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Why does the MD101 still exist?

b0fh666 said:
i'd say to be careful about that - i tried a sata3 on the optibay (granted, el cheapo from ebay) for a while, it works but would eventually break (disk not ejected properly after some sata errors). went back to the good old 750gb sata2 OEM and zero problems since that.

cheers
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Thanks for the warning. The last time I had one was a 2010 MBP 15", and had the bay as well. I think the SSD was in the actual HDD slot, and I moved the HDD to the Superdrive sled. I do remember there being some idiosyncrasy with BootCamp or something (maybe DVD player) that was expecting that SuperDrive, but it wasn't a deal breaker.

So, do you think what I did in the 2010 would work with the MD101? 1TB hard drive in the Superdrive sled, and 1TB SSD in the regular hard drive slot?
 
SSD in the hdd bay is definitely OK, the 1TB on optibay is a hit or miss if the drive is sata3. The one I had problems with was a 1TB SSHD from seagate, it would work OK most of the time but fail when pushed hard, like copying virtual disks.

so, if the HDD you want to use is sata3 it would be good to get the best optibay adapter you can buy to be on the safe side, as there is no way to force sata2 on the mac.
 
b0fh666 said:
SSD in the hdd bay is definitely OK, the 1TB on optibay is a hit or miss if the drive is sata3. The one I had problems with was a 1TB SSHD from seagate, it would work OK most of the time but fail when pushed hard, like copying virtual disks.

so, if the HDD you want to use is sata3 it would be good to get the best optibay adapter you can buy to be on the safe side, as there is no way to force sata2 on the mac.
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How about this one? They claim you can use either SATA 3.0 or SATA 6.0 with it:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDAMBS0GB/

Their article on it: http://blog.macsales.com/10433-macbook-pro-2011-models-and-sata-3-0-6-0gbs-update-5272011
 
looks much more fancy than mine (i have 2) which are just some aluminum poorly made junk. a bit expensive but i'd go for that.
 
Thank you for the heads up ! I have not been aware about this model and I hope the MD101 will be available for another year :) . As of it´s specs, it reads like a very nice little laptop. Having a perfectly working mid 2010 13" MBP 7.1, I did not consider to upgrade anytime soon.

However, compared to my current MBP, USB 3.0, the faster GPU and the newer CPU justify a short term ( within 12 months ) upgrade for me. I can swap my 2 years old 480 GB SSD as well. The upgrade price will be about $600, considering that I will sell my current MBP for about $300 - $350 ( 2.66 GHZ, 8 GB RAM, the new HDU of the MD101 and an almost new battery ). I will max out the MD101 with 16 GB RAM. Great price for a new Apple laptop with warranty, good for another 5-6 years.

My current MBP serves me very well and I would have a hard time to swich to the non serviceable units. I don´t need to because of the MD101. Good luck to anyone trying to make me shift focus :p .
 
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Can somebody please confirm if the MD101 will run SATA III @ 6GB ( internal SSD, not in OptiBay ) in BootCamp ?
 
Probably, apart getting rid of the HD stock still in place, more you keep that one at the shop, more you can sell the others mac with an additional premium charge to the customers making it as an additional feature.
 
I can report a couple of things about this notebook, as a seasoned photographer who earns his living from picture taking for more than 20 years(!). I have just replaced the original 2008 unibody macbook version with a base model macbook pro 13, from Ebay, new, at a great discount. The computer was sealed etc and I could not be more pleased. I set about getting a samsung ssd and extra ram, and slotted the original HD in the optical bay. I have myself installed these things. My 2008 is actually still going strong, but I have semi retired it to a back up and living room machine. Absolutely nothing wrong with the performance of the machine whatsoever! Its an i5 but I run the latest photoshop, Affinity photo, Photo Mechanic safari, mail, ftp software all simultaneously, and its flawless. The screen , despite peoples objection to it not being non retina is absolutely fine, and a lot better than a lot of pc completion without doubt. Given that my cameras are from 12-24 mega pixels and I edit raw, it is great. Its a work horse of a computer. Tried, trusted and tough enough for daily abuse (with a case perhaps)..
Slightly amusing that there are a few foot stampers and trolls on here who think a rant will change the scene. They are probably the people who actually don't know their way around macs and don't know how to just get on with it and produce stuff. I expect to be using this mac for the next 3, 4,5 years maybe, just as did the last one.
 
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MacuserNo.42 said:
I can report a couple of things about this notebook, as a seasoned photographer who earns his living from picture taking for more than 20 years(!). I have just replaced the original 2008 unibody macbook version with a base model macbook pro 13, from Ebay, new, at a great discount. The computer was sealed etc and I could not be more pleased. I set about getting a samsung ssd and extra ram, and slotted the original HD in the optical bay. I have myself installed these things. My 2008 is actually still going strong, but I have semi retired it to a back up and living room machine. Absolutely nothing wrong with the performance of the machine whatsoever! Its an i5 but I run the latest photoshop, Affinity photo, Photo Mechanic safari, mail, ftp software all simultaneously, and its flawless. The screen , despite peoples objection to it not being non retina is absolutely fine, and a lot better than a lot of pc completion without doubt. Given that my cameras are from 12-24 mega pixels and I edit raw, it is great. Its a work horse of a computer. Tried, trusted and tough enough for daily abuse (with a case perhaps)..
Slightly amusing that there are a few foot stampers and trolls on here who think a rant will change the scene. They are probably the people who actually don't know their way around macs and don't know how to just get on with it and produce stuff. I expect to be using this mac for the next 3, 4,5 years maybe, just as did the last one.
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Thank you very much for your feedback - I highly appreciate.

I think we have two kind of users in the Apple Camp, users who freak out on technology / design and users who simply use their machines for their needs. For sure, it´s tempting to buy a new 2015 13" MacBook Pro, maxed out, but do I really need it ? A $3000 laptop ?

I fully agree to you that the 1280 x 800 display is excellent and it´s much better than most of the displays I have seen recently on many new PC´s or laptops. Quite some GPU power of rMBP´s is only used to be able to cope with the higher Retina resolution in terms of speed, for the price of ... money and heat. Serviceability has a high priority in my book, I like to change the battery, the RAM, the HDU/SSD and even the keyboard according to my needs and without having a problem.

All of this the MD101 can do for me and having a MBP mid 2010 13", I am looking forward to buy and use one.

Best, ME
 
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macenied said:
Thank you very much for your feedback - I highly appreciate.

I think we have two kind of users in the Apple Camp, users who freak out on technology / design and users who simply use their machines for their needs. For sure, it´s tempting to buy a new 2015 13" MacBook Pro, maxed out, but do I really need it ?

I fully agree to you that the 1280 x 800 display is excellent and it´s much better than most of the displays I have seen recently on many new PC´s or laptops. Quite some GPU power of rMBP´s is only used to be able to cope with the higher Retina resolution in terms of speed, for the price of ... money and heat. Serviceability has a high priority in my book, I like to change the battery, the RAM, the HDU/SSD and even the keyboard according to my needs and without having a problem.

All of this the MD101 can do for me, I am looking forward to buy and use one.

Best, ME
Click to expand...
It's been about 1.5 months now since I bought mine and I still do not regret it and I use it everyday along with my 2015 15" MBP. I use the 2015 mostly for converting movies to use for my ATV2 and it is very fast at doing that. Usually takes 30 seconds to a minute for a 8GB HD movie. On the 2012, it will take several minutes. Not bad though considering my old 2008 black MB would take 8-15 minutes or so using iFlicks. iFlicks uses the dedicated graphics on the 15" 2015 so it is much faster.

I upgraded the RAM on the 2012 to 16GB. I bought the Crucial RAM for $74 last week (Bought two sets, one for my 2012 Mac Mini). It made all the difference in the world on this MBP. No more slow downs or beachballs.
 
whoever is interested in buying this machine, if willing to get a used one there was a now discontinued version with i7 processor and 8gb ram. the ram is no big deal as you would upgrade to 16 anyway but the processor upgrade is also nice. might be worth looking into.

cheers
 
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