Teardown of 13" Retina MacBook Pro finds redesigned battery, Samsung flash, soldered RAM - Page 2

 

Sorry, I wasn't aware of the relationship between platter quantity and drive height. Please disregard. Actually, most of the time you're pretty safe adopting that as the default response to just about anything I post!

Okay then, quick tech lesson. HDDs have platters in them. The platters have a certain density and the number of platters determine the total capacity. That much I'm sure you know. What is less known is the number of platters in each drive. 7mm HDDs have a single platter, 9.5mm have 2 platters, and 12.5mm have 3 platters.

The ODD (Optical Disc Drive) is 12.7mm which is the Ultra Slim Optical Drives that you find in Mac notebooks. Since these are 12.7mm drives you can actually replace your 9.5mm HDD with a 12.5mm drive in those machines to get 50% more platters in the HDD bay.

I think this is current maximum capacity for a single HDD platter.

• http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57383112-1/hitachi-intros-first-7200rpm-single-platter-7mm-hard-drive/

As for 5mm, I think that is for really thin SSDs, only, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

 

It's my opinion that they should GIVE US BACK OUR RIGHT-CLICK MENU instead. And stop using custom hover states for buttons and actually use the browser's standard like a good website would. There's zero excuse for when websites steal away a system's actual functionality. 

 

And on SSDs, the only real reason I can see them getting cheaper is the hard ceiling on spinning disk drives. Once we hit 5TB there, the only thing they can do is get cheaper, not bigger. And since SSDs will eventually catch up in (and fly way past) that capacity, you'll see the old-timers quickly moving to capitalize on that.

This un-Apple space in the MBP Retina screams that the next generation will have Fussion drives.

Western Digital is now demoing their new form factor 2.5" drives that come in a much more compact 5mm and 7mm designs sporting up to 1TB. This uncharacteristic extra space seems like the perfect size to drop in on of these drives. The problem is these drives are just being demoed now to manufacturers, they are likely not available in quantity currently.

Next revision of MBP Retina I expect an option for a 1TB HD 128GB SSD Fusion drive.

Sounds like the opposite. They've already moved all the way to SSD. Why would they go backward?

It is not going backwards.  You are moving from a 128GB SSD, to a 128GB SSD + a 1TB HD.  How is that moving backwards?  The new 2.5" form factor single platter 5mm and 7mm drives are extremely small (I've held them in my hand). 

 

There is plenty of room to give the MBP the same SSD + HD setup as is possible on the new iMac.  

Western Digital is bringing out a 5mm form factor.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/12/western-digital-brings-wafer-thin-5mm-hard-drives-to-idf-we-go/

 

They've been redesigned from the ground up to get 500GB to 1TB drives of storage into very thin Ultrabooks and Tablets. I fully expect these to be adopted in the MBP line with an SSD.

 

People want the speed of an SSD, but they also want the capacity of a HD.  They are going to be able to deliver both. 

 

With the new form factor the 7mm drives are dual platter, 500GB per platter.  So 5mm will be up to 500GB, and 7mm will be up to 1TB.  

 

You are being intentionally obtuse.

 

A dedicated GPU certainly would help offload some work from the CPU when using the retina display and a high-res second monitor.

 

And it is sort of irrelevant that certain professions don't require a GPU. MANY computing-based profession DO require a GPU.  The level of apologism in your analysis is shocking.  Apple Macbook Pros have traditionally been the gold standard with respect to video-editing and many other areas that are heavily GPU-dependent.  I realize the last 13" MBP didn't have a GPU (largely due to a contractual conflict between Intel and ATI as I recall), but that's no excuse for Apple to stop pushing.  Clearly if Apple didn't think the Pro models needed dedicated GPUs, they would leave them out of the 15" and 17" models as well.

 

All I am getting at is that a pro model's primary focus should be workhorse power, expandability, storage, and reliability.  That's not to say that style, design, and cutting edge technology should be abandoned.  But the priorities should be toward work.  Would it have been too much to ask to make the damn thing 3-6mm thicker to accomdate a 1TG HDD in addition to the SSD and hybrid options?  Perhaps to also permit a modest dedicated GPU?

 

And while we are at it, there's no particular reason that Apple decided to solder the ram to the mobo.  I realize that ram upgrades are less essential than in the pas.  But adding small connectors would have hardly added any thickness or expense.

Awesome! Thanks for the update.

I, like many others here, expected Apple to offer a solution like the Fusion Drive when they moved to the SSD cards and removed the ODD. I was (and am still) surprised that wasn't on the table for the first RMBPs.

 

Meh, the 13" MBPr isn't very pro.  What can you do on a 13" MBPr that a 13" MBA cannot?  Same HD4000 GPU.  Same 8GB limitation...which is a huge limitation for many pro users (like Photoshop users above).  The primary difference is a 2.0 Ghz dual i7 vs a 2.9 Ghz dual i7 and the extra TB port.

 

Just using your laptop for your job doesn't make you "pro" in the common understanding of the word.  Business users far outnumber creative pros and they use their laptops for work too.

 

As a dev the 13" MBPr isn't really pro enough.  My biggest bottleneck on my 2010 MBP is RAM for VMs.  8GB isn't enough.  The lack of a real GPU just makes it even worse.

 

My ideal pro machine would be the 13" MBP with the optical removed and GT 650M w/1GB RAM added and the FW800 replaced by a 2nd TB.  Same size and maybe a little heavier for more battery.  

 

It's a little sad that the 13" MBP has a higher RAM capacity than the MBPr.

 

And where the hell are the external thunderbolt GPU enclosures that get demoed and never make it to market?

 

The Magma is for sale for real, isn't it?  http://magma.com/thunderbolt

 

"Graphics Card Support

External graphics support is a feature many users desire and we’ll keep you informed. Be the first to know... Join Magma Expresso."

 

http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt-compatibility.  The Sonnet pro enclosure will fit a x16 card and is cheaper but no support for GPUs at the moment either.  The GUS II is a no show.

 

You can get a GPU to work via TB on Windows but not so much OSX.

 

Sorry, I foolishly thought that PCI is PCI... why would it support one kind of card but not another? Especially when Thunderbolt is expressly intended to include video support?

 

Never mind. It is what it is. Or, more accurately, it ISN'T what it oughtta be. Thanks for the info.