Good to know New Macs

[HCMarkus]

Fewer Hard Drives...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10484/sea ... -its-costs

and Bigger SSDs...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10481/the ... ssd-review

[mikehalloran]

Have they solved the static memory problem that would allow SSDs to be used for archival storage? That would be big.

[Shooshie]

Have they solved the static memory problem that allows SSDs to be used for archival storage? That would be big.

Not to mention the Gigabyte/$$$ ratio.

[mikehalloran]

Have they solved the static memory problem that allows SSDs to be used for archival storage? That would be big.

Not to mention the Gigabyte/$$$ ratio.

and Bigger SSDs...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10481/the ... ssd-review

From the article:

With a MSRP of $1499 (37.4¢/GB) the 4TB 850 EVO should not be significantly more expensive per-GB than the 2TB model, which carries only a modest premium over the most cost-effective 500GB and 1TB capacities. The total price may be shockingly high, but per gigabyte it is not unreasonable.

Not bad. I paid less than $600 for my 2T.

[Shooshie]

I've got three 3TB Samsung platters, and each cost about $180.
Five 2TB MyPassport Studio drives were in the $160 range, it seems like. They may have cost less; I don't remember now.

Fun statistic:
I have five 2TB WD My Passport Studio Firewire drives. The 10TB of these 5 drives would equal 7,142,857 HD floppy disks (@1.4MB), which at ⅛" thick (.125") would stack like pancakes 14 miles into the sky. 

The original Mac used 400K floppies. If we counted 10TB in THOSE disks, it would require 3.5 times as many, or a stack of floppies reaching nearly 50 miles high! That's not exact, because we measured 1MB differently then (1024K then, rather than 1000K), but it’s very close. If laid end-to-end, these 25,000,000 floppies (@400K) would span 7 mi. further than the distance from New York City to Dallas, Texas! 

These 2TB drives are each about the size of 2 decks of playing cards, side-by-side. Five drives fit in a lunch box with room left over for lunch!


Shooshie

[HCMarkus]

The 10TB of these 5 drives would equal 7,142,857 HD floppy disks (@1.4MB), which at ⅛" thick (.125") would stack like pancakes 14 miles into the sky. 

The original Mac used 400K floppies. If we counted 10TB in THOSE disks, it would require 3.5 times as many, or a stack of floppies reaching nearly 50 miles high!

Mmm... pancakes. Frodo? MLC? Hungry?

[waxman]

You guys are all tripping... 14 miles of pancakes... whew that's Alice in Wonderlandville...

so what is up with SSD drives? Is everybody recording to 7200 rpm or 10k RPM drives? SSD's do not work correct

[HCMarkus]

SSDs are awesome Waxman. You've got the fastest (or close to it) in the internal drive on your nMP, PCIe SSD. Yes! You can use SSDs for recording and VI sample storage, not just boot drives.

Long-term data retention is not an issue (except maybe Samsung 840 EVO drives) for normal use, only if SSDs are used for archiving. And archiving is the thing spinners are best for now. I only use spinners for backups... two internal for end of session backups and two external, rotated on and off site, for hourly Time Machine backups.

[waxman]

I just use SSD in my Macbook Air. I use Tbolt Buffalo for projects. So internal SSD drives?

[mikehalloran]

So internal SSD drives?

Absolutely. The Samsung 850 EVO is the bomb. Easy to replace the HHDs on most Minis, iMacs Mac Pro towers and Mac Books. A few iMacs are a little tricky but all are doable.

You can also replace the HHD in a TB external with one of these.

Some Macs have built in SSDs or PCIe blades. These include the Air, Mac Books with Retina display and the 2013 Mac Pro. Mose of these cannot be upgraded—what was installed OE is what you have. The new Mac Pro is an exception—OWC has a 2T replacement available.

[waxman]

thanks Mike... those guys are expensive compared to platters 7200 RPM Buffalo.

[mikehalloran]

thanks Mike... those guys are expensive compared to platters 7200 RPM Buffalo.

This?
https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-DriveSta ... B005PVXI30

If connecting via USB 3, you could replace its internal drive with an SSD and you would see a significant performance boost. Over USB 2, not much if any. If you have the Thunderbolt version, it would be faster than USB 3 with an SSD.

USB 3, eSATA and TB are equally fast with a 7200 rpm drive. The platter speed is the bottleneck. The only way to max the spped with HHDs is a RAID array.

Street prices for the 850 EVO SSD: 2T <$600; 1T <$300, 500G <$160. This is for the raw drive.

When looking at the speed boost and lower drain on your resources, it makes sense for many of us. None of us are you so, if it's not an issue, you're fine.

No one is implying that what you have isn't good enough. We're just letting you know that faster is available for not that much and it is very reliable nowadays.

[waxman]

The Thunderbolt drives work fine. I should probably get an internal 1T SSD for the trash can... That means moving programs and everything on the bootup... something I never enjoy.

[leigh]

So internal SSD drives?

Absolutely. The Samsung 850 EVO is the bomb. Easy to replace the HHDs on most Minis, iMacs Mac Pro towers and Mac Books. A few iMacs are a little tricky but all are doable.

Mike, is the iMac (27-inch, Late 2012) easy or doable?

**Leigh

[mikehalloran]

So internal SSD drives?

Absolutely. The Samsung 850 EVO is the bomb. Easy to replace the HHDs on most Minis, iMacs Mac Pro towers and Mac Books. A few iMacs are a little tricky but all are doable.

Mike, is the iMac (27-inch, Late 2012) easy or doable?

**Leigh

It is almost as easy as the 2011, the easiest iMac to update—the difference is that you use a guitar pick instead of suction cups to remove the glass because of the double-stick tape (the tape gets replaced). The 2011 glass is held on by magnets—otherwise, they are the same when it comes to replacing HDs and NV RAM batteries (as long as you are in there...).

The instructions and videos online include a number of unnecessary steps that should be skipped (you do not remove the screen!). This makes the job much easier, takes less time and lessens the chance of a mistake. It's relatively goof proof once you know how.