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New MBP - Dual Internal HDs?
- Thread starter JustinBW
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The SSD is soldiered to the computer, no expandability or disk drive to replace with another/second drive.
The new Haswell Retina MBP has an internal custom PCIe SSD. There's no room for a second storage device, and no one is selling replacements for this SSD yet.
The old 15" Classic MBP that was just discontinued has a standard SATA HD or SSD, and an optical drive. The optical drive can be removed and replaced with a caddy that can support a 2nd SATA SSD/HD. Here's an example of a kit for replacing the Apple SuperDrive DVD/CD with an SSD.
The old 15" Classic MBP that was just discontinued has a standard SATA HD or SSD, and an optical drive. The optical drive can be removed and replaced with a caddy that can support a 2nd SATA SSD/HD. Here's an example of a kit for replacing the Apple SuperDrive DVD/CD with an SSD.
No second bay in the new rMBP's. What you order is what you get. Looking at the 'tear down' reviews, it looks like the internal flash drive is replaceable, so should someone come up with one on the after market you might be able to swap out the factory one, but no second drive option internally. And given the extremely high performing flash that Apple is using, not sure you would be satisfied with a 'run of the mill' replacement. I have one of the Crucial 1TB SSD drives, and connect it to my current MBP via Thunderbolt, and plan to use that combination for any disk expansion I need. But I understand your question, currently have a 17" (early 2011) with a 512GB SSD and a 1TB drive in the DVD bay, so will have some adjustments to make when my new machine gets here next week.
Thanks all of you!
Yeah, we did the dual HD thing on a 13" here, but was curious if the new ones had that capability.
Damn! This laptop was almost good enough for me to get rid of my 2010 Mac Pro, but I need that internal storage space.
I doubt this will happen, but I hope Apple releases dual internal drives on their MBPs at some point standard (like the iMac); but the way everything is moving I don't see it happened.
Thanks again.
Yeah, we did the dual HD thing on a 13" here, but was curious if the new ones had that capability.
Damn! This laptop was almost good enough for me to get rid of my 2010 Mac Pro, but I need that internal storage space.
I doubt this will happen, but I hope Apple releases dual internal drives on their MBPs at some point standard (like the iMac); but the way everything is moving I don't see it happened.
Thanks again.
The SSD is not soldered in, only the RAM is. The SSD is on a card that can be removed easily from the new Haswell systems (MBA and rMBP). See the iFixit teardowns of the Haswell systems.
OWC has stated in their blog that they are working on developing a replacement. It probably will be several months, so you should probably buy the capacity you need to last a year.
Don't count out the Thunderbolt option. I regularly run VMware images from TB attached drives (both spinning and SSD) and find it works just as well as an internal. While I do have two drives now, I think the 1TB option (yeah, not free) on the new rMBP's and external TB drives will be just fine. Even USB3 is not too bad if you are not doing too much swapping.
The Retina MacBook Pros are all SSD only, and have no space for additional anything... They've been this way since they were released.
The Classic MBPs with optical drive are the only ones with the option for additional internal storage. The 13" classic is still available for purchase new. The 15" classic was just discontinued this past Tuesday, and is still available from Apple's Refurb store, and is still in stock at many non-Apple retailers.
You know, I am considering that but one of the major pieces of software I use doesn't handle external HDs well, with databases. I have a big database of audio files and the app needs index it all and when you do this on an external drive, removing the drive screws up the index; it's a bug, but doesn't seem to be fixed over the course of 2 years.
If it could hold that index I would do what you do in a second!