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MacBook Pros Due in Early March, Additional Enhancements?
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DSGi now has 260 mbp 13" base models in stock.
Must have got a small order. Note I say small, 260 lasts days if not hours in this company so we shall see.
Also, yeah seeing the apple store is down, but apple site macbook page is still up... would that change first/at same time?
Must have got a small order. Note I say small, 260 lasts days if not hours in this company so we shall see.
Also, yeah seeing the apple store is down, but apple site macbook page is still up... would that change first/at same time?
Question wasn't pointed directly to me, but there aren't any "massive" laptop drives. There are slow 750GB, and 1TB. Or if you want 7200rpm drives then you can only get 500GB. Find me a 2TB 7200rpm 2.5" drive and I'd be VERY happy.
As a result I've already given up my (seldom, but ocassionally used) optical drive, and bought an external DVD. The internal HDDs are both mostly full. Also the Macbook Air superdrive isn't compatible with the MBP, so had to get a 3rd party one. However, you can't boot other OSes from an external DVD drive (FW or USB), so if I need to reinstall windows I have to take the 2nd drive out and put the DVD back in during install, which is a massive PITA.
1 TB Is pretty massive, dude. Big enough for the vast majority of folks.
And given how often the 2gb drives in my NAS's go down, i think putting that much data on a single unreplicated drive isn't a great idea.
Has Apple ever made a macbook with the option to swap any component for a different component? I see people saying they hope for a removable ODD with room for an etxra HDD or SSD, but Apple, to my knowledge, has NEVER indicated they support options to customize their products to that extent. They don't even have an SD slot on the iPad or iPhone, whereas just about EVERY OTHER phone does.
What makes people think Apple will decide to move away from what has been their long-standing business model and suddenly allow users to choose between an ODD or GPU or second HDD/SSD?
What makes people think Apple will decide to move away from what has been their long-standing business model and suddenly allow users to choose between an ODD or GPU or second HDD/SSD?
Apple store UK still seems to be up and running, delivery of 15" in 24 hrs yadda yadda...I'm going to pop into the store later and ask some awkward questions...
Like how to spell.
Like how to spell.
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You wouldn't want a 5400 rpm drive as a boot drive. That was the point they were trying to make. I would love a 1T drive but only if it were 7200 rpm or flash.
You are not alone. SuperDrives seem to be the achilles heal in current Macs. They seem to quickly deteriorate, and eventually fail altogether. The SuperDrive in my 2009 MBP will no longer read most DVDs.
Hopefully they will either make them much more reliable, or scrap the internal ones altogether, save weight and height, and use the space for an SSD.
forget SSD. What the mbPROs need is a BETTER SCREEN!!! The last ones have been crappier than the older G4s'!
Either that, or they're dumping all the crap-screen ones here in South East Asia.
No, what we need is In-Plane-Switching (IPS) technology for the macbook PRO line!!
Either that, or they're dumping all the crap-screen ones here in South East Asia.
No, what we need is In-Plane-Switching (IPS) technology for the macbook PRO line!!
Both would be a great improvement. I'd even stick with the paltry, single FW800 port for a 17" screen that rivals my 23" ACD and dual SSD/HDD as BTO.
They have.
The very old PowerBook G3 had two bays (generally for battery and CD drive) that could be swapped for a number of things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_G3#PowerBook_G3_Series_.28Wallstreet_Series_II.2C_AKA_PDQ.29
I don't really believe that Apple would try this again, as the mechanism to eject the ODD would add thickness to the new MBPs and wouldn't fit with Apple's simplicity philosophy.
A BTO option of ODD or something else is possible, however would require two versions of the MBP case, one with a disk hole, the other without. I say it's possible, but I do not think it's likely.
You can do it.
I have two OWC Mercury Pro RE SSDs (2 x 200GB in RAID 0) installed in my 17" MBP. I bet you could just as easily pull your SD out and do a similar thing with two 1TB drives. Using RAID 0 you'd overcome most of the slowness of a single HDD spindle speed (albeit sacrificing some reliability, being striped not mirrored) and you'd get a 2TB logical volume.
See the MPG Pro Laptop page for how I did it.
I don't know why your machine doesn't boot from your external SuperDrive. Mine does. That's how I installed Snow Leopard once I put in my SSDs. Of course, you could also use a donor drive in an external FireWire or USB (or eSATA with an ExpressCard adapter) to clone (use SuperDuper!) a volume with your image back onto your new internal 2TB RAID 0 set.
I for one will be buying a new MBP as soon as they're released, as long as I can get an equally performing SSD option for it. I currently get 500 MB/s Read and 485 MB/s Write speeds in mine. Hopefully, the new MBPs will have SATA III to allow a 6 GB/s transfer rate since I'm already bottlenecked at the SATA II 3GB/s max.
-- font9a
Question wasn't pointed directly to me, but there aren't any "massive" laptop drives. There are slow 750GB, and 1TB. Or if you want 7200rpm drives then you can only get 500GB. Find me a 2TB 7200rpm 2.5" drive and I'd be VERY happy.
As a result I've already given up my (seldom, but ocassionally used) optical drive, and bought an external DVD. The internal HDDs are both mostly full. Also the Macbook Air superdrive isn't compatible with the MBP, so had to get a 3rd party one. However, you can't boot other OSes from an external DVD drive (FW or USB), so if I need to reinstall windows I have to take the 2nd drive out and put the DVD back in during install, which is a massive PITA.
I have two OWC Mercury Pro RE SSDs (2 x 200GB in RAID 0) installed in my 17" MBP. I bet you could just as easily pull your SD out and do a similar thing with two 1TB drives. Using RAID 0 you'd overcome most of the slowness of a single HDD spindle speed (albeit sacrificing some reliability, being striped not mirrored) and you'd get a 2TB logical volume.
See the MPG Pro Laptop page for how I did it.
I don't know why your machine doesn't boot from your external SuperDrive. Mine does. That's how I installed Snow Leopard once I put in my SSDs. Of course, you could also use a donor drive in an external FireWire or USB (or eSATA with an ExpressCard adapter) to clone (use SuperDuper!) a volume with your image back onto your new internal 2TB RAID 0 set.
I for one will be buying a new MBP as soon as they're released, as long as I can get an equally performing SSD option for it. I currently get 500 MB/s Read and 485 MB/s Write speeds in mine. Hopefully, the new MBPs will have SATA III to allow a 6 GB/s transfer rate since I'm already bottlenecked at the SATA II 3GB/s max.
-- font9a
Your reliability is cut in half. Not a great idea unless you have a very strict backup regimen.
No form factor change, nothing major
Think about it.
When was the last time Apple had a major form factor change, such the move to unibody without a major media event to go along with it? Almost without exception, every major product is introduced at a media event. Is there some media event scheduled for next Thursday that I'm unaware of?
Then this is just a refresh. You're looking at bump ups in speed with improved peripherals.
Think about it.
When was the last time Apple had a major form factor change, such the move to unibody without a major media event to go along with it? Almost without exception, every major product is introduced at a media event. Is there some media event scheduled for next Thursday that I'm unaware of?
Then this is just a refresh. You're looking at bump ups in speed with improved peripherals.
I'm looking to replace my 3yr old hp..its still good and has bluray ability, but I'm done with the hassles of Windows and annoying issues. Personally, I'd like an I3 13 inch with graphics atleast on par with NVIDIA and a dvd drive. The mca is thinner, but I like the mcp style. Hopefully the current models will still be around if I happen not to like the refresh model, maybe at a discount too.
For Apple's computers lately, they have been hit or miss with events. The iMac's in 2009 were redesigned, the Magic Mouse introduced, and the White Unibody Macbook as well all in the same day without any event. The Mac Mini wasn't at an event either.
On the flip side, the Macbook Air was mentioned at an event, as were the past updates to the Macbook Pro's in 2008/2009 (first when it went Unibody, then the bigger battery).
Apple will only use an event for the Macs if it is warranted or an events falls in the same timeframe as an update.
In the past you would have been right, but this could be either just a spec bump or a complete redesign; there is no way to know anymore.
Nah.
While you guys have some points, the 2009 iMac was just a minor refresh and the Magic Mouse was a peripheral, which never gets its own press event. The White Unibody is a decent enough point, but at this stage, it's the red headed step child of the Macbook line. Along with the Mini, it's the low end of Apple's lines and never get that much attention anyway.
You've changed my mind from not-gonna-happen to say, 8 to 1 odds. Want to make a sig bet?
I am not expecting a huge change this time, but Jobs' comment about "the future of notebooks" being related to the Macbook Air is definitely an indication that Apple is working on something. Might not happen until the next refresh or two.
The 2009 iMac was a major change, 21 & 27" screens, quad-core chips, IPS display, etc...
I agree with you that this time may not be a redesign, all I am saying is that Apple does not solely release computer changes via event anymore. They like to focus on iOS for those now as much as possible. Even the "Back to the Mac" event was how they could incorporate iOS strategies into the Mac.
