks. Wish they didn't have one.)

Offsite USB3 backup is assumed but to quote another forum member who is a better word smith than me:
"I have no idea what your industry is , nor do I care frankly, but in mine we have a major problem with the new MacBooks pros, cause our researchers spend a lot of time in remote locations , so when their machines fail and have regularly in the past, we could remove the SSD andrecover the valuable data . And loosing a days research before you get back to base camp is a major issue!!!! "
 
I'm assuming USB3 off site backups to quote another forum member who is a better words smith than me:

"I have no idea what your industry is , nor do I care frankly, but in mine we have a major problem with the new MacBooks pros, because our researchers spend a lot of time in remote locations , so when their machines fail and have regularly in the past, we could remove the SSD and recover the valuable data . And loosing a days research before you get back to base camp is a major issue!!!!"
[doublepost=1480127770][/doublepost]

Offsite USB3 backup is assumed but to quote another forum member who is a better word smith than me:
"I have no idea what your industry is , nor do I care frankly, but in mine we have a major problem with the new MacBooks pros, cause our researchers spend a lot of time in remote locations , so when their machines fail and have regularly in the past, we could remove the SSD andrecover the valuable data . And loosing a days research before you get back to base camp is a major issue!!!! "

This clearly sounds like a major demographic. Apple should definitely spend more time designing with these types in mind. I mean, there must be—dare I say—more than a few handfuls of these users.

Gamers are a larger group and Apple doesn't really cater to them either. So what?
 
LOL. Other than the dGPU, in Apple's case :)
[doublepost=1480119061][/doublepost]

Yes, Apple didn't list ANY components that are soldered. It also didn't list which components use Si3N4. And it didn't reveal the boron doping concentration of the T1 processor. So many things Apple is trying to hide from us.

Talk about pedantic I think the soldering of the SSD being such a new revolutionary feature should have beeen mentioned by Schiller with the standard place your superlative here*

"and the fantastic* new SSD is soldered to the logic board isn't it wonderful* truely spectacular*.

Not a word was said, zilch, nothing, zip, non- I wonder why.
 
Not a word was said, zilch, nothing, zip, non- I wonder why.

Because the number of actual users making these replacements is tiny. They also didn't announce whether or not they'd provide any backwards compatibility with Thunderbolt 2 and I had to wait till after the announcement to find out. Whoop-dee-do.
 
This clearly sounds like a major demographic. Apple should definitely spend more time designing with these types in mind. I mean, there must be—dare I say—more than a few handfuls of these users.

Gamers are a larger group and Apple doesn't really cater to them either. So what?

But why is it called a "Pro" this type of use is exactly what late great Steve Jobs referred to:

http://www.mactrast.com/2012/06/the-retina-macbook-pro-taking-pro-out-of-the-equation/

the MacBook Pro was originally touted as an accessible, repairable machine to add memory, to add cards, to add drives.” That’s part of what I love about my MacBook Pro. I’ve upgraded my RAM, and I even replaced my optical drive with an 80GB SSD.

http://www.wired.com/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-displa/amp/?client=safari
[doublepost=1480129384][/doublepost]
Because the number of actual users making these replacements is tiny. They also didn't announce whether or not they'd provide any backwards compatibility with Thunderbolt 2 and I had to wait till after the announcement to find out. Whoop-dee-do.

As already stated not everyone has deep pockets so they go for the entry level SSD with a view to updrade the SSD when funds improve and need for more storage increases.
I think you'll will find the SSD sales esp. Samsung on amazon is extremely active as have spinning hard drive replacements in years gone by.
Folks like this easy upgrade and expect it on a "Pro" machine.
A lot of people are in for a shock in the future.

BTW

Still no word on a possitive reason to solder the SSD except it wont dislodge if machine dropped! and the ridiculous 'thinness' argument

Why is everyone so silent over this?
 
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Offsite USB3 backup is assumed but to quote another forum member who is a better word smith than me:
"I have no idea what your industry is , nor do I care frankly, but in mine we have a major problem with the new MacBooks pros, cause our researchers spend a lot of time in remote locations , so when their machines fail and have regularly in the past, we could remove the SSD andrecover the valuable data . And loosing a days research before you get back to base camp is a major issue!!!! "
The problem is that the SSD is more likely to fail. Backups are the only way to CYA in that scenario regardless of laptop. So if you have your USB3 backup, it doesn't matter what part fails. You're covered. Seems like a non-issue to me.

Again I'd still prefer a replaceable drive and one that is sold by other companies. There isn't a third part option for the previous pros. It was I think 2013 that was the last year OWC had parts for them. The reason I'd like this to be an option is for upgrades and low cost replacements for failures of the SSD. Data recovery should be covered by backups.
 
The problem is that the SSD is more likely to fail. Backups are the only way to CYA in that scenario regardless of laptop. So if you have your USB3 backup, it doesn't matter what part fails. You're covered. Seems like a non-issue to me.

Again I'd still prefer a replaceable drive and one that is sold by other companies. There isn't a third part option for the previous pros. It was I think 2013 that was the last year OWC had parts for them. The reason I'd like this to be an option is for upgrades and low cost replacements for failures of the SSD. Data recovery should be covered by backups.

My uderstanding is logic board and or RAM is more likely to fail than SSD.

Removable SSD:

• no wastage if logic board RAM fails - just replace with old SSD
much 'greener' to reuse a reuseable SSD when apple profess to be such a 'green company' then bin a perfect SSD.

• far easier to replace 'existing' fine SSD than restore from backup

• Much less expense if logic board or RAM fails as SSD can be reused instead of being binned with logic board.

• perfect for folk without deep pockets who want to upgrade in a few years when extra storage is needed.
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There isn't a third part option for the previous pros. It was I think 2013 that was the last year OWC had parts for them.

My 2015 rMBP 13" I'm pleased and smug to say can be upgraded to a 2TB SSD hard drive.
In fact I think 4TB Samsung is now available at a silly price.
 
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Bs. I almost guarantee Apple will do it for free.

I've taken out of warranty stuff to Apple to be fixed to an Apple Store. If they can fix something without cost to them other than labor they will usually do it.

Why should Apple fix out of warranty products for free? The touch disease only happens to phones dropped too hard.
BS. look what they are doing for the touch disease iPhone 6+'s people. Go ahead and say it's the owners fault because apple said it was caused by dropping it on a hard surface. Again BS. Mine was never dropped, only had apple leather case on it, and had no damage on it, yet they wanted to charge me to fix a design flaw. No thanks. This is a process that will take time to do and apple is going to want to get paid for that time.

I once had a water damaged Macbook Air out of warranty that would have required a new logic board. Instead of that, I asked the Genius if he could just pop open my Mac and pull out the SSD stick so I can put it in an external drive. He did it for me, no cost.

Service may vary from store to store, but I don't see why they wouldn't do a transfer for free.
This process is not going to be just removing a few screws and pulling a removable ssd. It's going to take more than 2 minutes to recover the data and they are going to want to get paid for it.

I take it you are not an Apple customer? My total cost in repairs so far paid to Apple is £0.
Not a MBP, no, but an iPhone user since the first one, including the 6+ with touch disease and was told would have to pay for repair, even though no damage on phone.
 
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But why is it called a "Pro" this type of use is exactly what late great Steve Jobs referred to:

the MacBook Pro was originally touted as an accessible, repairable machine to add memory, to add cards, to add drives.” That’s part of what I love about my MacBook Pro. I’ve upgraded my RAM, and I even replaced my optical drive with an 80GB SSD.

http://www.wired.com/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-displa/amp/?client=safari

"Pro" is about as meaningless of a distinction as they come. Are we talking professional videographer? Graphic artist? Developer? Researcher? Wrestler? It's a marketing term at this point. Who cares? The machine either meets your professional needs or it doesn't.

The 2012 Air met my professional needs just fine—better than my 2010 Pro in fact. I think that article made it pretty clear exactly what happened: the Airs were super popular and a profit-driven corporation (crazy thought, I know) went where the money appeared to be.

Apple is a company that—and Steve Jobs was a guy who—would play up whatever is usable about their current product offering. As the article points out rather clearly, prior to the Unibody Pros, upgradability wasn't something Apple necessarily handled all that well. As the owner of a 12" Aluminum PowerBook, I can attest to this fact. They were horrible to repair. The pre-retina Unibody machines were great to work on but they were anything but par for the course in Apple's mobile lineup.

The market has moved on. If there is one thing I trust Apple to do it's go where the money is, period. That's where they're going to go. People who upgrade and repair are a small demographic. The industry is moving to more and more integrated devices. Apple is not alone in this. And historically, design and vision—for better and for worse—trump practicality at times. The Unibody machines happened to be a time where design and vision aligned nicely with easy to fix portables.

Anyway, you've parroted this quote enough times that I'm not gonna bother replying again.

As already stated not everyone has deep pockets so they go for the entry level SSD with a view to updrade the SSD when funds improve and need for more storage increases.

And as I have stated on multiple occasions, I don't care. The number of people replacing the internal SSDs on their machines is small enough. Cross that with penny-pinchers buying Apple hardware and you have a group almost as small as the remote researchers that are bummed about this. Apple does not care because this is a monetarily irrelevant group of people. They haven't tried to actively appeal to this crowd basically ever. Their answer to the netbook craze was a $999 laptop.

Not everyone has deep pockets, I get it. Don't buy tools you can't afford. Don't buy tools that don't meet your needs. I really don't understand this argument at all. BMW doesn't make a budget compact nor do they want to.

On the flip side, unlike my PCs, my Macs hold their value WAY better when I sell off my old machines offsetting a lot of the pain of upgrades anyway.

I think you'll will find the SSD sales esp. Samsung on amazon is extremely active as have spinning hard drive replacements in years gone by.
Folks like this easy upgrade and expect it on a "Pro" machine.
A lot of people are in for a shock in the future.

So what? If Apple cared about this they'd go for it. They don't. They don't care about gamers. They don't sell a consumer-grade user serviceable desktop. There are huge untapped markets they do not care about.

You want "Pro" to mean "user-serviceable" and "upgradable." It doesn't. It hasn't in the Apple world since the shift to rMBP and the trash can Pro. If there was a huge backlash among the user base, and not just a vocal minority, it would show in their sales figures and they would adjust. Given that they opted for lighter/thinner/more integrated after testing the waters in the "Pro" market for four years with this design, it's pretty clear they have some idea of what the vast majority of their user base is interested in.

Do I necessarily agree with this or like it? Doesn't matter. I was happy with my Air, rMBP, and TB MBP. When I need more machine, I buy new and sell old and moving old Mac hardware at a decent price is really, really easy to do.

Folks like this easy upgrade and expect it on a "Pro" machine.
A lot of people are in for a shock in the future.

Apparently not enough of them.

Still no word on a possitive reason to solder the SSD except it wont dislodge if machine dropped! and the ridiculous 'thinness' argument

Why is everyone so silent over this?

I don't know why they solder it to the board. I also don't actually care. I haven't upgraded the internals of any of my machines since they came standard with SSDs.

The fact that they chose to do so in one model but not the other implies there was some kind of technical reason. The fact that they went to the trouble of building a special device for data extraction implies there was a technical reason.

I think the people upgrading their own Macs have a really inflated idea of their numbers. Not only are they small enough that Apple doesn't bother appealing directly to them, but they're also small enough that Apple wouldn't have an interest in sabotaging them at the cost of increasing the expense and difficulty of their own repair shops.
 
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"Pro" is about as meaningless of a distinction as they come. Are we talking professional videographer? Graphic artist? Developer? Researcher? Wrestler? It's a marketing term at this point. Who cares? The machine either meets your professional needs or it doesn't.

The 2012 Air met my professional needs just fine—better than my 2010 Pro in fact. I think that article made it pretty clear exactly what happened: the Airs were super popular and a profit-driven corporation (crazy thought, I know) went where the money appeared to be.

Apple is a company that—and Steve Jobs was a guy who—would play up whatever is usable about their current product offering. As the article points out rather clearly, prior to the Unibody Pros, upgradability wasn't something Apple necessarily handled all that well. As the owner of a 12" Aluminum PowerBook, I can attest to this fact. They were horrible to repair. The pre-retina Unibody machines were great to work on but they were anything but par for the course in Apple's mobile lineup.

The market has moved on. If there is one thing I trust Apple to do it's go where the money is, period. That's where they're going to go. People who upgrade and repair are a small demographic. The industry is moving to more and more integrated devices. Apple is not alone in this. And historically, design and vision—for better and for worse—trump practicality at times. The Unibody machines happened to be a time where design and vision aligned nicely with easy to fix portables.

Anyway, you've parroted this quote enough times that I'm not gonna bother replying again.



And as I have stated on multiple occasions, I don't care. The number of people replacing the internal SSDs on their machines is small enough. Cross that with penny-pinchers buying Apple hardware and you have a group almost as small as the remote researchers that are bummed about this. Apple does not care because this is a monetarily irrelevant group of people. They haven't tried to actively appeal to this crowd basically ever. Their answer to the netbook craze was a $999 laptop.

Not everyone has deep pockets, I get it. Don't buy tools you can't afford. Don't buy tools that don't meet your needs. I really don't understand this argument at all. BMW doesn't make a budget compact nor do they want to.

On the flip side, unlike my PCs, my Macs hold their value WAY better when I sell off my old machines offsetting a lot of the pain of upgrades anyway.



So what? If Apple cared about this they'd go for it. They don't. They don't care about gamers. They don't sell a consumer-grade user serviceable desktop. There are huge untapped markets they do not care about.

You want "Pro" to mean "user-serviceable" and "upgradable." It doesn't. It hasn't in the Apple world since the shift to rMBP and the trash can Pro. If there was a huge backlash among the user base, and not just a vocal minority, it would show in their sales figures and they would adjust. Given that they opted for lighter/thinner/more integrated after testing the waters in the "Pro" market for four years with this design, it's pretty clear they have some idea of what the vast majority of their user base is interested in.

Do I necessarily agree with this or like it? Doesn't matter. I was happy with my Air, rMBP, and TB MBP. When I need more machine, I buy new and sell old and moving old Mac hardware at a decent price is really, really easy to do.



Apparently not enough of them.



I don't know why they solder it to the board. I also don't actually care. I haven't upgraded the internals of any of my machines since they came standard with SSDs.

The fact that they chose to do so in one model but not the other implies there was some kind of technical reason. The fact that they went to the trouble of building a special device for data extraction implies there was a technical reason.

I think the people upgrading their own Macs have a really inflated idea of their numbers. Not only are they small enough that Apple doesn't bother appealing directly to them, but they're also small enough that Apple wouldn't have an interest in sabotaging them at the cost of increasing the expense and difficulty of their own repair shops.

Its not just the upgradablitily and making the product appealing to all folk.

You give the impression its okay to bin a perfect SSD if the logic board or RAM dies (my understanding is the Logic board and RAM are the least reliable verses SSD reliability).

What happens when the warranty ends and you have a bill for a perfect SSD to add to the repair of logic board.

The total cost will almost certain have folk think twice about the repair bill and 'total' the whole machine.

This is what I believe apple want - and I think its disgraceful.

They open the 2016 rMBP keynote with a very touching video about how their products help disabled people.

Yet disabled people are often the very people who dont have money to throw away needlessly as it appears you do.

BTW
Your posts ramble on like a parrot with respect.
 
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My 2015 rMBP 13" I'm pleased and smug to say can be upgraded to a 2TB SSD hard drive.
In fact I think 4TB Samsung is now available at a silly price.

Just a heads up, your pro won't accept any ol SSD. Only two companies appear to make compatible ones that I'm aware of (and it wasn't until recently that they even existed).

OWC and MCETECH offer compatible drives up to 1TB. I didn't think they existed since last I looked they hadn't. All the retina models with swappable drives are custom designs and require special drives at high markups for upgrades/replacements.

When a new MacBook came out, they typically were not compatible with the old SSD blades. Sometimes OWC had a compatible model right away and sometimes not. The 2015 took a long time.

EDIT: They aren't m.2 drives even though they look like them. See: https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/219918/Can+I+upgrade+the+SSD+in+a+2014+or+2015+MacBook+Air
 
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Just a heads up, your pro won't accept any ol SSD. Only two companies appear to make compatible ones that I'm aware of (and it wasn't until recently that they even existed).

OWC and MCETECH offer compatible drives up to 1TB. I didn't think they existed since last I looked they hadn't. All the retina models with swappable drives are custom designs and require special drives at high markups for upgrades/replacements.

When a new MacBook came out, they typically were not compatible with the old SSD blades. Sometimes OWC had a compatible model right away and sometimes not. The 2015 took a long time.

EDIT: They aren't m.2 drives even though they look like them. See: https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/219918/Can+I+upgrade+the+SSD+in+a+2014+or+2015+MacBook+Air

Thanks for taking the time to
reply with your helpful post.
Yep it seems only the 1TB for my 2015 rMBP for the time being.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-retina-display/2013-2014-2015
Good to see there is clearly a market as they wouldn't go to the trouble of selling
them otherwise.
Cheers
 
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Don't hold your breath on that. If anything Apple does, they are not going to give away a service for free out of warranty ( iPhone 6 touch disease). All i see here is a money making machine for apple. You all have fun with that!!!

Then you've missed out on apples legebdary customer service. Everything breaks, the question is how good is Apple about fixing it?

Now in the US you have almost no legal protection relying on the generosity of the company's warranty and in the case of Apple they will often replace all or portions of equipment for free under warranty and out of warranty repair is flat-rate.
 
I'm assuming USB3 off site backups to quote another forum member who is a better words smith than me:

"I have no idea what your industry is , nor do I care frankly, but in mine we have a major problem with the new MacBooks pros, because our researchers spend a lot of time in remote locations , so when their machines fail and have regularly in the past, we could remove the SSD and recover the valuable data . And loosing a days research before you get back to base camp is a major issue!!!!"
I expect that USB sticks get so small that you can just leave them connected, like we had with USB-A.

For very specialized cases like the above, you could just glue the MacBooks in a small briefcase, and include an external, connected SSD in there.
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Does it work if your drive is encrypted?
I think so, yes. They would just clone the volume and you'd be able to decrypt it.
 
Nice. It looks like they're invested in this design for the long haul. That's great that your data can be recovered.

Also, what's with the "Dongle," fetish? It's actually devolving the community here. It's trolling, and annoying.

Honestly, I just bought cables and bypassed the problem. It's forward thinking and smart. USB-C>USB-B, USB-C>Lightning, USB-C>USB-A, etc etc. Move forward... it's not 2006 anymore... We all knew progress would come, and it's progress I welcome. Apple just bypassed the desensitisation.
 
Apple, you are amazing. Keep up the great work! All this (besides the lack of Mac updates for years) is the reason why there are no Mac clones. Pathetic.
 
It's crippled. Accepting that reality is on YOU.

Because the SSD is soldered? That's a pretty long draw of the bow.

Regarding your other posts to why the MacBook Pro is crippled, you'll be eating these words this time next year once USB C is mainstream.

The reality is your inability to accept change.
 
Because the SSD is soldered? That's a pretty long draw of the bow.

Regarding your other posts to why the MacBook Pro is crippled, you'll be eating these words this time next year once USB C is mainstream.

The reality is your inability to accept change.
You mean the same way Thunderbolt has been mainstream since 2012?
 
Because the SSD is soldered? That's a pretty long draw of the bow.

Regarding your other posts to why the MacBook Pro is crippled, you'll be eating these words this time next year once USB C is mainstream.

The reality is your inability to accept change.

Soldered SSD, Soldered RAM, glued battery, that touch bar really sucks (gimmick), the trackpad is worse (tried it, its worse), the keyboard is worse than the chiclet one we've always used, lack of SD card slot (many of us use SD cards A LOT, i don't care if YOU dont) and YES the lack of at least ONE standard USB-A port to hold the tide until next year is a major kick in the teeth which you cannot make excuses for.

Cherry on top:

It's ludicrously expensive. $2,400 to start for a 15" is disgustingly overpriced. Sorry, but that's a rip off.

CRIPPLED.
 
This is sad to see any computer company employ such tactics. What other computer OEM goes this far to require such a contraption? To me this is like making a car battery impossible to replace as a home mechanic. I would not buy your car if the dealer tells me that only their repair shop can do the replacement.
High price is the primary reason I could not buy this but repairability is starting to tie it. Apple lost their minds with these laptops.
 
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