Because "Pro" means you can't repair it ;)

[RoskO]

Current SSD's under typical usage should be good for 20 years. That's not something to worry about.

I don't think that longevity is the only reason people replace drives. I personally have had a few SSDs die, and when they die they just die...there's no opportunity to run spinrite and get some data off, or revive, so you better be ready.

I also think that one of the Mac bragging points is that they "last forever", forever being 5-7yrs commonly stated on these forums. I think over a 5-7yr period a lot of people like upgrading just for storage space over any other reason, maybe more than preventative maintenance.

 

[therealseebs]

When I saw the title of this thread, I instantly assumed you'd be inside with more complaints. Out of curiosity, do you have anything positive to say about the new MacBook Pro? Please name something you like about it. I'm not being sarcastic...I'm genuinely interested in knowing what features in the new laptop perk you up.

Honestly? I got nothin'. This is the worst Apple experience I have had in nearly 30 years of Mac use. The highlight being that the built-in display on mine has developed flaws. And I can't check for what's very likely a loose cable, because of course they had to use special new screws that don't use any previously used standard bits.

 

[chabig]

The machine is overpriced, not user-serviceable at all (read: built-in obsolescence), lacks ports, has GPU glitching issues, and now we're hearing about three-finger drag issues.

I feel the same way about Intel CPUs in general. Heck, if I can't replace the ALU, it's not worth ****...and don't get me started about all of the times I've had to upgrade the virtual memory control circuitry. By the way, the 13" MacBook Pro I bought today has four universal ports. How exactly is that lacking?

 

[RoskO]

I feel the same way about Intel CPUs in general. Heck, if I can't replace the ALU, it's not worth ****...and don't get me started about all of the times I've had to upgrade the virtual memory control circuitry. By the way, the 13" MacBook Pro I bought today has four universal ports. How exactly is that lacking?

People including me feel that it's lacking ports because you have to buy a dongle to use existing external hard drives you might have, existing SDCards/Cameras, HDMI, Displayport etc.

Other systems have those "universal ports" too.

 

[EndlessBuffoonery]

Because as everybody knows, the key to something being for professionals is whether something is user upgradeable. Like cars, for example. We all know that all the fastest and most efficient cars made today use carburetors that the consumer can easily work on at home.
[doublepost=1479532825][/doublepost]

People including me feel that it's lacking ports because you have to buy a dongle to use existing external hard drives you might have, existing SDCards/Cameras, HDMI, Displayport etc.

Other systems have those "universal ports" too.

Why would you need a dongle? Why not just use a regular USB-C cable?

 

[Queen6]

That's why a real pro has a contingency plan (aka a backup machine)

This also applies to some other very important components such as mobile phones and tablets. Smartphones are even more important than computers nowadays.

Very true I always travel with a primary & secondary machines, as the cost of downtime versus the cost of the hardware can be significantly more, nor is it remotely professional not to be able to deliver to the client for the same reasons. I don't like that very little is user upgradable, equally it`s an acceptable trade off given the portability of some notebooks offer.

So spend over $3000 on a machine that you need another machine to backup....that's genius right there. Glad I don't hate money as much as some people.

Some of us see this as insurance, and over time a solid investment..

Q-6

 

[RoskO]

Because as everybody knows, the key to something being for professionals is whether something is user upgradeable. Like cars, for example. We all know that all the fastest and most efficient cars made today use carburetors that the consumer can easily work on at home.
[doublepost=1479532825][/doublepost]

Why would you need a dongle? Why not just use a regular USB-C cable?

carburetors were easier to work on? Fuel injectors can't be swapped out or upgrade? Geezus you people have bad analogies .

So you can plug in your iphone to the new macbook directly?
You can go USB-C to a USB drive you had previously (like a 3.0 or 2.0 drive)?
You don't call it a dongle?

 

[EndlessBuffoonery]

carburetors were easier to work on? Fuel injectors can't be swapped out or upgrade? Geezus you people have bad analogies .

So you can plug in your iphone to the new macbook directly?
You can go USB-C to a USB drive you had previously (like a 3.0 or 2.0 drive)?
You don't call it a dongle?

If fuel injectors needed to be designed in such a way as to not be user removable and this resulted in a more fuel efficient car, would you be saying the same thing? Wow, you're bad at analogies.

 

[ixxx69]

So you can plug in your iphone to the new macbook directly?

Yes.

You can go USB-C to a USB drive you had previously (like a 3.0 or 2.0 drive)?

Yes, for most devices that have a detachable cable.

You don't call it a dongle?

I call it a cable.

 

[therealseebs]

If fuel injectors needed to be designed in such a way as to not be user removable and this resulted in a more fuel efficient car, would you be saying the same thing? Wow, you're bad at analogies.

I don't think that analogy really works. There's no evidence that the not-user-removable trait is improving efficiency in any obvious way, and the costs are huge. The ability to swap parts is pretty fundamental to cost-effective or timely repair.

Think about it this way: With old-style macs, where you could replace RAM or storage, Apple needed to keep a supply of logic boards, a supply of memory, and a supply of storage. They could then repair any machine that came in with bad RAM, storage, or logic board.

Now, they need to have at least one logic board for every conceivable configuration, and if they don't have enough of a given board, they have to send off for one. They can't swap the logic board, or the memory, without also swapping the SSD, so ANY part failing results in data loss now. Used to be you could get a logic board replaced, or memory replaced, without losing data.

This is absolutely, unequivocally, dramatically worse in terms of cost of repair, speed of repair, and customer experience; you are more likely to lose data, and repairs will cost more.

That's the thing, I guess: Car engineers are making tradeoffs, and keeping multiple design goals in mind.

Apple's designing for only one thing, and everything else is abandoned entirely.

 

[ixxx69]

I don't think that analogy really works. There's no evidence that the not-user-removable trait is improving efficiency in any obvious way, and the costs are huge. The ability to swap parts is pretty fundamental to cost-effective or timely repair.

Think about it this way: With old-style macs, where you could replace RAM or storage, Apple needed to keep a supply of logic boards, a supply of memory, and a supply of storage. They could then repair any machine that came in with bad RAM, storage, or logic board.

Now, they need to have at least one logic board for every conceivable configuration, and if they don't have enough of a given board, they have to send off for one. They can't swap the logic board, or the memory, without also swapping the SSD, so ANY part failing results in data loss now. Used to be you could get a logic board replaced, or memory replaced, without losing data.

This is absolutely, unequivocally, dramatically worse in terms of cost of repair, speed of repair, and customer experience; you are more likely to lose data, and repairs will cost more.

That's the thing, I guess: Car engineers are making tradeoffs, and keeping multiple design goals in mind.

Apple's designing for only one thing, and everything else is abandoned entirely.

Some of the terminology he used may not be exactly accurate (I don't know frack about cars either), but cars are almost always a great analogy for computers.

Modern cars are not designed to be serviced by the typical car owner. Even if you are a "professional" driver, (e.g. an uber driver), there's little you can do to fix your own car. The equipment and technical expertise necessary to service your own vehicle is well beyond 95% of typical car owners. People know how to drive cars, not how to fix them.

There are people who really miss those days, but it would be utterly ridiculous to expect auto makers to cater to those people... there's just not enough customers for those cars (and that's aside from whether vehicles could achieve the mileage and low emissions without the computers that control fuel injection systems, etc.).

The same is with Apple and the computer industry as a whole as they move away from user serviceable computers and as they become more like any other appliance that you own. No average person is servicing or upgrading their own car, TV, refrigerator, etc.

We get it. You don't like it. Okay, well buy something else and keep buying it until they too stop making upgradeable/user serviceable computers, which all will do eventually. We're transitioning to a new era of computing devices.

 

[Wildkraut]

From the technical point of view, many broken home appliances usually can be repaired by replacing some tiny capacitor.
But who does that?
Nobody anymore, people just trash their stuff.

Once home appliances came with a technical drawing of the circuit board, to make third party service repair possible.
These days are over, see the SSD, CPU, RAM as any other chip soldered on the mainboard.
Just a matter of time till they stop mentioning it in the specifications, too.

Once we bought special controllers and sound card brands for our computers.
Now a day we have no interests for these kind of spec anymore.
They make sound over the speakers, and they can access data, that's all that matters now.

Hell, once I even got a replacement bios chip, because a firmware flash went bad.

But as my pre poster "ixxx69" said: We're transitioning to a new era of computing devices.

 

[EnderBeta]

I feel the same way about Intel CPUs in general. Heck, if I can't replace the ALU, it's not worth ****...and don't get me started about all of the times I've had to upgrade the virtual memory control circuitry. By the way, the 13" MacBook Pro I bought today has four universal ports. How exactly is that lacking?

You're utterly ridiculous trying to compare the CPU upgradability to a machine. It's laughable. Seriously...
[doublepost=1479558816][/doublepost]

From the technical point of view, many broken home appliances usually can be repaired by replacing some tiny capacitor.
But who does that?
Nobody anymore, people just trash their stuff.

Once home appliances came with a technical drawing of the circuit board, to make third party service repair possible.
These days are over, see the SSD, CPU, RAM as any other chip soldered on the mainboard.
Just a matter of time till they stop mentioning it in the specifications, too.

Once we bought special controllers and sound card brands for our computers.
Now a day we have no interests for these kind of spec anymore.
They make sound over the speakers, and they can access data, that's all that matters now.

Hell, once I even got a replacement bios chip, because a firmware flash went bad.

But as my pre poster "ixxx69" said: We're transitioning to a new era of computing devices.

Ok I'll call your bluff, tell me who else is soldering on memory to their computers and who is making it hard or soldering their drives to the machines too.

The only oe I can think of is Microsoft but the is a clear well Apple customers allow it so we'll do it too because we want to replace them.

I don't see any o the other manufacturers doing it.

 

[David58117]

Lol I never understand why people use car analogies for computers.

I mean - were on a computer forum, were all knowledgeable of the subject and enthusiasts - why not make points with topics we all understand and cover what's actually being discussed?

On car forums, do they resort to computer analogies to make their point?

 

[Sam Luis Obispo]

The spotify bug was apparently writing about 700 GB per day to the disk. Apparently Firefox and Chrome also have heavy writes to the disk. At the Spotify rate, how long would the average ssd last? Reading through various forums, someone through out the number that a ssd survives about 600 TB of writes. At 700 Gb/day for the Spotify bug, a ssd would die within two and a half years! Seems too short a life for the amount of money invested. When you have a hard drive, you can sometimes get a sense that the hard drive is working; maybe not so noticeable for a ssd and heavy writes could go undetected.

Ability to replace a drive would seem to be a very important consideration...

 

[Queen6]

My own 13" rMBP is now just 2 years old with close to 17TB of write to the SDD with a wear level of 90%, by the time the SSD has appreciable wear the computer will be well & truly redundant. Admittedly I would prefer an M.2 slot to allow for future upgrades in capacity, equally that`s never going happen with Apple...

Q-6

 

[richpjr]

Some of the terminology he used may not be exactly accurate (I don't know frack about cars either), but cars are almost always a great analogy for computers.

Modern cars are not designed to be serviced by the typical car owner. Even if you are a "professional" driver, (e.g. an uber driver), there's little you can do to fix your own car. The equipment and technical expertise necessary to service your own vehicle is well beyond 95% of typical car owners. People know how to drive cars, not how to fix them.

There are people who really miss those days, but it would be utterly ridiculous to expect auto makers to cater to those people... there's just not enough customers for those cars (and that's aside from whether vehicles could achieve the mileage and low emissions without the computers that control fuel injection systems, etc.).

The same is with Apple and the computer industry as a whole as they move away from user serviceable computers and as they become more like any other appliance that you own. No average person is servicing or upgrading their own car, TV, refrigerator, etc.

We get it. You don't like it. Okay, well buy something else and keep buying it until they too stop making upgradeable/user serviceable computers, which all will do eventually. We're transitioning to a new era of computing devices.

Cars may not be the best analogy. While I agree that most people won't ever work on their cars, just like most people won't ever work on their computers, there is still a lot of difference. People mentioned carburetors previously - if the carburetor goes out, I could take it to a shop and have it replaced (or really get daring and try and fix it myself). The Apple way, I'd take it to the shop and they'd replace the entire engine.

Having said that, laptops and desktops are vastly different things. You can rebuild or upgrade desktop computers piece by piece for years. About the only thing you can do in a laptop is replace memory and storage. I happen to have done both in my current laptop that bought me another year or so with it so that was nice. And some feel that Apple's obsession with thinness is why these options aren't available. I personally think it's more likely planned obsolescence than that. but understand what I am getting with the 15.4 MBP I have on order.

 

[dyn]

So spend over $3000 on a machine that you need another machine to backup....that's genius right there. Glad I don't hate money as much as some people.

It's either that or losing your business because you can't do the work. Some contracts have clauses that allow the other party to sue you if you don't meet whatever is in the contract. The cost of those things are fare higher than $3000. Bankruptcy isn't a nice thing to go through. Having a contingency plan (which doesn't necessarily have to be "buy the same computer twice"!!!) is not a genius thing, it's just common sense.

Why are you defending the removal to replace the storage now in addition to the system memory? This laptop really is just a mobile iPadBook now.

I'm not defending anything or anyone, I'm just giving you a kick under your butt to snap out of the victim syndrome. If you set up a business it is your own responsibility that it survives. If you have no contingency plan for things like tools (i.e. a computer, smartphone, etc.) breaking down, fire breaking out, etc. then you have no right complaining either. You choose to not have it so you deal with the consequences of not having it. When you are in court in front of the judge, that's exactly what you'll hear from the judge when you apply for bankruptcy.

I'm done with Apple. Ridiculous.

That's fine but going somewhere else is not going to fix the problem. You still have no contingency plan.

I'm not talking about other people, just voicing my general frustration I suppose with the direction they are headed. I'm someone that can upgrade/repair etc...it's nice option to have. I'll take 7mm more thickness for that nice to have.

It is indeed a nice option to have for those who can fix it but with the majority of users having almost no clue about IT I can understand why companies are not making things this way.

I'd also argue that, if hardware isn't important, then what is that crazy touch bar, and why does it (the hardware) cost so much if it's not important? It's all about the hardware to software integration and ecosystem for apple and apple ecosystem lovers. I'm not one of them, but I used to be, I used to like the MBP as a dual purpose win/mac machine too.

The touch bar is all about interfacing with the software itself, with the workflows within the software. It is one of the aspects that clearly show how unimportant hardware has become. It's not about raw computing power but more and more about the software itself and how we interface with it. That's what touch bar, touchscreens, VR and AR are all about. The box it all runs on doesn't really matter because it can be anywhere.
This is partially the reason for a higher price. The issue here is the amount of hardware they sell. The less you sell the higher the price (which is just basic economics). Since the numbers show a yearly decrease in numbers of desktop and notebooks machines being sold it is imminent that prices go up. It won't be like that forever because they'll probably come up with something else they can sell. Expect other OEMs to follow.

I know a guy who does this. Has a second computer that does nothing but sit around being identical so he can swap to it.

That's the most expensive version of a contingency plan. You could buy the machine from a 3rd party that offers a service where you can have a loaner notebook. Some work with a desktop and a notebook set up. It might limit them when the notebook dies but at least they can still get things done.

But the thing is, the usual plan would be "move the drive into the other machine if the drive still works". And now we can't. Pretty disappointed.

That doesn't always work either. I have had occasions where the user (they are responsible for their data, not us system administrators) still had to revert to the backup. It's just a nice thing to have when it works as it saves time but one shouldn't rely on it. The main thing here is that you still need a second machine so that still means you need to set aside a certain amount of money (the aforementioned $3000 for example).

carburetors were easier to work on? Fuel injectors can't be swapped out or upgrade? Geezus you people have bad analogies .

So you can plug in your iphone to the new macbook directly?
You can go USB-C to a USB drive you had previously (like a 3.0 or 2.0 drive)?
You don't call it a dongle?

You are clearly not getting the analogy then. The answer to your first question is "hell no, they are too complex" and that is exactly the same answer to "RAM is easy to work on?" for the majority of people. Most users have no clue about the computer and are unable to work on both hardware and software. That's why IT is a separate profession and why there are sooooooo many companies outsource their IT to companies that have IT as their core business. It's the main reason why IBM sold off their hardware divisions bar the midframe/mainframe one. It's why I have a job each day: users can't do it but I can so I do it for them.

All computers are user replaceable; the problem is that you have to be skilled in electrical engineering and have to have the appropriate tools for servicing the machine

(I don't know frack about cars either)

^^ that's what the analogy is about. Replace cars with computers and voila, you have the average user. This applies to many other subjects and is the main reason why we have all the different professions we have. Humans are unable to know everything.

 

[RoskO]

^^ that's what the analogy is about. Replace cars with computers and voila, you have the average user. This applies to many other subjects and is the main reason why we have all the different professions we have. Humans are unable to know everything.

That's funny, I've actually walked my father through upgrading the ram and hard drive on a 2008 macbook pro, it took about 30 minutes on the phone. But hey...keep preaching it, if you say it enough it's true.

Maybe the average users don't care, but my 60+yr old father is pretty average when it comes to computer repair.

If he didn't have me on the phone, there are a million tututoria/ifixit/youtube videos that show you how to do trivial expansion upgrades on just about any laptop that allows it, aside from the new non-servicable models of course.

 

[dyn]

It's funny that you actually expect someone who has been a sysadmin for years and has more than thousands of examples that contradict yours to expect to take you even remotely seriously with a very meagre example of only 1 person. Not to mention you are just "some guy on the internet clearly not having an idea of what a sysadmin does".

You are not even realising that the fact he needed you to walk him through is the entire problem we are talking about. The fact that someone needs to call someone else to help them is a big hint itself. Not many will know someone who can help them and those who do usually end up paying anyway. So not only does it cost you time, it also costs you money. If you are having to call someone and pay them, why on earth would you do the work yourself and also waste time on it?

And then I'm not even mentioning the fact that you not only need to know what to buy nor that you need to know which tools to use (as well as actually have those tools).

 

[Wildkraut]

You're utterly ridiculous trying to compare the CPU upgradability to a machine. It's laughable. Seriously...
[doublepost=1479558816][/doublepost]
Ok I'll call your bluff, tell me who else is soldering on memory to their computers and who is making it hard or soldering their drives to the machines too.

The only oe I can think of is Microsoft but the is a clear well Apple customers allow it so we'll do it too because we want to replace them.

I don't see any o the other manufacturers doing it.

Well any tablet and phone manufacturer is doing this already, incl. major current laptops like the Surface, Chrome Books, MacBooks.
Intel is even planning to build soldered CPUs.
Just a matter of time, till the others follow the same route for laptops, too.
You may delay it for yourself by jumping on another boat, but that's the unstoppable future.
Things are getting smaller, with a dense design, unreplaceable parts and propiatary interfaces.

Welcome!
[doublepost=1479575079][/doublepost]

The spotify bug was apparently writing about 700 GB per day to the disk. Apparently Firefox and Chrome also have heavy writes to the disk. At the Spotify rate, how long would the average ssd last? Reading through various forums, someone through out the number that a ssd survives about 600 TB of writes. At 700 Gb/day for the Spotify bug, a ssd would die within two and a half years! Seems too short a life for the amount of money invested. When you have a hard drive, you can sometimes get a sense that the hard drive is working; maybe not so noticeable for a ssd and heavy writes could go undetected.

Ability to replace a drive would seem to be a very important consideration...

They just have to use something decent like Apple Music.

 

[therealseebs]

Well any tablet and phone manufacturer is doing this already, incl. major current laptops like the Surface, Chrome Books, MacBooks.

Chromebooks are $200 disposable hardware. I don't expect a $3,500 machine to be built like a $200 gadget.

I don't think "everyone else will eventually make things worse" is itself a good justification for making things worse.

 

[dyn]

It's already the norm in the world of servers. You don't replace components but you replace the entire server (in most cases the server is just a blade). Take a look at Ceph for example.

 

[RoskO]

It's funny that you actually expect someone who has been a sysadmin for years and has more than thousands of examples that contradict yours to expect to take you even remotely seriously with a very meagre example of only 1 person. Not to mention you are just "some guy on the internet clearly not having an idea of what a sysadmin does".

You are not even realising that the fact he needed you to walk him through is the entire problem we are talking about. The fact that someone needs to call someone else to help them is a big hint itself. Not many will know someone who can help them and those who do usually end up paying anyway. So not only does it cost you time, it also costs you money. If you are having to call someone and pay them, why on earth would you do the work yourself and also waste time on it?

And then I'm not even mentioning the fact that you not only need to know what to buy nor that you need to know which tools to use (as well as actually have those tools).

ahhh...there you go making those assumptions again. I'm just some guy on the internet, but you are the almighty sysadmin? please.

For the record, I used to do sysadmin work, however I have moved to software engineering in the past 15yrs, I still do plenty of sysadmin work, stop making assumptions.

Apparently you don't realize how many millions of people ifixit and other sites have actually helped, but you can't seem to get past your own arrogance to see that.

It's OK that you like the new one, it's OK that I don't like the new one as much as the previous model, we are both entitled to our opinions right? It's really OK that we both have opposing reasons why not to like, or to like too.

 

[protoxx]

Current SSD's under typical usage should be good for 20 years. That's not something to worry about.

Interestingly Samsung was offering on there most expensive Pro SSD memory 10 year warranty but, have slashed that to 5 year for their current top Pro series and 3 year for the non-Pro version of SSD memory.

Besides getting larger memory, there is also getting faster memory. Not all ssd memory is equal. Some considerably faster and getting faster. It also depends on the type of memory used. Some is faster and more durable.