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Maximum MacBook Air Drive 80GB for Now
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I agree with you. Apple should be providing tools make this not such a concern.
However, as your media library grows... I think a few thousand dollars isn't going to be sufficient to prevent you from having to worry about this issue.
If you have 80gigs of just photos... do you have music and movies on there as well? How much space are they taking?
I have a music library that is larger than the largest iPod available. I have a video library that is even larger than that (just in terms of GB). Plus I likes me some pod casts and audio books. Oh... and I am currently playing Myst IV... That cannot all possibly fit on a single laptop disk.
It does, however, all currently fit on my 1.5TB NAS. But the prospect of ripping all my DVDs onto the NAS means that I am going to need more than that 1.5 TB at some point... so even there I'll be having to deal with multiple NAS...
I think that's when I'm going to start looking at multiple storage arrays and possibly using ZFS to manage it all.
Our digital libraries are set to explode. Tiered storage is going to be a fact of life unless you want to rent everything (no thanks!).
Exactlty what I have been saying! I absolutely think so. Unfortunately, it's still too expensive, so they had to add the 'standard' HD 80GB as a stop-gap.
I would expect to see the HD version disappear in the next year or so.
Actually, my iTunes and iPhoto libraries top 40GB combined and they are small compared to some people. The fact is that you can't split an iTunes/iPhoto library out of the box, so it has to be all or nothing. And music and photos are the sort of thing that people want to take with them. We're not talking about an iPod Shuffle here...
Bear in mind that when you open that shiny MacBook Air box with its 80GB HD in it, remember that the 80GB "actual formatted less" is actually 74.5 GB, then there's OS X and the rest so you're looking at only 60-65GB free to begin with. Then remember you need to keep at least 5GB free for scratch-pad disk swapping, unless you're a fan of the beach ball...
[Aside: The one good thing to come out of this is hopefully Apple will realise that it has to be more space-consious. At the moment, most of its apps eat through disk space like nobody's business. My biggest pet hate is that every time you rotate a photo in iPhoto (or in any other way modify it), the unaltered original is copied to a folder called 'original'. Sometimes it would be nice to delete the originals but you can't because the file structure makes it very difficult to tell which photos you've altered and which ones you haven't.]
I agree with you about the limitations of iTunes/iPhoto. That's exactly what I'm talking about when I say that Apple is dropping the ball in terms of delivering a product that makes this sort of thing easy.
The same goes for iWeb and the web sites that it produces. Zero collaboration capabilities unless you start to hack at it.
Apple needs to help people understand that they don't need to take all their photos with them. I mean... did you used to carry around all your photo albums?? It doesn't make sense... unless you are using tools like iTunes and iPhoto that make it impossible to do anything else.
I'm still very skeptical that SSD prices will drop as fast as everyone seem to think.
SSD's biggest advantage remains shock resistance, not speed or power consumption.
That makes it ideal for military-style applications, not exactly a price-sensitive market.
Right now, a 2.5" 128GB SSD costs well over $3,000 retail.
Cramming that 128GB into a smaller form factor (1.8", 5mm high) isn't going to make it any cheaper.
Meanwhile, I expect we'll be able to buy 500GB 2.5" SATA drives for $150 by the end of the year.
SSD's biggest advantage remains shock resistance, not speed or power consumption.
That makes it ideal for military-style applications, not exactly a price-sensitive market.
Right now, a 2.5" 128GB SSD costs well over $3,000 retail.
Cramming that 128GB into a smaller form factor (1.8", 5mm high) isn't going to make it any cheaper.
Meanwhile, I expect we'll be able to buy 500GB 2.5" SATA drives for $150 by the end of the year.
We're expecting it because 3-4 years ago, a 256MB card would cost £40 ($80). Now I'm not sure how much memory £40 would get you now but I know that it's a hell of a lot more - 4-8 GB probably. Again 3-4 years ago, a 4GB card (if it existed) would have cost several hundreds of pounds.
So the price does drop considerably with time.
Can someone please explain to me why Apple offers so few options with their computers in general? I want a new laptop, I want to try Mac, but they make it sooooo hard. There are just a million more options from PC manufacturers, why is Apple unable to offer these options? I'm buying a Mac regardless (thats how fed up I am with this Mother#$%#$##%##$##$#$#$#$ Windows BS). Just curious why Apple can't offer more customizable features. I mean how hard would it be to come up with a 15 inch laptop under 1500? Everyone else does it- they start at a grand usually.
There's a big difference between how you use a flash card vs. a SSD.
8GB flash cards may be cheap, but slow (unless you pay $$$ for the turbo model) - you're not usually booting off a SD card, so most people buy by price, not speed.
And the capacity of cheap flash (8GB, 16GB) is still nowhere near 128GB SSD territory - the demand doesn't exist for cheap SSD as it does for cheap flash cards for your digital camera.
As another posted noted, the only quick way to lower prices in a SSD is to go with the _much_ slower MLC process.
8GB flash cards may be cheap, but slow (unless you pay $$$ for the turbo model) - you're not usually booting off a SD card, so most people buy by price, not speed.
And the capacity of cheap flash (8GB, 16GB) is still nowhere near 128GB SSD territory - the demand doesn't exist for cheap SSD as it does for cheap flash cards for your digital camera.
As another posted noted, the only quick way to lower prices in a SSD is to go with the _much_ slower MLC process.
Apple used to offer more options. At some point (in the late 90s), they decided that the number of choices was too confusing, and they would have better sales with a smaller number of easily differentiated products, and better marketing to convince you that one of them was the one you wanted.
Of course, the more cynical view is that this lets them convince you to buy something more expensive than you might otherwise need in order to get certain features, like some cars require you to buy the more expensive trim package just to get anti-lock brakes.
Regardless, part of it is also the premium on Apple hardware -- even for a system fairly comparable to one from another manufacturer, you're going to pay more, which is going to pay for the design, engineering, and marketing.
If you're really on a budget, your best bet is to buy a decent PC laptop from a company that won't force you to buy Windows with it, and put Linux on it (probably Ubuntu). But Apple has the advantage that it Just Works right out of the box on a lot of levels, and most people don't want to deal with futzing with their operating system just to get sound working, for example. (Ubuntu is actually getting pretty good in this respect, but it's not all the way there yet. Apple has a huge advantage here, in only having to test a limited number of known configurations.)
This makes sense, but I would think Apple would be focusing on increasing their overall market share. More people using their products means more money. I mean isn't that what every company is trying to do?
In a digital camera, speed can be pretty important (at least if you're shooting RAW with a big sensor). And you can get a high speed (Secure Digital Extreme III, 20+ MB/s) 8 GB SDHC card for less than $80 retail these days, which isn't bad at all. There's a bit more miniaturization that goes into fitting 64 or 128 GB into a package the size of a 1.8" HDD, but not a huge amount, so I really do think we'll see dramatically cheaper SSDs of reasonable size in a couple of years, or at least reasonable size if you don't have a huge amount of media. And demand will rise as they get cheap enough that more people can afford them -- I suspect that a lot of people would pay a $200 premium for an SSD over a comparably sized HDD, for the improved hardiness, speed, and battery life (the last two of which are likely to improve further, which I think is less true of HDDs). For now, though, you're right, and it will be a little while before they become really viable for most folks.
Almost -- more people buying their products means more money, which is not quite the same thing. For one thing, if they can convince existing Apple users to buy Apple products more often, that's at least as good as getting people to switch.
The main thing, though, is that regardless of whether they're selling to switchers or to established users, they've decided that the best way to do that is to focus their energies on a smaller number of products. Now, I can't begin to guess at the actual analyses that went into this decision, but some of the advantages are obvious: they get to focus their engineering on making the few products better than they could if their efforts were spread out, and it probably makes marketing much easier as well.
Hmm,
Can anyone confirm if the 64GB SSD is PATA?
Because if that's the case, then I might not be able to upgrade to 128GB in 2009, which was my plan. I think by then most SSDs will be SATA. Which would mean an Air Rev. B. with SATA.
That might be make me cancel my order.
Can anyone confirm if the 64GB SSD is PATA?
Because if that's the case, then I might not be able to upgrade to 128GB in 2009, which was my plan. I think by then most SSDs will be SATA. Which would mean an Air Rev. B. with SATA.
That might be make me cancel my order.
OMG yes! this is the STUPIDEST thing ever! I wonder if disabling "manage my photos for me" disables this feature....
this is why i will not be using iphoto in my new mac.
The standard drive is PATA
http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObj...ontroller_3&wosid=6p5XK9WGFL2c3fRrJhBhsDJklRC
so if anyone confirms that it's a simple swap then the SSD would PATA as well.
Or if someone with the SSD could look up the model number...
According to AppleCare documentation, the 80Gb is PATA, the SSD is unmentioned, however the logic board only has 1 connector for the HDD, the logic boards are the same. Therefore the SSD must be a PATA like the 80Gb plater.
The whole swapability (is there such a word?) issue is important to a lot of us potential MBA buyers, I think.
Will it be possible to swap out the 80GB HDD for an SSD in the future? Can anybody confirm this?
And if the new SSDs are all SATA, does that mean it cannot be swapped with the MBA's HDD (because of the PATA vs. SATA interface issue)?
Yep, this changes my plans a bit. I think it is most likely that the SSD is PATA.
So my plan was to live with the 64GB drive until the 128GB got down to $1000-$1200. Then I was going to upgrade the drive, I figured that was about a year out.
But if the current MBA is PATA, then I would have to sell it and by a new one when the 128GB drive is at that price. Assuming the 128 drive is SATA.
I can live with the 64GB for a while. But I was hoping not to have to live with that for more than a year.
Ah, decision, decisions...
Very well designed hopeful site, my friend! And I like what I see... although the latch button won't make it into the design. Not sure if 4.2 pounds will hit it, maybe close to 5 lbs, but the form factor and speed would certainly make it a hit (if Ive's decides to design it)
True. But with anything in portable electronics, I look at it as it is NOW, not what it can be in the future, since upgrading isnt always possible (formats, connectors, operating systems...)
If you are buying in order to upgrade it later, then maybe you shouldnt buy it- because like everything else in life, nothing's for sure.
Upgradability is a perfectly valid criterion in deciding whether to purchase a given computer. One of the reasons people buy Mac Pros is because they are relatively easy to upgrade.
I'm not saying it is my sole criterion. But it's information to factor into the decision-making process.
I realize that a definitive answer may not be available right now. But if there is an answer, or even just somebody's educated guess, I'd appreciate a substantive response. Thanks.
I assume that your issue is availability of PATA drives, not a preference for SATA.
Samsung is currently making the range of drives in both SATA and PATA. Of course, no guarantees that the bigger ones will be both interfaces.
Note that the current SATA uses an IDE-SATA I bridge chip, and a native SATA II is coming.
The Samsung brochure is http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...ucts/flash/downloads/ssd_datasheet_200710.pdf
Bleh. I have 80GB in my three year old 12" PB G4. And it has a smaller footprint than the MBA. And I could upgrade the HD to 160GB if I wanted. Hmmm... maybe I should since Apple doesn't seem to be interested in releasing a laptop I can replace my 12" PB with...
I have $3800 waiting for a suitable PB replacement. If my PB would die today I would buy a used 12" PB tomorrow.
I've got the 160GB drive in my 12" PB G4. Maxed out the RAM, too. It's still a very usable machine. Now I don't have Leopard (yet), and don't do things like video editing on it, but as a tool for a consultant, web developer, and network technician it is very hard to beat. AND it has the optical drive and a removable battery. AND ethernet, and firewire - plus a modem for Pete's sake! Fairly light and about an inch thick. It still gets comments about everywhere I show up with it, including the latest, "Is that the new Mac laptop?"
So what happened?
I think the Air is pretty cool, but it seems we're just regaining something that was lost long ago. I agree completely that if it died tomorrow (knock on wood) I'd just be scouring eBay for a similar one (and save about $1.3K in the process).