Where do we stand with current rMBP SSD upgrades?

[skippymac]

My mid 2010 MBP has almost kicked the bucket (less than one hour battery life just surfing the web) and so is going to be repurposed as a sort of second desktop for my mum (she goes mad when dad's using the iMac).

Anyway, I have been thinking about upgrading to a rMBP for the better part of 2 years, but I've been a bit out of touch with the news, and this potential purchase has come a bit out of the blue. I was hoping on some clarification.

I was planning on grabbing a 256GB 8GB ram 13" model, which should be just about adequate for me for the foreseeable future, but I have realised that for about the same price, I can get 128GB 16GB ram, and chuck in one of those low profile SD cards with 128GB storage, effectively swapping a bit of storage performance/convenience for extra memory, without compromising what little storage space I can actually afford on this thing in the first place.

Anyway, I wanted to ask where we stand currently with SSD upgrades for the newest rMBP models. As far as I can tell, it would be possible to use a mac pro SSD (for example like this one from OWC). Is this correct? If so I will be 100% sure on the 128GB model, as I will have the opportunity to increase storage in the future. If I am mistaken however, I may be inclined to go for the 256GB model...

This post has gone on for too long, and I feel I've made a complete meal of the English language, so I'll leave it there and hope someone can decipher what info I'm asking for!

Thanks,
Skippy

 

[alex0002]

As far as I can tell, it would be possible to use a mac pro SSD (for example like this one from OWC). Is this correct?

I suspect that is not correct. If OWC had a compatible PCIe SSD for the late 2013 and newer rMBP, we would have heard about it and it would be listed here:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC

It appears that the only upgrade options available right now, are OEM SSD sales on eBay. Most of these (all?) are Samsung OEM and can be found by searching for similar items to these ones:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-SSD-S...-Air-late-2013-14-MZ-JPU256T-0A2/111568018909
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Samsung...-AIR-and-2013-MacBook-pro-retina/371229932880

 

[simonsi]

I'd go with the 256GB/8GB model.

That machine will comfortably handle around 12-14GB virtual RAM using compression only, up to 16GB+ with a bit of swapping to SSD BUT the performance hit of swapping to SSD is nothing like as much as swapping to an HDD, likely you will never notice.

You <will> notice the aggravation of having the 256GB split over two different drives (one being the SD card), with different speeds, for me that trade off is a no-brainer.

 

[skippymac]

I suspect that is not correct. If OWC had a compatible PCIe SSD for the late 2013 and newer rMBP, we would have heard about it and it would be listed here:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC

It appears that the only upgrade options available right now, are OEM SSD sales on eBay. Most of these (all?) are Samsung OEM and can be found by searching for similar items to these ones:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-SSD-S...-Air-late-2013-14-MZ-JPU256T-0A2/111568018909
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Samsung...-AIR-and-2013-MacBook-pro-retina/371229932880

Thanks for the suggestions, at least it is possible for me to upgrade, even if only through hunting around on ebay for a bit (the drives are harder to find in the UK).

OWC put up this article detailing how they put mac pro drives in 13 and 15 inch rMBPs, but they also say it was only a test and they didn't recommend it. I believe their main concern is potential cooling issues.

The last section reads:

It should be noted that this experiment was done simply to illustrate potential speeds. OWC does not recommend installing a Mac Pro SSD in your Retina MacBook Pro, as we have not performed a thermal evaluation.

However, this does hint at future upgrade potential of your late-2013 or 2014 rMBP.

That leaves me hopeful!

I'd go with the 256GB/8GB model.

That machine will comfortably handle around 12-14GB virtual RAM using compression only, up to 16GB+ with a bit of swapping to SSD BUT the performance hit of swapping to SSD is nothing like as much as swapping to an HDD, likely you will never notice.

You <will> notice the aggravation of having the 256GB split over two different drives (one being the SD card), with different speeds, for me that trade off is a no-brainer.

Those are some good points, but the main thing that's stopping me is that I can never upgrade my ram, whilst storage is more likely. As for having storage split, I won't pretend it will be the best solution ever, but using some symlinks to store a few folders (I do this currently with a 1TB HDD to store all my media and Documents) I suspect I wouldn't find it too bothersome.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

whats your use case??

Thanks for the suggestions, at least it is possible for me to upgrade, even if only through hunting around on ebay for a bit (the drives are harder to find in the UK).

OWC put up this article detailing how they put mac pro drives in 13 and 15 inch rMBPs, but they also say it was only a test and they didn't recommend it. I believe their main concern is potential cooling issues.

The last section reads:

That leaves me hopeful!





Those are some good points, but the main thing that's stopping me is that I can never upgrade my ram, whilst storage is more likely. As for having storage split, I won't pretend it will be the best solution ever, but using some symlinks to store a few folders (I do this currently with a 1TB HDD to store all my media and Documents) I suspect I wouldn't find it too bothersome.

Most people vastly overestimate how much RAM they use, future proofing is a myth most software will run fine on 2gb of RAM for the forseeable future as long as you don't keep much open. 4gb is great for most casual use and 8gb will run all but the most intensive apps and many of them, without breaking sweat.

Check out meisters greart thread on this subject...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1756865/

 

[icsd08063]

I think you should get what you need.

Are you ever going to need 16GB of ram? If yes, just upgrade the ram and go with the 128GB ssd.
Sure, the possibility of getting a bigger ssd in the future does exist but certainly it is not very high, at least for now.
On the other hand, upgrading the ram is not an option at all.

What i did was to put my needs on the table and just decide: i needed the 16GB of ram. Considering that i have 32GB on my Windows PC, it was a lot of "downgrading" for me to go with the 8GB option. And i am pretty used to the 128GB ssd space. All my files lives in an external drive.

Just some of my thoughts...

 

[skippymac]

So I played with the idea of getting both 256GB and 16GB, and then with the idea of getting neither, but I think I have settled on 128GB storage and 16GB ram. This will give me lots of leeway and future proofing, which is not necessarily needed, but I'd rather have it to be honest. I certainly can see situations where I'll benefit from the extra, even if it isn't strictly necessary.

As for the storage space, I realised that the way I currently use my mac, I hardly ever access my internal HDD, save for watching films, which I can stream from my media server happily, and take on a portable HDD easily if I need to. I actually rarely use iTunes to listen to my music anymore, having moved almost exclusively to the cloud based google music. The only other things being photos and my own footage, which I'm quit happy for it to also live on my server as it doesn't need to be portable.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone

 

[jetjaguar]

They sell apple Samsung 1tb ssd on eBay brand new for like 760 or best offer. There is also 512gb as well.

I plan on getting a 1tb one soon