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Next MacBook Air to Adopt Faster, More Power Efficient SSD?
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if this is true, will be the second time im buying a apple care.
next step is to get soldered tools for electronics and read some guides to learn how to use them.
I hope you are just joking. Most likely the SSD chips are BGA (Ball Grid Array) parts that are only solderable by machine.
This is the Air you're talking about. Apple is trying to make it as thin and light as possible, while also being fast and long battery lasting. Integrated SSDs take up less space and weight than a 2.5"-sized SSD in enclosure.
If you want your SSD to be replaceable, get the fat 13" MBP instead. Not that hard.
If you want your SSD to be replaceable, get the fat 13" MBP instead. Not that hard.
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The sceptical in me says this is nothing to do with speed, but rather with limiting 3rd party SSD upgrades.
Custom hard-drive firmware on iMacs, now soldered SSD... Apple machines are fast becoming severely locked down, and turning computers into disposable units.
I love Apple but am getting royally pissed off with this artificial locking down, especially if I can't even reuse components like a screen.
If I can't afford a bigger spec machine right now, I can't upgrade in the future. Instead, I need to buy a new one
Unless I go MacPro which, let's be honest, hasn't received a lot of Apple's attention in the recent past...
@puma25uk.. I completely concur and agree with you on these points. Simply stated, it's all about 'CONTROL'. I have a 2010 iMac still. I intentionally did not upgrade to a 2011 based on the proprietarized hard disk hardware, firmware. And now, the hard coded, lock down in the new macbook airs. I also am getting royally pissed off at Apple and their philosophy / policy of late. In fact I am 50-50 thinking now return to non-mac equipment, like the Macbook Air challenger soon to be released from Samsung, or the Macbook Pro challenger models from HP and just Hackintosh the frickin' computers. Besides, they are cheaper than Apple's hardware. Apple is primarily a hardware sales company. If they don't have the software, they really have nothing. It's why they are afraid to freely license and release it to other manufactures. Compete competitively and by a large margin with Apple? Now that won't settle well with them I bet! OS-X is Apple's only saving grace for me these days. Muck around with that too much too, and, time to seriously reconsider.
Data already has to be all 'railroaded' through itunes for central control via synchronization. No iTunes, no enjoy your content!! Period. I can not take a simple microSD and insert it into an iPad for example and play my data directly. I first must go through the process of converting videos to MP4 and MOV so iTunes will accept them. Then you have to drag and drop into itunes. Then you must connect your i-toys and make sure itunes is recognizing them. Then you must select what you want to synchronize through multiple screens. Then, and finally, you can synchronize your data so that you can finally enjoy it while on the go? Screw all that crap. Why can't I simply just play my content stored on an SD card by simple insertion? It's not that it is technically unfeasible. As you point out, it is intentional contrived lock down control. Hard coded SSD in Macbook Air breaks? Buy a new one! (of course). And no alternatives from competitors like with memory for the macbook pro (for now). Even that they will contrive to remove control from you for simple upgrades like hard disk and memory going forward. Mark my words! Even SJ himself mentioned, you are looking at the future of the macbook pro embodied in what you see in the macbook air. What does that mean? The DVD drive goes away (that's an obvious one. And, BD never saw the light of day). Your future MBP hard disks will be, well, what you see embodied in the current Macbook Air. (read, lockdown). And ditto for the future of memory in the Macbook Pro (if there even IS a macbook pro).
Not being sarcastic here one bit. Just looking at the changing landscape at Apple. Sooner or later there is bound to be major backlash. It also shows how many in the public at large are ignorant and/or unaware of what is going on. I moved from Windows to the Apple camp when Windows Vista sucked and Apple's adoption of the Intel processor and the OS was looking mighty good as an alternative to the then screwed up Windows. Well, the times, they are a changin'. The winds of fate. There are so many alternatiives gradually coming into play... and not just OS-X nor Windows. Ubuntu Linux, WebOS, Android, ChromeOS. The landscape is changing. Computing style is changing as well. Too much 'railroading' and 'control' tactic, Apple, and I am out of here. You can sell your disposable toys to suckers that don't mind the dictatorship and control factors.
I can picture it... five years from now, we'll have 5 TB solid state drives as standard on any Mac
Well, yeah. With any luck they'll be likely cheaper than traditional HDDs. But with any luck we'll have depleted uranium HDDs @ 2000 TB...with an areal density that makes it faster for sequential R/Ws than SSDs =)
That is, until the MBP no longer exists and becomes JUST LIKE the MBA. SJ recently said, you are looking at the future of the MBP embodied in the macbook air. (read, CONTROL). Soon you won't need to worry about having to upgrade memory, hard disks, etc. Apple will solve the issue for you. Just buy a newer MBA down the road when one breaks. And forget about upgrading as Apple won't let you do it. Let Uncle Apple take care of all aspects of computing for you. But, be sure to line are pockets in the process too. Apple is a hardware sales company. Period. If they don't sell hardware, and if they don't have a strangle hold on the hardware they sell, they don't make money! So, make commoditized MBAs, and soon to be MBPs IMHO. Then, you must buy and replace them disposable MBAs down the road, if you wish to stay in the Apple game, that is.
Their saving grace is their software. No software to run on proprietarized hardware, no more sales. They are already pouncing on iWeb and iDVD. Sayonara. They screwed up royally in their recently released Final Cut Pro X to the dismay of many professionals. (= Marketing opportunity and market expansion for Adobe and Avid). Aperture is all about control. So is iPhoto, in the organization of your data. Once they screw up OS-X.... that's it.
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Agreed, I've delt with both, and from my experience PCs actually last longer thanks to the increased costomizability and ease of upgrades.
Now, I don't want to make this into a PC/mac war. I love macs and will probably move entirely to macs with in a year. But if with the MBA Apple is moving to making it even harder to keep older computers up to date, that will shrink their market in my opinion, even for the Air. At $1000-1500 or so, a lot users are going to want to upgrade RAM or the hard drive to get 4-5, or more, years of service out of it. Maybe not huge portion of market, but I've done it, and I'm not really that much of a geek.
IMO, if something is going to just be a 2-3 year life span machine, it should be cheap. The MBA, is not cheap.
Avoid writes on the ssd? Okay, until now, I've only used HDDs, and my 500gb has been filled and cleared with data (movies, mostly) many many times now (I'm always at ~20-30gb remaining).
Does downloading (even for a little bit, until i move the data to an external) on an ssd cause problems with it? I mean if i download something, move it to my external then delete it from the ssd, does that wear it out?
I was ready to go out and buy the new MBA day one and this thread has confused me so much. I'm a light photoshop user, lots of garageband, ton of surfing and skype about 12 hours a day. Am I crazy to get an Air? The reason i was going for it was that portability has become a big concern for me recently. But this whole avoid writing on the SSD thing? i mean i wasnt planning on an external at all. Am i wrong to be considering a MBA? I mean i guess i could go 13 inch MBP but i've wanted the portability of the MBA for a lil while now.
But the Air has a very fast SSD, so it doesn't really get that negatively affected by low RAM amount. That's why they're able to push out base models with 2 GB and no one complains that it's laggy. Everyone says their Air with 2 GB feels faster/more responsive than a MBP with HDD and 8 GB RAM.
Go for the Air, it'll be your most favourite machine you've ever used. Don't worry about SSDs, the current generations are extremely reliable.
Then don't buy future Apple laptops if you don't like them? What's the problem.
I have no issues with them having control over the hardware they make. I make the decision to buy if it they made good hardware. And I love what they're coming out with.
You want control? Make your own laptop.
iTunes is the easiest place to buy songs from.
Just this morning I wanted to listen to one particular song on my iPhone. I launched iTunes app, found it and bought it for $1.29.
Where do your songs on the SD card come from? If you're downloading them without paying, then of course everything you said makes sense. Apple makes it easy to buy things officially, they don't help you if you're trying something else.
I can picture it... five years from now, we'll have 5 TB solid state drives as standard on any Mac
I don't know about that, it seems SSD are becoming faster but not bigger for now. I am sure this will change but I can't see 5T even in 5 years unless something drastic changes.
Though I could dream about iPad 4 with 1 TB of memory, oh mamma that would be sweeeeeet. Can't fill it now but I am sure over the next few years I can fill it up with non compressed music
Double the amount that is currently being offered, at the same price point.
It's not like they'd go from 64GB to 500GB all of a sudden. For additional reference, see the product history of the iPhone, iPod touch, or any of the flash-based iPods. Try Wikipedia if you don't know where to find such data.
Storage capacity increases are roughly following Moore's Law: double the number of transistors every eighteen months.
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Well, after waiting two months for the MBA, I have decided to skip it and got a new MBP 15" for my laptop. If for whatever reason the AIR is a nice upgrade over the old one I might return it, but leaving the fact that Apple is limiting you so much on upgrades with that laptop, that I decided to go with the MBP.
Apple, see what happens when you wait too long, you lose sales on the MBA!
Apple, see what happens when you wait too long, you lose sales on the MBA!
Even for the current 13" 256GB? Given the current prices of SSD, I have a time believing we'll see a MBA 13" 512GB at the same price.
I don't know about that, it seems SSD are becoming faster but not bigger for now. I am sure this will change but I can't see 5T even in 5 years unless something drastic changes.
Though I could dream about iPad 4 with 1 TB of memory, oh mamma that would be sweeeeeet. Can't fill it now but I am sure over the next few years I can fill it up with non compressed music
That will happen, however not with the same performance as we expect.
The way it'll happen is by introducing an extra bit per cell. Right now, there are two NANDs being sold, a single-bit cell (SLC) and a 2-bit per cell (MLC). SLC is the fastest because you only have write one bit per cell but MLC has more space because you can store two bits per cell but you have a much slower write speed because you have to rewrite the previous 2-bit stored with a new 2-bit data, it is not possible at the moment to *append* one bit change.
Right now, there are many companies such as Seagate that are working on 3-bit MLC (production) and some are working with 4-bit MLC (research/experimental) . That makes it possible to introduce multiple terabytes SSD in the same size but with an extremely slow write speed because once again, for a 4-bit cell even with only 2 bits that you have to change, you have to clear the cell and write 4-bit data to it.
So, if you have 512GB SSD with 2-bit MLC, for the same price, you can get 2TB SSD with 4-bit MLC. (I have to check my math to be sure)
We should see a 2TB SSD with 3 or 4-bit MLC within the next two years and not at high prices either, should be compatible to the current 512GB SSD prices.
We're talking about NANDs here, not an actual SSD. NANDs are typically measured in megabits. ONFI 3.0 offers a 400mbit interface for the NANDs.
The reason we get 200+ megabytes now is because SSDs have a controller that can access data via channels that binds multiple NANDs at the same time (in order word, it can read and write from many NANDs at the same time). So, if we're talking about 4-channel SSD that with 2-bit MLC NANDs per channel, that's 4 channels * 2 bits per NANDs (400Mbps) = 4 * 800 Mbps = 1600 Mbps/8 = 200MBps.
Fast performance SSDs usually have 8-12 channels, so an 8 channel SSD with ONFI 3 NANDs = 800MBps.
There are overheads that have to be factored in but cut off about 30%, we're talking about 600MBps for 8 channel SSD with ONFI 3 spec'ed NANDs.
Right now, the current ONFI 2.1 are spec'ed at 133Mbits.
Well, after waiting two months for the MBA, I have decided to skip it and got a new MBP 15" for my laptop. If for whatever reason the AIR is a nice upgrade over the old one I might return it, but leaving the fact that Apple is limiting you so much on upgrades with that laptop, that I decided to go with the MBP.
Apple, see what happens when you wait too long, you lose sales on the MBA!
See you next week in the forums asking whether to keep your mbp or returning it for the new mba
He is talking about how tedious it can be to watch a video on the iPad. He never mentioned anything about music. he talked about "data and content" Are you implying that because he has data (music according to you) on a SD card, he didn't pay for it? Or are you saying that iTunes is the only way to get multimedia content legally?
I don't know if it is funny or sad.
No.
The discussions above ae about the upgradability of internal parts, specifically the SSD module, and to a lesser extent other internal components such as the battery.
Thunderbolt is an external peripheral interface. To my knowledge, this interface does not handle the transfer of external power to the host device. The current MacBook Air has USB 2.0 ports; people are not discussing the availability of external peripheral connections in this thread.