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rdstoll

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 15, 2008
273
2
I can't figure out why Apple charges over $2/GB to ramp up the storage from 256gb to 512gb on any of their Macbooks. Nearly every SSD available on the market goes for under $1/GB.
 
Warranty.

Historically, Apple always charges more for RAM, HD/SSD space.

Also in the Retina MacBook Pro's, the price for mSATA SSD's are still high in the industry, so they're not that overpriced. But for regular 2.5" SSD's, yes, it's definitely overpriced.
 
Because Apple can get away with it...

Supply and demand for their laptops, all there is to it;)
 
It's the Apple premium, unfortunately. This was part of the reason why I was so happy to get a 13 inch cMBP, because I knew I could put faster, SSDs in them without having to deal with proprietary crap.
 
Because apple have to support the product.

Yes, their SSDs are typically slower than aftermarket.

However, look up the failure rate for brands such as OCZ, and try and find failure reports for apple SSDs.
 
In europe, it is common for restaurants to make most of their money on drinks (glass of soda/softdrink $3-5 without refill!), while the food is sold close to production cost. A 2 liter bottle costs about $1 at the store and probably gives 6-10 glasses. The mark up is ridiculous. Whoever as a whole it's just part of their business plan, otherwise they wouldn't earn anything.


In seems to be common practice in the electronics to have larger margins on upgraded models, e.g. on higher memory versions of tablets and smartphones. Also here, it is part of the business plan. While Apple is probably making enough money on their base models, you don't say no to extra revenue.
 
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It is plain simple (and sad). Apple, as other Apple-related manufacturers like LaCie (for storage devices) charge 2x to 3x the market price (eg., Amazon) for exactly the very same make of model of components that they do not manufacture like RAM, disks, etc.

The only workaround is to buy from other manufacture (not possible if you want a Mac) or to buy the cheapest model and then make the reseller upgrade for you or DIY upgrade, if possible (not soldered components, etc). That way you can save huge amounts of money.

In relation to that, I wish I could purchase LaCie SSD enclosures and then place the corresponding Samsung SSD that they use inside, resulting in the very same product at half or less the price.
 
In relation to that, I wish I could purchase LaCie SSD enclosures and then place the corresponding Samsung SSD that they use inside, resulting in the very same product at half or less the price.
Why not just buy a regular enclosure from newegg and an SSD. Why pay for the name LaCie.

Btw, when this thread was created in 2013, the SSD prices were a tad higher.
 
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I agree. Back in 2013, it was still expensive to get an SSD through Dell too. And it is 2016, but these SSDs are not the standard SATA SSD drives either.
 
Its all profit. Its just like charging $100 more to go from a 16 to 64 gb iPhone. The cost of materials on Apples side is nowhere near that cost. Its almost all profit gravy.
 
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Go look at what Dell/Lenovo charge for SSD upgrades and you'll see it's about the same price from other OEM's

The difference is with those systems is you can start with the small disk system, and upgraded it later as your need to storage expands, by getting a SSD from Amazon. That is more difficult and expensive to do with Apple
 
That is more difficult and expensive to do with Apple
Indeed, and the only option is buying them from OWC, where the replacement SSD is expensive, TRIM is not supported and I believe bootcamp is not an option, because the chipset being used is a RAID chipset.
 
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