harsaphes
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2005
- Messages
- 5,330
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I'm waiting for Light Peak MBPs to hit, which hopefully should be sometime this year or early next year from what I've heard. I just dropped a Momentus XT hybrid in my '07 Santa Rosa 15", which gave it a pretty good speed boost. So I think I can hold out for a little while - maybe...
I'm on week 2 with it. So far it has been an immense improvement over my old 5400 RPM 320GB and I am very happy with it. The XT's flash is read-only with a custom ASIC handling what gets populated to flash based on system usage. The flash portion can NOT be partitioned/formatted/mounted/etc. by an OS. Initial boot after OS install was nothing special. The second boot was a thing of beauty and amazingly fast, and continues to be so. Data I access frequently absolutely loads faster; how much faster though I can't quantify as I haven't done any hard benchmarks.Have you had any issues with the XT? The interwebs are full of "OMFG it doesn't work" kind of posts, and that was putting me off getting one. But I really like the idea of a hybrid drive. I need the HDD space, but the XT supposedly is most of the performance of an SSD anyways.
i talked with apple sales at microcenter and he didnt expect any sandy bridge mac refresh because of the faulty chipset that intel came out with. again this is what he stated.
I'm on week 2 with it. So far it has been an immense improvement over my old 5400 RPM 320GB and I am very happy with it. The XT's flash is read-only with a custom ASIC handling what gets populated to flash based on system usage. The flash portion can NOT be partitioned/formatted/mounted/etc. by an OS. Initial boot after OS install was nothing special. The second boot was a thing of beauty and amazingly fast, and continues to be so. Data I access frequently absolutely loads faster; how much faster though I can't quantify as I haven't done any hard benchmarks.
I also have a Boot Camp partition which exhibits proportionally similar performance improvements, but to a lesser degree. I only have one MMORPG app on that partition though, so I really can't speak to how it would behave with a BC partition with more IO activity that shared equal time with the OS X partition. VMs don't seem to get much benefit from the flash but still load faster and respond better than before mostly due to the faster spindle & larger IO cache.
In addition to the 4GB R-O flash, the XT has a 32MB IO cache. This alone would yield a good improvement over most 2.5" spinning disks currently out there. Overall it has yielded a significant tangible improvement in overall system response and I am very happy. I wouldn't say it has "most of" an SSD's performance, but it's absolutely a pretty fair cut above a traditional drive IMO and is definitely a great balance of price and performance.
There are two minor downsides that I'm not thrilled about, but are absolutely tolerable. First gripe: I can feel the disk vibrating. The old 5400 RPM disk was wholly imperceptible, so the presence of a disk vibration is very prominent to me but the effect is diminishing as I acclimate to it.
Second gripe: Heat. It gets much warmer than its predecessor. I don't have numbers from the old disk, but this one sits at 39℃ when idle, rising to 46℃ under load. You'll have to take my word that this is hotter than the old disk. That said though, it is not intolerably warm - just warmer than I'm accustomed to.
Sorry for the threadjack...
Well... Even if there is a way to do those things I wouldn't leverage it. The vibes and heat are not impactful enough for me to want to administratively cripple the disk, especially in terms of de-stroking it to 250. The only reason I'd want to muck about with any of that is if my battery life takes a header with the 7200 RPM motor, and even there I can tolerate a small run time hit. If anyone wants me to give it a try and point me to the appropriate download I'm willing to experiment a bit, but wouldn't leave it like that for actual daily use.And to carry on the threadjack. . .
I wonder if it's possible to throttle the speed to a 5400rpm drive? Should address the heat/vibration while still keeping the advantages of the Hybrid drive. Especially if the drive is short-stroked to 250gb instead of 500.
Have you had any issues with the XT? The interwebs are full of "OMFG it doesn't work" kind of posts, and that was putting me off getting one. But I really like the idea of a hybrid drive. I need the HDD space, but the XT supposedly is most of the performance of an SSD anyways.
Why would he tell anyone about a new model they might wait to purchase when he's got current models he needs to sell.
uh what? its all over the internet. intel fucked up sandy bridge chipset......i would think that would effect apple also........if your looking for a sandy bridge mac.
Apple plans to update its recently redesigned MacBook Air line of thin-and-light notebooks with Intel's latest-generation Sandy Bridge processor in June, according to a new report.
Citing an anonymous source, CNet reported on Friday that Apple plans to replace the Core 2 Duo chip found in the current MacBook Air, a processor that is two generations behind Intel's recently released Sandy Bridge processors. The MacBook Air was updated with a new, thinner design, flash memory drive, and an 11.6-inch model was added to the mix in an update released last fall.
In December, the same publication claimed that future MacBooks from Apple with Sandy Bridge processor would not use Nvidia graphics processors in at least some models 13 inches and under. It is rumored that the smaller models will switch to Sandy Bridge-only integrated graphics, while Apple's larger, higher-end MacBooks with screen sizes of 15 and 17 inches will allegedly rely on GPUs from AMD.
Intel began its roll-out of the Sandy Bridge next-generation processors in January, but the company quickly discovered an error in the chipset that accompanies the processor. That forced Intel to halt production of Sandy Bridge processors while it works on a fix for the 6 Series chipset code-named Cougar Point.
The error affected both desktop and mobile chips, leading to concerns that the issue could have an impact on Apple's anticipated MacBook Pro refresh. Apple last updated its MacBook Pro notebooks in April 2010, meaning an update for those products is likely to precede the alleged June refresh for the MacBook Air.
Intel announced this week that it has resumed shipment of chipsets for systems not affected by the Cougar Point design issue, which can lead to poor performance of devices connected to certain serial-ATA ports. The chipmaker also said that it will meet its deadline to begin shipping dual-core Sandy Bridge hips on their previously announced launch date of Feb. 20.
Guh if this is true, should I wait on the refreshed macbook air? :/
Rule #1 of buying Apple products: if you need it now, get it now. If you can wait, then wait.
Rule #1 of buying Apple products: if you need it now, get it now. If you can wait, then wait.
That rule sounds pretty generic to me, as it really applies to anything.
I may hold off until an Ivy Bridge refresh. Hopefully that happens later this year.
That rule only applies while Jobs is alive.Rule #1 of buying Apple products: if you need it now, get it now. If you can wait, then wait.
It won't. Q1 2012 at the earliest.