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Toshiba Begins Selling MacBook Air SSD
Lucas123 writes "Toshiba has made the solid state drive used in the new MacBook Air generally available for use by equipment manufacturers. At just 2.2mm thick, the company said the drive represents a new form factor that is about one-third the thickness of a thin hard disk drive and that is 42% smaller than even a mini-SATA SSD module. The new Blade X-gale SSD series has a maximum throughput of 220MB/sec. and can store up to 256GB of data."
Yawn. Why would I want this? Good for small form factor, but awful if you ever want a choice in which SSD you can buy or want to upgrade capacity.
And I know it's coming, so I'll just throw it out beforehand:
- I don't want a MBA with a slower SSD when I can buy a brand new generation Intel SSD on a PC which blows it away
- I want to be able to upgrade my SSD's capacity at some point
- I want to not have to buy a new computer in 3 years because Apple just bricked my data because it ran out of read/writes because OSX has no support for TRIM (seriously?)
Just because Apple uses it doesn't make it useful. I would argue most of what Apple does it pretty boneheaded. See above.
And btw, my 3 year old Core 2 Duo with a 7200 RPM boots just as fast as a MBA. It may be faster for a MBP owner because Apple decided to (really?) put a slow 5200 RPM HD in it. Maybe launching apps on my system takes a *fraction* longer, but once it's in RAM, it's instantaneous. Standard practice now is always keep everything running in memory now anyway and only close when you need to. So no issues ever there. /end rant
How about something like a symlink?
Ah... yes... windows.
The OS shouldn't care, but Windows is extremely finicky and does all sorts of stupid shit that make installs very, very system specific.
Linux installs can be moved between machines without issue, Windows absolutely cannot without a LOT of preparation work that basically puts it into a pre-install state.
Of course they would want it to be the new standard form factor. It means your HD is soldered onto the motherboard. Every time you need more capacity, a faster HD, or most importantly the HD dies, you have to buy a entire new computer!
Hooray for consumers!
I'm a fanboy? Oh boy. Here we go. Ok, I'll play.
"In addition, malware and viruses are prevented with the use of permissions, available on Windows since NT "
There is 0 doubt that there has been malware since Windows NT. But 90% of it has been blocked if one wasn't a moron and used XP as a user instead of admin (root). Don't forget, your beloved Apple was plagued with viruses/malware pre-OSX too. The only reason it became more secure was because, hey, you guess it! Permissions!
"My PC has "just worked", out of the box, nary a problem, since Windows 95 (save for Windows ME)."
You must not remember Win95 very well.
Actually I do remember it well. But this is /., who practically invented Windows bashing. So I realize I'll never win a Windows 95 argument. So let's jump to Windows XP.
Pull up a chair. Let's break it down. Since 2002 with WinXP, has:
Installation of a program take more than a few clicks? NO.
Installation of hardware taken more than a few clicks of a driver? NO.
Installation of hardware been that tough? NO. Everything has been as easy as one or two snaps/plugs.
There been difficulty or incompatibilities in connecting devices? NO. Just plug it in to a USB port (available on PC *first*)
I could go on and on.
Ouch. That sucks. You wanted to shoot me down by spreading the typical FUD that has existed for years. Too bad I took the time out to debunk your FUD.
Thank you for being polite, and replying with a well thought out and intelligent reply. It's refreshing here on /.
I wont even jump into security (at the end of the day, a platform that has more attacks and is slightly more secure may still net to be more vulnerable than one that has less security and less attacks.)
Very valid theory. But first, as I'm sure you know, security is a process. You must be vigilant in not clicking on random thing, ad naseum, using a firewall, permissions, etc. This is true of any OS. But now Windows has the edge in security technologies on the internet facing front. The problem now is because of permissions and both OS's are hardened, malware is now taking the approach of avoiding the attempt to get admin/root altogether. It's far more effective to infect the common software found on a system and infect/control/etc it. Witness the popularity of drive-by ad malware. And that's the thing. MS has proven that its software that comes with it has significantly less vulnerabilities than Apple's. The amount of vulnerabilities in Safari, Quicktime, and Itunes are simply staggering.
It's at the point where Apple software is becoming the new IE 6.
That's the point. But I don't blame you because the FUD over the years on both sides is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
I will say due to experience (that I posted in another point off this conversation) that macs seem to be extremely durable.
HP, Toshiba, Acer and Asus computers I have worked with have proven to be disapointingly breakable. I have not worked with a Sony laptop nor talked in person with anyone that has, so I can't comment on those. I had a Thinkpad Lenovo from work that was very durable. Overall that one was a worthwille machine, but also had a chasis that made it feel as if I was moving national secrets in the thing, it was bulky and square. Looking at it made me think the thing should had been bulletproof. But has been one of the few pc laptops that didn't overheat nor did it break by father time winking at it. Macs, so far, have been extremely durable.
I do hate the magnetic power cord in the mac-minis. It's too easy to unplug it while poping in a USB drive and unlike laptops, the thing has no battery.
Thank you for at least being open to alternatives and addressing real credible issues instead of typical fanboy FUD rhetoric.
iLife is not a thing I would buy a mac for, but it's a nice thing to have. I find Picasa has a better face recognition than iPhoto, but that's about it. iPhoto has a lot of cooler features. iWeb is amazingly easy to use, my wife has made cool looking webpages in the thing and she is the type that attempts to align text in Word by spamming spaces at the left of certain words! iMovie kicks Windows Movie Maker's ass all the way to the stratosphere. Window's offering is just an afterthought. iMovie is a blissful experience in video editing.
While it may be a useful software package, I wouldn't base my choice of an entire OS ecosystem around iLife, one mediocre software application
As for usability, well, my wife has not asked me once how to do anything on the Mac since she got it (well other than the few apps she think she can install but gets the windows version by accident, something she has slowly learned to avoid, can't wait for the Apple App Store for Mac.) Despite having used windows for much longer, she still constantly bugs me to help her with this or that when she works on a PC. So yea, I'd say Apple has managed to make Mac OS X very usable. Exception: iTunes syncing, although I find it easy she has a hard time trying to sync music into her iPod.
See my comments about useability above. But I think it's more than she knows Macs aren't Windows, so she accepts that there is a new way of doing things and learns them. Whereas with Windows, she just probably got used to a way working with it at work and at home