Next MacBook Air to Adopt Faster, More Power Efficient SSD?

[Popeye206]

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.

iCloud could help as it would allow you to keep more available to swap onto your fixed SSD drive.

But... personally, I don't get why some are so up in arms over this. It's an ultra portable device and it looks like Apple is going for the best combo for power and battery life. Not upgradability. I'm guessing they have enough data at this point that shows not that many people want a drive upgrade anyway for a MBA. It would seem if you want an upgradable device, go for a MBP.

 

[revelated]

Do we really want to move laptops to a point where they are completely unexpandable?

Been saying for months now that the problem is a loss of choice. Sheeple will continue to praise Jobs for being "visionary"...when all he's doing is suckering people.

There's going to need to be a point where Apple is required to offer some sort of direct trade-in program. And I don't mean that third party nonsense for a gift card. I mean when a new model comes out, Apple DIRECTLY offering to customers to trade their previous gen in for a discount on the new if they want to upgrade. They've already saturated most sales avenues making it difficult to sell the machines. And yes, I know people don't "have" to upgrade, but if they want to, it's a lot of money wasted. It's the reason I didn't upgrade my iMac...that and the hard drive firmware nonsense.

 

[fertilized-egg]

They've already saturated most sales avenues making it difficult to sell the machines.

Aren't Apple sales all growing across the boards every year except the old iPods?

 

[cvaldes]

According to their quarterly SEC filings, yes.

 

[nizmoz]

See you next week in the forums asking whether to keep your mbp or returning it for the new mba

Not at all. Not when this MBP can run circles around any MBA even the new one.

 

[Ridley]

Been saying for months now that the problem is a loss of choice. Sheeple will continue to praise Jobs for being "visionary"...when all he's doing is suckering people.

They've already saturated most sales avenues making it difficult to sell the machines. And yes, I know people don't "have" to upgrade, but if they want to, it's a lot of money wasted.

I saw someone reply already that they still are growing sales quite a lot. However I do see your point and think its valid. Increasingly Apple is really appealing to the geeks that just want to throw their money at the latest, shiny, i something. I know several people that have literally owned every iPhone model because they just HAVE to have it!! Doesn't matter the price, the extended contract obligation, etc. I think Apple is very much aware of this market and is taking (suckering) them in with open arms. The latest locks on upgrades in the iMac really hammer this home... but I think you'll also see hints of it in Lion, and iCloud that make is easy to buy more and more Apple machines and have it keep your data and applications. They have already gotten people to buy new iPhones and now iPads every year... why not try to get them to buy new computers every year too?

I don't blame Apple, I am sure every company ever would love to be able to have that model, but as a nerd that likes to ticker with my electronics and get the most out of them, its not something that I like.

 

[twoodcc]

this sounds good to me. just bring the new airs out already!

 

[SilianRail]

Can someone talk ballpark about how much hard drive use per day you need to wear it out over in like 5 years?

 

[MikhailT]

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.

It does provide power, the current Thunderbolt has copper wires and can provide up to 10 W of power.

What danvdr (I'm assuming here) was talking about was the use of external SSD or external hard drive over Thunderbolt which would be fast enough to reduce the need to having a bigger SSD in MBA. For an example, you can buy 64GB MBA and place your data (like Photos, Movies that you don't need with you all the time) on external SSD/HDDs that can be small and portable.

Can someone talk ballpark about how much hard drive use per day you need to wear it out over in like 5 years?

There are no general information that can be given because it all depends on the SSD itself.

SLC-based NANDs generally last 10x more than 2-bit MLCs and there are new MLC technologies that can match the lifespan of the SLC that Intel and others are developing for the enterprise that should be carried over to the customer's line later on.

The size of the drive matters greatly along with the firmware and controllers in the SSD.

Purely an estimate here: For the today's good quality MLC 64GB, you can write 128GB per day and it'll still last around a dozen of years.

Remember that it's the writing to the NANDs that has a short lifespan, not the reading. You should be able to read the data forever as long as the controller continues to work.

 

[audiopablo]

It's the 4th of July.

If you're in the U.S., get out and celebrate for a minute. Your opinion on a rumor can wait a day, and so can my snarky comments...

Let's all step back and say, "It's okay, friends and relationships mean more than a 20% bump in speed or an extra 30 minutes of battery life.

I point the finger at myself first here. I even came here for a second, too.

Let's pet a dog or drink a milkshake and remember what life was like before we all went apesh*t over things that haven't happened yet. Computers don't care about you... ever.

If you're out of the U.S., proceed as normal. Here's your pass. Lord knows I'll be back on first thing tomorrow. We're all sick.

 

[shurcooL]

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.

My bad, I thought he was taking about mp3s. I hear those woes, but they have/had things like VLC player, or that StreamToMe app. Converting video to play on a mobile device is not unheard of either. Anyway, there's always Android devices for people who don't like Apple's approach. They have SD slots and all.

 

[holycat]

Seriously, I don't care at all for self SSD upgrade.

I will buy in the MAXED UP version and sell it before the next version release.

 

[couto27]

tools ($10)
my wife original mba 2008, i upgrade to renice ssd (cost $110)
my mbp13 late 2009 i upgrade to a ocz vertex 2 ($150)

soon my future upgrade will be 8gb memory in mbp13 (price around ($100) my wife macbook air.....well or i learn to soldered a 4b memory or sell it.

and im no geek, or tech person, just used youtube and ifixit to do it.

 

[Rocketman]

Simplifying Adoption with Broad Ecosystem Support
“Micron is focused on providing customers with a broad range of flash-based storage options that deliver a clear performance value-add, whether it’s at the NAND component level or within our portfolio of system-level solutions,” said Kevin Kilbuck, director of marketing for Micron’s NAND Solutions Group. “We look forward to extending our NAND and SSD portfolio to take advantage of the fast performance improvements and CE pin reduction that ONFI 3.0 provides.”

“The new ONFI 3.0 technology supporting interface transfer rates of up to 400MB/s is a key NAND capability to support future SSD design” said Knut Grimsrud, Intel fellow and director of storage architecture. “With this interface performance scaling, ONFI NAND will play an important role in SSD compute development, especially for high-performance computing applications where speed is paramount.”

These are N. American companies with domestic technology. Yay us.

Rocketman

 

[sunspot42]

Thunderbolt

Why would anyone want to upgrade their computer?

With Thunderbolt, you don't need to fiddle with a machine's innards in order to expand it. If the next-gen MBA comes with Thunderbolt, you could add all the speedy external FLASH drives you want.

Thunderbolt's gonna change everything for portable devices and may cause us to rethink what constitutes a "desktop" computer.

 

[macsmurf]

With Thunderbolt, you don't need to fiddle with a machine's innards in order to expand it. If the next-gen MBA comes with Thunderbolt, you could add all the speedy external FLASH drives you want.

...And you get to bring all your expansions with you and then reconnect them every time you need your laptop (and of course disconnect everything when you pack away the laptop again). Oh, what joy

 

[MattInOz]

I'm a little confused...

The thickness of the MacBook Air is defined by the CPU with it's carrier and heat sink. So it's not going to save any space to move the SSD modules to the board as they are currently fitted in to a void space created by the height of the CPU. Look at ifixit teardown the SSD and RAM are layered over each other. The thinness of the leading edge seem to be all about battery modules. I can't see the CPU combo getting any thinner so the device isn't going to get thinner either so that space void will still be there.

So even if this system used PCIe to connect instead of SATA it would seem to be more space sensitive to have it on a board so they can overlay it on the ram like they do now. Well unless they reverse the two and put a normal ram module back in (yes I realise that suggestion is really silly).

If they did use a PCIe SSD and then had thunderbolt controller then the intel IO chipset looks even more ridiculous with the amount of space it takes for so little function in the machine.

Does the battery saving come from having it on board or just from more power efficient chips teamed with a smarter controller?

 

[biodigitaljazz]

Thunderbolt's gonna change everything for portable devices and may cause us to rethink what constitutes a "desktop" computer.

This. I'll be commuting to college all 4 years, and I'll be getting a refreshed MBA, regardless of a backlit keyboard D) With the Thunderbolt port, and the Bluetooth capabilities of the Air, and *possibly* a USB hub, I can have a set of speakers, an HDTV as a monitor, a BT mouse and keyboard, and a USB external HDD waiting for me at home. Set the Air down on the desk, plug it in, hook it up? Instant desktop setup! Leaving for school? Unplug the monitor and speakers, and bring the external HDD with me; it's the size of my wallet. Now I'm mobile. I'm extremely excited to get this kind of operation going, and as soon Apple releases the damn things, I can drop my hard earned money on one: 4GB ram, 128GB SSD. Size? Haven't decided.

On the topic of the soldered SSDs, I always remember this quote Steve Jobs said. I think he was quoting someone else, though: "We skate to where the puck will be, not where it has been." As Apple becomes more "mainstream," so to speak, I think their demographic slowly shifts to, if it's not already, people who want to use their computer for what they want/need to do, and really don't know about what's inside it making it work, or even give a care. As some people have said,: The average consumer. I have also heard those who swear by the current gen MBA, and have it as their only computer, which as I described above, will me as well, soon enough. I think, the bottom line? Great, if it adds speed/battery life. The Air has always been built around its mobility, and this adjustment no doubt has been made to serve that feature of the machine.

 

[AwakenedLands]

Coming from the hardware industry, SSDs are fickle and don't last long. I can't understand why an SSD would be part of the mobo rather than an add-on card. They are basically saying the MBA is like an iPad or iPhone. If that's the path Apple wants to take with their hardware, goodbye.

 

[AppleScruff1]

SSD soldered onto the motherboard hmm.
You trash your ssd with writes and that means that you also trashed your motherboard. Nice. Soldered ram maybe, soldered ssd nop.

This is good for Apple. They will make even bigger profits selling new motherboards when the ssd dies. Plus it is good for the consumer not to be able to replace it themselves or get an aftermarket drive, ie, more control by Apple, which is a good thing for all of us.

 

[bpaluzzi]

Over the past 20 years I've owned a lot of Macs and a few PCs. I've had more hard drive failures than all other components put together.

Mechanical hard drives != SSD.

 

[bpaluzzi]

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.

Nope, it just shows that the tiny, tiny, fractional percentage of geeks that care about these things are going the way of the Dodo.

 

[Blue Sun]

Plus it is good for the consumer not to be able to replace it themselves or get an aftermarket drive, ie, more control by Apple, which is a good thing for all of us.

Why is not being able to replace the stock drive with an aftermarket drive good for us?

It's hard to tell whether you're serious or being sarcastic.

 

[zedsdead]

Coming from the hardware industry, SSDs are fickle and don't last long. I can't understand why an SSD would be part of the mobo rather than an add-on card. They are basically saying the MBA is like an iPad or iPhone. If that's the path Apple wants to take with their hardware, goodbye.

They've already said that the recent redesign of the Macbook Air was a mix of the Macbook Pro and the iPad. Expect more similarities in the future.

 

[Dowjohnny]

Hm

Nevertheless: I'm looking forward to the new MBA ^^ Time to switch to Apple on my Notebook too