Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Teardown Confirms Apple Still Using Modular Solid-State Drive on New MacBook Air

With Thunderbolt advancing the state of I/O - we should see external hot-plug RAM enclosures for the Air.

How cool would it be to only have to ever own a single 11" Air with 4GB inbuilt and upto 32GB externally attachable RAM. The TB attached RAM, 30" Display and bigger storage disks can sit on the desk - one can just pull the Air when going out and work with the inbuilt RAM/Storage on the go.
 
Spoony said:
So the Samsung SSD is faster than the Toshiba SSD?

Is it possible to know which SSD is inside prior to buying?

if not

Is it possible to tell which SSD you have without tearing the aluminum case open? Like in system settings or hardware or whatever.
Click to expand...

Yes, much faster and better technology.

No, but you could always return it for the better SSD in store. Slight hassle but if you are paying $2k plus with tax/applecare you should be able to get the best available.

To figure out which SSD you have see this thread. There are also two different display providers, but the difference is not that big.
 
stevenpa said:
Yes, much faster and better technology.

No, but you could always return it for the better SSD in store. Slight hassle but if you are paying $2k plus with tax/applecare you should be able to get the best available.

To figure out which SSD you have see this thread. There are also two different display providers, but the difference is not that big.
Click to expand...

Thanks. That is exactly what i'm going to do. Hopefully i get lucky and get the Samsung but if i don't you better believe i'm going to be that annoying guy and return it until i get the faster one.
 
Great news! I want a lighted keyboard but couldn't afford to buy a new MBA with the 256gb SSD. Now I can buy the 13" with the 128gb SSD and just swap the SSD's between my 2010 MBA and the new one.

Guess I'll be going to the Apple store in two weeks durning tax free weekend.
 
I bought a maxed out one (edit: 13 in), so I guess it's safe to assume I'm getting the Samsung since the old Toshibias didn't go to that size right?
 
Last edited:
parapup said:
With Thunderbolt advancing the state of I/O - we should see external hot-plug RAM enclosures for the Air.

How cool would it be to only have to ever own a single 11" Air with 4GB inbuilt and upto 32GB externally attachable RAM. The TB attached RAM, 30" Display and bigger storage disks can sit on the desk - one can just pull the Air when going out and work with the inbuilt RAM/Storage on the go.
Click to expand...

RAM doesn't sit on the PCIe bus. Not sure if you could even get the systems memory controller to work over the PCIe bus (plus the massive loss in bandwidth).
 
parapup said:
With Thunderbolt advancing the state of I/O - we should see external hot-plug RAM enclosures for the Air.

How cool would it be to only have to ever own a single 11" Air with 4GB inbuilt and upto 32GB externally attachable RAM. The TB attached RAM, 30" Display and bigger storage disks can sit on the desk - one can just pull the Air when going out and work with the inbuilt RAM/Storage on the go.
Click to expand...

Dual-channel 1333MHz DDR3 - 170.6Gb/s
Thunderbolt - 10Gb/s

Not really enough, plus the latency is much higher (RAM connection is straight from CPU to RAM slot; Thunderbolt is CPU to PCIe to Thunderbolt controller to Thunderbolt cable).
 
This is the best news I've heard since the MBA refresh was announced! :D

That means that an SSD can be replaced after the warranty or Apple Care has expired without having to replace the entire motherboard. (Before that it's Apple's problem.)

Given all the conflicting information about how many times flash storage can (or can't) be rewritten, I feel a lot better about buying a new MBA knowing that the flash storage can be replaced as needed.

ETA: ifixit rocks. :cool:
 
lilo777 said:
What's up with all those Samsung chips on Apple motherboards?
Click to expand...

If you are referring to the actual SSD (there are no other Samsung parts), they are NANDs. They are the chips that hold your data. Looks like four NANDs so 32GB each in 128GB model. Either 8x4GB dies (if 3Xnm) or 4x8GB dies (if 2Xnm). I would guess the latter.

John.B said:
This is the best news I've heard since the MBA refresh was announced! :D

That means that an SSD can be replaced after the warranty or Apple Care has expired without having to replace the entire motherboard. (Before that it's Apple's problem.)

Given all the conflicting information about how many times flash storage can (or can't) be rewritten, I feel a lot better about buying a new MBA knowing that the flash storage can be replaced as needed.

ETA: ifixit rocks. :cool:
Click to expand...

2Xnm flash memory has 3000 P/E cycles so for 128GB SSD that makes up up to 384 000GB, or 384TB of writes (theoretically). Nothing to worry about that but it's always nice to have a user replaceable part.

John.B said:
Will the differences show in System Profiler?
Click to expand...

Yes.

TS128C = 128GB Toshiba
SM128C = 128GB Samsung
 
TheEmpty said:
I bought a maxed out one (edit: 13 in), so I guess it's safe to assume I'm getting the Samsung since the old Toshibias didn't go to that size right?
Click to expand...



NO, you could still have a Toshiba. A few users on this forum reported they got TS256C.
 
adrian.oconnor said:
I have been using computers for decades now, including a 6 month stint at a shop repairing PCs (albeit 13 years ago), and I can tell you that memory does NOT fail often. In fact, I'm not sure I can recall a single instance of memory failing in any of my computers, or those of my colleagues. Memory is pretty reliable.
Click to expand...

While it's true that SSD should eventually (key word: eventually) be more reliable than spinning hard drives because of no moving parts, that doesn't mean they are necessarily right now. There are plenty on unreliable SSDs--just take a look at some OCZ branded ones, for example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227396
(Click on the feedback tab)

Seems like OCZ must tune for pure speed and as a result reliability takes a hit. Even Intel, who focuses on making reliable SSDs, has a problem with the 320 series where suddenly drives show up as only 8MB.

And I've seen RAM modules go bad, even in my own personal laptpop. They lasted a long time (4+ years) and doesn't happen nearly as often as spinning hard drives, but it does happen.
 
The only bad thing is that they do not come equipped with sand force controller.

This laptop was not made as well as one would hope.

They did not upgrade the GPU; Intel 3000 runs slightly better than the 320M and the SSD is not even running the latest SSD controller.

Which is a little disappointing, considering the fact that if you had to pay premium you would want the better one.

Oh well, the next air will probably be what will finally convert me on over.
 
Hellhammer said:
Dual-channel 1333MHz DDR3 - 170.6Gb/s
Thunderbolt - 10Gb/s

Not really enough, plus the latency is much higher (RAM connection is straight from CPU to RAM slot; Thunderbolt is CPU to PCIe to Thunderbolt controller to Thunderbolt cable).
Click to expand...

diamond.g said:
RAM doesn't sit on the PCIe bus. Not sure if you could even get the systems memory controller to work over the PCIe bus (plus the massive loss in bandwidth).
Click to expand...

You both are right of course - both latency and bandwidth would be bottlenecks. So not right now but may be in future one can hope some connector will get it right and we can have hot plug laptop RAM!
 
accessoriesguy said:
The only bad thing is that they do not come equipped with sand force controller.

This laptop was not made as well as one would hope.

They did not upgrade the GPU; Intel 3000 runs slightly better than the 320M and the SSD is not even running the latest SSD controller.

Which is a little disappointing, considering the fact that if you had to pay premium you would want the better one.

Oh well, the next air will probably be what will finally convert me on over.
Click to expand...

If they upgraded the GPU, people would then be bitching about the AMD CPU (not that Apple would ever do this, but it is the only possible GPU solution to ultra portables).
 
Good Questions!

cms2 said:
I wasn't aware that the RAM was soldered in (I don't own an Air, anyway), but that sounds like a bad idea, if RAM does frequently fail (I also wasn't aware that it did).
Click to expand...
This is an interesting subject in its own right. RAM isn't necessarily unreliable, I've had many computers grow old with their original RAM. However poorly implemented or selected RAM can cause all sorts of problems.

In this case I would trust that Apple did its homework and went out of its way to make sure the RAM array is reliable. Even if something is faulty you should be able to catch in during the infant mortality phase.
Can I ask what may be a dumb question: Is there a benefit to having items soldered directly to the logic board?
Click to expand...
Yes there are benefits, some of which are significant. First the eliminating of a plug and socket in favor of solder components should lead to a more reliable machine. If you work as a technician for any length of time you will find out that 80% of all electrical failures are the result of failure of interconnections.

Beyond that there are other benefits, one is that the machine can be thinner. So soldered components enable the very idea of an AIR.
Or is it more just that Apple wants you to have to go through their official channels to upgrade/repair the device?
Click to expand...
I doubt that honestly. This is not an upgradable machine for one thing. Second Apple should be seeing far fewer machines returned for warranty repair in the first place.

As an aside I'd really like to see Apples numbers with respect to AIR returned for warranty repair. My "feeling" is that such repairs should be rather low.
Is there an energy saving or power boost inherent in soldering such items?
Click to expand...
Err this is far harder to answer. In general I would have to say no to the issue of power savings. However a performance boost might be possible. Basically the farther you are away from the processor the slow the memory. In the end I don't think either two of these items impacted the design of the AIR.
 
So the best deal for those of us who want a good 4 years of use would be to buy the base model? This way we can upgrade the harddrive a few years later when storage is cheaper I would guess...does this violate applecare?
 
RichardBeer said:
What exactly is the technical difference between 2.1 and 4.0? I'd like to think that 4.0 is better as it is more recent, but a quick go on google is showing something about use on low power devices.

If it is better than 2.1, then why is the iMac and MBP still using it?
Click to expand...

First of all, don't change the meaning of "it" mid-sentence like that, it can confuse people. 4.0 provides the capability of communicating with very low power devices, such as ones that run off of a coin cell. It opens up the possibility of including the technology in devices where it was impossible before due to the power requirements of bluetooth. I can't think of which devices of such low power requirements would benefit from this though...
 
adrian.oconnor said:
I have been using computers for decades now, including a 6 month stint at a shop repairing PCs (albeit 13 years ago), and I can tell you that memory does NOT fail often. In fact, I'm not sure I can recall a single instance of memory failing in any of my computers, or those of my colleagues. Memory is pretty reliable.

SSDs shouldn't fail often either, though they're still a bit new to have any meaningful longevity data. Certainly the certified r/w cycles should be plenty to ensure the typical SSD sees many years of service. Nobody I know with an SSD has suffered a single failure yet (admittedly it's a tiny sample size of about 5 drives over 3 years, starting with the original Air).

That said, I do agree a soldered on SSD would be silly. Upgradable/replaceable RAM would also be nice, but I see why Apple can't do that in this case design.
Click to expand...

I've seen a ton of RAM fail (also decades of using computers). Granted, it's usually some idiot thinking its ok to vacuum the inside of their computers or put it on carpet (static electricity), or just touching the chips with their hands and not being properly grounded, etc. They are the most easy to damage components in computer. But you're right that they don't randomly fail on their own often, though, so in the case of MBA, where you shouldn't have a user sticking their hands in it, it's probably a non-issue or at least worth the trade-off of having to replace the whole board if it goes bad.

Maybe the SSDs in the MBA have less failures, but SSDs are failing. I don't know if this is more or less than HDD, but it's happening. I don't really like to reference Jeff Atwood, but he talks about it here with an anecdote of someone having 8 different SSDs fail on them in 2 years: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html
 
nilk said:
Good! A soldered-on SSD would be a fairly bad idea at this point, considering the failure rate of SSDs in general. I'm not too crazy about soldered on RAM, either, as that's a component that fails often as well.
Click to expand...

Who cares if the ram is soldered on. If it fails Apple will replace the entire motherboard. And if you get Apple care they will do for up to three years. I think many people upgrade their systems within the three year period (I upgrade every 2-3 years).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back