Fast page outs won't help you when you are trying to run multiple VM's. The memory used by VM's is wired and cannot be swapped.
Not that I know anything about VMs, I'm just a simple Graphic Designer, but don't VMs usually live on servers?
Many do, but a lot of people who develop code run VMs locally on their laptop or desktop. For example, I often have a couple of Linux VMs running so I can cross test changes in the code I'm developing. Also, there are some programs which don't run on every operating system, so you may need to run a VM so you can use those.
Samsung's EVO drive claims 3GB/sec transfer speeds also. Makes sense, as Samsung is probably the manufacturer of Apple's SSDs anyhow.
I heard that, Samsung's
just released a 960 Pro SSD 1TB recently, man those are fricken fast, 3,500 MB/sec Sequential
Read Speed right now... That’s moving.
The 960Pro is a PCI-e based SSD drive. That's on-par with what Apple uses so it's no surprise that they have the 3.6GB/s speeds. SSD drives based on the SATA interface, even the most fastest SATA3 interface maxes out to around 600MB/s which while much better than a conventional hard drive, uses the legacy SATA interface which was optimized for mechanical hard drives, and not SSD drives. That's why PCI-e is the way to go.
That's where I think TB3 connected PCI-e SSD "sticks" will be just insane.
Fast page outs won't help you when you are trying to run multiple VM's. The memory used by VM's is wired and cannot be swapped.
If the difference with the 32GB option (which doesn't exist yet for notebook) costs almost half the price of a laptop (and it will) isn't it better to buy a second laptop instead? Trying to run 8 GB Windows along another 8 GB of Linux on top a 8 MB of host OS X on a notebook seems like masochism to me. Just buy an iMac 27 inch 32 GB for such an extreme case.
Even in such an extreme case, a 4 GB allocation for each VM would do the job. You won't play heavy games on both VM at once, right?
That's their claim, but I haven't seen any tests done in an actual system that come anywhere near that figure. More like 1/2 of that.
I own 2 of them myself and I get those read speeds on every test. A lot of the tests out there are off because of one thing, driver support, when it first was released, the read speeds are way off from that, but with driver from them, that made it run a full speed, they only have a beta driver available at the moment, the official driver releases mid Nov.
So Samsung released this drive with faulty drivers? That's very reassuring to people who need a reliable drive in their system.
The Bandwidth of a nvme connected SSD could potentially approach that of DDR4 RAM, but practically it's 1/5 to 1/10th the speed.
But it's not usually the bandwidth that's a factor, it's 'access time' or 'latency'. RAM latency will be measured in nanoseconds, often in the single digit range, and NVMe SSD's will be measured in microseconds, usually in the double-digit range. So, that's a pretty big difference. Imaging a ns is a foot, and that's how far you have to walk to go get some information. 25 or 30' isn't a big deal, but 2 miles is a bit further of a walk ( probably uphill both ways too ).
Faster I/O is always great, but more RAM still wins when and where it's practical.
Someone should put these 'limitations' vs. 'improvements' to the test. Have a huge video file or photoshop file and run the test. How hard does this laptop need to be pushed before the 16GB RAM limitation becomes something meaningful. I'd be interested in seeing this, just for nerds sake. Am I going to have to wait for an extra 1/10th of a second for Photoshop to run some type of exotic blur on my 30" x 20" high-res image? Or are frames going to be dropped while doing 4K video?
Like I said, I'd love to see how 32GB RAM would improve the extreme case. For me, I can't even push my iPad to the max, so I'm in Apple's sweet spot.
I was hoping we'd hit new price points (meaning more affordable). But we didn't. I just need a week to cry and absorb the enormous sum that's going to get sucked out of my credit card. Then I'm going to really enjoy that laptop. It's my 2nd laptop, the first being the last G4 whatever-it-was.
I'm not sure if we'll ever see these extreme-case-tests. If someone can offer up a guess, I'm all eyes. Is the 16GB limit going to add minutes to your workday? Seconds? Hours? In what case?
There SSD's are fast, but there not the fastest, except maybe in Macbooks,
They are the fastest on the consumer market ( counting the write speed as well ), Notebook OR Desktop, hack even Mac Pro's SSD is slower. Unless you count those SSD used in Enterprise or DC.
Samsung's EVO drive claims 3GB/sec transfer speeds also. Makes sense, as Samsung is probably the manufacturer of Apple's SSDs anyhow.
These are from Sandisk, and my guess is likely Apple's own SSD Controller? There are none on the market with those spec Apple pointed out, 2.2GB/s Write Speed!. And none of them would even fit into the Macbook, its power usage is likely higher as well, they are in 5 - 7W range minimum. I would like someday Ars or Anandtech dig into this SSD details.
The fast SSD speeds will somewhat mitigate speed issues brought about for some users because of the RAM being limited to 16GB due to architectural limitations. Virtual memory page-outs will be relatively faster on the new SSD as compared to previous ones, further cutting back the performance hit induced by the transfer contents from very fast physical RAM to virtual space allocated on storage media.
I'd love to see some hard numbers on benefits with respect to virtual memory page-outs.
I'm sure such benefits exist, but I have no intuition at all for the magnitude of the benefit and if it's nearly enough to offset in any meanings way the loss of RAM.
LOL. Loss of RAM? When did MacBook Pros have more than 16GB?
I'm not a tech-head so I don't know and am asking honestly: how fast is the RAM the MBP ships with and how does the SSD speeds quoted in this article compare? I can't imagine SSDs are as fast as physical RAM - but I don't know! Does it seem likely that paging to SSD will be as quick as having more physical RAM if the architecture permitted it?
Normally it shouldn't make a much a impact how fast the SSD goes, because there is still a magnitude of difference. The paging will still takes times, and lag. But given how macOSX does memory compression, it should theoretically make the experience better.
People harping on the specs of the new MacBook Pro's have zero clue what goes on under the hood. These new machines are awesome. Going to be an early christmas for me.
Nobody has spoken about innovation. That's very subjective anyhow. People are complaining about the cost of what you are getting in terms of specs. Fast is great. 256GB (with Apple's pricing) is not. Have a nice Christmas by the way I hope you don't get burnt by any early adopter issues.
People harping on the specs of the new MacBook Pro's have zero clue what goes on under the hood. These new machines are awesome. Going to be an early christmas for me.
I guess for some off-the-shelf specs counts for innovation...
Fast page outs won't help you when you are trying to run multiple VM's. The memory used by VM's is wired and cannot be swapped.
Yes, actually the most vocal group of people are those who are running multiple VMs or Dockers.
They are BY FAR not the most vocal group. They're just the ones who actually have a point. The most vocal group by far is just the usual post-Apple-release doomtrolls and spec whiners, as always.
People harping on the specs of the new MacBook Pro's have zero clue what goes on under the hood. These new machines are awesome. Going to be an early christmas for me.
I guess for some off-the-shelf specs counts for innovation...
If you want to innovate your ass, go hit the gym
Apparently you've got a good deal of innovation at the gym but that had no effect to innovate your mind.
The Bandwidth of a nvme connected SSD could potentially approach that of DDR4 RAM, but practically it's 1/5 to 1/10th the speed.
But it's not usually the bandwidth that's a factor, it's 'access time' or 'latency'. RAM latency will be measured in nanoseconds, often in the single digit range, and NVMe SSD's will be measured in microseconds, usually in the double-digit range. So, that's a pretty big difference. Imaging a ns is a foot, and that's how far you have to walk to go get some information. 25 or 30' isn't a big deal, but 2 miles is a bit further of a walk ( probably uphill both ways too ).
Faster I/O is always great, but more RAM still wins when and where it's practical.
Worth noting: these SSDs are actually faster than RAM was in 2011. Something for you Mac Pro diehards and other critics to ponder on. This is not the same stuff as the stuff you currently own.
The Bandwidth of a nvme connected SSD could potentially approach that of DDR4 RAM, but practically it's 1/5 to 1/10th the speed.
But it's not usually the bandwidth that's a factor, it's 'access time' or 'latency'. RAM latency will be measured in nanoseconds, often in the single digit range, and NVMe SSD's will be measured in microseconds, usually in the double-digit range. So, that's a pretty big difference. Imaging a ns is a foot, and that's how far you have to walk to go get some information. 25 or 30' isn't a big deal, but 2 miles is a bit further of a walk ( probably uphill both ways too ).
Faster I/O is always great, but more RAM still wins when and where it's practical.
L2 cache is on the order of 7ns. DRAM is around 200ns. NVME is around 30us. The new Intel/micron 3D xpoint with the DIMM interface will be around 7us.
We're on the cusp of a significant paradigm change in computing where storage is almost as fast as DRAM.
Comments
That's where I think TB3 connected PCI-e SSD "sticks" will be just insane.
Even in such an extreme case, a 4 GB allocation for each VM would do the job. You won't play heavy games on both VM at once, right?
So Samsung released this drive with faulty drivers? That's very reassuring to people who need a reliable drive in their system.
Let's see your benchmark results.
Like I said, I'd love to see how 32GB RAM would improve the extreme case. For me, I can't even push my iPad to the max, so I'm in Apple's sweet spot.
I was hoping we'd hit new price points (meaning more affordable). But we didn't. I just need a week to cry and absorb the enormous sum that's going to get sucked out of my credit card. Then I'm going to really enjoy that laptop. It's my 2nd laptop, the first being the last G4 whatever-it-was.
I'm not sure if we'll ever see these extreme-case-tests. If someone can offer up a guess, I'm all eyes. Is the 16GB limit going to add minutes to your workday? Seconds? Hours? In what case?
These are from Sandisk, and my guess is likely Apple's own SSD Controller? There are none on the market with those spec Apple pointed out, 2.2GB/s Write Speed!. And none of them would even fit into the Macbook, its power usage is likely higher as well, they are in 5 - 7W range minimum. I would like someday Ars or Anandtech dig into this SSD details.
Exactly.
Normally it shouldn't make a much a impact how fast the SSD goes, because there is still a magnitude of difference. The paging will still takes times, and lag. But given how macOSX does memory compression, it should theoretically make the experience better.
I hope you don't get burnt by any early adopter issues.
If you want to innovate your ass, go hit the gym
We're on the cusp of a significant paradigm change in computing where storage is almost as fast as DRAM.