I never reboot. Macs can actually sleep and wake
Yep, it's one of the best features of my little iBook. I love it. It only needs rebooting after an update or crash.
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Intel's TurboMemory (aka Robson): Taking Another Look
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Yep, it's one of the best features of my little iBook. I love it. It only needs rebooting after an update or crash.
...
While it is premature to categorically say that Apple is not going to use TurboMemory in any of its machines, the speculation that had surrounded Apple's use of the technology may be less grounded then initially thought.
I can remember the old fogies saying this sort of thing about caches on hard drives when 100KB of cache was common. They insisted that anything more than 100KB was "a waste" on a hard drive cache, and at about the same time everyone thought 640MB of RAM was "enough for anybody."
It's really simple. Cache is your friend. It will rarely ever hurt you. Rather, it almost always helps you. Cache won't eat your babies, in other words.
New MacPro at WWDC
"Wow so the macbook pro has twice the RAM and a video card over 1 year newer than the mac pro.
... They should probably fix that."
I read somewhere that Jobs hinted at a big upgrade to the MacPro line soon --- and that the WWDC would be Mac centric --- maybe along with new iMacs we will see big upgrades to the Pro at WWDC??
"Wow so the macbook pro has twice the RAM and a video card over 1 year newer than the mac pro.
... They should probably fix that."
I read somewhere that Jobs hinted at a big upgrade to the MacPro line soon --- and that the WWDC would be Mac centric --- maybe along with new iMacs we will see big upgrades to the Pro at WWDC??
Why do you close those applications? If system memory is an issue even with 2GB of RAM available, I'd think using the flash drive as the virtual memory store would make more sense than caching the application program files there.
Also, assuming Microsoft is properly supporting Robson (not sure if this is the case or not), the "default" profile of what goes on the flash drive for startup should be about 75% of optimal out of the box. There's a lot of Windows system files that you know have to be loaded every time you start up, and which don't need to be "learned" at all!
IMHO, the problem here is that it's addressing the wrong problem. We already know how to stop suffering from bootup times (don't reboot) and application start times (keep the app open). The problem is that these tactics use up more system memory, which in turn goes to HD. Instead, write your virtual memory to the flash card for fast reference, and you're golden.
Of course, there is probably a good reason why no one pays me to design these systems
It's about time and personally I though it would have happened sooner considering the Macbook Pro is a professional system.
Interesting insight, as I did not know much about the real-world performance of this technology. I definitely am not upset that Apple did not include it in the MBP upgrade and am quite happy to see 2 GB of RAM standard.
The way Apple seems to be releasing products lately, bumps are anytime the big revisions are for the conferences. If the iMac is going to be redesigned the most logical place for the release is WWDC 07.
Robson caching is not useful for OS X
OS X already uses all otherwise unused RAM as a big fat disk cache and has for years (at least since 10.2 I know from personal experience).
Regular RAM is as fast as it gets (short of the CPU caches)--Robson isn't going to improve things there.
The only advantage it has over OS X's current caching is that it can save its state across reboots--something most of us rarely do (except when updating the system, when the cache would need to be at least partially invalidated anyway).
And the stuff about it speeding up boot times is silly. What kind of caching scheme would dedicate a large chunk of the cache to holding the boot state of the system when it is so rarely needed? Better to use that cache space for something you do every day, like opening Safari to browse MacRumors (well, for those of us who actually ever close Safari). Again, this is something that OS X + system RAM can do better.
Apple made the right technical call--bypassing Robson caching and instead boosting RAM capacity and potential speed. If you want something better than Robson to go with your new MBP, just buy more RAM.
OS X already uses all otherwise unused RAM as a big fat disk cache and has for years (at least since 10.2 I know from personal experience).
Regular RAM is as fast as it gets (short of the CPU caches)--Robson isn't going to improve things there.
The only advantage it has over OS X's current caching is that it can save its state across reboots--something most of us rarely do (except when updating the system, when the cache would need to be at least partially invalidated anyway).
And the stuff about it speeding up boot times is silly. What kind of caching scheme would dedicate a large chunk of the cache to holding the boot state of the system when it is so rarely needed? Better to use that cache space for something you do every day, like opening Safari to browse MacRumors (well, for those of us who actually ever close Safari). Again, this is something that OS X + system RAM can do better.
Apple made the right technical call--bypassing Robson caching and instead boosting RAM capacity and potential speed. If you want something better than Robson to go with your new MBP, just buy more RAM.
I can remember the old fogies saying this sort of thing about caches on hard drives when 100KB of cache was common. They insisted that anything more than 100KB was "a waste" on a hard drive cache, and at about the same time everyone thought 640MB of RAM was "enough for anybody."
It's really simple. Cache is your friend. It will rarely ever hurt you. Rather, it almost always helps you. Cache won't eat your babies, in other words.
when all things are equal. agreed. but when the cache in question is comparatively expansive, it could well take food from our baby's mouth. so to speak.
Well duh, obviously file cache in system ram by an os with decent memory manager will be much faster than on nand or usb memory stick...
I even had to think about why usb memory stick would be faster than hdd (much lower access time.)
I won't miss this.
I even had to think about why usb memory stick would be faster than hdd (much lower access time.)
I won't miss this.
Something like this?Although this hybrid could potentially offer speed improvements.... I'm looking forward the the 'Thin' notebooks with pure flash storage
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/via-intros-nanobook-ultra-mobile-device-600-ultraportable-lap/
Sweet price, sweet portability, not made by Apple obviously.
Edit: Sorry, that one didn't had SSD, this one had: http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/04/dell-xps-m1330-performance-ultraportable-revealed/
Free ram upgrade? Rather like "Hey, the macbook pro isn't ****ing really insanely expensive atm, don't worry right now, complain in two months and forward instead."
If all it is is a cache for files between the memory and the hdd it's obviously much better to just read the files into free memory in advance instead. The DDR2 memory is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than NAND memory. So as long as you have enough free ram regular file cache in ram will be faster, only reason to use that flash memory are that it would be much cheaper than real memory and maybe that you don't have to refresh it as often and therefor save electricity.
well looks like intel needs to do a little more work on the project.....and then maybe we can use it
I believe that would do what *I* want from NAND (getting rid of the magnetic HD). It's an expensive upgrade but I'd be tempted to swap the HD out of an MBP and put the removed drive into an external case for Time Machine.
I knew it really wouldnt make a noticable difference.
The Windows ReadyBoost thing is practially the same idea, and it makes absolutely no noticeable difference in speed.
The Windows ReadyBoost thing is practially the same idea, and it makes absolutely no noticeable difference in speed.
My MBP takes 33 sec from the time I push the power button 'til the time it is responsive (right after my desktop icons appear).
(My work XP desktop, which is new takes about a minute. I don't even like thinking about my previous XP work machine...)
USB isn't slow, I'm very sure it's the speed of the NAND memory which is to slow. Just look at the speeds of memory cards.
Robson uses flash (NAND) memory, just not over the USB bus. Since the USB connection is 480 Mbps, and the fastest flash memory out there is SLOWER than that, it doesn't really matter what interface it uses.
Why do I close them? Because I'm anal about cleanliness, including on my computer. I don't like leaving apps open unless I'm using them. When I'm done reading a PDF file, I close my PDF reader, unless I know for certain I'll be opening another PDF very shortly.
Likewise, I'll work on a Word document, then close Word rather than leaving it running, unless I know I'll be immediately opening another Word document. If I'm going to be web browsing for a while, I'll close Word, and open it only when I need to open another Word document.
I have no qualms about multitasking; I have five apps open right now in OS X. But I consider myself to be 'active' in all five. (Well, not truly 'active', I only have Mail and iChat open because I want to receive mail, and I want to have video and audio chat options available.) I don't have an extraneous QuickTime Player open from that movie I watched two minutes ago; nor do I have a spare Preview open from that PDF I opened ten minutes ago. Yet I'll probably open another PDF and another QuickTime movie within the next half hour.
If I could play my music through the Dashboard iTunes interface WITHOUT having the full iTunes app open, iTunes wouldn't be running right now. If I could have a status are applet that downloaded my email every five minutes into Mail without actually having Mail open, Mail wouldn't be open right now. If iChat supported logging in automatically, and announced video and audio capability through just the little status area applet, I wouldn't have iChat open right now.
I don't want full applications open when I'm not actively using their capabilities. So why would I leave an app open when I'm not using it?
So, has there been any word yet on how much faster the new MBP's boot?
Who cares? How often do you reboot? What counts: I close the lid and it stops using power, I open the lid and it works immediately.
All this "faster boot" nonsense comes from Microsoft, who is working very hard to reduce boot times. Must be more important for Windows users.