Now this is where I show that I understand very little. The PBs use Ultra ATA hard drives with a standard spindle speed of 5400 RPM, will the Serial ATA 5400 RPM be any faster because it is serial, or does this just mean that when in 18 months time the 10,000 RPMs come out the serial will be able to make full use of it?
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MacBook Pro Hard drive speed
- Thread starter jacobj
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Video-editing wise: Serial is better...
I recall someone mentioning that the biggest reason why iBooks are not ideal for Video-editing is because of its harddrive not being serial ATA's.
MacBook Pro has become a true desktop replacement... its speedy dual processor and the serial hardrive are hand-in-hand in making video-editing and other large-file apps fly on a mac.
Lol, i dunno about those 10,000 rpms in 18mths thing.
I recall someone mentioning that the biggest reason why iBooks are not ideal for Video-editing is because of its harddrive not being serial ATA's.
MacBook Pro has become a true desktop replacement... its speedy dual processor and the serial hardrive are hand-in-hand in making video-editing and other large-file apps fly on a mac.
Lol, i dunno about those 10,000 rpms in 18mths thing.
by the way,macbooks are not just macs anymore...
so the forum should change in a year or so to macintelrumors
and maybe a year after that to macintelmicrosoftrumors
i'm glad i got the last all apple powerbook
so the forum should change in a year or so to macintelrumors
and maybe a year after that to macintelmicrosoftrumors
i'm glad i got the last all apple powerbook
No, You got the last Apple/IBM PowerBook. Now they sell Apple/Intel Powerbooks.
There was only one way that apple could advance in technology and that was to go to intel. That's good news though, because it means that all personal computing is running on intel chips. Not only will you be able to have the best hardware and the best compatability, but it means all the focus on advancing the technology will be on the Intel chips, and as a result, we will have more advanced technology in all computers.
This was a smart move, and it will be very benifical to everyone using a PC.
There was only one way that apple could advance in technology and that was to go to intel. That's good news though, because it means that all personal computing is running on intel chips. Not only will you be able to have the best hardware and the best compatability, but it means all the focus on advancing the technology will be on the Intel chips, and as a result, we will have more advanced technology in all computers.
This was a smart move, and it will be very benifical to everyone using a PC.
sk3pt1c said:i'm glad i got the last all apple powerbook
What's so non-Apple about a new Mac with an Intel processor? I rather have the new computer in my sig than have to wait two more years for PPC to put a G5 into a PowerBook.
rimrocka07011 said:
I agree, once the transition of software is on its way then everyone will look to the new machines. I look forward to an Intel Mac in the future
matperk said:
I wouldn't agree with you. IBM makes some of the best chips on the market. For the past few years they've been running circles around intel. It's only this generation of processors (G5s and G4s) that are lacking. Then again both of those processors are aging designs (but when they were new they were way ahead of their time and both chips have put up a god fight over the years). I'm pretty sure everyone will agree with me on that. IBM just wanted to focus more on the video game market than personal computers for what ever reasons. I think a powermac with a cell processor would have been hella sweet. Also a new notebook chip would have rocked, but IBM didn't want to spend the cash on R&D. It kind of sucks, they left apple without any sort of solution. I must say that the next gen of intel processors seem pretty sweet. I'm personally holding out for those. This current gen of chips are going to be too out dated within 2 years.
jacobj said:
IMO regardless of PATA or SATA a 5400RPM HDD is weak!!! 7200RPM 2.5" drives are available and significantly faster. A larger margin than PATA vs. SATA.
Sure a 5400 RPM drive uses less power meaning cooler, quieter, and longer battery life, but come on apple, people are rendering video, recording and processing music, etc... we want speed. Why would anyone buy a new dual core or dual processor machine anyway??? For speed, right?
5400 RPM drives are from the late '90s! It's 2006! I understand that todays drives are better, but you get my point. 5400 RPM=slow!
Wtf??
Okay, all other things being equal, a Parallel ATA drive will perform exactly equally to a Serial ATA drive. (Until drives get sustained spindle-to-RAM speeds in excess of 100 MB/s.)
Why? Because it's the same drive. It still has the same seek time, still the same spindle-to-RAM speed, same cache, probably the same firmware, even.
However, newer drives will tend to outperform older drives for many reasons, even the same technology. This can be due to firmware differences, higher density platters, larger cache... The website Storage Review is pretty much the defacto standard in hard drive reviews. They recently reviewed both the PATA and SATA versions of the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 notebook drive. Note that the ONLY difference between the drives is the interface. In 'raw benchmarks', the SATA drive actually is WORSE. (lower spindle-to-RAM speed, higher seek time than its PATA counterpart.) But, it does score marginally higher in the 'real world' tests. This is likely due to firmware improvements. In fact, the only test that moving to SATA alone should make an improvement is the server test, where command queueing is used. And in this test, the SATA drive crushes the PATA drive. Every other test is a marginal increase, that could probably be had with a PATA drive using a new firmware.
Note, though, that the SATA drive draws a LOT more power on idle, which would reduce battery life.
If you sift through their 'Testbed3' test results in the performance database, and compare ATA-100/133 drives to their SATA equivalent, you'll see a mixed bag. With some drives, the SATA is faster, with others, the PATA is faster.
edit: And Seagate has a 10,000 RPM 2.5" drive, the Savvio 10K.1, but it's SCSI.
Okay, all other things being equal, a Parallel ATA drive will perform exactly equally to a Serial ATA drive. (Until drives get sustained spindle-to-RAM speeds in excess of 100 MB/s.)
Why? Because it's the same drive. It still has the same seek time, still the same spindle-to-RAM speed, same cache, probably the same firmware, even.
However, newer drives will tend to outperform older drives for many reasons, even the same technology. This can be due to firmware differences, higher density platters, larger cache... The website Storage Review is pretty much the defacto standard in hard drive reviews. They recently reviewed both the PATA and SATA versions of the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 notebook drive. Note that the ONLY difference between the drives is the interface. In 'raw benchmarks', the SATA drive actually is WORSE. (lower spindle-to-RAM speed, higher seek time than its PATA counterpart.) But, it does score marginally higher in the 'real world' tests. This is likely due to firmware improvements. In fact, the only test that moving to SATA alone should make an improvement is the server test, where command queueing is used. And in this test, the SATA drive crushes the PATA drive. Every other test is a marginal increase, that could probably be had with a PATA drive using a new firmware.
Note, though, that the SATA drive draws a LOT more power on idle, which would reduce battery life.
If you sift through their 'Testbed3' test results in the performance database, and compare ATA-100/133 drives to their SATA equivalent, you'll see a mixed bag. With some drives, the SATA is faster, with others, the PATA is faster.
edit: And Seagate has a 10,000 RPM 2.5" drive, the Savvio 10K.1, but it's SCSI.
jacobj said:
Not all hard drives are created equal. I've seen reviews of 5400 drives getting pretty close in performance to 7200 drive. Don't expect to see 10,000 RPM drives in anything other then external full sized drives anytime soon. Even now AFAIK no desktop harddrive (Outside of RAID configurations...Oh god I think I just wet myself at the idea of a MacBook RAID system.) saturates SATA II's bandwidth which I THINK is around 300MB/s. I'm prob wrong on that. The heat generated by a 10,000 RPM drive is impressive. This coming from someone who has THIS as his primary desktop hard drive now. I have a dedicated HD fan for the thing. It runs pretty hot.
The biggest thing to look at is cache. . . More == Better. Spindle speed. . .Faster generally == better. And frankly name brand. Seagate makes some of the best and fastest drives on the market. Usually followed by Hitachi, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. Occasionally you have companies swap places for fastest drives but by and large that's the list. Western Digital is starting to come out with a line of mobile hard drives but frankly they are so new that I wouldn't go near them until they get a rep.
Personally I'm going to upgrade my MacBook to a Seagate 160GB drive sometime this summer when the SATA version comes out. The allocation will be such:
60GB -> for my 60GB iPod (Only 11GB of free space left.)
15GB for Windows -> It will happen people. Deal with it.
85GB-ish for -> OS X, apps, and personal files.
matperk said:
[sorry to hijack the thread, but couldn't let this one go]
So, when intel owns 99.99% off the PC processor market, and some greedy ****** becomes their CEO, they can start making the worst, crappiest chips out there and sell them for an absolute fortune. Ahhhh, monopolies, what a great invention.
Let's hope AMD and IBM continue to make to great chips too and let's keep our options open...
Back to the topic at hand
whocares said:[sorry to hijack the thread, but couldn't let this one go]
So, when intel owns 99.99% off the PC processor market, and some greedy ****** becomes their CEO, they can start making the worst, crappiest chips out there and sell them for an absolute fortune. Ahhhh, monopolies, what a great invention.
Let's hope AMD and IBM continue to make to great chips too and let's keep our options open...
Back to the topic at hand
yeah, I've been worrying about that whole thing with the Adobe/Macromedi buyout. where's the competition? Although AMD seems to still be a very healthy direct competitor to Intel these days. I wouldn't worry in that aspect, I'm more worried about the Adobe monster. Although maybe Apple with step up to the plate with more Aperature like products.
Okay back to the topic. Where's my damn MacBook Pro with 10,000RPM 300GB drives!?
whocares said:[sorry to hijack the thread, but couldn't let this one go]
So, when intel owns 99.99% off the PC processor market, and some greedy ****** becomes their CEO, they can start making the worst, crappiest chips out there and sell them for an absolute fortune. Ahhhh, monopolies, what a great invention.
Let's hope AMD and IBM continue to make to great chips too and let's keep our options open...
Back to the topic at hand
Won't happen. The x86 ISA is open to anyone willing to pony up the money needed to start up a company. Granted the barrier to entry is pretty high but just look at AMD. INtel can't deviate too far from the standard without getting slapped around by the industry. Just look at Itanium better known as the Itanic. It has crashed and burned in a specacular fashion because of its attempt to bring a new ISA into the market that is 100% incompatable with what is already out there.
whocares said:[sorry to hijack the thread, but couldn't let this one go]
So, when intel owns 99.99% off the PC processor market, and some greedy ****** becomes their CEO, they can start making the worst, crappiest chips out there and sell them for an absolute fortune. Ahhhh, monopolies, what a great invention.
Let's hope AMD and IBM continue to make to great chips too and let's keep our options open...
Back to the topic at hand
ok--well my point was that the technology advancements could be focused more on the x86 chips than the PowerPC chips. My mistake in saying "intel."
Apple could much more easily switch to AMD than the current switch from PowerPC to Intel, and if intel becomes a problem, they would--providing that their contract is up.
Why the Intel Switch
I see a ton of people in this forum thinking going Intel was a mistake and IBM is "the best". But IBM had great products and released them way too fast too keep up with their R&D and now they have been beaten by Intel in the R&D phase. Intel has just released 65-nanometer technology "Intel's 65nm technology roughly doubles transistor density compared to the previous generation, and delivers industry-leading performance and power-reduction features." Intel is way ahead of the curve here, this was a good move by Apple and it shows they are willing to go with the BEST product available despite fan loyalty.
I see a ton of people in this forum thinking going Intel was a mistake and IBM is "the best". But IBM had great products and released them way too fast too keep up with their R&D and now they have been beaten by Intel in the R&D phase. Intel has just released 65-nanometer technology "Intel's 65nm technology roughly doubles transistor density compared to the previous generation, and delivers industry-leading performance and power-reduction features." Intel is way ahead of the curve here, this was a good move by Apple and it shows they are willing to go with the BEST product available despite fan loyalty.
Intel switch? Still 100% apple
I keep reading the posts that so many people think that apple making the switch to intel makes them not "true" apple computers anymore. Oh give me a break, people! Apple computers will always be "Apple" computers. The Macbook Pro is faster, thinner, and waaaaay better equipped than a Powerbook, with a different processor and a different name. And you guys complain because the name is different. You can call your computer whatever the crap you want, you can even name it Susan! It looks the same as a powerbook, yet adds even cooler, better features, I choose to rejoice! That will be the computer that I will be purchasing to go to college! But here is the deal. PowerPC processors were made by Motorola, but were inside an Apple Computer. Now, Apple switches so their processor is made by intel. It's still 100% apple. No matter how you look at it. And so what if Macbook Pro isn't a cool name? It's a frickin' awesome computer. And I will be buying one.
I keep reading the posts that so many people think that apple making the switch to intel makes them not "true" apple computers anymore. Oh give me a break, people! Apple computers will always be "Apple" computers. The Macbook Pro is faster, thinner, and waaaaay better equipped than a Powerbook, with a different processor and a different name. And you guys complain because the name is different. You can call your computer whatever the crap you want, you can even name it Susan! It looks the same as a powerbook, yet adds even cooler, better features, I choose to rejoice! That will be the computer that I will be purchasing to go to college! But here is the deal. PowerPC processors were made by Motorola, but were inside an Apple Computer. Now, Apple switches so their processor is made by intel. It's still 100% apple. No matter how you look at it. And so what if Macbook Pro isn't a cool name? It's a frickin' awesome computer. And I will be buying one.
crazydrumma said:
Yeah, dammit! It's not a true 'APPLE' computer unless it has a MOS Technologies 6502 processor in it!
And 'true' Macintoshes have Motorola 68000 processors!
And, dammit, a POWER Mac needs to have either a Motorola PowerPC or an IBM PowerPC!
So then I guess our new 'Mac's will have to make do with Intel processors.
Apple is on their fourth supplier of processors, fourth completely different processor architecture; third in the 'Macintosh' line. If the Intel Macs aren't 'true' Macs, then the PowerPCs weren't, either.
Yes, the G5 is a technically superior architecture, but IBM doesn't seem willing to improve their process technologies fast enough to keep up with Intel and AMD. So Apple switched. Deal with it. I consider the loss of Classic to be a much bigger deal than the underlying processor; and Apple was probably bound to ditch Classic sooner or later anyway. (I have a feeling 10.5 won't support Classic at all, even on PowerPC Macs.)