As posted, the 13" always had 3MB cache and 256MB (shared) VRAM.
And while System Profiler apparently states 1.5 gigabit, has anyone published any benchmarks to prove that it makes any difference compared to the prior model 13"?
I have to say that the new 13" MBP is a huge improvement over the Unibody MacBook. I don't see a difference, in fact, the only difference I see is an improvement.
What an idiotic thread. You'd be hard-pressed to get the fastest SSD to hit the 1.5GB limit. Yes, they have 'theoretical' maximum throughputs- which is why they're theoretical. They tend not to apply in real-world situations. The only way this will really affect you is if you throw in 2 or more SSDs in a raid array.
What would be hilarious if you guys returning your mbps because of this are paying restocking fees.
Jesus the amount of hyperbole on this forum is amazing.
I bet its just a firmware update. The controller is the nvidia chip which is the same as before. Its not like that chip only supports SATA I. If you make enough noise apple will release a new firmware update for it and that will put your speed back to what the chip is capable of
Okay, I think some people need to sit down and take a deep breath and consider some facts.
We don't know if this is intentional or an error, and if it will be fixed in a firmware update. It may be that in a week this is all moot.
Even for owners of the fastest SSDs, this doesn't make any real world difference. Why? Pretty simple - even if you can do 250 MB/s sequential transfers, you still need something to transfer to/from that can hit those speeds. With Gigabit Ethernet, you're hitting 100MB/s max, and almost certainly less. FW800 maxes out at 80MB/s generally. There aren't any faster interfaces available. If this were a Mac Pro where you could be transferring between multiple drives using SATA, then it would be a problem, but it's not.
The only time that it's going to matter is if you're doing a substantial amount of copying on the same disk, or if you're somehow generating >150MB/s worth of data (in which case you're most likely doing some sort of research, and using a Mac Pro).
Even when you're copying on the same disk, it's very rare that it would make any real-world difference. Say for example you're copying a dual-layer DVD image (~8.5 GB). Even assuming you could copy data on the same drive at the max read rate (which obviously you can't), the difference between copying that data at 250MB/s (roughly the max read rate of a Vertex - X25-M is a little lower) and 150MB/s (max theoretical for SATA I) is 23 seconds. The real world difference will be far lower (and in fact speeds will be under the SATA I threshold, so again moot). How many people here honestly do those sorts of data transfers regularly enough that 20 seconds makes a big difference?
Finally, in no way does this impact the major selling point of SSDs - the random reads/writes and access times. Both are in no way constrained by the SATA bus.
Does it suck that they've decreased the spec in one specific case in a new generation of MBP? Sure. But it doesn't make any performance difference outside of benchmarks. And if you just want a machine that puts up pretty benchmarks, build a PC with desktop parts, and then go get a life.