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iMac BTO SSD prices in perspective (horribly overpriced)
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Yes, we've beaten that horse to death before, and lets suffice to say its not something I'm willing to do. So lets dispense of your unrelated examples of plumbing and car repairs and agree to disagree.
My main point which you missed is that I'm willing to pay apple tax because of what the user experience, design and quality provide. Others do not, and that's fine. All I can say is, if people think they're over priced, then there are competitors that make very fine computers.
Isn't that the whole concept of Apple nowadays? 5 years ago i switched to Apple because of their hardware design and their software reliability. Now, almost everything of the "better experience" is gone. Hell, Windows 10 Bootcamp is running more smooth and reliable than Sierra on my iMac. It can't get more embarrassing than that.
Maybe you are speaking in general but I personally clearly feel OS X is worth paying a premium for.
Pretty much. These days, Apple is more about a lifestyle rather than user experience.
I had weird distorted video after upgrading to Sierra making it unusable and had to revert to El Capitan.
Before that, Yosemite has #### all over my computer.
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I like OS X very much and I was using windows all week on business trip last month, so it was nice to fire up my iMac into OS X once again. With that said, I do feel like Win10 is a solid, stable and fast product, and I've not had any issues. I'm set up in a dual boot setup, and at times, I'll boot into Windows.
I think the Microsoft has been adding features to windows 10 that make it a very compelling platform, where as, the latest updates from Apple, have not been as enticing for me. Balloons and stickers in iMessage? No thanks. The cross platform clipboard seems like a nice idea but since I've yet to upgrade, its not a feature I'm able to take advantage of.
The attachment in this post shows it's only an additional $200.
For the jump from $2000 to $2500 you get an upgraded processor, graphics card, and PCIe SSD for $500.
For the whole package that is a fine price which is why I pulled the trigger (before returning it to wait for the 2016 model).
Because its troll bait, the fact you are already armed with a defense is evidence of that.
What does the NEED for something (what you are asking here) have to do with the PRICE of something (the OP..YOUR OP)? Sure it may affect a buying decision but that doesn't change its price.
You knew before making this thread that Apple used PCIe SSDs. You knew they carried a premium price tag over SATA SSDs. Short of you possibly owning a SATA SSD factory what is the point? Clearly most of us have the capital to back up the purchase price PCIe SSD in our Macs and clearly most of us have little interest ripping apart new Macs to install SATA SSDs. But you knew all this from the million other threads we've all debated this in.....
Wait....Are you Druaga1?!?
I have a 1TB SSD in my iMac. I love it. From what I have read the larger capacity SSD drives tend to be faster then the smaller ones.
I use my iMac for work mostly which involves some photoshop designing UI elements and then taking them into Crestron and AMX panels being developed. My time is split between coding and graphic design. Neither of which is very demanding but having tasted SSD speeds I could never go back.
That said my 2012 Mac Mini 2.3GHz i7 has a home made fusion drive with a Intel 240GB SSD and the 1TB 5400RPM drive that came with it. That seems like a large enough SSD to not notice the spinning drive hardly ever evening knowing that I have gone well past the limits of the 240GB drive.
I think Apple is missing an opportunity to sell the drives à la carte. For instance what if in my next build to order iMac I could opt for a 1TB SSD and a 3TB spinning drive inside it.
I use my iMac for work mostly which involves some photoshop designing UI elements and then taking them into Crestron and AMX panels being developed. My time is split between coding and graphic design. Neither of which is very demanding but having tasted SSD speeds I could never go back.
That said my 2012 Mac Mini 2.3GHz i7 has a home made fusion drive with a Intel 240GB SSD and the 1TB 5400RPM drive that came with it. That seems like a large enough SSD to not notice the spinning drive hardly ever evening knowing that I have gone well past the limits of the 240GB drive.
I think Apple is missing an opportunity to sell the drives à la carte. For instance what if in my next build to order iMac I could opt for a 1TB SSD and a 3TB spinning drive inside it.
Why would I believe this?
I've seen just as many posts on this site saying that it in fact will void the warranty.
I'm not saying it's certain this isn't true, but as of now I don't know that this is true, as I have said before, you know how Apple is.
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Well EnderBeta, according to OP, you have committed a great sin!
Shoulda ripped that thing open yourself and put in a 250 mb/s clunker!
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Oh this is 100% true.
Not only does PCIe bring with it a great speed increase, but larger capacities also bring a similar benefit.
All SSDs indeed are not the same speed, contrary to the ideas I see being pushed in this thread.
I think we are on the same page. By the way I love your avatar. I always wanted an iMac like that but being a kid I was stuck using my parents gateway PC with boot floppies to get into the games. *shudders*Why would I believe this?
I've seen just as many posts on this site saying that it in fact will void the warranty.
I'm not saying it's certain this isn't true, but as of now I don't know that this is true, as I have said before, you know how Apple is.
[doublepost=1475759877][/doublepost]
Well EnderBeta, according to OP, you have committed a great sin!
Shoulda ripped that thing open yourself and put in a 250 mb/s clunker!
[doublepost=1475760030][/doublepost]
Oh this is 100% true.
Not only does PCIe bring with it a great speed increase, but larger capacities also bring a similar benefit.
All SSDs indeed are not the same speed, contrary to the ideas I see being pushed in this thread.
I'm inclined to believe opening the iMac would void the warranty. I mean for goodness sake the thing is sealed shut. The use of a heat gun and suction cups to get the screen off in order to get to the parts is terrifying to me. There is no way Apple would not void a warranty over that for the machine itself. Maybe the warranty on the things purchased with the Mac would be intact like for the keyboard and mouse but not the machine. No way.
My Mac Mini's drive is fast but no where near as fast as my iMac. It doesn't feel limiting when I am using it but I didn't even want to upgrade my Mac Mini myself. I had best Buy do it. It cost $40 for the install of the hardware with the understanding I would format the drives into a fusion drive myself. Not bad considering they have a Apple Certified person working on it and my warranty remained intact.
I think the PCIe drives are more future proof as software gets more demanding, but the SATA3 drives are in no way bad.However voiding a warranty on a new iMac to put in an inferior SSD is madness in my personal opinion.
The warranty on the machines in my opinion is paramount. I could upgrade the machines myself but I don't have the means to replace these machines easily like a pair of shoes if something goes wrong even if it is completely unrelated to the work because the warranty is void.
It is far easier to cough up $700 and get the largest and fastest SSD drive at the time of purchase then to try and come up with thousands of dollars later should this machine which cost thousands of dollars become a paper weight and Apple having discovered my modifications denied coverage.
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Oh, just because the FTC said so.
I think we are on the same page. By the way I love your avatar. I always wanted an iMac like that but being a kid I was stuck using my parents gateway PC with boot floppies to get into the games. *shudders*
I'm inclined to believe opening the iMac would void the warranty. I mean for goodness sake the thing is sealed shut. The use of a heat gun and suction cups to get the screen off in order to get to the parts is terrifying to me. There is no way Apple would not void a warranty over that for the machine itself. Maybe the warranty on the things purchased with the Mac would be intact like for the keyboard and mouse but not the machine. No way.
My Mac Mini's drive is fast but no where near as fast as my iMac. It doesn't feel limiting when I am using it but I didn't even want to upgrade my Mac Mini myself. I had best Buy do it. It cost $40 for the install of the hardware with the understanding I would format the drives into a fusion drive myself. Not bad considering they have a Apple Certified person working on it and my warranty remained intact.
However voiding a warranty on a new iMac to put in an inferior SSD is madness in my personal opinion.
The warranty on the machines in my opinion is paramount. I could upgrade the machines myself but I don't have the means to replace these machines easily like a pair of shoes if something goes wrong even if it is completely unrelated to the work because the warranty is void.
It is far easier to cough up $700 and get the largest and fastest SSD drive at the time of purchase then to try and come up with thousands of dollars later should this machine which cost thousands of dollars become a paper weight and Apple having discovered my modifications denied coverage.
Upgrading the SSD does not void the warranty. The use of tie-in sale provisions is illegal.
Also, the display is held by double-sided tape. You don't need a heat gun to remove the display. You do need to replace the tape every time you remove the display.
Also, saying that "I don't need PCIe SSD" now, but I might in the future misses the point: everything else would become obsolete too. Whatever you could save now could be put toward a future iMac (or something else).
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I'm not going to argue semantics and I'm not going to argue law.
You are confusing ideals with reality. Good luck going to court to argue over a computer being broken after Apple denies your claim because you opened it up. The entire time you are out of a machine. If the machine is for work you are not doing your job and as a result not being paid.
The reality is the iMac is an appliance. It's now just a desktop PC equivalent to a iPad mobile device. Open either and your warranty will be void so fast your bank account will hemorrhage green paper blood.
I'm not going to argue semantics and I'm not going to argue law.
You are confusing ideals with reality. Good luck going to court to argue over a computer being broken after Apple denies your claim because you opened it up. The entire time you are out of a machine. If the machine is for work you are not doing your job and as a result not being paid.
The reality is the iMac is an appliance. It's now just a desktop PC equivalent to a iPad mobile device. Open either and your warranty will be void so fast your bank account will hemorrhage green paper blood.
We already sent in one of our iMac for warrantied repair.
We got back an working iMac, but with a regular hard drive.
In future cases, we plan to remove the SSD prior to sending in for repair.
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We already sent in one of our iMac for warrantied repair.
We got back an working iMac, but with a regular hard drive.
In future cases, we plan to remove the SSD prior to sending in for repair.
You took a huge risk. For all you know they didn't even look at your machine and simply sent you back another in good faith. Hence why you didn't get the SSD back. Because your warranty wasn't voided that time doesn't inherently mean it can't or won't be voided. It could just as easily been sheer luck that your warranty wasn't voided. Beyond that if you open it and break it are you going to send it back in for warranty work? Does that not seem dishonest?
I feel like you are doing a disfavor to people telling them to modify these machines and their warranty will not be voided. If they get a message from Apple saying that they have no more coverage are you going to back your statements up with covering the expense of replacing the machine? If not then I feel like you are making reckless statements.
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If you are not using a heat gun to heat up the glue of the double sided tape you risk the screen surface cracking. A heat gun is the proper way of opening the iMac if you don't want to replace the screen. This is of course academic.
No you're missing the point. My iMac is on a three year replacement cycle that coincides with the AppleCare. I'll sell the machine on eBay for what ever I can and buy a new one maxed out. Rinse and repeat. So far my machine has been up for seven months and counting with zero downtime. In ~24 to 30 months depending on the new model release time frame this machine will be replaced.
In that time I expect the machine to be down only for software and OS updates and not hardware related issues. If my machine has issues I will be getting replacements via advanced RMA and ship back the broken part in the included packaging.
I'm simply not going to take a work machine offline to tinker with it. If you want to tinker build a PC. You can design the machine to the very limits of what you want.
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As I said, I am following the law.
Also, I am not going to "open it and break it" and then "send it back in for warranty" when I am not going to "break it" in the first place.
We (not me personally) cracked the display on one of the iMac during transport (not the same one we sent for warranty) and had to replace to the display, but that has nothing to do with the upgrade. Boss wasn't happy about pay $400 for the replacement part.
You are ill-informed. This is what's used to cut the tape (not a heat gun):
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I thank you for being ethical in that regard. Warranty abuse from customers is the best way to ruin the warranty for everyone.
How do you know you are not going to break it in the first place? Are you using grounding straps to protect yourself from static discharges while handling the equipment? Are you doing the work in a static free environment?
We will have to agree to disagree. I don't think opening up these machines are a good idea. If you are willing to risk it then more power to you.
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As I said, I am following the law.
Also, I am not going to "open it and break it" and then "send it back in for warranty" when I am not going to "break it" in the first place.
We (not me personally) cracked the display on one of the iMac during transport and had to replace to the display, but that has nothing to do with the upgrade. Boss wasn't happy about pay $400 for the replacement part.
You are ill-informed. This is what's used to cut the tape (not a heat gun):
Ok what ever. Keep in mind the warranty doesn't include cosmetic damage coverage when you decide to scrape your machine up with that.
Lets just agree to disagree and never again shall our paths cross.
And how was warranty abused?
How does a mechanic knows he's not going to break a car?
I am careful not to touch the power supply because I don't want to get a jolt.
Why aren't you showing the correct model that varian55zx mentions? He is absolutely correct the upgrade is only $200. Which is reasonable upgrade price for a 512GB m.2 PCIe SSD.
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You don't have to touch the power supply to create static discharge on the parts of the computer. Anyone who works on computers knows to apply proper ESD procedures while working on the internals of the computer. It is very easy to destroy a hardware part with static discharge.
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Here you go:
https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Anti-Static-Wrist-Strap/IF145-071-
Seriously though, all you need to do is touch metal once in a while and not work on carpet.
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