Apple's New 15-Inch MacBook Pros Have Storage Soldered To the Logic Board (macrumors.com) 478
yoink! writes: The integration loop is complete. Apple's, admittedly very fast, PCIe storage modules are now built right into the main boards of their 15-inch, Touch Bar-equipped, Retina-screened, Thunderbolt 3-ported, MacBook Pros. A few forum posts over at MacRumors reveal the skinny on the quiet removal of the last user-upgradable component of their professional-series laptops. From the report: "MacRumors reader Jesse D. unscrewed the bottom lid on his new 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar and discovered, unlike the 13-inch model sans Touch Bar, there is no cutout in the logic board for removable flash storage. Another reader said the 13-inch model with a Touch Bar also has a non-removable SSD. Given the SSD appears to be permanently soldered to the logic board, users will be unable to upgrade the Touch Bar MacBook Pro's flash storage beyond Apple's 512GB to 2TB built-to-order options on its website at the time of purchase. In other words, the amount of flash storage you choose will be permanent for the life of the notebook."
Next step... (Score:5, Funny)
The next step is soldering the human brain to the board.
blacklisted from secure environments (Score:5, Insightful)
blacklisted from secure environments now
Re:blacklisted from secure environments (Score:4, Funny)
oh goody! (Score:5, Funny)
...the storage is set for the lifetime of the notebook... and the lifetime of the notebook is set by the longevity of the storage.
Way to go, Apple.
Buy now, while still DRUNK!
Re:oh goody! (Score:5, Funny)
No problem... you can read their new $300 book while you wait for your programs to load.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd like to see what the actual intended lifetime is of Apple products, by design. By observation, they seem to expect most of them to be replaced within 24 months or less, and the designs seem to intentionally self-destruct shortly thereafter.
Re:oh goody! (Score:5, Insightful)
They generally last a long time with some exceptions. They've made the occasional model that had something or other that died unexpectedly and often. Given the silly prices they charge I highly recommend an applecare purchase. The oldest mac I have in use at the moment is my wife's late 2008 macbook. I upgraded the hard drive to an SSD and the memory to 8GB. I just bought a perfect condition 2012 15" Macbook Pro to replace my 2011 13" Macbook Pro. I got a good deal on the 2012 as the 2011 works fine. Nice upgrade to i7 and Nvidia graphics it's really a great computer. Too bad they decided to quit making nice stuff. I'm not buying a computer I can't change the HD and Ram on. The funny thing is the computer I use for almost all online stuff is an old Dell E6500 with a core2duo 2.8ghz and 4GB of ram and Nvidia graphics that runs Peppermint Linux 7. I picked it up after a guy tried to install windows 8 on it and gave up and sold it to me for 50 bucks. It's got the best keyboard of any laptop I've ever owned.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I just had a motherboard replaced in year four (2012 retina 15"), free, outside of AppleCare extended warranty period.
But, don't worry, we've gotta let the haters claim that Apple products suck, and Apple's treatment of customers suck, even though they don't own or use Apple products.
Re: (Score:3)
Will be interesting to see how consumer law treats this...
In the UK, the law says anything you buy must last a reasonable length of time up to 6 years under normal use of such a product.
I have many laptops which are more than 6 years old and still working, so it's perfectly reasonable to expect a laptop to last that long.
On some of these laptops the hard drives and/or batteries have been replaced.
If Apple are selling one with a non replaceable component which is prone to wearing out in less than 6 years the
Re:oh goody! (Score:4, Informative)
I have the same issue. Even though I have been very happy with the Apple enviroment of OS X and their hardware. They are moving further and further away from something I want to spend my money on. Their recent MacBook Pro "upgrade" have made them useless for me and all too expensive.
My late 2013 iMac still packs a punch with the Intel I7. I can have FCPX pro rendering in the background while websurfing and other stuff still runs smooth. It feels like a workstation, it has a cmd line I can use. it used to have a proper disk utility program etc etc.
Of course that is because I am running external RAIDs on the USB3 ports for the rendering, etc.
I need to accessorize a MacBook Pro with numerous dongles, and after a while, external storage because I cannot upgrade it. So it is becoming useless too fast and too expensive for my wallet.
Like I switched from Windows in 2007 to OS X, I might need to do the reverse when the next upgrade comes around and see if I work with Windows again.
It is really sad how they have dumbed every thing down.
Re: (Score:3)
I have an original iPad one, the hardware was indestructible, but they managed to kill it with OS upgrades by 2014.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe, find someone who has already downloaded it before in their Mac App store account. It'll still be in their Purchased list.
Then they can download the installer app.
Then use the command line utility hidden inside the app, to create a bootable installer on a USB stick.
Re: oh goody! (Score:4, Informative)
So the MTBF of both components is the same now, whichever is lower.
Motherboard fails? Which apparently in your experience happens more often... you can't pull the SSD, stick it in another machine and get the data out.
Yes, you should backup. Yes, you should probably use some kind of cloud sync. It's no substitute for being able to yank the drive, shove it in another box, and keep on truckin'. I can do this on my Linux boxes with no problems. (Windows, of course, will throw a blue fit if you try this).
Re: oh goody! (Score:5, Informative)
What makes you say that, exactly? I just used gparted Live last week to migrate my Windows 10 installation from an old Intel 180GB SSD to a new Kingston 480G SSD and had no problems whatsoever. I wouldn't expect moving drives between identical hardware to be any different, but systems with different motherboards, NICs, GPUs, can all be booted in Safe Mode to install the required drivers.
Re: oh goody! (Score:3, Informative)
False. I moved my boot disks (raid 0, intel rst) from an i7 2600k to a dual xeon build without issues.
Re: (Score:2)
Lot's of people are modding cars. It's more high tech but you can still hot rod modern cars. The thing is though you'd better know how to hack the computer. Some companies make controllers that modify the computers and they're not all that expensive.
Re: (Score:3)
Here's the problem: if your Mac with 2Tb is out of warranty and the logic board fails, you'll need a replacement logic board/SSD combo and that is going to be very expensive.
Re: oh goody! (Score:5, Insightful)
SSDs/HDDs and batteries are the most frequent parts to fail on laptops, and in most laptops are also the easiest to replace.
Being able to upgrade the ram and drive is also very useful, and a quick/cheap way to increase the longevity of a device as the price of memory and storage is constantly dropping.
Re:Next step... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Buy or don't buy. There is no upgrade.
When I bought my last laptop a few years ago, I made sure to get one with plenty of upgrade potential -- extra drive bay, memory slot, etc. Since then, I've upgraded it exactly zero times, and still see no need to upgrade it.
I used to feel the same about buying a phone without a replaceable battery or SD card slot.... then I bought my first Nexus with neither.... I've been very happy with my choice and haven't missed the upgradability.
I'd imagine that a lot of people are like me -- they like the idea of hav
Re: (Score:2)
Be sure to buy the maintenance, too, because otherwise buying a new one makes more sense than getting it fixed.
Myself, I'm more likely to buy a basic laptop with a minimal HDD, then upgrade it to SSD, ending up with more for less than the manufacturer offers. Same for RAM.
Re: (Score:3)
I've never bought a computer that I didn't upgrade. I've maxed Ram and HD on countless ones. I had an iBook G4 that I opened 3 times to upgrade stuff and it was torture to open that case. The HD though is a serious matter. I've had one computer logic board die on me with a hard drive full of stuff. A lot of it not backed up so I just pulled the HD and installed it in an external case. No problem. If you buy one of these new models you'd better be religious about backing up the system.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Next step... (Score:5, Informative)
Don't buy. "Pro", my ass.
To audio pros, the single most important feature in a pro laptop is knowing that when the logic board s**ts itself, you can take the thing in for repair, and you'll get back a machine that still has all your software on it. Without that, you get to experience the joy of spending several weeks on the phone with a hundred different software vendors trying to convince them to give you another device activation because your old machine no longer exists and you can't deactivate the existing installation.
The other design screw-ups in the new "Pro" were obnoxious, but survivable. This one, however, represents a level of epic fail that is simply beyond acceptable. When you've had a long string of GPU-related logic board failures like Apple has experienced lately, soldering the non-volatile storage to the main logic board is just too incompetent for words.
This is a show-stopper. This is not a pro machine. It is a disposable toy.
Re: Next step... (Score:3, Funny)
You're missing the point here. It's almost 2mm thinner than it's predecessor. Now if that ain't worth a couple of days on the phone ...
Re:Next step... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not only the pro's that are complaining. Even the fanbois are now lamenting the removal of the MagSafe and the SD slot. Apple has lost its way since Steve's ideas have dried up.
Re:Next step... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the bigger problem isn't the loss of Steve Jobs's ideas, but the loss of his ability to look at something and say, "Nope. Not good enough." I worry about Apple becoming gimmicky. Jobs seemed to be careful not to release things or make changes until they fit cohesively into the whole user interaction, providing an overall good user experience. I don't think he would have let Apple remove the headphone jack, for example, until there were a satisfying alternative method for connecting headphones.
Just a guess, obviously.
Re: (Score:3)
Swapping the drive is the first option and gets you immediately back up and running, restoring a backup is the second choice option and takes longer.
Re:Next step... (Score:5, Insightful)
Upgrades are for frugal customers, Apple doesn't want any.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not just upgrades. What happens when some other part of the computer dies and you need to get your data off? Unless you have a suitable spare machine to plug the logic board into, you are screwed.
I suppose the official solution is to buy an external HDD for backup or rely on iCloud, but that doesn't really work for a lot of people, e.g. those who travel a lot or have a slow internet connection.
Re:Next step... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Next step... (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought a Macbook Pro in 2007, and I'm using a Macbook Air right now. Apple's actions are really beginning to piss me off. The company is being run by a bean counter and it shows. Greedy greedy greedy. Gluing their batteries in. Soldering the SSD. I asked a student to save a document to Google Drive and then upload it from an iPad to my website. Apparently you can't upload files from Google Drive to a website on an iPad. Seriously. They just want you to use effing iCloud Drive. I get insult after insult from Apple when I want to do things my way. I want to set the battery warning percentage so that it is 20%, so that I don't kill my battery. Nope. No option to do that. So I end up running my battery down to 1% far too many times (which is exactly what they want). I want to change the colour profile on my wife's iPhone 5 to get some sort of a yellow coloured night mode. Nope. You can do it on an iPhone 6, but not on an iPhone 5. That is a bloody fake restriction, and it just pisses me off. I want control of my devices. I shouldn't have to jailbreak my device.
I used to be an Apple fanboy. They made damn good laptops. They sold excellent software...FCP was bloody awesome. If I'm going to pay a 30% or more premium for my laptop, I expect the freedom to control and upgrade my device. I did exactly that with my Macbook Pro. New batteries, new HD, memory upgraded to the maximum. Even with my Macbook Air, I have gotten around their stupid storage restrictions with a 128GB low profile USB drive and a 200GB flush mount microSD adapter. Now there is no SD slot. Now they expect me to pay their premium and get a locked in device. Well fuck you Apple!
Re:Next step... (Score:4, Interesting)
I feel the same way. The ways to work around Apple's arbitrary restrictions are all getting blocked now. I love OSX/MacOS but if Apple keeps going on like this my next computer will be a self-built running Linux again.
Not very secure (Score:2)
How are you supposed to wipe the SSD before you sell it?
Re:Not very secure (Score:5, Informative)
How are you supposed to wipe the SSD before you sell it?
Clear the FileVault encryption key.
Re:Not very secure (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, you know, don't use FileVault on your home folder because that's the quickest way to nearly brick your MacBook Pro and have to reinstall everything from scratch. Been there, done that - decades of practice and they still get it wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
To be fair, I was last burned by it in 2006 - that was enough for me to stay away, branding hasn't changed - hard to trust the new versions.
Re: (Score:3)
That's a good thing, I suppose - the home folder only method was inherently dangerous the way they implemented it.
Re: (Score:3)
How are you supposed to wipe the SSD before you sell it?
Clear the FileVault encryption key.
No, you do it the same way that you should wipe any other hard drive: Hit it with a hammer until it is in small pieces, then put those pieces in a fire.
Re: (Score:3)
Sell it?! I thought the Mac upgrade path was pick up old laptop, deposit in trash, open box, set new laptop on desk.
Re: (Score:3)
That's not green, you should send it to a recycling center in China where they specialize in extracting your personal credit information to maximize value from the waste stream.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Apple plays big into this paranoia - write it with ones, write it with zeroes, write it with random data 9 times (or 27 if you prefer...) F-all, write it with whatever one time and you have put the probability of data recovery into the same range as winning the lotto, twice in two weeks with only two tickets purchased.
Re:Not very secure (Score:4, Informative)
Live USB distro + 'dd' as always
Re: (Score:2)
Like Elliott [imgur.com] does.
Re: (Score:2)
With a sledgehammer.
Re:Not very secure (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you can't use File Vault safely - if your computer hangs during power down and doesn't power down "gracefully," File Vault can lock your home folder up tight and throw away the key. (Been there, talked with Carlos in advanced tech support, it's toast man, reinstall from original image.)
Re:Not very secure (Score:4, Informative)
Once upon a time, like ten years ago, File Vault encrypted home folders as a dmg file on a partition. That is no longer the case and has not been the case for years. File Vault doesn't work like that anymore, and it hasn't worked like that for years. Now it's whole disk encryption like Microsoft's Bitlocker, and utterly bulletproof. The only way to lose your disk is to overwrite the key blocks at the start of the disk.
Technology moves on, man.
Apple has lost its Mojo (Score:5, Insightful)
Steve Jobs always wanted Macs to be appliances that the user could not tinker with or modify. Now they have made it for him.
Unfortunately, systems designed that way don't reflect my needs at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Steve Jobs always wanted Macs to be appliances that the user could not tinker with or modify. Now they have made it for him.
How does this reflect on their mojo? Surely by meeting Jobs' ambitions they've attained maximum mojo-level?
Re:Apple has lost its Mojo (Score:5, Interesting)
Steve Jobs always wanted Macs to be appliances that the user could not tinker with or modify.
That's how my wife treats her MBP. Every few years she starts complaining about it running too slow or the disk is full. So I buy her a new one, which is okay with me because it is still cheaper than jewelry or a vacation in Paris.
She just got a new 15", and she loves it, especially the new task bar (which has color!). Hopefully, Apple won't upgrade it again for a while.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple has lost its Mojo (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't a MacBook pro $2400-$2800???? You can do a Paris vacation on that. That is insane to spend that much money on a laptop in 2017.
As a microcosm of the world, Slashdot is peopled by two kinds of people; those who are poor and/or getting poorer, and those who are rich and getting richer. If you haven't noticed that there's a fair few people on Slashdot with quite a bit of disposable income, you must be new here. Not coincidentally, there's quite a few Trump supporters. (Trump supporters' median income is more than $10k higher than Sanders or Clinton supporters'... Not just the average mind you, the median)
Re:Apple has lost its Mojo (Score:4, Interesting)
I can understand why someone would detest Trump. Hating on people for voting for him is another matter. When you're faced with the choices in the 2016 election there were no good choices. People ended up voting on what they hoped would work best for them. I knew when the election cycle started that I wasn't voting for Hilliary so when it began looking like Trump was going to blow away the Republican field I started praying for Bernie to win the Democratic side. That didn't happen so all I had was Trump. I don't give a shit how butthurt all the liberals are over it. They nominated a person who had all the negatives of a Liberal with absolutely none of the positives. Hopefully they'll evaluate how they got where they are and think about changing.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't a MacBook pro $2400-$2800???? You can do a Paris vacation on that. That is insane to spend that much money on a laptop in 2017.
Demand sets the price.
The insanity is represented in the hordes of diehard iFans lining up to pay that damn much for a laptop in 2017.
If you want to rant at someone, try any Apple store on release day.
Re:Apple has lost its Mojo (Score:4, Informative)
Dude, when I can fly from GERMANY to any destination in the USA back and forth for $350, then it is hard to believe that you pay $1000 from US to Paris.
Actually, we in the USA are getting violated in pretty much every way it is possible to be violated when we fly. We go to the airport and get reamed on parking (if I'm not going to be gone long I'll just go ahead and use it) and then we get reamed for (and by) a cinnabon and then we get groped by the TSA and then we get bent over with our heads between our knees and get our asses pounded by some awful seats, and then if we're "lucky" we get our digestive tract boned by some lukewarm scientifically inoffensive and uninteresting airplane food and then we get fucked by their booze prices (since we can't carry booze onto the plane conveniently any more) and all the while we're getting fucked over ticket prices. And then I've heard but have not yet experienced because I have not been to Europe and doubly not been there recently that we then get our ears raped about what scum we are for even having Trump in the race, let alone electing him, even if we'd rather have cut off our testicles and mailed them in to the RNC than have had that come to pass.
The only way we don't get absolutely pinned down and taken when traveling is when we do it by automobile, and that only if we're clever and/or lucky enough to avoid intense traffic times and areas. Fuel is usually very cheap here (it's reasonably inexpensive right now) and if you drive a very boring but respectable looking car then odds are sharply against you having any problems... hmm, unless you are brown. Forgot about that part.
Re: (Score:2)
If you need hints how to make inexpensive vacation in Paris ... just ask :D :D
I guess your wife would deserve it
The next move (Score:2)
is to introduce an "enthusiast" version that lets you update and swap out parts.
At a premium, of course. An even higher premium than is already being charged.
In short, you are nothing but a walking wallet to Apple.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
At a premium, of course. An even higher premium than is already being charged.
Once upon a time, that was the pro line. Now, the pro line is soldered. Are they gonna have a "pro pro" line or what? I'm not against hardware like this existing, but it's kind of inexplicable not to offer a real machine.
Re: (Score:2)
It's the pro desktop - which doubles as a vacuum cleaner.
Too many PCBs (Score:2)
Personally I'd recommend having one PCB for everything instead of dividing the PCBs into separate logic (FPGA) and CPU circuit boards.
But Apple can do what they want.
Never mind storage upgrades (Score:5, Insightful)
What about when the SSD craps out? Then it's back to Apple, (or at least to a third-party shop), for an undoubtedly expensive repair job. Great! More stuff that the user has no hope of repairing on his or her own, and more non-renewable materials prematurely tossed into landfill. Tell me again - why in hell would I want a new Apple laptop?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
A high quality integrated SSD probably has a MTBF approaching that of the connectors to a separate SSD over the useful life of a laptop.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you happen to use Spotify... http://arstechnica.com/informa... [arstechnica.com]
Re: (Score:2)
What about when the SSD craps out? Then it's back to Apple, (or at least to a third-party shop), for an undoubtedly expensive repair job.
Dunno, what about it? Maybe like the time the hinge on my 1stGen MBA broke – out of warrantee – and Apple's charge to fix it was... wait for it... nothing. Or the time my son's 2008 MBPro graphics card died – also out of warrantee – and Apple's charge to repair that... wait for it... also nothing.
But you know, you've already made up your mind, so hate on.
Re: (Score:3)
What about when the SSD craps out? Then it's back to Apple, (or at least to a third-party shop), for an undoubtedly expensive repair job. Great! More stuff that the user has no hope of repairing on his or her own, and more non-renewable materials prematurely tossed into landfill. Tell me again - why in hell would I want a new Apple laptop?
I'll claim the repair on my home insurance policy which covers my laptop among other things. Having said that I have yet to have an Apple SSD crap out on me or for that matter the SSD chips on any mobile device I own. What's normally crapped out on my mobile devices every single time so far was the charging circuit when I was dumb enough to plug the device into a USB socket or cigarette lighter socket on a motorcar and on the Laptops it was usually the battery when it neared the end of its lifespan. As to w
Re: (Score:2)
What's the excess on your home insurance claims? Is it really less than the cost of a new SSD+installation?
Re: (Score:2)
What about when the SSD craps out?
How often does that happen?
Then it's back to Apple, (or at least to a third-party shop), for an undoubtedly expensive repair job.
Or you could, you know, learn to use a soldering iron.
Tell me again - why in hell would I want a new Apple laptop?
Somehow, I doubt if you were going to buy one anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
TL;DR: Because courage?
Obligatory Onion article. [theonion.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Look. To Apple (and it seems most of the ICT industry, yay Cloud etc etc) everyone has dual-path failure-resilient 1Gbps wireless Internet with unlimited quotas. They literally fail to comprehend that there could be people who only have 1.2Mbps/200Kbps DSL, only have 10GB of quota a month, or who work disconnected (e.g. away from 3G and 4G networks too). "Ubiquitous wireless" means no RJ45 (without dongles). "Ubiquitous high speed uploads/downloads" means the cloud performs OK (ignore the arguments about ow
An Apple representative explains it (Score:2)
This is a clip of an Apple representative explaining the changes to the MacBook Pro value proposition.
https://youtu.be/jsW9MlYu31g [youtu.be]
Hmm... persuasive, but I'm still not planning to buy the new MacBook Pro.
SSD wear (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:SSD wear (Score:4, Interesting)
Somehow, I doubt that they were disassembling all their old MacBooks to remove the SSD before going home every night.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This. What happens is a company like this decides that they don't need the computer anymore because they have upgraded to something newer, and they would have donated their old one to a school.... except they can't now, because the ssd is fucking soldered to the motherboard.
Then change your security policy to adopt one of the many tools available that effectively wipes the hard drive with multiple passes.
If forensic wiping tools are good enough for Hillary's classified email, they should be good enough for a fucking school donation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming that Apple has installed a moderately well produced SSD, shouldn't it outlast the rest of the laptop?
Not saying that soldering it in was a good idea, but it is hardly the component to die first. If it were a spinning metal drive, then yes, that would be stupid as it would probably fail first.
Just another way for third party repairs and self upgrades can be limited. I used to think the Apple "throw it away and get a new model next year" jokes were just jokes.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you've discovered their evil plot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The SSD Endurance Experiment has shown that even this 840 can write nearly a petabyte before dying
I have not looked into this SSD Endurence Experiment, but I am certain there is a difference between minimum, average, median, and maximum lifespan. Even if 95% of the SSD can do a petabyte before dying, you will always find a few weaker drives in the remaining 5%.
Planned obsolescence - better alternatives (Score:2)
This is to kill the secondary market now that a 5 year old laptop has a cpu that is just fine. If it wasn't to kill the secondary market and the flash was really amazing and isn't going to fail ever they'd show a 5 year warranty.
We all know they won't do that, they'll actually charge you extra to get any useful warranty. But yeah, I dislike apple and won't buy their crap after paying thousands for a macbook pro that they shipped with faulty nvidia hardware and didn't recall. Apple are just a horrible comp
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My MacBook Pro came with the AMD GPU with improperly applied heatsink paste... lasted for about 25 months before degenerating into a machine that would have no graphics display after coming up to temperature.
enough (Score:5, Interesting)
(and even if maybe not their outright explicit thinking, surely a benefit that they welcomed tacitly. And trading off user-friendliness and serviceability for profit. )
I was already unhappy with the newer Macbooks having non-swappable RAM. I stuck with the old 2010-style Macbook Pros that you could remove everything pretty much and keep it up to date with larger, faster SSDs, etc.
This on top of USB-C and the all-at-once crappifying of this model means I'm out.
Re: (Score:2)
No, removal of the headphone jack is still more in-your-face than this, but they are all signs of a trend...
A consumer device (Score:2)
Much like a toaster. It's a pity, I used to really admire Apple hardware, even if the UI experience wasn't my preference.
Environmental cost of this? (Score:3, Informative)
So when your SSD (or any other soldered parts) broke off, you have to throw the laptop in the garbage?? (e-waste recycling is just an illusion... everything is sent to Hong-Kong and sent to the trash). And what about extending the life of your laptop by upgrading some parts of it? Apple is the biggest e-waste producer on the planet. It's a shame! And all those Hipster defending the planet with their iPhone in their pockets!
OP is an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
ALL 15" MBPs come with 16 GB of RAM. The device can only take LPDDR3, and Skylake only allows a max of 16 GB for LPDDR3, so you couldn't upgrade it even if Apple gave you a fucking button you could push to eject/insert the RAM out of the side of the machine.
Way to become a Chromebook. (Score:3)
This is behavior I expect of rock-bottom-price Chromebook vendors, not a MacBook Pro. This is also why never Chromebooks are unappealing to me -- soldered RAM is one thing (SODIMMs are big), but they can't even make room for a NGFF 2242 SSD? Not interested. I'd rather Hackintosh an i3 Acer C720, at least I can put any drive I want in there.
Get a frigging case (Score:4, Interesting)
Something that snaps to the bottom of the laptops and adds extra battery, storage and a boatload of ports. Then when you need ultimate portability take the laptop out and live without movies or whatever you were storing on the extra hard drive for a little while. People are overthinking such things, solutions have been there forever for smartphones.
Useless (Score:3)
So when your mobo goes out, you have essentially zero chance of recovering your data without risking de-soldering your shit from the board and damaging it in the process.
This is why removable storage is important.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Yawn! (Score:5, Funny)
Is this all Slashdork is anymore? Bitch about Apple, bitch about Trump, bitch about climate change. Booooring. No wonder this turd is dying.
No, not all. There is also a good number of people who come here to bitch about /.
Re: (Score:3)
The soldering job these days is usually surface mount soldering, so how exactly did you manually pull it off? Especially given that the packages are probably BGAs, so you'd have to get solders underneath the package, not at the sides, where it is easier. Not to mention 0.5mm pitches or below.
As a former flash memory guy, I just wish they had come out w/ soldered storage last decade, when I still worked in the industry. But aside from that, if they solder PCIe storage modules to the board, why don't th
Re: (Score:3)
if they solder PCIe storage modules to the board, why don't they go a step further, remove the PCIe slots plus modules
Because fuck you, customer. The modules are there so that Apple can second source SSDs and keep costs down, the solder is there so that you can't get a cheap upgrade or repair.
And the backup was where again? (Score:3)
Who has any computer of with anything of value that has no backup?
I have Time Machine on all the time, but in addition to that I use a backup program to fully backup my system to an external drive every month or so...
So I have two ways I can fully restore my system in well under a day, even if the whole machine is replaced.