It took 31 hours. I don't think it's just migrating applications that causes it either - that would make sense as it has to check all the dependencies - but I've used it in the past without applications and it just takes far longer to copy anything than a direct Finder transfer. You're welcome to find out first hand though. It would be interesting to see how long it took to do over 500GB.
Best case for a mobile hard drive direct would be about 50MB/s sustained write so to do 500GB, it would take around 3 hours. It's not likely to maintain 50MB/s for 3 hours and there will be a lot of files to move so the average speed is likely to be under half that. If you add in processing overhead for every file, you can see how the time can balloon quite rapidly. The good thing about doing the large files together is that it's not jumping between writing large and small files through the whole process.
I'm not sure how they'll manage the entry 13". I could see them cutting the dedicated GPU from the entry 15" to get the price down, possibly even make it 128GB but the entry 13" has to fall $300 and no hardware changes possible. They have to do it eventually though so it's probably just a matter of when they want to suck up the margin drop.
I disagree with the premise that the entry-level price of the Retina MBPs must match the current entry-level price of the non-Retina MBPs. Also, if we look at the prices the resellers are now charging, it seems the costs are coming down as the yields are rising. I don't expect any large margin drops, either soon or farther into the future.
I disagree with the premise that the entry-level price of the Retina MBPs must match the current entry-level price of the non-Retina MBPs.
It's a matter of whether they want to keep the same price points. Demand isn't entirely elastic, and they arrived at the current pricing model for a reason. I don't expect the cMBP to go anywhere unless they can both produce enough machines and get within $100 of the current cost of entry at their desired margins.
I'm about to order a non-retina MacBook Pro for my wife, and we're trying to make some decisions around which "upgrades" to buy as BTO options from Apple and which to do ourselves with aftermarket components.
I've now spent two hours trying to figure out how much RAM to order and can't find a definitive answer.
Buying from Apple, the maximum RAM is 8GB, but OWC and Crucial both list the maximum as 16GB. Does anyone know for sure that the machine can actually utilize 16GB? Is there some reason for Apple not to offer a 16GB upgrade option?
Excellent question. She doesn't. I just noticed that the difference in price between 8 and 16 is small enough that as long as I have the machine open anyway I might as well pack it full. Same reason we're going with a 750GB drive when 500 would probably be fine.
I understand, but I think you should ask confirmation whether it's a good idea or not. I heard that packing over 8GB of RAM is useful for photo/video editing, but can make the computer slower at boot and for internet browsing. So maybe she would actually be more comfortable with just 8GB.
I heard that packing over 8GB of RAM is useful for photo/video editing, but can make the computer slower at boot and for internet browsing.
It doesn't. If it's set to hibernate, it uses up more space on the drive and it can write a lot of data to the drive if a lot of RAM is in use when it's put to sleep but it's not slower using 16GB vs 8GB. If the machine uses less than 8GB then it'll behave as though it had 8GB in it. The ideal scenario one day will be to have 128GB+ of non-volatile RAM and that will mean zero boot times. If they partition it, it could mean being able to switch back and forth between different operating systems without rebooting. For now, especially with HDDs, the more RAM the better as there's less chance that anything gets paged out to disk.
I'm about to order a non-retina MacBook Pro for my wife, and we're trying to make some decisions around which "upgrades" to buy as BTO options from Apple and which to do ourselves with aftermarket components.
I've now spent two hours trying to figure out how much RAM to order and can't find a definitive answer.
Buying from Apple, the maximum RAM is 8GB, but OWC and Crucial both list the maximum as 16GB. Does anyone know for sure that the machine can actually utilize 16GB? Is there some reason for Apple not to offer a 16GB upgrade option?
Thanks for your help!
Yes, any current Macbook Pro will support and use 16 GB of RAM. I've had several that have had 16 GB in them.
I'd be inclined to get a non-retina and to upgrade the RAM myself - it's about $100 and is very easy to do.
Apple doesn't offer 16 GB RAM for reasons that only Apple knows. I tend to think it's because it simplifies their inventory and because they are trying to push people who think they need 16 GB to a retina.
I believe the most 'on-point' answer would be: the retina MacBooks are NOT supposed to be user-upgradable. The RAM is supposed to be soldered on the MB and the SSD is causeless and looks like a custom form-factor.
Comments
I have no idea why but it's pretty much guaranteed to grind to an insanely slow pace the more things it processes.
Flounder here tried to do just 90GB:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/156507/game-recommendations
It took 31 hours. I don't think it's just migrating applications that causes it either - that would make sense as it has to check all the dependencies - but I've used it in the past without applications and it just takes far longer to copy anything than a direct Finder transfer. You're welcome to find out first hand though.
Best case for a mobile hard drive direct would be about 50MB/s sustained write so to do 500GB, it would take around 3 hours. It's not likely to maintain 50MB/s for 3 hours and there will be a lot of files to move so the average speed is likely to be under half that. If you add in processing overhead for every file, you can see how the time can balloon quite rapidly. The good thing about doing the large files together is that it's not jumping between writing large and small files through the whole process.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I'm not sure how they'll manage the entry 13". I could see them cutting the dedicated GPU from the entry 15" to get the price down, possibly even make it 128GB but the entry 13" has to fall $300 and no hardware changes possible. They have to do it eventually though so it's probably just a matter of when they want to suck up the margin drop.
I disagree with the premise that the entry-level price of the Retina MBPs must match the current entry-level price of the non-Retina MBPs. Also, if we look at the prices the resellers are now charging, it seems the costs are coming down as the yields are rising. I don't expect any large margin drops, either soon or farther into the future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcarling
I disagree with the premise that the entry-level price of the Retina MBPs must match the current entry-level price of the non-Retina MBPs.
It's a matter of whether they want to keep the same price points. Demand isn't entirely elastic, and they arrived at the current pricing model for a reason. I don't expect the cMBP to go anywhere unless they can both produce enough machines and get within $100 of the current cost of entry at their desired margins.
Quote:
Originally Posted by v5v
I'm about to order a non-retina MacBook Pro for my wife, and we're trying to make some decisions around which "upgrades" to buy as BTO options from Apple and which to do ourselves with aftermarket components.
I've now spent two hours trying to figure out how much RAM to order and can't find a definitive answer.
Buying from Apple, the maximum RAM is 8GB, but OWC and Crucial both list the maximum as 16GB. Does anyone know for sure that the machine can actually utilize 16GB? Is there some reason for Apple not to offer a 16GB upgrade option?
Thanks for your help!
Out of curiosity, why does your wife need 16GB?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yazolight
Out of curiosity, why does your wife need 16GB?
Excellent question. She doesn't. I just noticed that the difference in price between 8 and 16 is small enough that as long as I have the machine open anyway I might as well pack it full. Same reason we're going with a 750GB drive when 500 would probably be fine.
I understand, but I think you should ask confirmation whether it's a good idea or not. I heard that packing over 8GB of RAM is useful for photo/video editing, but can make the computer slower at boot and for internet browsing. So maybe she would actually be more comfortable with just 8GB.
It doesn't. If it's set to hibernate, it uses up more space on the drive and it can write a lot of data to the drive if a lot of RAM is in use when it's put to sleep but it's not slower using 16GB vs 8GB. If the machine uses less than 8GB then it'll behave as though it had 8GB in it. The ideal scenario one day will be to have 128GB+ of non-volatile RAM and that will mean zero boot times. If they partition it, it could mean being able to switch back and forth between different operating systems without rebooting. For now, especially with HDDs, the more RAM the better as there's less chance that anything gets paged out to disk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by v5v
I'm about to order a non-retina MacBook Pro for my wife, and we're trying to make some decisions around which "upgrades" to buy as BTO options from Apple and which to do ourselves with aftermarket components.
I've now spent two hours trying to figure out how much RAM to order and can't find a definitive answer.
Buying from Apple, the maximum RAM is 8GB, but OWC and Crucial both list the maximum as 16GB. Does anyone know for sure that the machine can actually utilize 16GB? Is there some reason for Apple not to offer a 16GB upgrade option?
Thanks for your help!
Yes, any current Macbook Pro will support and use 16 GB of RAM. I've had several that have had 16 GB in them.
I'd be inclined to get a non-retina and to upgrade the RAM myself - it's about $100 and is very easy to do.
Apple doesn't offer 16 GB RAM for reasons that only Apple knows. I tend to think it's because it simplifies their inventory and because they are trying to push people who think they need 16 GB to a retina.
I believe the most 'on-point' answer would be: the retina MacBooks are NOT supposed to be user-upgradable. The RAM is supposed to be soldered on the MB and the SSD is causeless and looks like a custom form-factor.