Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Would you have prefered a SATA SSD in the 2018 Mac mini?
- Thread starter Hexley
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Maybe not, although it is true that a Sata SSD would not make a noticeable difference to the common user, better than the computer has the latest technology, as long as it does not cost as a Mac Pro haha.
It would simply be better if the prices were cheaper obviously not to make the hardware poorer.
For example, the input iMac still has an HDD and I would not recommend anyone to buy it, so it makes no sense to market it with that configuration.
Apart from being honest, the Mac Mini input model is not very useful for 128GB, not only the Mac Mini but would believe any computer.
It would simply be better if the prices were cheaper obviously not to make the hardware poorer.
For example, the input iMac still has an HDD and I would not recommend anyone to buy it, so it makes no sense to market it with that configuration.
Apart from being honest, the Mac Mini input model is not very useful for 128GB, not only the Mac Mini but would believe any computer.
Apple could make MUCH better fusion drives by paring a fast SSD with a sata SSD, but I doubt they ever will
Definitely not. SATA SSDs are significantly slower than Apple's.
It might have been preferable to have a bay for a SATA drive but not as the only storage option.
No… but this is not to say that I would have liked to have seen the current Mac mini come with an empty NVMe slot.
Apple's love affair with exterior aesthetics only matter to me if they allow me to keep it that way, that is, offering an enclosure that used to fit an optical drive else a 2 x 2.5" SATA drives that can't offer an NVMe slot isn't exactly looking out for their customers nor the environment. Forcing me to go external also forces me to have a significantly greater resources impact on our planet. Why is it I need to buy an externally enclosed NVMe blade that requires significantly more manufacturing, which will also go slower, when they could have given a slot so that all I needed was the same NVMe blade and a screw? I don't listen very much when Apple rattles on about their environmental credentials because they often ensure that I need to be wasteful.
Apple's love affair with exterior aesthetics only matter to me if they allow me to keep it that way, that is, offering an enclosure that used to fit an optical drive else a 2 x 2.5" SATA drives that can't offer an NVMe slot isn't exactly looking out for their customers nor the environment. Forcing me to go external also forces me to have a significantly greater resources impact on our planet. Why is it I need to buy an externally enclosed NVMe blade that requires significantly more manufacturing, which will also go slower, when they could have given a slot so that all I needed was the same NVMe blade and a screw? I don't listen very much when Apple rattles on about their environmental credentials because they often ensure that I need to be wasteful.
I seriously doubt that using a SATA SSD would have reduced the price enough to matter (my guess would be tens of dollars at best, certainly not a hundred or more) to all but a tiny minority of the most cost-conscious buyers, especially if you're talking about supporting a unique SATA configuration and mfg process for the entry-level model. That being said, I do wish they would apply some of their clever design expertise towards making the next Mini a bit more user upgradeable (e.g. easier access to the RAM slots, dual NVMe slots)... even if the chassis needed to be a bit taller. At least the Mac Mini isn't fully potted, which is exactly what I was expecting after the previous update.
That's actually my dream Dream Fusion Drive for the 2018 Mac mini & 2019 iMac.
128GB or 256GB PCIe SSD + 1-8TB SATA SSD.
There wouldn't have been room for the cooling solution if they retained a 2.5" drive bay or two for SATA SSD.
The direction of travel is certainly towards high performance PCIe x4 SSDs, if Apple were to offer industry standard slots for that rather than the proprietary one that is controlled by the T2 then more people would be happy but I wouldn't have thought it would be a major issue for most as Thunderbolt external boot off a Samsung X5 should be feasible if people wanted to do that.
The direction of travel is certainly towards high performance PCIe x4 SSDs, if Apple were to offer industry standard slots for that rather than the proprietary one that is controlled by the T2 then more people would be happy but I wouldn't have thought it would be a major issue for most as Thunderbolt external boot off a Samsung X5 should be feasible if people wanted to do that.
no, i don't want sata in my life anymore.
i'd prefer a NVMe drive tho.
You'd waste all the saving on the needlessly convoluted setup and ancient tech. as far as 2TB drives go, intel 660p nvme is cheaper than most SATA drives
i'd prefer a NVMe drive tho.
why on earth would you do this? SATA SSDs aren't much cheaper to NVMes and they're mostly constrained by SATA not actual NAND.
You'd waste all the saving on the needlessly convoluted setup and ancient tech. as far as 2TB drives go, intel 660p nvme is cheaper than most SATA drives
I wouldn't say the value of the Intel 660p is better than say the Samsung 860 EVO.
When I look at larger format storage needs, ones where you start looking at HDDs again, the cost of NVMe is significantly higher than 4TB SATA SSDs. It's slower for sure but NVMe is impractical when I'm looking at the need of 10TB+… even more so when one wants to implement redundancy.
I've gone with 2.5" SATA SSD for my primary storage which is implemented redundantly in NAS. I'm bottlenecked by gigabit ethernet, for the most part, anyway so it's actually marginally faster than HDD. The reason I went for the expense of SSD is its longevity in comparison. If I want speed I'll move "it" to my internal SSD in either of my Macs.
If you're looking at a single <= 2TB blade like in a Mac mini, then yeah… NVMe all the way. SATA definitely has highly important purpose though. Maximising utility is often a more important metric that straight performance.
I wouldn't want sata INSIDE it, TB3 has enough throughput to handle 6 full sata ports on a single port.
+ the drives are huge compared to blades.
Where i'm from, 660p is 30% cheaper than 860 EVO for the same size, while offering 4x throughput.
Two 660p 2TB are cheaper than a single 860 QVO 4TB drive, and in raid 0 would probably offer 8x throughput, and in a smaller package than a single 2.5" drive.
instead of wasting space on a 2.5" SATA slot, I'd rather have 4x NVMe slots in the same footprint, even if they're only x1 speed.
The only reason I'd want an SATA SSD in there. Is if that meant storage was user upgradeable and the T2 chip was thrown in the scrap heap. Then the sacrifice of speed would be worth it. Although I'd rather a standard M.2 slot for NVMe upgrades.
lol, hell no!
Today's NVMe-based drives attain throughputs up to 16 gigabytes per second (GBps), and vendors are pushing for 32 GBps or higher. Many NVMe-based drives reach well over 500,000 IOPS. Some deliver 1.5 million, 2 million or even 10 million IOPS. At the same time, latency rates continue to drop; many drives achieve rates below 20 microseconds, and some below 10.
The older protocols don't perform nearly as well on SSDs. Today's SATA-based drives attain throughputs of only 6 Gbps and IOPS that top out at about 100,000. Latencies easily exceed 100 microseconds. SAS drives deliver somewhat better performance; they provide throughputs up to 12 Gbps and IOPS averaging between 200,000 and 400,000. In some cases, SAS latency rateshave fallen below 100 microseconds, but not by much.
Today's NVMe-based drives attain throughputs up to 16 gigabytes per second (GBps), and vendors are pushing for 32 GBps or higher. Many NVMe-based drives reach well over 500,000 IOPS. Some deliver 1.5 million, 2 million or even 10 million IOPS. At the same time, latency rates continue to drop; many drives achieve rates below 20 microseconds, and some below 10.
The older protocols don't perform nearly as well on SSDs. Today's SATA-based drives attain throughputs of only 6 Gbps and IOPS that top out at about 100,000. Latencies easily exceed 100 microseconds. SAS drives deliver somewhat better performance; they provide throughputs up to 12 Gbps and IOPS averaging between 200,000 and 400,000. In some cases, SAS latency rateshave fallen below 100 microseconds, but not by much.
They should have raised the motherboard and put 2 MVMe slots and 2 memory slots on the bottom of the motherboard, so people could upgrade easily.
Fusion drives are just increasing the chance you suffer a problem. They're way past their prime.
If Apple needs to hit a price in their iMacs, they should have just slapped a cheap 256 or 512GB SATAIII SSD in their Macs and if you want anything faster pay for the PCIe prices. Giving people a noticeably terrible performance as their introduction to a Mac doesn't seem like a great long-term move.
A two SSD fusion drive would be more reliable then their current HDD based fusion drives.
In reality Apple should have released something between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro that's in a half tower-ish size. I can't see that happening in the future for exactly the same reason it hasn't happened until now… Apple doesn't want to.
A shame really. Some of us want large storage without having to sell a kidney for it.
Nah. I also added an small external SSD for additional storage. Pretty much a non issue, least for me.