Odds of an SSD increase in 2014 Retina Macbook Pro?

[smizzle]

First, I apologize if a similar topic has been posted, but I couldn't find any through my searches.

Basically, I'm wondering what you guys think the odds are of Apple increasing the base SSD sizes for the Retina Macbook Pros this year. I currently use an iMac but it's getting pretty old and I've had my eye on a Retina Macbook for a few years. The one thing that's kept me from pulling the trigger is the size of the SSD. I have a ton of photos and music that take up the bulk of my 500 GB hard drive, and I only expect those libraries to grow over the years.

From looking on Wikipedia it seems that the base SSD has always been 128 GB for the 13" and 256 GB for the 15". I intend to get the 15" and I can justify upgrading to 512 GB, but the upgrade price for the 1 TB drive seems insane to me.

Is it reasonable to expect Apple to finally increase the base size of the SSDs this year? Maybe 256 GB for the 13" and 512 GB for the cheapest 15" model? Or maybe I should just accept that Apple thinks the days of local media are gone and that the amount of storage on computers wont continue to increase every cycle like it used to. I'm curious to hear what you guys think. Thanks!

 

[Meister]

Odds are not high. Not enough demand.

 

[accountforit]

Odds are not high. Not enough demand.

How would you know that? You don't know the ratio of the units being bought. The 128GB SSD may not be selling well at all.

From anything I've read, most people would rather have more than less storage.

OP - I am not sure if I can answer your question, but I believe Apple will start increasing the base storage when everyone else on the market does. It will work the same way as the traditional HDD grew in size over the past few years. Back in 2009 you got 160GB, and it gradually grew to 500GB and stayed there through the current cMBP.

 

[hallux]

I'd ask about the odds of there BEING a 2014 rMBP before asking if there will be an increase in base SSD size. Intel has delayed the next CPU until fall at least, if Apple does anything before that it'll only be a slight spec bump using the current CPU generation.

 

[laurihoefs]

AFAIK, there have been no dramatic drops in NAND prices, so I'd say getting larger SSDs in the same price points is highly unlikely.

 

[john123]

How would you know that? You don't know the ratio of the units being bought. The 128GB SSD may not be selling well at all.

From anything I've read, most people would rather have more than less storage.

OP - I am not sure if I can answer your question, but I believe Apple will start increasing the base storage when everyone else on the market does. It will work the same way as the traditional HDD grew in size over the past few years. Back in 2009 you got 160GB, and it gradually grew to 500GB and stayed there through the current cMBP.

First off, sales of the base model remain quite strong. Analysts and market researchers alike collect this sort of data on a regular basis.

Second, it's not really about what people would "rather have more" of. It's an issue of price elasticity of demand.

To the OP, your odds of seeing an increase in base storage this year are rather slim.

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I'd ask about the odds of there BEING a 2014 rMBP before asking if there will be an increase in base SSD size. Intel has delayed the next CPU until fall at least, if Apple does anything before that it'll only be a slight spec bump using the current CPU generation.

The odds that there will be a 2014 rMBP are actually very high—but to your last sentence, yeah, it'll be a minor spec bump most likely.

 

[yjchua95]

I intend to get the 15" and I can justify upgrading to 512 GB, but the upgrade price for the 1 TB drive seems insane to me.

The reason why the 1TB is so much more expensive is because it uses a 4-lane PCIe channel, giving it reads/writes of around 950MB/s to 1GB/s.

All other capacities use a 2-lane PCIe channel, giving them a performance of around 750MB/s read and 700MB/s write.

 

[accountforit]

Second, it's not really about what people would "rather have more" of. It's an issue of price elasticity of demand.

Ahhh....yes it is.

When the person that comments states "Not enough demand", then my comment applies.

We can talk Economics all you want....if you really want to. However, it will come down to buying habits more than anything else.

 

[john123]

Ahhh....yes it is.

When the person that comments states "Not enough demand", then my comment applies.

We can talk Economics all you want....if you really want to. However, it will come down to buying habits more than anything else.

I personally would love to talk economics more...but alas, I think most people here would get painfully lost.

But to return to the specifics on your comment, people have the option right now between the lower and the higher capacity. Eliminating the base model at $1299 and replacing it with the higher storage means losing revenues from customers who were willing to pay the $200 price premium. That's a worthwhile tradeoff if—and only if—it would increase overall profit through an (even larger) increase in overall demand.

But I don't see much evidence that would happen right now.

 

[alex0002]

The small SSD option allows apple to offer a lower price point and remain more competitive with windows ultrabooks that also offer a 128GB SSD. This gets people interested in the MBP and apple hopes you select a larger option when you order.

In time the difference between a 128GB and 256GB SSD could become so small, no SSD OEM will supply the smaller size, just like it's almost impossible to buy a 64GB SSD these days.