Clarus

AppleInsider said:

The 1 TB JetDrive Lite 330 offers read speeds of up to 95 MB/s and write speeds of up to 75 MB/s so project files and documents are quickly saved and retrieved.

No…speeds of up to 95 MB/s read 75 MB/s write means project files and documents are very slowly saved and retrieved. That’s the speed of a 20-year-old hard drive!

Now, I’m actually all for this type of expansion and might pick up a 256GB or 512GB. But only for files where fast read/write aren’t critical, like Word docs or a huge library of MP3/AAC files, music samples, that kind of thing. It’s a great expansion option as long as you go in with full awareness of the performance limitations: The speeds of this Jet Drive are as low as 60 times slower than the MacBook Pro M1 Pro/Max internal storage speeds. If the work you do needs the speed of Mac internal SSDs, don’t put those files on this Jet Drive.

It is disappointing that AppleInsider totally let that slide, and appears to have simply reprinted the marketing copy.

Fred257 said:

“I'd buy it but the looks are disgusting and it is way to large.”

That comment doesn’t make any sense for two reasons.

One, it doesn’t look like that normally. They only opened everything up to show that it has both USB-A and USB-C plugs. In normal use you would only have one end open at a time, only the one you’re using. When not in use, it would be a rectangular block…just like any other USB stick drive.

Two, “way too large” really doesn’t make any sense. You can see from the picture that it isn’t much larger than the plugs! Sure, there are very short USB flash drives out there, I have a couple of Samsungs like that. But most USB stick drives are slow, with read/write under 300MB/sec and write often below 50MB/sec. This one claims up to 946MB/sec, which is USB 3 gen 2 (10Mb/sec). It is rare, very rare, to find a USB stick drive this fast, so for that speed, this is not a large drive at all.

If you don’t have computers with both USB-A and USB-C, then of course, you buy a super compact stick drive with just one plug type. But if you have older and newer Macs like I do, and you are always looking for a USB-C adapter to make the stick drive work with a new Mac, then this looks like a good option because you don’t have to go look for the adapter, while also being significantly faster than most USB flash drives if that speed holds up in real world use.

Eric_WVGG said:

> includes a module to hold a Mac mini

Odd that anyone would be releasing hardware that only works with Intel Macs at this point. Unless Sonnet knows something the rest of us don't…  

I’d like to think that the Apple Silicon eGPU restriction is temporary, or maybe confined to the M1. What is more true is that the total market of Windows and existing Intel Macs is still quite large.

But the cost/benefit calculation of an eGPU has completely gone underwater since the pandemic-driven chip shortage causing GPU prices to skyrocket. I am currently still using an eGPU with my Intel 13” MacBook Pro (integrated graphics only of course) while I wait for the better-than-M1 Macs to come out, and I am sure glad I bought when I did (2018). The popular Radeon RX580, while outdated now, still meets my needs and cost me less than $200. You can’t find it that cheap today. But here’s the kicker…while the RX 6900 XT being pushed by Sonnet for use in the article benchmarks 3 to 4 times faster than my RX580, it’s retailing for ten times the price!

If the next gen Apple Silicon M1x or whatever comes with a GPU that perform in the range of 50-60% of the GPU performance of an RX 6900XT, most users will not find it worth it to get an eGPU. Because while the technology would exist to beat it in an eGPU, the total cost of the eGPU enclosure plus fast enough graphics card would be punitive. The Sonnet combo of the lower-end Breakaway Box plus 6900 XT is $2100 retail.

That is why, even though I use an eGPU today, I will not be heartbroken if Apple Silicon never supports it. I feel like future Apple Silicon will be capable of enough GPU performance that adding an eGPU will not add enough performance for the staggering additional price, especially considering the bandwidth limit of Thunderbolt 3/4. The only way an eGPU will be economical again is if conditions change enough that GPUs can flood the market and lower prices considerably.

What I’m reading is that there are really only two reasons to prefer live keynotes: “But…remember when Steve Jobs…” and “embrace the chaos.” Well….

Steve Jobs is dead. If you want another Steve Jobs keynote moment, you are going to have to get another Steve Jobs on stage. Where is he? Is it Tim Cook? No. Is it Craig Federighi? No. Steve Jobs is dead.

”Embrace the chaos” is just a euphemism for “We wanna be there when stuff goes wrong.” Why is that? How does it help? I’m sorry, but “Embrace the chaos” sounds a lot like “Some people are here for the technical team craft of auto racing and all its details, but we are here just in case there’s a car crash.” You really want to be flown out to Apple Park just for that?

The live events aren’t any more human than the recorded ones, because the live ones were so tightly scripted. Has anyone looked at how much more time we saved by not having to sit through all the applause and breaks when people walk on and off stage?

When the SM1 keyboard was released I ordered it before reviews came out. I ended up liking it a lot, and it’s my daily driver. Nice typing experience and feels durable. I'll bet this new one will be great. I didn’t need it in extended keyboard form but it's nice to see they released that since lots of users were asking for an extended version.

My only quibble is that most of the SM1 lighting patterns are kind of annoying…frantic gamer-style key light animations, but all the LEDs are white. I leave it on the slow fade cycle setting which is kind of soothing.