The MacBook Pro Review (13 & 15-inch): 2011 Brings Sandy Bridge
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on March 10, 2011 4:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Mac
- Apple
- Intel
- MacBook Pro
- Sandy Bridge
Apple's SSD Strategy
Despite the rumors, the 2011 MacBook Pro lineup does nothing to change the storage setup of the machine. All of the models have a single 2.5" 5400RPM hard drive and an integrated slot-load DVD drive.
I personally don't mind the lack of hard drive options. While 5400RPM is pretty slow, any additional money you spend on storage should go towards an SSD and not a faster mechanical drive. If you need the additional capacity there's always the optibay route, which replaces the optical drive with another 2.5" HDD bay. Other than installing Mac OS X, I pretty much never use the optical drive so the optibay approach in my opinion is a good combination of the performance of an SSD with the mass storage of a mechanical disk.
Apple offers an array of BTO (Build to Order) SSD options, however the drives are likely of average performance. Pricing actually isn't bad for the upgraded 13-inch and especially the upgraded 15-inch models. At $100 for a 128GB drive you really can't beat the upgrade price there. We're probably only one more generation away from seeing a standard SSD on some of these models.
| Apple SSD Upgrade Pricing | |||||
| 128GB | 256GB | 512GB | |||
| 13-inch 2011 MacBook Pro | $250 | $650 | $1250 | ||
| 13-inch 2011 MacBook Pro (high end) | $200 | $600 | $1200 | ||
| 15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro | $200 | $600 | $1200 | ||
| 15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro (high end) | $100 | $500 | $1100 | ||
| 17-inch 2011 MacBook Pro | $100 | $500 | $1100 | ||
In the MacBook Air Apple standardized on a Toshiba controller, delivering performance nearly identical to Kingston's SSDNow V+100. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple used the same controller in the new MacBook Pros. The SSDs are still 3Gbps and will be a huge improvement over the standard hard drive, but just know that you aren't getting the best performance possible. In exchange for the price premium, what you do get is a drive that Apple will support completely (and also official TRIM support, no 3rd party drives have TRIM support under OS X). In the past Apple has had serious compatibility issues with 3rd party SSDs, so there is some merit to the BTO SSD option.
This isn't Mac specific advice, but if you've got a modern Mac notebook I'd highly recommend upgrading to an SSD before you even consider the new MacBook Pro. I've said this countless times in the past but an SSD is the single best upgrade you can do to your computer.
To be honest the new MacBook Pros feel slow to me right out of the box. The issue is that once you have a few applications installed and start multitasking with a notebook that only has a 5400RPM hard drive application response time stops being consistent.
It seems like the more you have installed, the greater the chances are of there being small file random reads/writes going on in the background while you're trying to do other things on your computer. These aren't huge IO operations, but since we're dealing with mechanical storage they significantly reduce the throughput of other IO requests. For example, opening an image in Photoshop will take longer if the sequential read operation is constantly interrupted by several other reads spread out over the platters. The same is true for launching an application. Application launch speed is one area where an SSD really shines. The process of launching an application involves a lot of sequential and seemingly random reads (they aren't totally random but they aren't totally sequential either). On a hard drive the seemingly random operations aren't fast to begin with, but interrupt them with any other IO requests that may be happening in the background (saving files, backing up a disk, launching another application, etc...) and the application you're trying to launch will take significantly longer. In my older SSD articles I called this the "fresh test". When you first get a new computer everything responds quickly and applications just fly open. After a few weeks/months/years the performance stops being so fresh and instead everything seems to take forever. The graph below is one I've used in the past, it simply shoes the performance benefit realized from switching to an SSD when trying to launch a few applications in parallel:
The improvement is staggering. Generally speaking application launch time isn't really impacted by which SSD you get. In my experience pretty much all of the current crop of SSDs on the market will launch single (or even multiple) applications in about the same time. What really separates one SSD from the next are three things:
1) Reliability
2) Performance in periods of unusually heavy IO activity
3) Performance over time
The first one is really difficult to quantify. Reliability is the one area where going with a larger manufacturer typically helps. Intel, Samsung, Toshiba, all of these controller makers sell in large quantities to OEM systems and have significant experience in testing and validation. Reliability is also an area where I would say the Apple SSDs are probably going to be a good bet. They may not be the fastest, but Apple has likely tested them and is comfortable that they will at least work problem-free for a while. Apple also apparently does some firmware tuning of its own to make its SSDs play a bit nicer with OS X.
The second vector of differentiation is worst case (or best case depending on how you look at it) performance under load. This isn't just launching a single application, or even loading multiple, but it's how the drive performs when you're doing a lot at once. Perhaps you're running a backup, installing an application, opening a document, loading a web page, downloading a movie, downloading emails and trying to open another application all at once. In these sorts of situations you will notice a difference between SSD performance.
Performance over time is another important factor to consider. Building a good SSD controller really boils down to knowing how to manage data written to the drive's NAND. To measure performance over time we're really looking at quantifying write amplification and measuring how effective TRIM is at restoring performance.
I try to tackle as much of these items in our SSD reviews as possible, and we're constantly evolving so expect to see even more depth here going forward.
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dqnet - Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - link
I'm really considering splashing out on the 13" but I've read countless articles and all I hear is the glossy screen is either horrible or awful. I don’t want the 15", I need the portability and I don’t know what on earth to do!??????????Then comes the SSD issue, if I want this option I have to wait 6 weeks!
I can always get this later down the line I guess?? Well from what the article suggests??
Any help (opinions) would be great as right now I’m lost! :(
Mac Ike - Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - link
If a person bought a MacBook Pro in the last 18-24 months,I don't see the reason to upgrade unless you're on the Bleeding-edge of performance needs and Mac your living with your Mac. Many Apps and advanced Software aren't even optimized to take advantage of multiple Cores,or Hyper-Threading/Turbo Boost. I don't care as much for Auto Switching Graphics,since I have total control of my Graphics with my March 2010 MacBook Pro 17"/Core 2 Duo/2.8 Ghz/4GB RAM/AG/500GB HD/512MB or 256(IG) VRAM-dual cards/express card. if I was buying new today,Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost schemes would be OK,but there's no way that I'd trade or sell my machine for these updates! To me,speed hasn't been an issue in 2 or 3 years! My 2006 20" iMac was at 2.0 Ghz,and the newest Macs are 2.0-3.0Ghz or so. I know that Sandy Bridge is faster than a Merom Core Duo,but most improvements seem to have come from adding more Cores and RAM,so that more tasks can be done simultaneously! I don't care for gimmicks,Turbo-Boosting,Hyper-Threading,and poorer graphics to convince me to upgrade my Macs. Unless you are a Digital Video Content Creator,or other high-powered user,or your Mac is 3 yrs. Old or so,you should Max-out your RAM,get a faster HDD or an SSD,rather than buying a Whole New Mac! If you have the money to spend,good for you,but a combination of Power,Battery-Life,and Portability,are the REAL issues! I wish people would stop telling others that they're Idiots for paying Mac prices,since it's our Money,and only YOU can determine what's good value for the Performance,elegance,and Stability of Apple Hardware!rredge - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Today, the local Apple store acknowledged that my 15" MacBook Pro is not functioning properly and refunded the purchase price despite the fact that I was just past the 14 day return period.The problem is that the computer ceased to respond to the trackpad even when rebooted with the power button.
In the course of trying to figure out what the problem was, I discovered that there are reports of people experiencing similar problems for all three models (13", 15", 17") on Apple's support forum, where one thread alone now runs 19 pages, as well as elsewhere on the internet.
The Apple store personnel told me that Apple has not acknowledged that there is a problem with this line of computers, although they acknowledged in less than two minutes that my computer has a problem sufficiently serious to warrant a refund out of the return period. I declined a replacement because they expressed ignorance of the issue, indeed said that Apple did not acknowledge an issue, and were unable to give me any assurance that a replacement would perform any better.
The questions at this point are how widespread this freezing problem is and whether Apple is going to acknowledge it and fix it.
rredge - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
The second paragraph should have said that the computer ceased to respond to both the trackpad and keyboard.nitrousninja - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
I saw the benches but I dont know if that translates into a big real world difference in SSDs. I'm mostly doing stuff in Word/Excel, some light video editing/converting, and occasionally some WoW. This would be in the base model 13"Should i go with the stock 3GB 128GB SSD or the OCZ 6GB I can get at Microcenter and install it mysel?. I've never done that on a Mac.
Thanks for the help!
Matt
tno - Wednesday, May 4, 2011 - link
Doubt you're still wondering but, if you want to have any space left after installing an OS and still want an SSD then you should splash for the 128GB SSD or wait till a reliable larger SSD is available. I wouldn't go less than 120GB.As to whether you should get an SSD, just ask yourself this question:
Have you ever sat, even for a moment, and wondered why an otherwise well specced (but magnetically driven) computer seemed slow?
If yes, then you'll likely be able to set that question aside by putting in an SSD.
tranksen76 - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Hello Rredge,how frustrating your experience sounds!
2011 was the year I was finally supposed to buy myself my 1st ever MBP after 18 years in the Windows environment.
It took me long enough to choose between a 13-inch or 15-inch one but then I started reading about these freeze issues a lot of users have been facing. being French i only heard about this problem within French forums and i was hoping this would have to be a specific problem for a batch of units delivered in France but now I have to admit this really is a larger scope problem.
For what it's worth there were comments on the forums I went through about I-Stats being a cause for these problems as it installs by default with a settings that take over the fans control.
Did you have that app on your computer?
Best regards
Tranksen
rredge - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Bonjour Tranksen,The fan on my computer was acting normally when this happened and I do not have that widget installed. I was running Terminal, TextEdit and Safari and the processor was under extremely light load.
You will find a good deal of discussion about this problem on the Apple U.S. support forum at http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categor...
This is not an imaginary issue. Apple agreed to the return of my computer for full refund despite it being outside the 14 return period.
I would consider repurchasing one of these computers, but not until Apple clarifies what the problem is and fixes it.
tipoo - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
You said that noise was an issue with the larger MPB, but I'd like that to be quantified in decibels and compared to other laptops in a table, in future reviews.Omid.M - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Can the AT team comment on this please:http://apple.slashdot.org/submission/1504006/2011-...
Click on "Link to Original Source"
Can you guys duplicate this issue? Is it just simple overheating and poor design on Apple's part? I really want to know...
Also tweeted to the three of you. Thanks for your thoroughness, gang.