Well, let's put it this way. "Can anyone explain why Apple need new industrial designs full stop?" The original iMac and iBook for instance are widely regarded as all time design classics in the computer world, hell even the original Macintosh is still a little wonder of form, function and presentation rolled into one. Why do Apple ever need to replace their designs? To keep us and computer buyers as a whole excited. Why do it this year? Because we and the market are now clearly convinced that these Intel Macs are still 100% Macintosh!
I understand that designs are going to change, but that doesn't explain why the design should change significantly for the Mac Pro. So far, in my opinion, most of the x86 transitions are evolutionary at best, even the MacBook isn't that radical, a different aspect ratio, a different keyboard and a color option are really all they amount to, the aesthetic theme didn't really change much otherwise.
Sure let me explain the obvious -- It is the worst case design that Apple has ever come up with. Sure part of that is duw to the G5's massive heat output but there are other issues.
Number one is the extreme disdain the case shows for professional users or advance users. I've seen more usefull layouts of I/O on 1U rack computers. Then we have the drive expansion issue (PLease don't even mention external drives as they simply are not suitable). Beyond that are the expansion card issues.
The problem is the case doesn't serve the needs of professional users and is way to expensive to be placed on a corporate desktop.
This is as close as Apple has ever come to producing total junk.
Dave
Quote:
Originally posted by JeffDM
Has anyone in this thread explained why they believe this? "To give Ive something to do" is the best I've seen in this thread and that's not convincing. I would like to see some changes, but that is mostly to add features that Apple has previously resisted, or so it seemed.
Sure let me explain the obvious -- It is the worst case design that Apple has ever come up with. Sure part of that is duw to the G5's massive heat output but there are other issues.
Number one is the extreme disdain the case shows for professional users or advance users. I've seen more usefull layouts of I/O on 1U rack computers. Then we have the drive expansion issue (PLease don't even mention external drives as they simply are not suitable). Beyond that are the expansion card issues.
I would submit that significant improvements to all of those complaints can be made without changing the external appearance.
I can see the appearance changing, and I can see it staying the same. I think it's a too much to claim with certainty that it will change a lot on the next update.
To attempt to pull this thread back to discussion of the new chips rather than case design:
What are the possibilities of upgrading existing Macs with these new chips? i.e. aftermarket processor swap.
Would there be any sense in doing that? Are the Yonah based chips going to get faster clocks, or is all the faster stuff the new Merom and Conroe architecture?
To attempt to pull this thread back to discussion of the new chips rather than case design:
What are the possibilities of upgrading existing Macs with these new chips? i.e. aftermarket processor swap.
Would there be any sense in doing that? Are the Yonah based chips going to get faster clocks, or is all the faster stuff the new Merom and Conroe architecture?
- Jasen.
Yonah maxs out at 2.3ghz. So does Merom. Merom is pin compatible with Yonah and can be swapped out of the CPU isn't soldered to the mb. For higher clock speeds you'll need to move up to Conroe and Woodcrest.
To attempt to pull this thread back to discussion of the new chips rather than case design:
What are the possibilities of upgrading existing Macs with these new chips? i.e. aftermarket processor swap.
Would there be any sense in doing that? Are the Yonah based chips going to get faster clocks, or is all the faster stuff the new Merom and Conroe architecture?
- Jasen.
Yonah maxs out at 2.3ghz. So does Merom. Merom is pin compatible with Yonah and can be swapped out of the CPU isn't soldered to the mb. For higher clock speeds you'll need to move up to Conroe and Woodcrest.
AFAIK you can swap out the Mini (it been done http://tinyurl.com/l9rj9) and the iMac but the MacBook/Pros are soldered down.
Thing I don't understand is is it really 64-bit if they update chip only. Don't they need the 965 set of Logic boards to make the whole thing 64-bit? If so you'll only get the 20% speed difference with chip only it would be a kind of fake. Would Apple do this?... hmm. Aynone know when to expect the new Logic boards for portable systems.
Thing I don't understand is is it really 64-bit if they update chip only. Don't they need the 965 set of Logic boards to make the whole thing 64-bit? If so you'll only get the 20% speed difference with chip only it would be a kind of fake. Would Apple do this?... hmm. Aynone know when to expect the new Logic boards for portable systems.
64 bit for computation likely doesn't need a different chipset. If the 64 bit was needed for memory addressing, that would be a different issue. I wouldn't expect that any current commercial Mac OS app supports x86-64 though.
I would say that a major design change is coming at some point in time to signal that the change over to Intel is complete and to be on the cutting edge of desing trends in the industry. I personally don't think that we will see it till Mac World in SF in the winter, but it could come at any time now with the release of an update to any of the Mac computers or indeed any of their other hardware products. It's anyone's guess now.
I would say that a major design change is coming at some point in time to signal that the change over to Intel is complete and to be on the cutting edge of desing trends in the industry. I personally don't think that we will see it till Mac World in SF in the winter, but it could come at any time now with the release of an update to any of the Mac computers or indeed any of their other hardware products. It's anyone's guess now.
Yup. I agree. We can't be CERTAIN that there will be a new case for the Mac Pro or anything else - hello, this is Apple! But we can be fairly confident that it's either WWDC or MWSF / some other little event if necessary that they'll be coming. Let me put it this way: if the top of the line Mac is still a cheesegrater this time next year, I'll eat my proverbial hat! (Don't actually have a real one, sorry. )
The cheesegrater G5 is a pain of a case compared to the MDD G4 and that is totally the kind of direction I hope to see with the new Woody! Expandability and access. Or, this indeed being Apple, access and perhaps a little saved desk space.
On whether the PPC PowerMac will be kept available after WWDC ... sorry but I doubt that. Woodcrest will just have to be that good! I suggest refurbs for those who need them (indeed if I were after a Quad G5 right now I'd hold out until they turned up for a discount). I know this is no good for companies who need to buy in bulk, but what the transition's showed us so far is that this is Steve's show and PPC is dead whether you like it or not. Every model in the Mac line is getting washed away in a year long tsunami. Only, what comes out of the water is for most people much better than was there before!
However on processors, I agree with JeffDM in that I think the chipset as it is now is already as fully 64 bit as AMD. My folks have a 1.5 GHz Mac Mini Core Solo which will be getting a Merom upgrade once the 2+GHz chips are available on the cheap. (Dual core obviously.) That should be one hell of an upgrade, especially with the ram maxed out at the same time!
Socketed Intel CPU's are great news for upgraders, so long as Apple doesn't pull any nasty firmware chips to lock us out. Soldered Yonah owners are in for a distinctly tougher time than the 5 minute putty knife and silicon grease trick which awaits me when my folks finally feel the limits of their very first Mac. I wouldn't hold much faith in being able to upgrade a MacBook±Pro any easier really than the old PowerBooks. It's likely a full motherboard replecement job or audacious solder ironing!
Definitely make the MBP hard drives user replaceable though. It's a total nightmare on my 12" PowerBook. That one feature of the MacBook impressed me the most. Mac notebook and upgradeable / replaceable hard drive!
....On whether the PPC PowerMac will be kept available after WWDC ... sorry but I doubt that. Woodcrest will just have to be that good! I suggest refurbs for those who need them (indeed if I were after a Quad G5 right now I'd hold out until they turned up for a discount). I know this is no good for companies who need to buy in bulk, but what the transition's showed us so far is that this is Steve's show and PPC is dead whether you like it or not. Every model in the Mac line is getting washed away in a year long tsunami. Only, what comes out of the water is for most people much better than was there before!
Yeah, for Adobe/Macromedia shops with the budget, a wise studio manager would wait for Mac Pros to show up and then clean up on cheaper PowerMac G5s from refurbs, resellers, or whatever.
Not sure what qualifies as companies that would buy in "bulk", I mean the edu people say graphic design skools, they'll be doing work mostly in Rosetta if the skool just ordered a load of edu Yonah iMacs.
Science? Pro? Pro Music?* Rendering Farms? I think they're waiting on Woodcrest Mac Pros, a lot of their stuff probably is already ported or being ported to Universal, I bet these people are just itching to take those programs for a nice spin on the Woodies, cruising the performance/watt highway, the wind in their hair...
*Pro Music looks set to rock. Heh. Pun unintended.
I have the new MBP and I love it for the most part. My biggest complaint is the size of the hard drive options- obviously not entirely Apple's fault. I chose the 100GB because it was the only one running at a respectable speed. After years of dealing with hard drives in the 5000 RPM range, I'm never going to embrace a slower RPM for capacity again. Hard drive manufacturers haven't given notebook users the elbow room we'd like. Of my 100GB, I have all but 28GB left. Virtual Memory sucks up 17.7GB of that according to my SysStat widget. I'm rapidly running out of room. Sure, they offer the 160GB hard drive, but it's a slower RPM. 60GB isn't enough of a boost in storage to outweigh the loss in speed.
When it comes to MBP design, I'd prefer a thicker notebook if I could get 400GB or 500GB of storage. My notebook IS my desktop and I'm not going to lug around an external hard drive everywhere I go just to get some decent storage. I have an extensive iPhoto library (over 10,000 photos), tons of movies in my movie folder, and my old 40GB Photo iPod is reaching it's capacity. I appreciate Apple's desire to shrink everything, but I'd rather have the room for some kick ass storage within the notebook, which also makes more room for other added features like the FW800 they axed from the Pro line. The added room would provide additional room for cooling of the laptop so it could actually BE a laptop without burning my legs. It would also provide room for Apple to add in an Ultra-Capacitor or two which takes minutes to charge and works like a battery. They are lighter, don't degrade with time, and are always improving in capacity. I'd never think Apple would actually give us this stuff, but I can dream.
I have the new MBP and I love it for the most part. My biggest complaint is the size of the hard drive options- obviously not entirely Apple's fault. I chose the 100GB because it was the only one running at a respectable speed. After years of dealing with hard drives in the 5000 RPM range, I'm never going to embrace a slower RPM for capacity again. Hard drive manufacturers haven't given notebook users the elbow room we'd like. Sure, they offer the 160GB hard drive, but it's a slower RPM. 60GB isn't enough of a boost in storage to outweigh the loss in speed.
I think you'd be surprised, the actual difference in speed is probably less than 10%, the difference in storage is 60%.
I'm pretty sure that the data density of notebook drives is about the same as that of desktop drives, but because of the physical size difference, not as much drive surface area can be fit into the case. By the time there is a single 400GB notebook drive, I would bet that there would be a 2TB desktop drive available.
Quote:
When it comes to MBP design, I'd prefer a thicker notebook if I could get 400GB or 500GB of storage. My notebook IS my desktop and I'm not going to lug around an external hard drive everywhere I go just to get some decent storage.
You would be lugging around a much larger notebook just to get that capacity. I don't think any notebook maker offers that capacity, you'd have to use three notebook drives.
Thank you for your comments. I'm aware that the physical attributes of existing notebook hard drives limit the storage capacity of them. While improvements are being made all the time, they always seem to be significantly slower to arrive in notebooks. I could spring for a 160GB hard drive now, but it's just not enough additional storage for the drop in RPM which you stated was around a 10% loss. I hated my 1.24GHz G4 Powerbook because of it's slow hard drive. Drove me nuts. I'm aware that bus speed is a part of the problem, but downgrading just seems wrong to me.
When it comes to a "much larger notebook", I'll happily take an old Wallstreet sized notebook if I could get all the bells and whistles. That was my first Mac laptop and I loved it. It's a bigger form factor, but think of what you could put in it today! Sign me up for one of those. Did I mention it was black? They'd just have to flip around the Apple on the lid.
I know it's just a pipe dream. Apple will never offer something of that size again, and we'll all be greatly limited in our storage capacities. I shoot in High Definition which the new MBP handles smoothly, but the storage is the one killer. The bad thing with external hard drives is that they all have to be plugged into power to run, and the external hard drives don't show up when using my remote to flip through my movies, songs, or photos. More cables suck as well. Just give me a Wallstreet with all new guts and I'm a happy guy!
I could spring for a 160GB hard drive now, but it's just not enough additional storage for the drop in RPM which you stated was around a 10% loss. I hated my 1.24GHz G4 Powerbook because of it's slow hard drive. Drove me nuts. I'm aware that bus speed is a part of the problem, but downgrading just seems wrong to me.
The speed difference was just a guess, is likely a lot less, possibly negligible. If I scale up a previous Barefeats test, I think a 160GB 5.4k drive is likely to be just as fast as a 100GB 7.2k drive.
I'll probably spring for a 160GB HD when I get back to the States in a few weeks. The lack of room on my HD isn't comfortable. I'm not looking forward to it though. The possibility of loss of speed is worrisome.
Perhaps new MBP's will be announced on the 7th and they'll have larger hard drives on them. If that's the case, this 2.16 MBP is gonna be a hand-me-down.
I'll probably spring for a 160GB HD when I get back to the States in a few weeks. The lack of room on my HD isn't comfortable. I'm not looking forward to it though. The possibility of loss of speed is worrisome.
Perhaps new MBP's will be announced on the 7th and they'll have larger hard drives on them. If that's the case, this 2.16 MBP is gonna be a hand-me-down.
It would be interesting to see if there is a performance difference with the newest drives.
I don't see how there couldn't be a performance difference. They are different RPM. While a lot of it comes down to bus speed, and I don't know much about this, it stands to reason that the faster spinning HD will outperform a slower spinning one.
If I weren't shooting in High Definition I wouldn't worry too much about it, but I do, and I don't want to deal with a slow hard drive just because they can't manage to get me a decent sized notebook hard drive because Apple's making them too thin to use the bigger hard drives in.
I stand behind my Wallstreet comments. That's the size of a MBP I want. It would be one awesome machine, I bet you could get two processors in a laptop that big with lots of elbow room to spare. 4GB of RAM, while we're dreaming, sounds about right. Imagine a 4 core MBP in a Wallstreet package. That's the stuff to drool over. Apple needs to get over their obsession with being thinnest and at least offer one that is Wallstreet sized. With Ultra-Capacitors built in, the extra power needed wouldn't be an issue.
I don't see how there couldn't be a performance difference. They are different RPM. While a lot of it comes down to bus speed, and I don't know much about this, it stands to reason that the faster spinning HD will outperform a slower spinning one.
RPM is only one factor in drive performance. The higher bit density of the higher capacity drives often offset the RPM difference. For one track, the 160GB drive has 60% more data than a 100GB drive. The RPM difference is 33%. For one spin, the head passes over 60% more information, even though the spin is slower, the potential bandwidth is higher.
Comments
Originally posted by fuyutsuki
Well, let's put it this way. "Can anyone explain why Apple need new industrial designs full stop?" The original iMac and iBook for instance are widely regarded as all time design classics in the computer world, hell even the original Macintosh is still a little wonder of form, function and presentation rolled into one. Why do Apple ever need to replace their designs? To keep us and computer buyers as a whole excited. Why do it this year? Because we and the market are now clearly convinced that these Intel Macs are still 100% Macintosh!
I understand that designs are going to change, but that doesn't explain why the design should change significantly for the Mac Pro. So far, in my opinion, most of the x86 transitions are evolutionary at best, even the MacBook isn't that radical, a different aspect ratio, a different keyboard and a color option are really all they amount to, the aesthetic theme didn't really change much otherwise.
Number one is the extreme disdain the case shows for professional users or advance users. I've seen more usefull layouts of I/O on 1U rack computers. Then we have the drive expansion issue (PLease don't even mention external drives as they simply are not suitable). Beyond that are the expansion card issues.
The problem is the case doesn't serve the needs of professional users and is way to expensive to be placed on a corporate desktop.
This is as close as Apple has ever come to producing total junk.
Dave
Originally posted by JeffDM
Has anyone in this thread explained why they believe this? "To give Ive something to do" is the best I've seen in this thread and that's not convincing. I would like to see some changes, but that is mostly to add features that Apple has previously resisted, or so it seemed.
Originally posted by wizard69
Sure let me explain the obvious -- It is the worst case design that Apple has ever come up with. Sure part of that is duw to the G5's massive heat output but there are other issues.
Number one is the extreme disdain the case shows for professional users or advance users. I've seen more usefull layouts of I/O on 1U rack computers. Then we have the drive expansion issue (PLease don't even mention external drives as they simply are not suitable). Beyond that are the expansion card issues.
I would submit that significant improvements to all of those complaints can be made without changing the external appearance.
I can see the appearance changing, and I can see it staying the same. I think it's a too much to claim with certainty that it will change a lot on the next update.
What are the possibilities of upgrading existing Macs with these new chips? i.e. aftermarket processor swap.
Would there be any sense in doing that? Are the Yonah based chips going to get faster clocks, or is all the faster stuff the new Merom and Conroe architecture?
- Jasen.
Originally posted by jasenj1
To attempt to pull this thread back to discussion of the new chips rather than case design:
What are the possibilities of upgrading existing Macs with these new chips? i.e. aftermarket processor swap.
Would there be any sense in doing that? Are the Yonah based chips going to get faster clocks, or is all the faster stuff the new Merom and Conroe architecture?
- Jasen.
Yonah maxs out at 2.3ghz. So does Merom. Merom is pin compatible with Yonah and can be swapped out of the CPU isn't soldered to the mb. For higher clock speeds you'll need to move up to Conroe and Woodcrest.
Originally posted by jasenj1
To attempt to pull this thread back to discussion of the new chips rather than case design:
What are the possibilities of upgrading existing Macs with these new chips? i.e. aftermarket processor swap.
Would there be any sense in doing that? Are the Yonah based chips going to get faster clocks, or is all the faster stuff the new Merom and Conroe architecture?
- Jasen.
Yonah maxs out at 2.3ghz. So does Merom. Merom is pin compatible with Yonah and can be swapped out of the CPU isn't soldered to the mb. For higher clock speeds you'll need to move up to Conroe and Woodcrest.
AFAIK you can swap out the Mini (it been done http://tinyurl.com/l9rj9) and the iMac but the MacBook/Pros are soldered down.
Thing I don't understand is is it really 64-bit if they update chip only. Don't they need the 965 set of Logic boards to make the whole thing 64-bit? If so you'll only get the 20% speed difference with chip only it would be a kind of fake. Would Apple do this?... hmm. Aynone know when to expect the new Logic boards for portable systems.
Originally posted by OfficerDigby
Thing I don't understand is is it really 64-bit if they update chip only. Don't they need the 965 set of Logic boards to make the whole thing 64-bit? If so you'll only get the 20% speed difference with chip only it would be a kind of fake. Would Apple do this?... hmm. Aynone know when to expect the new Logic boards for portable systems.
64 bit for computation likely doesn't need a different chipset. If the 64 bit was needed for memory addressing, that would be a different issue. I wouldn't expect that any current commercial Mac OS app supports x86-64 though.
Originally posted by dansgil
I hope the Merom MBP has an updated design. It needs:
Magnetic Latch (like MB)
DL Superdrive across the line
FW800
Better video card - X1900???
Better cooling system - is water cooling possible in a notebook?
Bigger HDD's (100gb, 120gb, 160gb)
More battery life
I hope Apple reduces the power usage to 75 watts, instead of the current 85 watts - for airplane use.
I like this list.
I would add:
1. User upgradable hard drives (easy, like the MB)
2. Fix the screen back-list consistency issues which materialized in the last gen of the PB's, and are still around.
3. Fix the heat, fit and finish, noise, issues.
I want to upgrade at the next revision. Normally, I would just buy once the announcement was made.
But given the significant quality issues Apple has been having of late, I will wait to see the user reviews for a month or so to be sure.
Originally posted by @homenow
I would say that a major design change is coming at some point in time to signal that the change over to Intel is complete and to be on the cutting edge of desing trends in the industry. I personally don't think that we will see it till Mac World in SF in the winter, but it could come at any time now with the release of an update to any of the Mac computers or indeed any of their other hardware products. It's anyone's guess now.
Yup. I agree. We can't be CERTAIN that there will be a new case for the Mac Pro or anything else - hello, this is Apple! But we can be fairly confident that it's either WWDC or MWSF / some other little event if necessary that they'll be coming. Let me put it this way: if the top of the line Mac is still a cheesegrater this time next year, I'll eat my proverbial hat! (Don't actually have a real one, sorry.
The cheesegrater G5 is a pain of a case compared to the MDD G4 and that is totally the kind of direction I hope to see with the new Woody! Expandability and access. Or, this indeed being Apple, access and perhaps a little saved desk space.
On whether the PPC PowerMac will be kept available after WWDC ... sorry but I doubt that. Woodcrest will just have to be that good! I suggest refurbs for those who need them (indeed if I were after a Quad G5 right now I'd hold out until they turned up for a discount). I know this is no good for companies who need to buy in bulk, but what the transition's showed us so far is that this is Steve's show and PPC is dead whether you like it or not. Every model in the Mac line is getting washed away in a year long tsunami. Only, what comes out of the water is for most people much better than was there before!
However on processors, I agree with JeffDM in that I think the chipset as it is now is already as fully 64 bit as AMD. My folks have a 1.5 GHz Mac Mini Core Solo which will be getting a Merom upgrade once the 2+GHz chips are available on the cheap. (Dual core obviously.) That should be one hell of an upgrade, especially with the ram maxed out at the same time!
Socketed Intel CPU's are great news for upgraders, so long as Apple doesn't pull any nasty firmware chips to lock us out. Soldered Yonah owners are in for a distinctly tougher time than the 5 minute putty knife and silicon grease trick which awaits me when my folks finally feel the limits of their very first Mac. I wouldn't hold much faith in being able to upgrade a MacBook±Pro any easier really than the old PowerBooks. It's likely a full motherboard replecement job or audacious solder ironing!
Definitely make the MBP hard drives user replaceable though. It's a total nightmare on my 12" PowerBook. That one feature of the MacBook impressed me the most. Mac notebook and upgradeable / replaceable hard drive!
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2006/7/23/4730
Everybody loves Stevenote bingo.
My favourites are:
Mac Pro
Mac Pro Quad
Optional Dual GPUs
"New" Finder in Leopard
New case for Mac Pro
Mac Pro Model >$3499
Resolution Independent UI in Leopard
And of course "one more thing"
Let's face it, any less than about 6 of the total options and we'll be disappointed!
....On whether the PPC PowerMac will be kept available after WWDC ... sorry but I doubt that. Woodcrest will just have to be that good! I suggest refurbs for those who need them (indeed if I were after a Quad G5 right now I'd hold out until they turned up for a discount). I know this is no good for companies who need to buy in bulk, but what the transition's showed us so far is that this is Steve's show and PPC is dead whether you like it or not. Every model in the Mac line is getting washed away in a year long tsunami. Only, what comes out of the water is for most people much better than was there before!
Yeah, for Adobe/Macromedia shops with the budget, a wise studio manager would wait for Mac Pros to show up and then clean up on cheaper PowerMac G5s from refurbs, resellers, or whatever.
Not sure what qualifies as companies that would buy in "bulk", I mean the edu people say graphic design skools, they'll be doing work mostly in Rosetta if the skool just ordered a load of edu Yonah iMacs.
Science? Pro? Pro Music?* Rendering Farms? I think they're waiting on Woodcrest Mac Pros, a lot of their stuff probably is already ported or being ported to Universal, I bet these people are just itching to take those programs for a nice spin on the Woodies, cruising the performance/watt highway, the wind in their hair...
*Pro Music looks set to rock. Heh. Pun unintended.
Cubase-Steinberg-by end of 2006
Digital Performer-MOTU-by end of 2006
Logic Pro-Apple-Universal
Peak-BIAS-Universal
Pro Tools-Digidesign-Universal
Reason-Propellerhead-Universal
When it comes to MBP design, I'd prefer a thicker notebook if I could get 400GB or 500GB of storage. My notebook IS my desktop and I'm not going to lug around an external hard drive everywhere I go just to get some decent storage. I have an extensive iPhoto library (over 10,000 photos), tons of movies in my movie folder, and my old 40GB Photo iPod is reaching it's capacity. I appreciate Apple's desire to shrink everything, but I'd rather have the room for some kick ass storage within the notebook, which also makes more room for other added features like the FW800 they axed from the Pro line. The added room would provide additional room for cooling of the laptop so it could actually BE a laptop without burning my legs. It would also provide room for Apple to add in an Ultra-Capacitor or two which takes minutes to charge and works like a battery. They are lighter, don't degrade with time, and are always improving in capacity. I'd never think Apple would actually give us this stuff, but I can dream.
Originally posted by Brian Green
I have the new MBP and I love it for the most part. My biggest complaint is the size of the hard drive options- obviously not entirely Apple's fault. I chose the 100GB because it was the only one running at a respectable speed. After years of dealing with hard drives in the 5000 RPM range, I'm never going to embrace a slower RPM for capacity again. Hard drive manufacturers haven't given notebook users the elbow room we'd like. Sure, they offer the 160GB hard drive, but it's a slower RPM. 60GB isn't enough of a boost in storage to outweigh the loss in speed.
I think you'd be surprised, the actual difference in speed is probably less than 10%, the difference in storage is 60%.
I'm pretty sure that the data density of notebook drives is about the same as that of desktop drives, but because of the physical size difference, not as much drive surface area can be fit into the case. By the time there is a single 400GB notebook drive, I would bet that there would be a 2TB desktop drive available.
Quote:
When it comes to MBP design, I'd prefer a thicker notebook if I could get 400GB or 500GB of storage. My notebook IS my desktop and I'm not going to lug around an external hard drive everywhere I go just to get some decent storage.
You would be lugging around a much larger notebook just to get that capacity. I don't think any notebook maker offers that capacity, you'd have to use three notebook drives.
Thank you for your comments. I'm aware that the physical attributes of existing notebook hard drives limit the storage capacity of them. While improvements are being made all the time, they always seem to be significantly slower to arrive in notebooks. I could spring for a 160GB hard drive now, but it's just not enough additional storage for the drop in RPM which you stated was around a 10% loss. I hated my 1.24GHz G4 Powerbook because of it's slow hard drive. Drove me nuts. I'm aware that bus speed is a part of the problem, but downgrading just seems wrong to me.
When it comes to a "much larger notebook", I'll happily take an old Wallstreet sized notebook if I could get all the bells and whistles. That was my first Mac laptop and I loved it. It's a bigger form factor, but think of what you could put in it today! Sign me up for one of those. Did I mention it was black?
I know it's just a pipe dream. Apple will never offer something of that size again, and we'll all be greatly limited in our storage capacities. I shoot in High Definition which the new MBP handles smoothly, but the storage is the one killer. The bad thing with external hard drives is that they all have to be plugged into power to run, and the external hard drives don't show up when using my remote to flip through my movies, songs, or photos. More cables suck as well. Just give me a Wallstreet with all new guts and I'm a happy guy!
Originally posted by Brian Green
I could spring for a 160GB hard drive now, but it's just not enough additional storage for the drop in RPM which you stated was around a 10% loss. I hated my 1.24GHz G4 Powerbook because of it's slow hard drive. Drove me nuts. I'm aware that bus speed is a part of the problem, but downgrading just seems wrong to me.
The speed difference was just a guess, is likely a lot less, possibly negligible. If I scale up a previous Barefeats test, I think a 160GB 5.4k drive is likely to be just as fast as a 100GB 7.2k drive.
I'll probably spring for a 160GB HD when I get back to the States in a few weeks. The lack of room on my HD isn't comfortable. I'm not looking forward to it though. The possibility of loss of speed is worrisome.
Perhaps new MBP's will be announced on the 7th and they'll have larger hard drives on them. If that's the case, this 2.16 MBP is gonna be a hand-me-down.
Originally posted by Brian Green
JeffDM,
I'll probably spring for a 160GB HD when I get back to the States in a few weeks. The lack of room on my HD isn't comfortable. I'm not looking forward to it though. The possibility of loss of speed is worrisome.
Perhaps new MBP's will be announced on the 7th and they'll have larger hard drives on them. If that's the case, this 2.16 MBP is gonna be a hand-me-down.
It would be interesting to see if there is a performance difference with the newest drives.
I don't see how there couldn't be a performance difference. They are different RPM. While a lot of it comes down to bus speed, and I don't know much about this, it stands to reason that the faster spinning HD will outperform a slower spinning one.
If I weren't shooting in High Definition I wouldn't worry too much about it, but I do, and I don't want to deal with a slow hard drive just because they can't manage to get me a decent sized notebook hard drive because Apple's making them too thin to use the bigger hard drives in.
I stand behind my Wallstreet comments. That's the size of a MBP I want. It would be one awesome machine, I bet you could get two processors in a laptop that big with lots of elbow room to spare. 4GB of RAM, while we're dreaming, sounds about right. Imagine a 4 core MBP in a Wallstreet package. That's the stuff to drool over. Apple needs to get over their obsession with being thinnest and at least offer one that is Wallstreet sized. With Ultra-Capacitors built in, the extra power needed wouldn't be an issue.
Originally posted by Brian Green
I don't see how there couldn't be a performance difference. They are different RPM. While a lot of it comes down to bus speed, and I don't know much about this, it stands to reason that the faster spinning HD will outperform a slower spinning one.
RPM is only one factor in drive performance. The higher bit density of the higher capacity drives often offset the RPM difference. For one track, the 160GB drive has 60% more data than a 100GB drive. The RPM difference is 33%. For one spin, the head passes over 60% more information, even though the spin is slower, the potential bandwidth is higher.