New Macbook Pros Released

[ahab1372]

Ben,
I would put the drives into a NAS enclosure, that makes them platform and location independent.
I did that with an entry level Synology and it works great.
Transfer rates over WiFi are sufficient for regular incremental backups and file access. If I have large amounts of data, I just plug the gigabit cable into the laptop

Arnt

[Dr Croubie]

Yep I agree Keith. 8Gb just doesn't cut the mustard these days. I upgraded to 16Gb - the additional $200 odd dollars isn't too bad to be honest. In terms of resale, I generally run my computers until the die so I've never really worried about resale value.

One thing that I'm still unsure about is whether I'll be able to back up to my external drives that are currently hooked up to my PC. Is there a RAID option where I could partition the drive into two equal partitions (one to Mac format and one to PC format) so that it works in a similar fashion as RAID 1 (mirroring) but across two different formats?

That way I could use the drive on both PC and Mac and the same data would be available to both formats.

I'm guessing not but it would be nice.

Well, if soldering in the RAM and Batteries is what they have to do to get it that thin and light, that's the price you pay. Anyone remember about 10 years ago with the release of the first iPod, the guy who tried to get a replacement battery, was told that he'd have to buy a new iPod, and went on a stencil-graffitti spree warning people against buying them?
I was kind of annoyed at my laptop I bought 2 years ago, it had a soldered-in video card, that I might have wanted to replace. In the end it didn't make a difference, I wouldn't have replaced it even if I could have.

As for the partitions on external drives, why bother? I'm not sure if Macs can read NTFS, but they can definitely read FAT file systems, if you put your external disks into FAT then you can access data from either computer. Or set them up as a true network-drive (instead of usb), then file system doesn't matter. Macs do do screwy things with external drives though (or at least they used to, not sure about osx), writing things like '.recycler' or whatever into every folder. So does windows with its 'system volume information' folders.
Just set up your external disks as network drives and you're safe either way, I vote.

[btaylor]

Yep I will definitely set up NAS for our next home but at the moment I was just hoping for a quick solution for backing up as I'll still be using photoshop and lightroom on the PC for a period until I get the mac set up with all the right software. I'll look into FAT and see if that will work for me.

Thanks for the advice.

[ahab1372]

I can recommend Synology, a 2bay NAS starts at around $200
http://www.synology.com/products/pro...ct_name=DS212j
Setup is simple and very quick.

In the meantime, you can just let the PC run somewhere and share the drives and mount them on the MacBook. Sounds more promising to me than using FAT

[btaylor]

Thanks mate. I'll see how I go.

[Dr Croubie]

With the soldered in RAM you almost have to go with the $200 upgrade. In a year or two, 8gigs is going to be very modest. Even the batteries are GLUED in. Resale values on these will plummet without upgradable RAM and user replaceable batteries. Apple is really scaring me these days. They are kind of bullying everyone into buying a new machine every two years, like iPhones.

It looks like the Mac Pro will be coming back into style for pros. That is if they keep their promise to ACTUALLY update it next year.

Wired.com just wrote a bit of a write-up about the soldered-in RAM and battery. The RAM is fine, if it works fine now it'll work fine in a few years if you keep your installed programs in check. It's the battery that's a worry, as he says, it's a built-in death-clock.
Fair enough if you're the kind of person who only uses a laptop for 2 years and ditches it anyway, difference with the new macbooks is that you don't get a choice (and you probably won't be able to re-sell it as easily as a normal laptop). As long as you're informed enough that it's got a limited lifespan, then there's no problem (except that my inner-Greenie is moaning...)

[neuroanatomist]

Haven't read the specs on the new ones, but my 17" has the non-user-replaceable battery, and the expected life is 1000 charge cycles (compared to ~300 for most), meaning about 5 years.

[btaylor]

The soldered in RAM and glued in battery are a non-issue for me. I upgraded to 16Gb RAM which will be sufficient long term and I don't plan on changing out the battery myself. If something goes wrong I'll be sending it back in to Apple anyway so they can deal with it from their end.

For me, one of the selling points for my purchase of this machine was the performance per cubic centimetre ratio (i.e. high quality hardware in a compact package). So if it means that the RAM, SSD and battery are not user replacable in order to cut down on size I'm more than happy as this machine will be doing a lot of travel.

The hands on reviews have started to come through thick and fast now and I'm becoming more comfortable that I've made the right choice with every read. Still another 3 weeks or so until mine arrives so I'm getting ancy reading about it!

[M_Six]

The non-Retina versions dropped a bit here, so I made the move to Mac. I got a MacBook Pro 15" with the i7. I went with the standard HD, but may pick up an SSD later. I have 16GB of RAM coming from Crucial tomorrow, so that should speed things up a bit. Only two nitpicks so far. I can't seem to type on this keyboard (keep missing the A and S) and the trackpad is weird after using a trackpad with buttons all these years. I suppose it just takes time to adjust.

[andnowimbroke]

You'll miss the ssd. Speed and less heat generated are great. You can always get it the next year to year and a half when the new ones come out.