Faster 'NVM Express' SSD Interface Arrives on Retina MacBook and OS X 10.10.3

[manu chao]

That would be roughly 30 Movies in compressed 1080p. It's not a lot, come on now

Also, DVDs? And then people call ME old.

I just found this piece of data from Mozy, almost 75% of their users fit within a 50 GB of data backup plan. I think those 75% might just be able to afford to store that on SSDs.
http://www.cloudbackupreviews.com/mozy-price-calculator.php?nComputers=1&nGB=200

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That would be roughly 30 Movies in compressed 1080p. It's not a lot, come on now

Also, DVDs? And then people call ME old.

Most of purchased downloads are 1080p though. I have right now 97 movies and 51 TV show episodes. Maybe the difference is that I watch most movies in the theatre.

 

[deviant]

I just found this piece of data from Mozy, almost 75% of their users fit within a 50 GB of data backup plan. I think those 75% might just be able to afford to store that on SSDs.
http://www.cloudbackupreviews.com/mozy-price-calculator.php?nComputers=1&nGB=200

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Most of purchased downloads are 1080p though. I have right now 97 movies and 51 TV show episodes. Maybe the difference is that I watch most movies in the theatre.

Having a collection is not about where watching it. It's about "having" it. As in "i can watch it whenever i want, in the highest quality there is"
But i realize you tried to make appear yourself as some kind of an "elitist" who watches movies in theaters. That little sarcastic note was received, but i don't really care. For all i care you could watch your movies on a iphone 4. Having a collection has absolutely nothing to do with watching/not watching movies in theaters. So go brag somewhere else

Also, you said what, 300gb? You must have those 97 movies in 1400MB Dvdrips or something, lol.

 

[alfonsog]

After checking out the Macbook in store I was impressed. I would have bought one but I just don't use laptops or tablets, only my Mac Pro, iPhone, and soon the WATCH in 2 weeks.

 

[JDuggan]

Quietly

 

[Analog Kid]

Awesome. Faster = better

Another nail on the HDD cofin.

Not even close. HDDs are for storage, SSDs are for the system. Is it THAT hard to understand? I hate to read this stuff over and over again. HDDs are CHEAP. You couldn't possibly afford a 50TB NAS storage filled with SSDs.

OMG! OMG! You're so dumb!!

I have no idea why deviant's statement was even the least bit controversial... He was responding to the idea that HDDs are dying out. They aren't.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2014/02/10/hdd-decline-expected-to-slow-and-reverse/

Show me someone with an SSD Time Machine and I'll show you someone with more money than sense.

SSDs are great for pulling in small amounts of data quickly, but they are incredibly expensive for bulk storage. If accessing a particular block of data is a significant fraction of system time, SSD is the right place for it. If it's only accessed occasionally, HDD is the right place.

Flash is getting cheaper, but our appetite for data is growing rapidly as well.

The trend we're seeing is to put SSDs in portable devices, and push bulk storage out to secondary rotating media or, more commonly now, the cloud. The cloud is entirely driven by rotating media.

So no, HDDs aren't dying. They're just less visible to most people.

 

[deviant]

I have no idea why deviant's statement was even the least bit controversial... He was responding to the idea that HDDs are dying out. They aren't.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2014/02/10/hdd-decline-expected-to-slow-and-reverse/

Show me someone with an SSD Time Machine and I'll show you someone with more money than sense.

SSDs are great for pulling in small amounts of data quickly, but they are incredibly expensive for bulk storage. If accessing a particular block of data is a significant fraction of system time, SSD is the right place for it. If it's only accessed occasionally, HDD is the right place.

Flash is getting cheaper, but our appetite for data is growing rapidly as well.

The trend we're seeing is to put SSDs in portable devices, and push bulk storage out to secondary rotating media or, more commonly now, the cloud. The cloud is entirely driven by rotating media.

So no, HDDs aren't dying. They're just less visible to most people.

SHHHH, you trying to make too much sense here, brother!

People think that because everything is online now, in the cloud they say, they don't need storage anymore. Little do they know that everything they think is in the "cloud" is actually on enterprise, slow, old-people's HDDs.
Then the cloud doesn't work so they say "screw the cloud, too unreliable, i gotta have my own cloud" and go buy some WD 3TB Personal Cloud or stuff like that.
But hey, i'm crazy, who needs more than 512GB.
Just like you can't see more than 24fps...
And you can't see beyond 300PPI.
Right?... .

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Not even close. HDDs are for storage, SSDs are for the system. Is it THAT hard to understand? I hate to read this stuff over and over again. HDDs are CHEAP. You couldn't possibly afford a 50TB NAS storage filled with SSDs.

You're both right. It's all a matter of perspective.

Does this give us another reason to prefer SSD/Flash over HDD for internal storage? Yes.

Does it help kill HDD as a mass storage medium (1 TB no longer qualifies as "mass")? No, it's nowhere close to a crippling blow. The "nail in the coffin" for that kind of usage is when/if Flash storage costs less than HDD; when the space, cooling, and maintenance costs of cloud data centers exceed the cost differential between SSD and HDD; and cloud-based data can move faster than HDDs can spit it out.

There has always been a continuum in storage methods, from fastest/most expensive, to slowest/cheapest. I remember when punch cards were slowest/cheapest. Not that many years later, substituting a 20 MB (that's right, MB) HDD for the second floppy drive in a dual-floppy system was the expensive option...

 

[gnasher729]

As it is software, I hope it will come to existing hardware in an OS update.

It is already there in 10.10.3.

Unfortunately my 2010 MBP says "This computer doesn't contain any NVMExpress devices".

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floppy disks... my god, what does THAT have to do with anything? yea, hdds are still inside new imacs (which is a shame, sure). i was talking in GENERAL. SSDs are not killing HDDs anytime soon. they have different application.

A floppy disk weighs about 20 grams and holds 1.4 MB of data.
My MBP has a 1TB hard drive. It holds as much data as about 700,000 floppy disks, which would weigh about 14 tons.
Yes, talking about floppy disks is total nonsense.

CDs are about 15 grams and hold 650MB. So my hard drive holds about 1,530 CDs which is about 23kg. Put them into jewel cases and you have about 90kg.

 

[manu chao]

But i realize you tried to make appear yourself as some kind of an "elitist" who watches movies in theaters. That little sarcastic note was received, but i don't really care. For all i care you could watch your movies on a iphone 4. Having a collection has absolutely nothing to do with watching/not watching movies in theaters. So go brag somewhere else

If people want to feel insulted, there is nothing I can do about that. My point was mainly that I might watch 100 movies a year, only 10 or 20 of those are watched at home. In other words, despite watching a lot of movies (I don't know how many exactly but certainly north of one thousand), I don't have those movies stored on disk. Another reason for this is movie rentals or now Netflix, those movies don't need local storage.

But to help you feel vindicated about me being elitist, I'll throw in another bit for you: I don't own a TV, I have never owned a TV, my parents didn't own a TV. Hope that makes you feel better.

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I have no idea why deviant's statement was even the least bit controversial... He was responding to the idea that HDDs are dying out. They aren't.

Well, they are dying out in laptops. In particular in Mac laptops which is likely the brand of laptops most people on Macrumors use.

Show me someone with an SSD Time Machine and I'll show you someone with more money than sense.

Deviant's point was that SSDs are (only) for the system. And that is evidently wrong, lots of people, in particular those buying Mac laptops, only have an SSD for storage (for primary storage, not backups).

SSDs are great for pulling in small amounts of data quickly, but they are incredibly expensive for bulk storage.

That all depends how much of bulk storage you need.

If it's only accessed occasionally, HDD is the right place.

Unless, you don't mind spending another couple of hundred Dollars for the simplicity of not having to deal with two drives and dividing up all your files between them.

 

[Santabean2000]

You're both right. It's all a matter of perspective.

Does this give us another reason to prefer SSD/Flash over HDD for internal storage? Yes.

Does it help kill HDD as a mass storage medium (1 TB tno longer qualifies as "mass")? No, it's nowhere close to a crippling blow. The "nail in the coffin" for that kind of usage is when/if Flash storage costs less than HDD; when the space, cooling, and maintenance costs of cloud data centers exceed the cost differential between SSD and HDD; and cloud-based data can move faster than HDDs can spit it out.

There has always been a continuum in storage methods, from fastest/most expensive, to slowest/cheapest. I remember when punch cards were slowest/cheapest. Not that many years later, substituting a 20 MB (that's right, MB) HDD for the second floppy drive in a dual-floppy system was the expensive option...

The original article was talking about a MacBook, not 'mass'/enterprise solutions. And in this context, the HDD is dead!

Your last point proves what I'm trying to say; at one time HDDs were the 'expensive but fast' option. Clearly things change.

 

[repoman27]

No, just next drive series.

XP941 boards were "F"

Early Apple SM951 are "G"

And these latest are "H"

The bit I find interesting is the "AP" prefix. We've seen Apple use "SM" for Samsung, "SD" for SanDisk and "TS" for Toshiba... So I'd reckon "AP" points to Apple and this may be a semi-custom version of the Marvell 88SS1093 controller.

The insane thing here is it looks like Apple is now shipping their own custom SSD controller, perhaps in an attempt to hedge against relying too heavily on Samsung as an SSD supplier. I'm sure there were also power and size optimization concerns with the new MacBook that may have played a part in the decision to roll their own. We'll probably have to wait for the iFixit and Chipworks tear-downs to get the gory details.

It is already there in 10.10.3.

Unfortunately my 2010 MBP says "This computer doesn't contain any NVMExpress devices".

To clarify, only the new MacBook (Retina 12-inch, Early 2015) is shipping with an NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) based SSD. NVMe support is a function of the SSD controller (the hardware chip that interfaces with the NAND flash memory chips). Intel is the only vendor I'm aware of currently shipping a client NVMe SSD (the SSD 750 released just 9 days ago), although OCZ will supposedly roll out a client version of their JetExpress controller in H2'15. Of course you do also need chipset and OS support in order to boot from an NVMe drive, but apparently Apple has taken care of the OS part with Yosemite 10.10.3.

 

[Analog Kid]

Well, they are dying out in laptops. In particular in Mac laptops which is likely the brand of laptops most people on Macrumors use.

Deviant's point was that SSDs are (only) for the system. And that is evidently wrong, lots of people, in particular those buying Mac laptops, only have an SSD for storage (for primary storage, not backups).

That all depends how much of bulk storage you need.

Unless, you don't mind spending another couple of hundred Dollars for the simplicity of not having to deal with two drives and dividing up all your files between them.

Again, not sure what you're arguing with here. He didn't say that they're only for the system, as in you must never, ever, under severe penalty, put user data on them. Neither did I. They are simply most cost effective for that use.

Santabean2000 made a general statement: another nail in the HDD coffin.

deviant gave a general response: that's not even close to true.

We've also made the general statement that SDDs have strengths for certain uses, and HDDs have strengths for certain uses that will ensure they stick around for quite a while longer.

Santanbean's statement was generally wrong, perhaps because it didn't capture the full nuance of their view. Deviant's was generally correct. You can try to construct narrow readings in which the opposite is true, but that would just be trolling.

I don't think anyone here is saying that spinny disks are here to stay in your iPad or Macbook air, or that nobody puts their pictures on the same drive they boot from. You're jousting windmills...

 

[MacOG728893]

It is already there in 10.10.3.
Unfortunately my 2010 MBP says "This computer doesn't contain any NVMExpress devices".

Unfortunately, my 2013 iMac with a 512GB PCIe SSD says the exact same thing. Can someone enlighten me why the MacBook is different or how the SSD hardware is improved in that machine to take advantage of this?

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

The bit I find interesting is the "AP" prefix. We've seen Apple use "SM" for Samsung, "SD" for SanDisk and "TS" for Toshiba... So I'd reckon "AP" points to Apple and this may be a semi-custom version of the Marvell 88SS1093 controller.

The insane thing here is it looks like Apple is now shipping their own custom SSD controller, perhaps in an attempt to hedge against relying too heavily on Samsung as an SSD supplier.

More likely to become more proprietary. Surely there is "special code" in their controller that disallows god-knows-what (maybe using the SSD in a non-Apple computer?). When Apple does something, it's usually for the wrong reason.

 

[frankly]

Is this in the new retina MacBook Pro 13" (with force touch)

No.

You realize i was making a point that SSDs can't KILL HDDs? Goddammit think about people just having a movie collection or their favorite tv shows or something. That would require, say, 2-3TB. What are you gonna do, spend more money on your SSDs to store MOVIES which don't require anything as fast as SSDs than on your entire COMPUTER?
Man, it's like talking to a wall...

Can't? That is why everyone is up in arms about your posts. Are you really going to put your stake in the sand with can't? SSDs absolutely WILL replace spinning platters. That isn't going to happen tomorrow but we are very very close to the time when consumer machines will no longer be available with spinning platters. Apple has two machines left in their lineup with spinning platters. They will not last much longer. Also, SSDs will continue to grow in capacity and speed while reducing in price. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see this. Just look at the price/speed/capacity changes in the past five years. We are seeing speeds double year to year and prices drop quickly. What do you think that will look like in five years?

I agree with you that it will take longer to move away from spinning discs in servers, but that will happen too. There are too many pluses in the column for SSDs and the few minuses will start evaporating, one by one.

Finally, as the market for SSDs continues to grow, you will see not only the price of SSDs go down, but at some point you will see the price of HDDs go up. This will happen as the demand for them starts to wane. Less people will be buying them, less people will be making them, and the rules of economics tell us that the price will go up when that happens. This will continue until SSDs are actually cheeper per GB.

I have no idea why deviant's statement was even the least bit controversial... He was responding to the idea that HDDs are dying out. They aren't.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2014/02/10/hdd-decline-expected-to-slow-and-reverse/

Show me someone with an SSD Time Machine and I'll show you someone with more money than sense.

SSDs are great for pulling in small amounts of data quickly, but they are incredibly expensive for bulk storage. If accessing a particular block of data is a significant fraction of system time, SSD is the right place for it. If it's only accessed occasionally, HDD is the right place.

Flash is getting cheaper, but our appetite for data is growing rapidly as well.

The trend we're seeing is to put SSDs in portable devices, and push bulk storage out to secondary rotating media or, more commonly now, the cloud. The cloud is entirely driven by rotating media.

So no, HDDs aren't dying. They're just less visible to most people.

See above answer. I really hope you're not saying that they will be with us forever or even for the same amount of time as SSDs.

It is already there in 10.10.3.

Unfortunately my 2010 MBP says "This computer doesn't contain any NVMExpress devices".

Don't feel bad, my 2015 rMBP has the same message.

 

[drewyboy]

Awesome. Faster = better

Another nail on the HDD cofin.

HDD will exist for a long LONG LONG time to come. You do you realize that data usage/need will outstrip the storage industries manufacturing capacity roughly around 2017/2018. Every single person is consuming more and more data, it's just being pushed off site.

 

[boast]

Can't? That is why everyone is up in arms about your posts. Are you really going to put your stake in the sand with can't? SSDs absolutely WILL replace spinning platters.

spinning platters can't even replace tape backups because they are too expensive! Tape drives will never die.

 

[kcirtap00]

You realize i was making a point that SSDs can't KILL HDDs? Goddammit think about people just having a movie collection or their favorite tv shows or something. That would require, say, 2-3TB. What are you gonna do, spend more money on your SSDs to store MOVIES which don't require anything as fast as SSDs than on your entire COMPUTER?
Man, it's like talking to a wall...

You are ridiculously rude and apparently out of touch. SSDs ARE killing HDDs. To say that they aren't is incredibly narrow minded. SSD capacity is increasing and the price is decreasing every year. It's only a matter of time before they are cheap enough and large enough to largely replace their out dated counterparts.

 

[thadoggfather]

I wonder why 2015 13" didn't get NVM Express.

And is there any benefit to read/write speeds or is it just features that are updated, and better scaled for when SSD's get even faster?

Either way, pleased with close to 1200/1200 on my 256 Samsung drive

 

[NoNothing]

Nope. And that 10TB SSD will cost 10 times more than even 8TB HDD.
I have SSDs in all of my machines. It's not like i'm ANTISSD or something. It's just that HDDs are here to stay. I have a movie collection that would cost 3000$ to store on SSDs. That would be the dumbest thing to do.

So when your floppy drives are no longer available, what will you do? You don't honestly think are not in the 1% club?

 

[mikefla]

I show this on my mid 2014 Retina MacBook Pro 13" but it doesn't list any devices using it. Yeah it would be nice if apple made some firmware update for existing hardware to take advantage of this technology if it's even possible on the current hardware. Can't be purchasing a new three grand laptop every couple months.

-Mike

 

[repoman27]

More likely to become more proprietary. Surely there is "special code" in their controller that disallows god-knows-what (maybe using the SSD in a non-Apple computer?). When Apple does something, it's usually for the wrong reason.

I'm pretty sure the flash storage in the new MacBook is completely embedded, i.e. soldered to the logic board. Good luck using it in another computer. However, NVMe is not proprietary at all. If you're interested in understanding Apple's decision making process, it's pretty simple if you take the time to learn a bit about engineering and economics. Or you can continue to wrongly conclude that it's all about you, and Apple is just out to get you.

 

[iWallace26]

I don't even know what "NVM Express" is.

nevermind express

 

[mozumder]

A 6TB HDD NAS would be something like 250$. 6TB SSD NAS would be something like 2500$. 250$ vs 2500$. Need i say more?

$2500 is nothing. One prosumer Nikon lens might be $2500.

SSDs are replacing HDs. They're even replacing them in enterprise cloud servers as well as mainframes.

If you want storage, use Tape drives. Hard drives just aren't good for storage, especially for archival purposes.

Basically hard drive days are numbered. It's SSDs for fast access and tape for storage.

 

[repoman27]

I wonder why 2015 13" didn't get NVM Express.

And is there any benefit to read/write speeds or is it just features that are updated, and better scaled for when SSD's get even faster?

Either way, pleased with close to 1200/1200 on my 256 Samsung drive

I show this on my mid 2014 Retina MacBook Pro 13" but it doesn't list any devices using it. Yeah it would be nice if apple made some firmware update for existing hardware to take advantage of this technology if it's even possible on the current hardware. Can't be purchasing a new three grand laptop every couple months.

-Mike

Once again, this isn't a firmware upgrade type of scenario—it would require replacing the entire SSD. Intel only released the first client NVMe SSD 9 days ago, and Apple the second one yesterday in the MacBook (Retina 12-inch, Early 2015)—and doing so apparently required creating a custom controller. This is fairly bleeding edge stuff.

This is actually a bigger jump, technology wise, than the move from SATA to SATA Express (PCIe) using AHCI. For the first time since Apple switched from SCSI to IDE are we actually using something other than a derivative of the ATA interface standard for storage.