9to5Mac:
When the first teardown of Apple’s new 2016 MacBook Pro was published earlier this month, a couple notable changes were spotted related to the machine’s SSD. Components for the SSD are now soldered onto the logic board, which likely allows for some design and thinness enhancements, but hurts overall repairability. On top of not being upgradeable, some speculated that meant that if the logic board fails, your data is gone with it. Not necessarily.
Apple never guarantees that it will be able to recover your data, but it recognizes that having a non-removable SSD makes things more difficult for users, so it’s providing Apple stores and service providers with this tool to help customers.
The non-removable nature of the SSDs in the new MBPs is a huge pain for tinkerers and those who have issues but it’s good Apple is at least looking for ways to make it a bit less so.
MacBook Pro is clearly not a tinkerer laptop. You buy it, use it, get it repaired when it breaks and sell it when you’re ready for the next upgrade.
Backup your data.
Backup your data.
Backup your data.
Nothing to do with tinkering. When you need a 4 terabyte SSD in a notebook and Apple can only sell you 2 terabytes, being able to put a 4 terabyte module in that notebook one year later (33% into the notebook’s working life) is a major feature. Same with RAM. Many times in the past I bought the max RAM from Apple but was able to buy 2x that RAM 18 months later for $200 and significantly improve my work.
Pro notebook calculus is different than consumer devices. If a computer is working 12 hours per day in a professional situation, it is often easy to make a RAM or SSD upgrade pay for itself. However, swapping in the entire $4000 notebook every year to get max SSD and RAM is hard to budget for because it is so much work to move from Mac to Mac.
So I think you illustrated exactly why people are complaining about the latest MacBook Pros. They are made like cars but priced like trucks and they are being sold to truck users who really need the truck features. Not to “tinker” but to work.
Understand that if you work in movies you are on a different set every 6 months. You may have to reconfigure your Mac for every new movie.
Yes, I followed that pattern too. Buy with sufficient storage, than upgrade later. Now I just ordered the double storage and got over it. As a pro, it’s just a bit higher upfront investment but no big deal. The dongles don’t take up much space to carrie around, if you need them at all. Same for external (backup-) SSD’S, Samsumg T3 (up to 2TB) is so small you hardly notice it. No idea on the gfx-tablet but I assume a “Pro” graphics tablet would anyway need to be an external device? Unless you consider the Surface touchscreen a Pro device? This actually sounds like a killer combo: http://astropad.com
movie makers? really, that’s your use case example? talk about ultra niche. and i still don’t even see how relevant it is, why would your laptop have to be reconfigured from one film to the next?
here in the real world, i work in IT. a far, far more likely scenario. and in almost 20 years, at no point have my enterprise employers ever tinkered or upgraded a component on staff issued notebooks. no, in every case workers use them for a 2+ years and then get a replacement issued. that’s how enterprise works.
even with my own small business, i’ve never upgraded my MBPs after Day 1. i max out ram, work for years. then sell it and get a new laptop with all the latest bells and whistles.
so from big business to small, i’m not seeing your DIY tinkerer use case as anything other than niche. and apple isn’t here to sell niche.
appliance computing is a feature, not a bug.
With the high speed ports on the MBP you wouldn’t swap out the hard drive, you’d simply have an external hard drive. Many DITs keep a full cart with a workstation, card readers, RAIDs and tape backups. The new MBP could connect to that entire workflow with a single cable. For someone who is set hopping that’s a brilliant setup.
Mac Book Pro is an iPad running macOS.
The USB -C ports are nice … Apple should have made it user upgrade-able RAM and SSD.
sometimes, it is about wiping your data. I guess if you run FileVault, things are good …
Good point. I think the default is still off and doesn’t guide you into turning it on.
The lowest end model comes with 8GB. If you need 16, buy it. That’s the most it can address anyway.