Prediction: Apple to move exclusively to SSDs in Macbook Pro line within 18 months

[spaceballl]

What do you think? Will I be right or wrong. The prices are almost compelling enough for them to do it now, especially with Apple preferring to use higher end components so they can keep their notebook prices higher.

Apple always pushes out legacy components at a fast rate... floppy drives, fw400, DVI in favor of displayport, etc...

To be honest, I think it could happen within a year, but I'm just saying 18 months to give myself some more room .

 

[Drumjim85]

but unlike floppy drives, fw400, and dvi. SSD is the same size and interface as a HDD, and there for can still be a viable upgrade path.

 

[spaceballl]

but unlike floppy drives, fw400, and dvi. SSD is the same size and interface as a HDD, and there for can still be a viable upgrade path.

right... i don't understand what you mean by that... of course it's an "upgrade" - my prediction is that apple will "upgrade" all of their laptops to SSDs within 18 months.

I think Apple would say that CD-Rs were an "upgrade" to floppy disks, that fw800 was an "upgrade" to fw400, and displayport was an "upgrade" to DVI.

 

[Drumjim85]

the other items were changes that had to happen to the case, to the physical being of the computer. But with HDD and SSD, it takes up the same space, and apple can easily still provide options for either.

 

[c3m]

if SSD price drop to where HDD price is now in 18 months (which i think it's very likely) then wouldn't HDD price drop even lower? From a company point of view, wouldn't they make more profit margin by using HDD instead of standardizing SSD? but of course if apple can maintain the same profit margin with the SSD then why not right?

 

[pkagel]

I'm thinking within short order the SSD's will be cheaper to make than the HDD's so this prediction is pretty good though the timing of the implimentation may be off a bit.

if SSD price drop to where HDD price is now in 18 months (which i think it's very likely) then wouldn't HDD price drop even lower? From a company point of view, wouldn't they make more profit margin by using HDD instead of standardizing SSD? but of course if apple can maintain the same profit margin with the SSD then why not right?

 

[spaceballl]

the other items were changes that had to happen to the case, to the physical being of the computer. But with HDD and SSD, it takes up the same space, and apple can easily still provide options for either.

Right but if prices keep plummeting with SSDs, why would they offer both as the performance / power saving benefits are so huge?

if SSD price drop to where HDD price is now in 18 months (which i think it's very likely) then wouldn't HDD price drop even lower?

Yes HD prices will drop as well. However, if you take a look at hard drive technology and prices, the rate that the technology has progressed has been a lot slower... and the price drops are more incremental, when comparing to SSD, where we sometimes see two price drops per day at newegg on the intel ssd.

 

[kolax]

right... i don't understand what you mean by that... of course it's an "upgrade" - my prediction is that apple will "upgrade" all of their laptops to SSDs within 18 months.

I think Apple would say that CD-Rs were an "upgrade" to floppy disks, that fw800 was an "upgrade" to fw400, and displayport was an "upgrade" to DVI.

Yes - but you didn't get what he meant; he's saying that an SSD is the same size and same connector as a normal hard drive. It isn't like it needs a case redesign (loosing FW400, Mini DP instead of DVI) to upgrade to an SSD.

But to answer your question: SSD's are really taking off now. They'll come down a lot in price as well as performance enhances in the next year.

 

[themoonisdown09]

I would love for Apple to make SSDs standard on the Macbook Pros rather than HDDs, but I honestly don't think that will happen in the next 18 months. I think that they will become standard on the highest end models, but not all across the board.

I wouldn't mind being proved wrong though.

 

[peskaa]

I can't see it being across all the lines, but I can see them on the top end models (ie: the current 2.53 15" and the 17"), with the bottom end having a 500GB+ HDD. Obviously they'll let you BTO back to a HDD if you want.

 

[flanamac]

I will say this, that the $700 to $900 (depending on your discount) bump for and SSD and the speed it provides pros will likely be worth it now. Yeah, I would say that if they release a new MBP model in 2009 with SL, then certainly SSD will be the new standard and in 2010, 500GB SSD will be around $300.

I plan to upgrade in Feb 2010 to 8GB and a 500 GB SSD (intel) for a total of around $500 for my Jan 2009 17" MBP.

What do you think? Will I be right or wrong. The prices are almost compelling enough for them to do it now, especially with Apple preferring to use higher end components so they can keep their notebook prices higher.

Apple always pushes out legacy components at a fast rate... floppy drives, fw400, DVI in favor of displayport, etc...

To be honest, I think it could happen within a year, but I'm just saying 18 months to give myself some more room .

 

[alphaod]

When the capacity of SSDs exceed HDDs, I can see Apple making the transition by making the SSDs themselves.

Of course by the then we'll have soldered SSDs because we sure wouldn't want to waste good space on enclosures and controlling mechanisms!

 

[Quu]

I don't think they will move everything to SSD within 18 months. I think they will continue to offer SSD drives but to move entirely to them I don't think so.

A few reasons why:

1. Price, SSD's are very expensive and still will be in 18 months

2. Capacity, as SSD's hit 256GB, Hard Disks hit 500GB, as SSD's hit 500GB, HD's hit 1TB. Western Digital recently released a 2TB desktop drive and its well within their capacity (based on that same disk density) to release a 750GB 2.5" drive.

3. Performance. Yes SSD's can beat HD's however as Hard Disks increase in platter density they also gain performance. I've seen 2.5" Laptop grade drives at 80MB/ps read and SSDs are usually around that (Until you pay twice as much), SSDs strong point is Random Access but as Hard Disks begin integrating 1GB of fast flash on the drives it blurs the lines...

I personally would love a 500GB SSD but I'm not willing to pay more then £100 for one. And I don't see such a drive under that price point within 18 months. Not with the performance I'd want anyway.

 

[plinden]

but unlike floppy drives, fw400, and dvi. SSD is the same size and interface as a HDD, and there for can still be a viable upgrade path.

They don't have to be the same. That's just the casing.

If (edit: when) Apple switches to SSD completely, I'd expect to see some other casing (if not soldered directly to the logic board), to give Apple more flexibility in design ... like with the 17" MBP battery.

 

[kolax]

When the capacity of SSDs exceed HDDs, I can see Apple making the transition by making the SSDs themselves.

At first I thought no chance. But considering they are now developing the ARM processor, I wouldn't be surprised if they did eventually start producing their own storage: iPod, iPhone, Mac, Apple TV would benefit from Apple designed storage.

 

[Patriks7]

I really can see them doing this for the Pros. Because currently, there is not really anything major between the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I mean I know people who bought a Pro before just cause of the Intel graphics in the MacBook, but the new MacBooks have a really good graphics card for it being integrated.

 

[kolax]

I really can see them doing this for the Pros. Because currently, there is not really anything major between the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I mean I know people who bought a Pro before just cause of the Intel graphics in the MacBook, but the new MacBooks have a really good graphics card for it being integrated.

Screen quality, FireWire and dedicated GPU are the 3 major things that differentiate the MacBook from the Pro. But the 9400M as you say is a very capable card.

I know a lot of people who would have bought a MacBook if it had FireWire (including me..).

 

[spaceballl]

1. Price, SSD's are very expensive and still will be in 18 months

They are less than half of the price they were 18 months ago. I expect that rate of price change to continue. So do most industry analysts.

2. Capacity, as SSD's hit 256GB, Hard Disks hit 500GB, as SSD's hit 500GB, HD's hit 1TB. Western Digital recently released a 2TB desktop drive and its well within their capacity (based on that same disk density) to release a 750GB 2.5" drive.

Keep in mind that the hard drives you referenced are 3.5" drives. Capacity on 2.5" drives hasn't really moved that quickly. We're at 500GB right now. We're not going to be moving beyond that any time soon. Consider that SSDs weren't even on the map 18 months ago... and now you can get half of 500GB. It won't be long before 512GB is on the map.

Performance. Yes SSD's can beat HD's however as Hard Disks increase in platter density they also gain performance. I've seen 2.5" Laptop grade drives at 80MB/ps read and SSDs are usually around that (Until you pay twice as much), SSDs strong point is Random Access but as Hard Disks begin integrating 1GB of fast flash on the drives it blurs the lines...

The performance aspect isn't really accurate. Even a mediocre SSD like the one in the first gen macbook air will seem much faster than a hard drive. This is because of random read performance. Doing long file transfers with big sustained writes might blur the lines, but that's not a real world way that people use computers. Furthermore, SSDs have been pulling more and more away from hard drives, in terms of performance, over the past 6 months. Mobile hard drives will still be at 7200rpm in a year or so and SSDs will be even faster.

 

[Vanarak19]

4 years time you wont be able to buy a laptop without an SSD IMO.

I cant see Apple ditching mechanical HDs this year, no matter what progress. I believe SSD size will surpass 2.5 Mechanical drives within 18 month no doubt.

Its about time SSDs made a run, I cant believe it hasnt already happend personally. Our CPUs are "X" fast, our GPUs are "XX" fast, and we still have the same old spinning weakness in EVERY COMPUTER BUILT

 

[nippyjun]

I think that the OP is correct.

Some say that the SSD prices will still be high in 18 months. I disagree. Memory prices keep dropping as will the ssd prices.

Also, Apple now makes even more profit on their computers due to the falling memory prices. Any premium for the ssd's over regular hard drives would be made up by the practically free DDR3 memory at that time.

 

[UltraNEO*]

What do you think? Will I be right or wrong. The prices are almost compelling enough for them to do it now, especially with Apple preferring to use higher end components so they can keep their notebook prices higher.

Apple always pushes out legacy components at a fast rate... floppy drives, fw400, DVI in favor of displayport, etc...

To be honest, I think it could happen within a year, but I'm just saying 18 months to give myself some more room .

Sony Japan already offers Dual 1.8" SSD giving the users to enable RAID0 in it's top of the line VAIO TT series, available as a custom build to order option. They also come with 2x Blu-Ray burner and 4GB DDR3 as standard. At the moment, the cost of embedding SSD technology into devices comes at a cost and with the recession, I suspect some consumers would choose the cheaper option. I'd give it about four years for things to really change.

However, if f Apple wants to stay competitive, they will follow suit but having said that Apple has yet to jump onto the bandwagon for Blu-Ray. Even if it's a "bag of hurt" for Apple, Apple should give users that option, if they want it. Right now, we don't even get that!

As for me, I don't really need all that much speed, work space is more important.
If i went SSD enabled. It'll have to be the high density, enterprise SLC SSD devices that I'd want, they're more reliable.

 

[Patriks7]

Screen quality, FireWire and dedicated GPU are the 3 major things that differentiate the MacBook from the Pro. But the 9400M as you say is a very capable card.

I know a lot of people who would have bought a MacBook if it had FireWire (including me..).

Yeah, the Firewire part is the only thing that might make me go Pro (buying a new camcorder and I think USB will be too slow for the movies). I personally don't mind the screen quality of the MacBooks (most laptop PCs I've used have worse anyway) and when I do serious work, I have an external monitor (which I think anyone who is doing something serious on a laptop that requires a good screen has anyway). To be honest, the 9600M is actually making me go away from the MBP. Reading all the people having problems of it overheating in Windows just makes me really not like it since the only time I have time to game is in the summer and I'm in a really hot place (around 25 C in the evenings, which is the time I game).
But I see why Apple removed Firewire. It's either good graphics or Firewire. I think most people will rather have the better graphics (I mean the Intel ones really are total CRAP), but IMO that is not enough to set them too much apart. The SSDs should do that though. Making the base ones with 256 GB and options for bigger, while the MacBook will have 250 GB HDD and an option for a 128 GB SSD.
Too bad Apple doesn't want to make the perfect laptop for us Add Firewire and maybe an express card into a 13" laptop, and I bet that would be the best selling laptop ever!

 

[UltraNEO*]

They are less than half of the price they were 18 months ago. I expect that rate of price change to continue. So do most industry analysts.

The one your seeing which are affordable are all pretty much MLC. Making them slower, cheaper and more prone to failure. Hence, lower price.

 

[Schtumple]

3 years, 18 months is far too soon, especially in this economic climate.

 

[darngooddesign]

It doesn't matter if SSD prices have dropped, they are still more expensive than regular drives. So the only way this will happen is if SSDs offer the same capacity for the same price as regular drives.