OWC Blog

I understand from the macsales page (http://blog.macsales.com/39345-owc-makes-macbooks-pro-again-with-game-… that it has space for a couple 2.5" and M.2 drives. But that obviously doesn't take up all the volume. I don't know about a battery. But rectangular prisms are nice. Why does everything need to get shallow around the edges or the middle? So they can run some marketing-speak and say that their device is 1.7mm thick[0]? I'd hope for a large battery, but even empty space would be fine. An eGPU would be pretty neat, but hot, expensive, and complicated. I'd love one with an ordinary battery expansion and some I/O ports. [0] (May be thicker in locations other than the far corner where it tapers down to a sharp edge)

I'm kind of shocked that this drive is so slow. That's an impressive benchmark compared to your run of the mill consumer drives, but the new PCI-e drives Apple has been shipping are already beyond 2000Mbps. http://blog.macsales.com/30725-owc-tests-speed-of-ssd-in-2015-15-macbo… I would've expected Samsung to be able to best that. They make the chips, after all.

Macbook 5,1 absolutely supports 6GB, NOT 8GB. The best summary I've found: http://blog.macsales.com/3291-putting-a-rumor-to-rest-owc-supports-6gb…

Move your iTunes library to an external drive, and point iTunes to it. There are many tutorials on how to do this exactly, e.g. https://blog.macsales.com/43972-how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-… You could do this for a single account (e.g. your wife's account).

Hard drives should not be left unattended for even a few years with any expectation that they will still function when plugged back in. Sure, many will, but it's a crap shoot: Under ideal conditions an unused hard drive can be expected to retain data for 9 to 20 years. [0] [0] https://blog.macsales.com/43702-we-bet-you-didnt-know-that-your-hdds-o…

Since Snow Leopard MacOS has also had a local versioned file system (separate from Time Machine) but not all apps use its API and since it auto-saves and screws up "Save As..." capability I find it annoying and usually just turn it off and pretend it doesn't exist. It's one of those features Apple added that could have been useful but since they never got the UI right, most people don't know it exists. http://osxdaily.com/2015/06/16/revert-to-prior-version-file-mac-os-x/ https://blog.macsales.com/47415-auto-save-and-versions-an-often-overlo…

> (Still sore Apple did not stick to the 1kB = 1000 bytes of the original MacOS and gave in to the "powers of two" insanity ;-) Actually, Apple switched back to 1kb = 1000 bytes ("back" assuming you're right about the original MacOS) with Snow Leopard back in 2009. [1] [1] https://blog.macsales.com/1852-snow-leopard-changes-they-way-we-look-a…

It had a mesh in the pre trash can version but the new one looks far more like a grater with spaced holes and an indented piece of metal that looks like the blade. https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/mac-pro-2019-hands… https://blog.macsales.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/prod_applemacpro2…

Both synthetic and real-world benchmarks show the opposite [0] [1]. My own experience and unresolved performance bugs that I've filed show the same [2]. I want Firefox to be faster and superior to chrome in every way. Ignoring it's problems won't make them go away and definitely won't make them a priority for the devs. [0] https://blog.macsales.com/46993-rocket-yard-testing-lab-which-browser-… [1] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=firefox-webren… [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1408699

It's one of the jobs of the T1/T2 chips in newer Macs. "as well as keeping tabs on the microphone and FaceTime HD camera to keep them safe from hacking"[1] [1]https://blog.macsales.com/43360-imac-pros-t2-chip-what-it-is-and-what-…

Possibly: > As part of the upgrade process, the macOS High Sierra installer will automatically convert an SSD to the new APFS https://blog.macsales.com/42884-is-it-possible-not-to-convert-to-apfs-…

There is a problem with some third-party SSDs on certain Macs during High Sierra installation, apparently during conversion to APFS. [1] Maybe that's one concern? [1] https://blog.macsales.com/42466-a-note-on-high-sierra-compatibility-wi…

Here are the specs: http://blog.macsales.com/39345-owc-makes-macbooks-pro-again-with-game-…

You sure about that? It's a removable part. http://blog.macsales.com/38440-ssd-in-late-2016-entry-level-macbook-pr… It may take a while for a 3rd party replacement to become available, but it's not soldered onto the motherboard. If you take it to Apple with a SSD failure, they're not going to bill you $800 for a new logic board to fix it. Not sure where this assumption came from. It's like everyone's saying "I don't like this computer, so everything about it must be terrible."

Actually, it can go to 4x : http://blog.macsales.com/25878-owc-gets-1200mbs-from-ssd-in-2014-macbo… They simply plugged in an SSD from a 2013 Mac Pro. Go figure.

Completely agree. I suppose the benchmark tests were a good start, but far from complete. To back up what you said here is a post from 2013 "not all Mac SSD's are the same" http://blog.macsales.com/19008-performance-testing-not-all-2013-macboo…

I've got 8GB of RAM in my Late 2008 MBP (MacBookPro5,1) http://blog.macsales.com/9102-secret-firmware-lets-late-08-macbooks-us… Looks like this won't fly in the Early 2008 MBP, but you might be able to get 6GB in there (note "Standard RAM"): http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-co…

It's definitely not soldered in. OWC says that it is similar but probably not exactly the same as the one in the Macbook Air, they are looking at providing an upgrade model like they do for the Airs: http://blog.macsales.com/14090-not-a-lot-of-options-for-macbook-pro-w-…

It wouldn't be unprecedented for them to release an update which enables features which were always in a chip but were unusable before, although it's not an identical situation: http://blog.macsales.com/9102-secret-firmware-lets-late-08-macbooks-us…

16 GB upgrades exist http://blog.macsales.com/9283-owc-announces-industry’s-first-16gb-ram-… They are pricey but in the same range as a 480GB SSD...

I'll have to get him to run successive compiles and see. The other advantage of this model is that it is upgradable to 16GB RAM, according to OWC and others [1]. The upgrade is a ridiculous cost right now, but it can likely only go down. 1. http://blog.macsales.com/9394-macbook-pro-2011-12gb-and-16gb-memory-up…

- Battery life is going to be a trade off for performance. Things like the 4k screen as well as the DDR4 (vs LPDDR3) RAM are going to come at a cost to battery life. - I don't know about the screen, but having owned both, viewing angles are not an issue on either. I _believe_ the MBP has better color accuracy, but the blade is no slouch with full sRGB coverage and 75% Adobe RGB [1] - I travel a lot by airplane and weights are going to be a personal preference, but I don't notice a difference...and I take public transit for 40 minutes and have a 2 mile walk to work. But again, personal preference. - Perhaps I am not in the know, but the Razer Blade has USB type-C (TB3) as well as USB type-A (ostensibly serving 3.0). MBP has 4 TB3 ports if I understand it correctly, so it has more, but I don't think it fair to say the Blade has none. - I don't know if the SSD is "drastically slower"...but it might be slower. Both are PCIE nVME SSD drives, the blade specifically has a Samsung SM951. Not the top of the line, but certainly not a bargin bin drive[1]. And for the price difference, you could replace the drive in the Razer with something better if you want...whereas the MBP is soldered on[2]. - I don't know, I am not terribly impressed by any laptop speakers in 13" form factors...but personal preference. I would have to agree, owning both, that I think the MBP has a slight edge as they don't distort at Max volume and the Blade does slightly...but I wouldn't say the…

I've come to the unquestionable conclusion that Apple doesn't want customers inside their computers. Full stop. Apple views the personal computer as a device to be used for its serviceable life (until a major component fails), then discarded, recycled, and replaced with a new one. I'm not defending this stance, btw, just stating what I've observed. Our household recently experienced a HDD failure in an iMac purchased late 2010. At 4 years old, the HDD was due for a failure (based on my experience with spinning magnetic disks). No problem, I thought. I'm an experienced hacker; taking this thing apart will be no problem at all. I was right in that taking the iMac apart would be little challenge for me. Honestly, the iMac is a miracle of serviceability for such a compact computer. All of the connectors unsnapped as expected while using the correct tools. Nothing was terribly inaccessible, with the exception of the LCD driver cable. That connector terrifies me, but everything else was cake. What killed me was the HDD thermal monitoring system. Apple uses the internal HDD thermal sensing equipment. Ostensibly (and probably true), monitoring via SMART requires an interrupt, which momentarily halts HDD communication. I/O on a HDD is bad enough without these interruptions, so hats off to Apple for prioritizing performance. The down side of this is that there is no standard for the thermal sensor pins in the connector provided on the HDD. You have to 1) make sure to buy a HDD of…

If you want to downvote, that's fine, but please provide an explanation. My comment was not derogatory, rude or against any of the HN guidelines. Recent iMacs have been known to have their harddrive fans spin at full after a stock harddisk is replaced with an aftermarket replacement. Rumor is circulating that recent MacBook and MacBook Pro models are similar. Apple has hijacked some unused SATA wires to use for onboard temperature control on their branded drives. Unless you have access to genuine apple parts, any harddrive replacement on those models of computers won't work well. http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgrade-options… Long story short: To Apple, Harddrives are not user servicable components, thus to Apple, "no one should care", because the computer will come back to the consumer after any repairs to a failed harddrive with a clean copy of the new OS. I don't agree with that, but this is how things will be. I'm just a messenger with an opinion.