iMac BTO SSD prices in perspective (horribly overpriced)

[loekf]

That's why I gave up on a BTO machine 1.5 year ago. I think at that time Apple was busy changing their line-up, so BTOs were extremely difficult to get. I think I waited more than 8 weeks for any progress in China. The plan was to go for a 512 GB SSD. I also made the mistake to order a BTO from a Apple premium reseller. Don't do that, only buy BTOs from Apple itself. Resellers (dealers) are always last in line.

I now have a Late 2014 27" iMac with 1 TB fusion drive. As all my data is on external drives, I only use ~128 GB of the fusion drive, so most data is on the SSD part.

Last year Apple made a big mistake changing the default storage options to:

1 TB default in the 27"
1 TB fusion drive with 24 GB flash (was 128 GB) in the more expensive 27" model
1 TB 5400 RPM in the 21.5" models

That should be 256 GB flash by default, given by the fact that Apple wants you to upload everything to iCloud.

If you try the 21.5" models in a shop, I always think I'm looking at a PC from 10 years ago. Such slow response, it's a joke.

 

[varian55zx]

Don't do that, only buy BTOs from Apple itself. Resellers (dealers) are always last in line

Please, explain what this means.

Sounds really ridiculous!!!

 

[Taz Mangus]

Most companies charge what the market will stand. That (unfortunately) doesn't mean charging the lowest price that anyone is willing to pay. As long as Apple sell what they are willing to make at the prices demand, why would they go lower. If you held stock you certainly would expect them to maximise revenue for sales.

Exactly, very well said.

 

[loekf]

Please, explain what this means.

Sounds really ridiculous!!!

When you order a BTO, it's definitely not the case that the order goes directly to factory in China, where someone picks the special parts and put together that special iMac. Apple just saves up the order until there are a number of that configuration. However, Apple orders are first in line, the rest has to wait. So it could happen that they have 1000 orders for config A. If your order from a reseller doesn't make it to that 1000, you've to wait for the next batch.

 

[mullock87]

tubeexperience, I use SATA SSDs often in work and let me tell you that the Apple flash storage is far superior in speeds. I get 2000+ MB/s read and 1500 MB/s write on my iMac. It is noticeably much quicker in day to day use than a generic SATA SSD. Granted, Apple do charge an overpriced premium for this but it is a superior type of storage to the Samsung SSDs you seem to tell everyone to get.

 

[danielwsmithee]

I'll give you an analogy.

I can have a normal size water pipe connected to my house or I can have a larger pipe (4 times the capacity). The latter is great when I need to fill my swimming pool because I can fill my swimming 4 times as fast... that is until I realized that I have to pay 4 times as much for the same amount of water.

Your analogy is crap because it completely ignores the reality of modern computing architectures. I'll make your analogy apply to what is actually going on today.

Let's say your CPU is represented by the pipes in your home. Let's use 1" pipes for simplicity. The skylake architecture can move a lot of data very quickly (DMI 3.0 is 8GB/s).

Now if your storage speed represents your pipe feeding your system the SATA3 interface is 600MB/s, which would represent a relative physical pipe of ~1/14th of inch.

SATA is by far and away the biggest bottleneck to system performance and it is not even close. I don't know about you but I don't ever want to try to fill a swimming pool with 1/14th of inch pipe.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Your analogy is crap because it completely ignores the reality of modern computing architectures. I'll make your analogy apply to what is actually going on today.

Let's say your CPU is represented by the pipes in your home. Let's use 1" pipes for simplicity. The skylake architecture can move a lot of data very quickly (DMI 3.0 is 8GB/s).

Now if your storage speed represents your pipe feeding your system the SATA3 interface is 600MB/s, which would represent a relative physical pipe of ~1/14th of inch.

SATA is by far and away the biggest bottleneck to system performance and it is not even close. I don't know about you but I don't ever want to try to fill a swimming pool with 1/14th of inch pipe.

This where we are headed: http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/28/9058393/intels-micron-memory-3D-xpoint-speed. I/O is always going to a bottleneck.

 

[tubeexperience]

Your analogy is crap because it completely ignores the reality of modern computing architectures. I'll make your analogy apply to what is actually going on today.

Let's say your CPU is represented by the pipes in your home. Let's use 1" pipes for simplicity. The skylake architecture can move a lot of data very quickly (DMI 3.0 is 8GB/s).

Now if your storage speed represents your pipe feeding your system the SATA3 interface is 600MB/s, which would represent a relative physical pipe of ~1/14th of inch.

SATA is by far and away the biggest bottleneck to system performance and it is not even close. I don't know about you but I don't ever want to try to fill a swimming pool with 1/14th of inch pipe.

I'll leave this analogy be for now.

What I want to again ask you is this: What are some tasks you routinely perform that would benefit from having transfer rate above 600MB/s?

This where we are headed: http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/28/9058393/intels-micron-memory-3D-xpoint-speed. I/O is always going to a bottleneck.

I don't see it.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I don't see it.

That is obvious for you to not see it. But it is coming.

 

[tubeexperience]

Strange how I get an eerie silence when I ask someone what are some tasks he/she routinely perform that would benefit from having transfer rate above 600MB/s.

I thought someone is going to say: "I am editing a 4K movie right now. It's coming to the theater in 6 months."

 

[cynics]

Meh, price is reasonable as long as you expect to pay some sort of premium for the OS X experience AND it being assembled for you.

If you build a computer yourself to match the iMac without compromise the difference isn't too bad and sometimes nonexistent.

Most people will build a PC themselves and use a 4K monitor with a narrower color space, SATA SSD, generic wired mouse and keyboard, no webcam, no thunderbolt support, without an OS, etc etc. Than they will whine about Apples prices.

The reality is some people don't need/want everything Apple is offering therefore you do not find the value in it thus making it appear to be overpriced. If that's the case then build a PC yourself exactly how you want it and be happy.

I'm referring specifically to the iMac btw.

 

[varian55zx]

Meh, price is reasonable as long as you expect to pay some sort of premium for the OS X experience AND it being assembled for you

Sure, which is why I think it's worth it.

I'll be buying the 512ssd from Apple or equivalent when I get the new iMac.

If you don't think the OS X experience isn't worth a little more (it is), then maybe you don't have any business with Macs.

 

[tubeexperience]

Sure, which is why I think it's worth it.

I'll be buying the 512ssd from Apple or equivalent when I get the new iMac.

If you don't think the OS X experience isn't worth a little more (it is), then maybe you don't have any business with Macs.

So instead of paying ~$50 for a ~250 GB SSD, you have to pay Apple $200

and instead of paying ~$100 for ~500 GB SSD, you have to pay Apple $500

I don't know how you consider paying 4 to 5 times as much to be "a little more".

 

[varian55zx]

The 512 SSD doesn't cost $500

I bought a late 2015 iMac, 3.3 i5, 512 SSD, M395, 8gb ram.

That costs $2500.

It's an upgraded processor, graphics card, and SSD for $500.

For the whole package $2500 isn't a bad price at all!

I don't understand your argument.

 

[tubeexperience]

The 512 SSD doesn't cost $500

I bought a late 2015 iMac, 3.3 i5, 512 SSD, M395, 8gb ram.

That costs $2500.

It's an upgraded processor, graphics card, and SSD for $500.

For the whole package $2500 isn't a bad price at all!

I don't understand your argument.

 

[varian55zx]

I still don't understand the point you're trying to make?

The people here all bought that SSD option, knowing the price of it.

I maintain $2500 is a fine price for the whole package. Obviously I'd prefer it to be cheaper, I'd prefer it to cost $0.00! But that isn't going to happen.

 

[mullock87]

tubeexperience, by your thought process of getting everything as cheap as possible... Does that mean we should all be buying used parts to build a custom PC running Linux to save money?

You surely don't use Apple Macs do you? Because they have always been priced higher than competitors, or do I sense hypocrisy?

 

[maflynn]

If you don't think the OS X experience isn't worth a little more (it is), then maybe you don't have any business with Macs.

I agree, and while some components (and configurations) are over priced, I'm buying the iMac for the experience. Don't want to pay for Apple's prices, then don't buy Apple. Simple as that, because there are plenty of less expensive computers out there

Because they have always been priced higher than competitors

There's the other side of the coin, why buy a Mac, because you're paying a lot more for the machine then a home built one.

 

[happycadaver]

I don't see the issue here. Everything Apple sells is overpriced to some degree. You want something with an apple on it, you have to bleed for it. Simple as that.

 

[Taz Mangus]

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The 2015 high end iMac I bought that had the m395 GPU, the 512GB SSD was a $200 upgrade. I probably would have also paid the $500 for the 512GB upgrade.

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I agree, and while some components (and configurations) are over priced, I'm buying the iMac for the experience. Don't want to pay for Apple's prices, then don't buy Apple. Simple as that, because there are plenty of less expensive computers out there

I am willing to pay extra for a Mac computer. Everyone has to decide what they are willing to pay. This isn't rocket science.

 

[maflynn]

The 2015 high end iMac I bought that had the m395 GPU, the 512GB SSD was a $200 upgrade.

I would have gladly paid the 200 dollar increase, but my storage needs were beyond 500GB, so I either had to pay the inflated 1TB SSD prices, or go with the Fusion. I went with the fusion drive and I'm very happy with it.

 

[tubeexperience]

tubeexperience, by your thought process of getting everything as cheap as possible... Does that mean we should all be buying used parts to build a custom PC running Linux to save money?

You surely don't use Apple Macs do you? Because they have always been priced higher than competitors, or do I sense hypocrisy?

#1. Running Linux on a PC versus running macOS on a PC provides vastly different users' experience. Running macOS on an Apple supplied SSDs versus on other SSDs provide indistinguishable experience for the majority of users out there.

#2. Of cause I use Macs. It would be hard to service and repair them when I don't them one myself.

I agree, and while some components (and configurations) are over priced, I'm buying the iMac for the experience. Don't want to pay for Apple's prices, then don't buy Apple. Simple as that, because there are plenty of less expensive computers out there


There's the other side of the coin, why buy a Mac, because you're paying a lot more for the machine then a home built one.

I don't see having an Apple supplied SSDs proving better "experience" than SSDs from elsewhere.

I don't see the issue here. Everything Apple sells is overpriced to some degree. You want something with an apple on it, you have to bleed for it. Simple as that.

So what you are saying is that, yes, that is overpriced, but since it's Apple, it has to be in its own category.

 

[maflynn]

I don't see having an Apple supplied SSDs proving better "experience" than SSDs from elsewhere.

I didn't say the apple SSD provides a better user experience but rather I buy Macs for the entire user experience.

Again,I'll repeat what I'm saying, if you don't want to pay Apple prices, there are other computers that are less expensive.

 

[tubeexperience]

I didn't say the apple SSD provides a better user experience but rather I buy Macs for the entire user experience.

Again,I'll repeat what I'm saying, if you don't want to pay Apple prices, there are other computers that are less expensive.

Well, what's stopping you from upgrading afterward for much less?

If you don't want to perform the upgrade yourself, there are plenty of repair shops that are willing to do it.

Assuming that you have a car, you can just drop-off your iMac for it to be upgraded and then pick up afterward.

 

[maflynn]

Well, what's stopping you from upgrading afterward for much less?

Voiding the warranty

If you don't want to perform the upgrade yourself, there are plenty of repair shops that are willing to do it.

I'm happy with my configuration as I mentioned, so there's no need to upgrade.