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The New MacBook Pro Features 'Fastest SSD Ever' In a Laptop (macrumors.com)
Last week, Apple refreshed the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models, bringing newer Intel processors and quieter keyboards. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro also just so happens to feature the fastest SSD ever in a laptop, according to benchmarks from Laptop Mag. Mac Rumors summarizes the findings: The site's tests were performed on the $2,499 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar equipped with a 2.7GHz quad-core 8th-generation Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus 655, and a 512GB SSD. A file copy test of the SSD in the new MacBook Pro, which Apple says supports sequential read speeds of up to 3.2GB/s and sequential write speeds up to 2.2GB/s, led Laptop Mag to declare the SSD in the MacBook Pro "the fastest ever" in a laptop. Higher capacity SSDs may see even faster speeds on disk speeds tests. A BlackMagic Disk Speed test was also conducted, resulting in an average write speed of 2,682 MB/s.
On a Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark, the 13-inch MacBook Pro earned a score of 18,055 on the multi-core test, outperforming 13-inch machines from companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and Microsoft. That score beats out all 2017 MacBook Pro models and is faster than some iMac configurations. 15-inch MacBook Pro models with 6-core 8th-generation Intel chips will show even more impressive speeds. With that said, the 13-inch MacBook Pro didn't quite measure up to other machines when it came to GPU performance. "The 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro uses Intel's Iris Plus Graphics 655 with 128MB of embedded DRAM and was unable to compete in a Dirt 3 graphics test, getting only 38.8 frames per second," reports Mac Rumors. "All Windows-based machines tested offered much better performance."
On a Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark, the 13-inch MacBook Pro earned a score of 18,055 on the multi-core test, outperforming 13-inch machines from companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and Microsoft. That score beats out all 2017 MacBook Pro models and is faster than some iMac configurations. 15-inch MacBook Pro models with 6-core 8th-generation Intel chips will show even more impressive speeds. With that said, the 13-inch MacBook Pro didn't quite measure up to other machines when it came to GPU performance. "The 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro uses Intel's Iris Plus Graphics 655 with 128MB of embedded DRAM and was unable to compete in a Dirt 3 graphics test, getting only 38.8 frames per second," reports Mac Rumors. "All Windows-based machines tested offered much better performance."
$2500+ for something with a display only slightly larger than a tablet? No thanks.
I just brought my Mac in for 'service'. 2 year old machine, my keyboard had the known issues, my USB-C ports were failing, and then it stopped charging altogether. Fortunately the SSD seemed to be the one thing that was still working. The IO board was gone, and they acknowledged that the keyboard and ports needed replacing. Now, cheers to Apple for giving me an entirely new laptop body; but what happens when the same failures happen in two years and I DON'T have Apple Care? Total bullshit.
Linux enables me to spend a great deal more on a laptop or a workstation actually. I see this anemic little SSD and chuckle. So what if it's "fast". I would rather have more storage.
I can get 2.5TB of SSD storage on a Linux laptop.
My old bruiser has 2.5TB of conventional storage. My "outdated" bruiser probably still has a better GPU than this Apple toy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
A clone is not technically a hard link, but it works similarly: The disk blocks storing the data are not affected, only references to them.
However, unlike with links, a disk block could get copied as soon as you would to write to a file.
Thus, cloning retains the same semantics as copying --- actual copying is only deferred until it is really needed.
This technique is classically called "copy-on-write" and is employed in lots of different ways in many different parts of mainstream operating systems.
BTW. Btrfs for Linux also has cloning, and it was released eight years earlier than APFS. Sun's/Oracle's ZFS has cloning and was released earlier than that.
I think there are many more examples in the free software world than those two.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Remember to separate price (objective) from value (subjective). If you don't value the lightness, the price increase is just a negative.
And, for a fair comparison and as by your statement ("make sure that all data matches"), the macbook should also match the alternative. I would expect a $3500 device to have a USB-A port, and would value that more than -300 g.
That said, I sometimes explain (and demonstrate) to my coworkers that their $1400 equivalent Lenovo T-series laptop is not, in fact, equivalent (2 cores instead of 4, lower CPU speed, SATA SSD, intel GPU) to my MBP (no touchbar). (It is easy to demonstrate; build times are consistently ~30% lower on my laptop than theirs, no hocus-pocus.) Equally specced out, the price difference turns out marginal, as you indicate. And then my smug glee turns into a frown as they go to IT and get 32 MB installed while I am stuck with 16.
"To be fair, Apple’s relatively new APFS file system is designed to speed up file file copies using a technology Apple calls Instant Cloning. But a win is a win."
They should have tried with a 260 GB file, it would have been at the same speed. And the resulting two copies wouldn't even fit on the disk.
I think the real reason is because MacBooks have kind of become the Windows of the laptop world, you get them because it's what everybody else has so it's the safe bet. They're everywhere across airport lounges to university campuses and they can run macOS, Linux and/or Windows, they have very limited configuration options so they are easy to manage, when they do break you can just take them into the official shop for repair rather than having to send them off, Apple has left the high performance and lowend markets to their competitors and provide a middling product for the majority. There isn't really a compelling reason to get one but there's not really a compelling reason not to either, they even mitigate the relatively poor value proposition with 0% interest financing options.
These days the people who don't have them are the people who either don't want them or are at the very low end of the price bracket that is really dominated by Chromebooks. In recent years the quality value proposition has died off too, they used to be way more reliable but my last 3 macbooks have had to go in for repair from creaky chassis to dead USB ports to rattling fans which really comes from poor quality control but at least when they do go wrong it's easy to get them fixed. For high performance computing there are way better options but for your average user the MacBook "Pro" covers pretty much everything.