thedba

aderutter said:

The only disappointment to me is the maximum RAM is only 16GB and to me that should be the base amount of RAM.
My 6 year old MBP has 32GB RAM so I won’t be upgarding it yet. Sigh.

Huh??? There's no way that a 6 year old MacBook Pro ever had 32 GB of RAM. I have the 2015 15" MBP with Graphics card and the most I could've had at that time is 16 GB. 

GeorgeBMac said:

thedba said:

MplsP said:

thedba said:

A lot of chest thumping going on here about Apple's exorbitant prices to upgrade the SSD, so I did a little bit of research.
Apple charges about $200 per 512 GB of SSD storage. 

In the external SSD space, here are Amazon's prices. To try to keep this comparison as fair as possible, I only picked Thunderbolt 3 SSD's so I can at least have comparable speeds to what I would get if I decided to order from Apple.

OWC: 2 TB Envoy pro Ex  @ $480 or $120 per 512 GB         (no 500GB optional Amazon 1TB = $300, from the OWC site 480GB ext. SSD = $219)
Samsung: X5 portable 2TB external SSD (Thunderbolt 3)    @ $700 or $175 per 512 GB  (500GB option costs $190)
Sabrent: Rocket XTRM 2TB Thundernolt 3 external SSD  @550  or $137.50 per 512GB   (500GB option costs $250)

In the end you the customer have options and by looking at the prices I see above Apple's offerings are pretty much in line with what others offer. 
 

Except you're not comparing apples to apples. To make the comparison fair you need to compare internal prices:

For RAM upgrades:
Base 8GB
16GB  Apple: $200, Crucial: $37
32GB  Apple: $600, Crucial: $137
64GB  Apple: $1000, Crucial $270
128GB Apple: $2600, Crucial: unavailable.

For internal SSDs:
512GB  Apple: base  Crucial $70
1 TB    Apple: $200   Crucial $150 (Difference $80)
2 TB   Apple: $600    Crucial $340 (difference $270)

You can see, Apple's prices for memory are between 4 and 6 times the retail cost. For internal SSDs, about 2.5x the cost. (I subtracted out the cost of the 512GB because you are automatically paying for the base 512GB SSD.) It's interesting that the difference is far higher for RAM vs SSDs but in both cases it's significant.

That was my reply to GeorgeBMac that insists you have to change the logic board or the entire computer if you run out of disk space on your iMac. 
I'm just presenting here the alternatives valid for the new 2020 27" iMac. 
Internal SSD's don't fall into the available options (of 2020 27" iMac buyers) so one has to go the external SSD route through Thunderbolt 3 connectors for comparable speed. 

In another one of my replies, I did say that for RAM, I'd just accept the base model of 8GB and go with OWC (or the provider of your choosing), so we're in full agreement there. 

Nobody in their right mind would replace a logic board because their SSD filled up.   Most would just buy a new Mac -- or a Lenovo,

Some really funky economics going on here. 
Instead of offloading some content from an internal to an external drive, you would splurge for a a brand new computer instead?
So in your opinion it's economically viable to spend $2500+ to get another new computer with more internal storage instead of $300 to get an external drive? And all that because it's not aesthetically pleasing?
Your money, your choice I guess. 

MplsP said:

thedba said:

A lot of chest thumping going on here about Apple's exorbitant prices to upgrade the SSD, so I did a little bit of research.
Apple charges about $200 per 512 GB of SSD storage. 

In the external SSD space, here are Amazon's prices. To try to keep this comparison as fair as possible, I only picked Thunderbolt 3 SSD's so I can at least have comparable speeds to what I would get if I decided to order from Apple.

OWC: 2 TB Envoy pro Ex  @ $480 or $120 per 512 GB         (no 500GB optional Amazon 1TB = $300, from the OWC site 480GB ext. SSD = $219)
Samsung: X5 portable 2TB external SSD (Thunderbolt 3)    @ $700 or $175 per 512 GB  (500GB option costs $190)
Sabrent: Rocket XTRM 2TB Thundernolt 3 external SSD  @550  or $137.50 per 512GB   (500GB option costs $250)

In the end you the customer have options and by looking at the prices I see above Apple's offerings are pretty much in line with what others offer. 
 

Except you're not comparing apples to apples. To make the comparison fair you need to compare internal prices:

For RAM upgrades:
Base 8GB
16GB  Apple: $200, Crucial: $37
32GB  Apple: $600, Crucial: $137
64GB  Apple: $1000, Crucial $270
128GB Apple: $2600, Crucial: unavailable.

For internal SSDs:
512GB  Apple: base  Crucial $70
1 TB    Apple: $200   Crucial $150 (Difference $80)
2 TB   Apple: $600    Crucial $340 (difference $270)

You can see, Apple's prices for memory are between 4 and 6 times the retail cost. For internal SSDs, about 2.5x the cost. (I subtracted out the cost of the 512GB because you are automatically paying for the base 512GB SSD.) It's interesting that the difference is far higher for RAM vs SSDs but in both cases it's significant.

That was my reply to GeorgeBMac that insists you have to change the logic board or the entire computer if you run out of disk space on your iMac. 
I'm just presenting here the alternatives valid for the new 2020 27" iMac. 
Internal SSD's don't fall into the available options (of 2020 27" iMac buyers) so one has to go the external SSD route through Thunderbolt 3 connectors for comparable speed. 

In another one of my replies, I did say that for RAM, I'd just accept the base model of 8GB and go with OWC (or the provider of your choosing), so we're in full agreement there. 

GeorgeBMac said:

thedba said:

A lot of chest thumping going on here about Apple's exorbitant prices to upgrade the SSD, so I did a little bit of research.
Apple charges about $200 per 512 GB of SSD storage. 

In the external SSD space, here are Amazon's prices. To try to keep this comparison as fair as possible, I only picked Thunderbolt 3 SSD's so I can at least have comparable speeds to what I would get if I decided to order from Apple.

OWC: 2 TB Envoy pro Ex  @ $480 or $120 per 512 GB         (no 500GB optional Amazon 1TB = $300, from the OWC site 480GB ext. SSD = $219)
Samsung: X5 portable 2TB external SSD (Thunderbolt 3)    @ $700 or $175 per 512 GB  (500GB option costs $190)
Sabrent: Rocket XTRM 2TB Thundernolt 3 external SSD  @550  or $137.50 per 512GB   (500GB option costs $250)

In the end you the customer have options and by looking at the prices I see above Apple's offerings are pretty much in line with what others offer. 
 

Well, no....

You are comparing external drives to internal.

A 500Gb Samsung Pro goes for around $125-$150.   But then you have to subtract the cost of the standard drive it would replace.

So, yeh, $200 to upgrade to 512gb is exorbitant.

And, it gets worse since, many will be forced to go there simply to future proof their Mac since the drive cannot be upgraded after it is purchased.   Your only option is to replace the entire machine -- unless you want external drives hanging off of it.

I have said previously that I think Apple has good reason for soldering their drives.  But they should lower the cost of upgrades to compensate for the burdon it puts on their customers.

Since the new 27" iMac is the topic, I am bringing forward alternatives. 
In fact if I were in the market for a new iMac, my memory upgrades would be purchased from OWC, not Apple.  
I would also spend that extra $200 to upgrade the internal SSD to 1TB.  For extra high speed read/write I'd opt for the Thunderbolt 3 SSD's and a little velcro and would stick it to the back where I'd never see it again. But if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of read/write speed, then external USB drives or SSD's are even cheaper.
I really can't see why your are so resistant to the idea of external SSD's? You talk about "external drives hanging from it" but you refuse to acknowledge that with a bit of creativity you can easily hide them.
And I really don't understand that if one day your internal drive fills up, you have to throw out your computer/logic board. Normally one would offload some content externally. You just act as if there is no way on earth that you can do that and like I'm from outer space.  

A lot of chest thumping going on here about Apple's exorbitant prices to upgrade the SSD, so I did a little bit of research.
Apple charges about $200 per 512 GB of SSD storage. 

In the external SSD space, here are Amazon's prices. To try to keep this comparison as fair as possible, I only picked Thunderbolt 3 SSD's so I can at least have comparable speeds to what I would get if I decided to order from Apple.

OWC: 2 TB Envoy pro Ex  @ $480 or $120 per 512 GB         (no 500GB optional Amazon 1TB = $300, from the OWC site 480GB ext. SSD = $219)
Samsung: X5 portable 2TB external SSD (Thunderbolt 3)    @ $700 or $175 per 512 GB  (500GB option costs $190)
Sabrent: Rocket XTRM 2TB Thundernolt 3 external SSD  @550  or $137.50 per 512GB   (500GB option costs $250)

In the end you the customer have options and by looking at the prices I see above Apple's offerings are pretty much in line with what others offer.