New MacBook Pro downgraded SATA Interface has customers up in arms
A lot of you have been following the news that Apple has downgraded the SATA interface on the new MacBook Pros over at Macrumors, Notebook Review or on Apple's forums. While this is certainly alarming for prospective and new MacBook Pro purchasers, let's keep some things in mind before we get official word from Apple. (that Computerworld guy has a call into Apple for clarification)
- The new White MacBook still uses 3.0Gbs SATA 2. If the move were for cost cutting concerns, the White MacBook would have been the first to have been dropped tp 1.5Gbs
- The NVIDIA 9400M mobile chipset that is included in both old and new MacBook Pros has a built-in SATA 2 interface. Apple would have had to downgrade the interface artificially with firmware or added a separate interface to bring these down to 1.5Gbs.
- The DVD drive is SATA and operates at 1.5Gbs. There might be some wiring anomalies that are also giving the Hard drive bay that same SATA 1 interface speed.
- These are Pro machines and no matter how much battery life they saved (if any), Apple wouldn't make the decision to cut SSD speed to save a little juice. If they did for some reason, public outcry, like what is about to happen, would make them issue a firmware update to correct it.
So what gives? It seems that drives, no matter what speed they are, are registering as SATA 1 drives. Even quicker, more expensive SSDs are only able to connect at 1.5Gbs where in the previous generation, they were able to connect at 3.0Gbs. Obviously there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.
We'll let you know what develops. More below...
Here's a look at the speed of the previous 13 inch MacBook Pro (faster)
vs. the new 13 inch MacBook Pro (significantly slower)
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Comments (41)
I've never heard so much whining. Factual points:
* the drives shipped by Apple don't need more than SATA 150
* Apple has no obligation (or desire, or business case, or financial incentive) to cater for non-Apple drive upgrades
* the number of people who will actually upgrade their drives, such that they need SATA 300, will be a tiny fraction of MBP owners
These whiners are making a mountain out of a molehill. This is a non-issue for the vast majority of MBP owners. I saw one whiner fume that he was going to return his MBP immediately. Why? Because you had plans to install a RAID array inside your MBP? Get a grip, people.
You two comments above mine are clearly drinking Apple Kool Aid or you don't have a fricking clue what you're talking about.
1.5 Gbit/s is a step backwards. Even the whitebook and old UMB/UMBPs have 3 Gbit/s connections.
You aren't getting an upgrade you are getting a downgrade for PRO PRICES.
The apparently slower SATA interface is just the latest disappointment in these 15" MBP's.
Some others:
1. The express card slot is gone in place of an SD slot. According to Apple, hardly anyone used express cards. Really ? How does one get WWAN connectivity ? Oh sure there are USB devices available, but they're not as fast. They're also clumsy. Also an E-SATA connection to an external disk is far faster than Firewire 800. If you need an SD reader you can pick up an express card or USB device for 20 or 30 dollars. What good is a standalone SD slot ? You can boot from it ? BFD.
2. The defective loose lids STILL haven't been fixed! As with the previous 15" unibody's, if you hold it at a steep angle, the lids come flopping down. Obviously Apple recognizes this is a problem since the lids on the new 17" MBP's are fine and the 13"'s and Air's never had the problem.
3. The 15"'s have NOT come down in price although the 13's and 17's have. Its true that they now have a 15 for $1699, but for the first time, it doesn't have a discreet video card. The least expensive 15 with a video card ir $1999, just as before.
Right now I own 2 pre-unibody 15" MBP's which are more capable than what they're selling now. If I do need to buy a new MBP, I'll have to take the 17", even though I don't need the extra size and I don't want the extra weight.
Completely wrong. They're equally fast because they're the same thing.
Express Card is PCI-Express plus USB in the same connector. Cards can choose to implement only the USB wires. That's what all 3G Express cards actually do; there's no need for the performance (or cost) of PCI-Express with 3G so they only implement the USB wires.
That's why you can get USB-convertor dongles for your 3G Express Card. It just changes the physical connector for the USB wires.
What's the deal with loose hinge on the 15"? I sent back by 2G unibody last week and just go the 3G one, and annoyingly, the hinge is still super loose! If Apple quietly fix this I am going to flip out because they are not even acknowledging it...
Sure, and another possibility is that the two comments above yours are correct but you think a false dichotomy is a clever rebuttal.
It's not a downgrade if you could never use the feature. Apple drives, as shipped by Apple, inside the Apple Macbook Pro, do not need SATA 300. Apple's drives are just fine with SATA 150.
The only "downgrade" here is for people who do after-market modifications to their MBP, using extremely expensive SSD drives that most MBP users will never install. Boohoo. Too bad.
Apple sells a MBP. It's a complete unit, with everything you need. They do not sell a rig for you to upgrade using after-market accessories. You whiners are complaining that Apple isn't catering to your niche market. Once again. Boohoo.
Actually, Apple offers your so-called "after-market... extremely expensive" SSD drives as a BTO option online for the relatively large audience of customers that do, in fact, use them. That's not exactly what I would call a "niche market" if Apple is catering to them.
Plus, who knows how fast and/or cheap drives will be 2 years from now. Considering that Apple, in their own battery video, says people use notebooks for about 5 years, one might want to upgrade or replace a slow or dead drive in a few years... having more headroom for expansion is always a good thing.
The SSD drives on Apple's BTO list don't exceed SATA 150, and it's not an after-market accessory if Apple offers it BTO.
How loes "relatively large audience" make sense. Relative to what? The number of individuals who install an SD card as their main drive? That would make sense, relative to the number of MBP users that use the SD card as a main hard drive, a large number of people use SSD as a BTO option. I'd love to see the stats of all of the BTO options and see if SSD users make up a "relatively large audience"
Having said that, what would be the reason to change the SATA from 3 to 1.5? Is it cheaper? I can't think of any reason for them to do this (good or bad)
Talk about an apologist.
Saying "boohoo", really. Give me a break.
Allow me to make a comparison, and please understand I am by no means a technological genius. Say you were to go to a BMW dealership and purchase a brand new vehicle. You sign away a hefty chunk of change and hop on the freeway. To your horror and surprise you discover you cannot push the car past 60 MPH. You get home and through research ascertain that BMW implemented a velocity limiter simply stating that the highest speed limit (I realize this is different for different states but stay with me) is 60 MPH. You don't need to go faster than that.
Would you be at all upset? Maybe just a tad miffed? The reason people are upset is that Apple failed to mention this downgrade, and make no mistake it is a downgrade, before allowing people to spend a large amount of money on their products. It's bad business, for a few reasons actually. What is Apple's net gain by limiting the SATA interface? Do they save on hardware, and how much? Even a savings of tens of thousands is easily offset by a roomful of angry mac loyalists who feel betrayed and are now unwilling to purchase their product. Furthermore, as the computer industry is an eternally evolving market, SSD's will come down in price. They will go up in speed, and limiting the potential speed of your top of the line products just to limit them is dangerously short-sided.
And from a public relations standpoint, this is small now, but let it fester for a little while and it's going to hit more major streams of news. Sure, a large portion of MBP users will never need SATA II. I'm with you on that, but why let anyone cast a shadow of a doubt on your brand new product line? All it takes is a little news coverage to get a potential customer to question buying a product because of "all the bad things" they heard. For example. I've never even used Vista and I hate it because I know so many people who were let down by it. This issue is nowhere near the size of the Vista issue by why allow that to even be plausible by simply saving on battery life or a few quick bucks? Again, bad business.
Hey also, good use of "false dichotomy" you must be an educated man.
That's not a very good comparison. A better comparison is that your brand new BMW works perfectly on the freeway, even goes up to 100mph when overtaking, and you're so chuffed you decided to stick in an after-market Turbo Charger to boost horsepower by 50%. You take your newly modified BMW to the track to showoff to your friends.
To your horror you discover there's an electronic speed limiter that kicks in at 120mph, so you get almost no benefit out of your turbo charger. You moan about the stupid electronic speed limiter, but really I've no sympathy for you, because you bought a street car not a track car, and BMW didn't promise you'd get full performance after installing after-market accessories.
BMW only had to promise that you'd get full performance with the machine that they shipped. Which you did.
So it should not be call a Macbook Pro.
please just understand that there are people who really need this options and that even consider paying more to get those features on a computer.
With that said I can not agree with what you are writing...
there is general market and there is the pro market.
I wish apple had an option like it does for the glossy or non glossy screen for the rest of the features that people really need.
I was ready to order the new Macbook Pro 13" (and switch to Mac) and add aftermarket RAM and SSD this week when I heard about this SATA downgrade... Will hold off for now, since I am sure Apple will have to correct this down the line. I will squeeze some more miles out of my present PC Laptop.
Nicholas
Going to Walmart to buy the super duper maxi eco diapers. Whoa, need them for all the little whining babies who think they are engineers here and who dont know their head from their ass.
So, they see some lab tests that have zero to do with their product, and already start to claim victimhood. Boo hoo.
You cry babies. You find something new to crap in your diapers about every day with Apple. Grow the fsuk up.
I really don't understand what the big deal is here.
1.5Gb/s is roughly 200MB/s. Most people today don't have a need to move that amount of data that fast. Assuming you had a drive capable of saturating the interface, you're talking about opening, say, a 1GB Photoshop file in 5 seconds instead of 2.5. And again, that's assuming you could saturate the interface.
Of course, this only matters if you were planning to get a SSD, really. If you were planning to get a normal hard disk, then you'll almost certainly never see a difference anyway since the SATA interface won't be the bottleneck: the drive itself will be. So this only matters to people getting SSDs. If you're complaining and you were planning on getting a normal hard disk for its larger capacity, then this "downgrade" doesn't affect you one bit.
When it comes down to it, unless you were planning to get a SSD and you're planning on opening up a LARGE file that will then be loaded into RAM, you'll likely never have a case where you'll even have the chance to notice a difference. This would be like complaining that a company that makes speakers removed the "dog whistle" frequencies from their latest line of speakers, despite the fact that you could never actually hear them yourself. For the 1% of people out there that can hear them, or that can actually saturate a SATA interface, yes, this might be a downgrade. For everyone else, it's a non-issue that is being blown out of proportion.
Large files?
What about the future of video, and photography?
What was the file size of a good pro camera shot, 2 or 3 years ago?
Same question for a pro video file?
Speed access to disk can be crucial, and I read "pro" in the MBP logo, don't I?
Like most companies, Apple does care about the future, and would probably not be very disapointed if the pros had to change their machines more often...
Lage files... Sure an Intel X25-E SSD on 3.0Gbps can read a 250MB pictur in to the RAM in 1 sec, but on a 1.5Gbps it will take 1.3sec (And both times if only it you are lucky)
Video. If you have an video that needs to send more then 192MB/s (1.5Gbps) then you are editing RAW HD film (Thats over 10GB/min, and I would not use a laptop for that.
.
And there is no connctions on the MacBook that would allow you to send or resive data anywhere neer the 1.5Gbps speed.
So I can't realy see what the big problem is.
Sure if it was on the Mac Pro, or the X-Server, then I could see the problem.
But on a laptop... Nope, no problem
Large files?
What about the future of video, and photography?
What was the file size of a good pro camera shot, 2 or 3 years ago?
Same question for a pro video file?
Speed access to disk can be crucial, and I read "pro" in the MBP logo, don't I?
Like most companies, Apple does care about the future, and would probably not be very disapointed if the pros had to change their machines more often...
Just because it says "Pro" on the outside doesn't mean the user is.
I don't know...why can't you copy things from DVD plus firewire and Gigabyte all at same time?
I mean if u copy 50 gig data from one part of ur hard drive to another.........
having sata 3g and sata 1.5g will make 3 minutes diffference
Rember on intels X25-E the write speed is 170MB/Sec (Thats under 1.5Gbps)
and on the X25-M the Write speed is 70MB/sec.
So no there wount realy be any difference on that
It's a 3 minute difference if you manage to saturate the SATA interface, but you won't, since DVDs and FireWire don't read in nearly fast enough. Plus, there are other bottlenecks along the way, as have already been mentioned, so even if you were trying to do that, it wouldn't matter.
The difference between 1.5GB and 3.0 GB access only matters when all data is fetched from the drive's cache. For reads (and writes) from (and to) disk it doesn't matter that much.
Also ncq (absent in SATAI, present in SATAII) only really benefits heavy io loads like database servers.
So for a normal every day user it doesn't matter too much, but for us geeks we want every drop of performance sqeezed out!
Miner detail GB = GigaByte Gb = Gigabite. and it's 1.5Gb/3.0Gb
minor detail, i think you mean minOr, not minEr (since we're being nit picky...)
Actually, limiting speed to 1.5Gbps has no effect on NCQ, per se. If the SATA chipset is running in AHCI mode, NCQ will be enabled for drives that support it. This is true even if the link speed has been set to 1.5Gbps. I have an old 'Santa Rosa' MBP that uses the ICH8M chipset. The link speed is set to 1.5Gbps by the hardware, and NCQ is enabled. Some older SATA controllers only support legacy mode (commonly referred to as SATA I) are incapable of NCQ or 3.0Gbps. I have not seen any models of MacBook (Pro or otherwise) that have controllers this old.
This is not to disagree with your statement regarding the benefits of NCQ. On the average hard drive, the difference is negligible. On an Intel X25, it makes a significant difference.
Apple does indeed sell this laptop as a device one will use for at least 4 years. If we look back at the advances in data throughput and the incremental increases in average file size, it seems inevitable that we will feel the need to upgrade to a larger, perhaps faster hard drive when these become the economic norm. Personally, i would prefer that my 2 grand gets me something as future prof as possible and the fact that most laptops ship with SATA 2 will inevitably lead to hardware catching up with that "standard". I really hope Apple can fix this with a firmware upgrade and i still have confidence in Apple's dedication to the end user so i will wait and see before upgrading my MBP.
PS It would be quite nice if people could act their age on these pages as invariably some interesting and educated comments are indeed made but are marred by language my 13 year old sister no longer uses.
Apple does indeed sell this laptop as a device one will use for at least 4 years. If we look back at the advances in data throughput and the incremental increases in average file size, it seems inevitable that we will feel the need to upgrade to a larger, perhaps faster hard drive when these become the economic norm. Personally, i would prefer that my 2 grand gets me something as future prof as possible and the fact that most laptops ship with SATA 2 will inevitably lead to hardware catching up with that "standard". I really hope Apple can fix this with a firmware upgrade and i still have confidence in Apple's dedication to the end user so i will wait and see before upgrading my MBP.
PS It would be quite nice if people could act their age on these pages as invariably some interesting and educated comments are indeed made but are marred by language my 13 year old sister no longer uses.
Any of you geniuses check to see if SATA 2 drives run hotter than SATA 1 drives? This could be a cooling issue.