That's a vertex 2 in the image which is a SATA2 drive.
The intel 6 series chipset should certainly have SATA3 so maybe apple just gimped it.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Do new iMacs have SATA3 ?
- Thread starter deadbear
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That's a vertex 2 in the image which is a SATA2 drive.
The intel 6 series chipset should certainly have SATA3 so maybe apple just gimped it.
Is everyone rushing out to buy 6G SSDs tomorrow?
Agreed, its silly.
But come on, how many people posting here *need* a 500 Mbps boot drive today (or in the next year) do bad that their life will end without it?
And before some of you pop in and post "I do because blah, blah, blah" -- Im not talking about you.
You do realize that a 120 gig SATAIII SSD is $300...
Agreed, its silly.
But come on, how many people posting here *need* a 500 Mbps boot drive today (or in the next year) do bad that their life will end without it?
And before some of you pop in and post "I do because blah, blah, blah" -- Im not talking about you.
You do realize that a 120 gig SATAIII SSD is $300...
It doesn't matter what the drive speed is - link speed would be 6 Gigabit regardless. Negotiated speed shows the actual speed of the drive connected. SATA III is backwards compatible.
For those who are thinking of using an external boot drive with their Thunderbolt port, there may be some cause for concern. Some sources (http://www.tidbits.com/article/11993) claim you cannot boot from Thunderbolt, as yet (with no talk about when it might happen).
Other sources (http://www.macworld.com/article/158145/2011/02/thunderbolt_what_you_need_to_know.html) say they believe so, but are still checking.
The new Imac's lack of SATA 3 is more than a bit surprising and if its Thunderbolt port can't boot, then we don't have a lot of options for full speed Sata III SSD drives. Bummer.
Other sources (http://www.macworld.com/article/158145/2011/02/thunderbolt_what_you_need_to_know.html) say they believe so, but are still checking.
The new Imac's lack of SATA 3 is more than a bit surprising and if its Thunderbolt port can't boot, then we don't have a lot of options for full speed Sata III SSD drives. Bummer.
This is quite perplexing. As far as I know, all of Intel's Sandy Bridge chipsets have native support for SATAIII. It almost seems as if Apple would have had to go out of their way for these new iMacs to not have SATAIII.
OK......Lets roll lol
Listen....The Sandy Bridge Chipset supports both SATA 2 and SATA 3....the manufacturer can opt to include both (2011 MacBook Pros) or none (2011 iMacs) as a matter of fact the 2011 MacBook Pros support SATA 3 in the hard drive bay and ONLY SATA 2 in the optical drive bay and they both are connected to the chipset.
Apple opted to only offer SATA 2 on the 2011 iMac...that's that.
THIS IS FACT not FICTION
Last edited:
You are correct, calm down.
I went back and looked through the design docs for the Sandy Bridge chipsets and you're exactly right--OEMs can opt for SATAII or SATAIII. I had forgotten about the MBP, which as you astutely point out, has both.Just to be clear the lack of SATA 6 Gb/s only affects those hooking up future SSD that goes beyond 384MB/s, correct?
Would the choice of SATA 3 Gb/s affect the performance of devices connected through Thunderbolt?
It would have been splendid to have SATA 6 Gb/s in the iMac but as I see it Apple does not see this as a user upgradeable part of their computer so sees no reason to have it in the iMac.
Unlike the MBP where in the HDD is user upgradeable making it a necessity so they do not get bad press in the future.
SATA 6 Gb/s is nice to have but not a deal breaker in the same way that the lack of eSATA is nice to have but not a deal breaker.
Would the choice of SATA 3 Gb/s affect the performance of devices connected through Thunderbolt?
It would have been splendid to have SATA 6 Gb/s in the iMac but as I see it Apple does not see this as a user upgradeable part of their computer so sees no reason to have it in the iMac.
Unlike the MBP where in the HDD is user upgradeable making it a necessity so they do not get bad press in the future.
SATA 6 Gb/s is nice to have but not a deal breaker in the same way that the lack of eSATA is nice to have but not a deal breaker.
Last edited:
More or less, Yes around that figure. And that is still pretty fast. But with drives now not too expensive at the 500+ MBps speeds SATA III would have been nice.
This would sit perfectly with Apple's logic. "We don't want people upgrading the internals of the iMac (unlike MP or MBP) so we wont bother with that option"
Surely ^this^ is the case... Purely speculation but I genuinely find it hard to believe that there is no SATA3 connectivity on the 2011 iMacs... From all the SB mobos I've seen, and not to mention the fact that the 2011 MBPs have SATA3 - it seems to come as standard now on all current/recent tech, and furthermore it would frankly be a ridiculous decision of Apple to have it on MBPs and not on iMacs. Can you see any logic at all in that decision? Really?!
I know the OWC Blog have "made it clear", but I'm thinking (hoping) it could well be a buggy System Profiler, or something generally 10.6.6-related. The mere fact that the new iMac OS doesn't support a 10.6.7 update yet just shows that it still needs to be brought fully up to spec...
... There we are then, sound like a desperate man grasping at straws???
Surely ^this^ is the case... Purely speculation but I genuinely find it hard to believe that there is no SATA3 connectivity on the 2011 iMacs... From all the SB mobos I've seen, and not to mention the fact that the 2011 MBPs have SATA3 - it seems to come as standard now on all current/recent tech, and furthermore it would frankly be a ridiculous decision of Apple to have it on MBPs and not on iMacs. Can you see any logic at all in that decision? Really?!
I know the OWC Blog have "made it clear", but I'm thinking (hoping) it could well be a buggy System Profiler, or something generally 10.6.6-related. The mere fact that the new iMac OS doesn't support a 10.6.7 update yet just shows that it still needs to be brought fully up to spec...
... There we are then, sound like a desperate man grasping at straws???
There are a couple of SB chipsets for motherboards. One of them does not have any SATA III ports at all.
Fair enough then. My brain is saturated with H67/P67 motherboards so I wasn't aware of any SB chipsets without SATA3...
The MBPs are more user upgradeable than the iMacs. The only certifiable upgrade in the iMac is RAM.
Depends on what you describe as crap. The Apple SSD's are toshiba, or Samsung. The Toshiba drives are not 'crap'. Are they as fast as a Vertex 3, no. Does it matter in real world use, no.
What is important is reliability. Toshiba controllers have one of the most aggressive GC of any SSD. Good GC equals reliability. And they are still using 32nm, which will last longer than 25nm. Random 4k is what matters most not the crazy speeds advertised by Ocz. Toshiba makes their own chips, as does Samsung, as does Intel. All have good SSD's. Their manufacturing process is better, materials better, silicon is better. OcZ does make their own drives, but do they make their own memory, no, controller no, nand no, do they have as good quality control no. I will Take a slower Toshiba SSD drive with better reliability any day of the week. Apple is not stupid, they put quality into their products, if OCZ was better they would have went with them. Their not so they don't.
If it wasn't for Toshiba, SSD's wouldn't exist. They developed Nand flash memory.
If speed is your main concern, than the Toshiba are not as good as some, but if you want reliability, the Toshiba is the better choice.
Last edited:
Are you serious? I already have a pair of Vertex 3's in my work machine. Hard drive speeds are always the bottle neck and solid state is, in my opinion, one of the best investments you can have for your computer. I love the Vertex 3 120gb because at $300, it's a steal. Unlike faster clock speeds and more cores, upgrading your harddrive results in much faster and "snappier" performance for every day tasks. In other words, it's the computer upgrade for the everyman, not just the professional.
If you're not interested in this sort of thing that's fine. To each his own. But if you think that "no one needs" SATA III then you obviously haven't been paying attention to the market in the last few years. This year's SSDs are almost twice as fast as last year's and they're cheaper. Now is the time to buy. Everyone I know either already runs SSD in their machines exclusively or will by the end of the summer (including my parents).
Which brings us to the problem discussed in this thread. If the new iMacs indeed run SATA II only then it will be a huge letdown because SATA III drives will be limited to running well below full performance. That means you will be paying full price for a SSD running it crippled. No one wants to leave money on the table.
That is not the point. I get that Apple doesn't want third-party parts in their machines and I also get that the MBP is more "tamper-friendly" than the iMac.
However, when you consider the principles of MBP/laptop/portability vs. iMac/desktop/power, any reasoning for their decision is flawed.
No. The Thunderbolt interface supports up to 10Gbps, which is far faster than the capability of the newest SATAIII SSDs. So theoretically a SSD in an external TB enclosure would have faster transfer speeds than any internal SSD in this new iMac version.
The fastest new SSD are only pushing a peak of about 4Gbps.
It no longer matters. The iMac has the z68 chipset, which is the bees' knees of the Sandy Bridge chipsets and hasn't actually been officially released yet. That means it does support SATA III, but perhaps it's hidden and something to do with Larsen Creek (also explains the long delays for the iMacs with SSDs)
Z68 also supprots SATA II no? Also supply issues are equally a valid reason for the SSD delay how are you so sure its Larsen Creek's fault?
I honestly don't know what is causing the 4-6 week delay. The most likely explanation is that Apple is waiting for a newer supply of (potentially faster) SSDs or implementation that causes this delay.
Configure any MacBook Pros or Mac Pros with 256GB or 512GB SSDs and shipping time only increases to 1-3 or 2-4 days. If there were a shortage, it would be reflected in these models, too - there surely isn't a huge supply of pre-configured models sitting around?
---
Like others, I still question whether SATA III is (or isn't) implemented. Are the speeds limited by a firmware (or other) issue? Will the Macs shipped with an SSD feature SATA III?
Does Apple think limiting the SATA speed to II make more people choose their SSD solution, instead of adding a compatible SATA III SSD on their own?
We won't know for another 4-6 weeks (or until an update is issued to bring these up-to-date with 10.6.7/.8), I figure.
Configure any MacBook Pros or Mac Pros with 256GB or 512GB SSDs and shipping time only increases to 1-3 or 2-4 days. If there were a shortage, it would be reflected in these models, too - there surely isn't a huge supply of pre-configured models sitting around?
---
Like others, I still question whether SATA III is (or isn't) implemented. Are the speeds limited by a firmware (or other) issue? Will the Macs shipped with an SSD feature SATA III?
Does Apple think limiting the SATA speed to II make more people choose their SSD solution, instead of adding a compatible SATA III SSD on their own?
We won't know for another 4-6 weeks (or until an update is issued to bring these up-to-date with 10.6.7/.8), I figure.
Ignorant people shouldn't make recommendations mate!
What really needs to go in there is an OCZ Vertex 3 pulling 480Mb a sec not the Apple rubbish SSD that's frigging expensive AND slow. A decent tech can put the above in for you. In this case SAT 3 makes a BIG difference ... plus Sandy Bridge chips ALL had a major SATA problem however this has recently been fixed. Hence I am 99.9% sure the new iMac is SATA 3 spec