SSD Upgrade Kits Push 2010 MacBook Air Capacity to 360 GB

[!¡ V ¡!]

That's awesome. I hope the SSDs are up to at least 500GB when the next MBP comes out

2.5" and 3.5" SATA II SSD have been on the market for a while now with the read/write speed of 285/275 megs.

For archive or boot drive purposes SSD make sense, even for consumer portable device and that includes the MBAir. However for content storage it does not make sense at this time because it simply cost too much for the average consumer.

Purchasing a 1TB SSD now will cost you upwards of 5k-10k, if you want that ample amount of storage the best solution is go with a Magnetic HHD that is only used for storage and the SSD for day-to-day usage. Makes no sense to have a 1 TB SSD for storage when its only going to be used to read from 1-2 times (depending on its use) for that file.

SSD have its strengths and so do Magnetic HHD at present. Maybe some sort of hybrid such as the Seagate XT 2.5" models, however they lost that battle for now by not including at least 16GB SLC SSD NAND Flash for the OS. Hopefully version 2.0

 

[John.B]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A400 Safari/6531.22.7)

Whats up with the weird sizes?

The 240GB drive is a 256GB drive with 16GB reserved for "real-time data redundancy & error correction".

 

[revelated]

When are the prices for SSDs going to come down. The transition has been painful to say the least. It's a toss up between SSD and 64bit computing as to which has been the slowest. I thought the computing world was supposed to be one of the fastest moving sectors.

You do realize that not 4 years ago, solid state drives were in some cases close to $10 per GB right? Compared to today's SSDs where we are down to around $1.50-$3 per GB for all but the largest size drives?

How much faster do you want it to go?

 

[!¡ V ¡!]

You do realize that not 4 years ago, solid state drives were in some cases close to $10 per GB right? Compared to today's SSDs where we are down to around $1.50-$3 per GB for all but the largest size drives?

How much faster do you want it to go?

That is because it is MLC based. When SSD were initially introduced it was SLC. MLC is cheaper however it has problems, its consumer mainly. If your data centre depends on MLC SSD you are asking for trouble.

 

[ericinboston]

Correct me if I am wrong...but aren't the SSD drives that the MacAir use different/non-standard compared to the SSD drive out there from Intel and Kingston for example? If the technologies are the same, why on earth are these drives so expensive?!

I bought a Kingston 128GB SSD Spring 2010 for under $200 which was not a crazy discount...just regular street price. It works fine with Linux and Windows7. The 180GB in this article is $500! More than 2x my price.

On a related note, a lot of folks think that if the Mac Air sells more than the previous version, SSDs should fall quickly in price for the rest of us and more and more laptops/desktops will get SSDs very quickly.

I really can't believe folks would plunk down $1000-$1600 for the Mac Air and then another $500-$1500 for a 2nd/larger SSD...unless they have money to burn.

 

[revelated]

That is because it is MLC based. When SSD were initially introduced it was SLC. MLC is cheaper however it has problems, its consumer mainly. If your data centre depends on MLC SSD you are asking for trouble.

I don't disagree, I'm simply replying to a consumer who is complaining about SSD prices when the reality is, on the consumer side the prices have gone down SIGNIFICANTLY in a short period.

 

[Terminal.app]

Taiwanese firm PhotoFast had previously announced similar SandForce-based SSDs ranging up to 256 GB that would be compatible with the 11-inch MacBook Air, but Apple quickly moved to halt sales of the drives. It is unclear if Apple is objecting to the new offerings from OWC and/or applying pressure to have them removed from sale.

And why on Earth would Apple care about 3rd party upgrades? Same as if Apple were to pressure Corsair or G.Skill to take down "Apple RAM kits" from their websites. Piss off Apple, seriously.

 

[gothamm]

And why on Earth would Apple care about 3rd party upgrades? Same as if Apple were to pressure Corsair or G.Skill to take down "Apple RAM kits" from their websites. Piss off Apple, seriously.

um...so that we would have to pay an extra $300 to upgrade from the 64gb version to the 128 gb version?

 

[Terminal.app]

um...so that we would have to pay an extra $300 to upgrade from the 64gb version to the 128 gb version?

Well again, Apple doesn't seem to care that you can get Mac-compatible RAM and hard drives from other places for cheaper...why the fuss over these SSDs?

 

[gothamm]

Well again, Apple doesn't seem to care that you can get Mac-compatible RAM and hard drives from other places for cheaper...why the fuss over these SSDs?

they do care, despite their nonchalant-ness.

they charge disproportionately for memory and storage all the time. Look at:

-Ipad 16 32 64
-ipod touch 16 32 64
-iphone 16 32
-ipod nano " "
-Ipod Shuffle " "
- apple tv (old gen)
- Time capsule

 

[KnightWRX]

they do care, despite their nonchalant-ness.

they charge disproportionately for memory and storage all the time. Look at:

Every vendor does that. 3rd party upgrades are most always cheaper except around the time the OEMs update their models/pricing.

Apple only cared about the Photofast upgrades because they had leverage against them. They don't against OWC/Toshiba.

 

[barmann]

I'm a satisfied OWC customer, always been happy with their products and service; that said, I think you might be just a little too close to advertising on a public message board , no offense.

Support by a company rep on a forum is a great thing, though.

Also, to my knowledge, how you describe your SSDs' benefits below is equally true for the Vertex 2 or Corsair F series , which use components of comparable quality, if not identical ones.

Our drives are designed, very conservatively, for a 5yr minimum life cycle. The over provisioning is used for real time, raid like redundancy that allows for data to be re-written if a problem area is encountered.. and further allows for such to be mapped out without any problem experienced. The DuraWrite wear-leveling technology, over simplified is like doing good tire rotation for your car - it prevents wear spots, etc and keeps the flash level in it's cycle use. This is all done transparently and automatically while you enjoy the full, long term reliability and performance benefit of these drives.

These are generations ahead of that which was available in 2009 - both in terms of the controller that drives and the NAND as well. The top tier NAND we utilize for these drives is well beyond the kind of limited write cycle capability duration of lower end product as well as product in general from 2 years/longer ago.

You can enjoy the full benefits of our SSDs with the reliability of or better than the best drives today... much better too in terms of power use and physical reliability/dropping/etc... never had a head crash on an SSD, well darn - there are no heads to crash.

 

[Thomas2006]

It's a great solution for people with extra cash who need more storage.
I just hope Apple doesn't force OWC to seize sales... That would be a bummer.

How could Apple stop the sales of these drives? The most they can do is say putting these in your machine voids the warranty. Does Apple hope to supplement the low price of the MacBook Air with SSD upgrades so they view 3rd party solutions as causing Apple to "lose" money?

When Apple was down and almost out, they were all about being open. I do not recall Apple issuing cease-and-desist orders to manufacturers that provided a way for people to upgrade their PowerBook Pismo with a G4 processor or all the PowerMac processor upgrades. Remember the PowerMac G3 and its side door being "the bridge to the 21st century"?

 

[linux2mac]

Links to data to support this claim?

I believe part of your argument, that

Sandforce > Indylinx​

However, it also seems that

Sandforce w/ TRIM > Sandforce w/o TRIM > Indylinx​

Is that wrong?

Of course Windows users expect TRIM. They have it and like it.

You are arguing with OWC. OWC has been around for over 20 plus years. I am pretty sure they know what they are doing considering they are by far the most reliable/best maker of third party products/upgrades that work with Macs. Don't worry OWC, I am a new Mac convert and always recommend you guys to the people I convert to Mac - and they sure are happy to be free from buggy and unreliable Windows. You make awesome products! BTW - I called a few weeks ago to get a quote for having a Mercury Extreme Pro put in my iMac and replace my unused optical drive (which is dying technology in my opinion like BD).

 

[ktappe]

I'm sorry, but without links to specific, controlled tests of this theorem I have to decline to believe you.

In particular, as an engineer I would tend to believe that the Sandforce controller would not implement the TRIM command if it had no benefit.

You've never heard of a device being released that had both old (legacy) and new technology in it? The former is due to having feature sets listed so the devices are not summarily dismissed from consideration by institutional purchasing agents. The latter is for those of us who know better.

 

[ktappe]

um...so that we would have to pay an extra $300 to upgrade from the 64gb version to the 128 gb version?

Inapplicable, since I want 256Gb in my 11" Air and Apple doesn't offer that. If they did, then the "they don't want competition" argument might have merit.

 

[Yebubbleman]

That's awesome. I hope the SSDs are up to at least 500GB when the next MBP comes out

You can customize any of the three sizes of MacBook Pro with a 512GB SSD drive. It's just not a 2010 MacBook Air style blade drive.

These SSD have provisioning on it that allows allocation for Garbage Collection and native hardware TRIM support. My drive is an OCZ Vertex II, SATA II, with a SF driver. Its Actual hardware memory is 128GB however it allocates 8GB for TRIM and Garbage Collection, that is why the usable space is only 120GB.

I'm talking about there being features present in the OS that don't require those features to be built into the drive itself. Windows 7 has them. There's no way that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion won't.

 

[AidenShaw]

You've never heard of a device being released that had both old (legacy) and new technology in it? The former is due to having feature sets listed so the devices are not summarily dismissed from consideration by institutional purchasing agents. The latter is for those of us who know better.

Oh yes, the "check box" issue. The enemy of much rational engineering. (Excuse me, I need to take my "pon farr" medication.)

If that's all it is (that is, that the Sandforce SF-1200 has no need for TRIM), then someone should have a white paper demonstrating that under worst case scenarios an SF-1200 based drive runs the same with or without TRIM.

Since TRIM support is optional, the obvious test bench would be Windows 7 - using Sandforce drives with normal firmware and the same version of the firmware with TRIM disabled.

The alternative to TRIM is for the GC (Garbage Collection) in the drive itself to walk the filesystem metadata to discover orphaned sectors - but that solution is too scary to even consider.

 

[AidenShaw]

Windows 7 has them. There's no way that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion won't.

Well, unless the turtlenecked overlord decides that "TRIM is a 'bag of hurt'"....

 

[Yebubbleman]

Well, unless the turtlenecked overlord decides that "TRIM is a 'bag of hurt'"....

He may very well, in which case the turtlenecked overlord decides to have his company make its own thing that fulfills the same need(s), though in a way that is appropriately different (as OS X is a different OS).

 

[Alvi]

Oh, so I do have to mortgage my home to make the MacBook Air, somewhat more "Desktop Replacing"

 

[MikePA]

I'm sorry, but without links to specific, controlled tests of this theorem I have to decline to believe you.

According to your signature, even when you have documentation, like the Constitution, you don't believe, so even if Larry supplied them you'd read something into them that's not there.

Good job, OWC, options are always good.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Oh, so I do have to mortgage my home to make the MacBook Air, somewhat more "Desktop Replacing"

They never made sense as desktop replacements, especially at the price that they have been. They're still better, but even with that, it'd be nice to have more. Sadly the OWC drives don't make that better.

Though seriously, there better be some kind of a trade-in program.

 

[Aatos.1]

It is pricey, but OWC make some of the best SSD's out there. Plus you know they are using the best Sandforce controllers out there. Some benchmarks I've seen from 3rd party's show OWC SSD's on top of most of them and when not, they're coming in a very close 2nd or 3rd. So again, pricey yes, but if you have the cash, OWC's stuff is well worth it.

OWC's drives are private label, made by OCZ, that's why they're the best.

It's only money

 

[Bakari45]

I just saw this on YouTube. But in the hell pays $499—half the price of the bottom line MBA—for more memory? That’s insane, but I bet there are people out there with the mullah to pay it without blinking an eye.