“If Apple sticks with its typical 12-to 18-month refresh for the MacBook Pro line, Intel’s Optane solid state drives (SSDs) stand a good chance of being used in the next generation computers,” Lucas Mearian reports for Computerworld. “Why is that noteworthy? Because Optane SSDs are purported to have 1,000 times the performance of typical flash drives.”
“When Intel’s new storage technology does arrive, it will be compatible with the newest PCIe SSDs that use the NVM Express (NVMe) or Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification — a logical device interface for accessing flash storage via the PCIe bus,” Mearian reports. “‘”Apple has been a pioneer when it comes to PCIe/NVMe storage. They were the first PC company to broadly adopt it across its laptop portfolio while other companies today are still just using it in a very limited portion of their PC lineup,’ Jeff Janukowicz, an IDC research vice president, said in an email reply to Computerworld. ‘By doing so, Apple has been able to deliver higher performance in terms of read/write speed and latency when compared to traditional SATA-based PC designs — thus, making the new MacBook pro more responsive and faster.'”
“Oother PC manufacturers will adopt SSDs using the PCIe/NVMe specification, but they aren’t expected to be broadly available until later in 2017, Janukowicz said,” Mearian reports. “Apple’s newest MacBook Pro already sports a hyperfast PCIe/NVMe SSD.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: More speed is, of course, always welcome!
Apple might use Intel’s flash chips, if they are really fast, but I doubt they will use Intel’s SSDs. Apple develops its own SSDs for many years ago, including its own flash memory controllers.
Um no. This is the samething as the samsung 960 pro.
“No” to what?
3D XPoint eats energy for breakast, lunch and dinner and in-between. It’s rather something for a Mac Pro.
They are saying 3D XPoint power consumption is similar to NAND (i.e. SSDs) and, because it is so much faster, it will deliver superior efficiency (IOPS-per-Watt).
IOPS-per-Watt may be high, that’s a reason why it’s good for servers and other permanently active computers, but it’s not good when used lightly as in an notebook.
In terms of energy, it is no worse than the SSDs they use now. There is no reason that it is “not good.” The specs are equal (power) or better (IOPS-per-Watt).
And to get it you need to buy a whole new machine…
So it would appear that the point of this information is that, unless you need a new laptop now, you should wait until this MBP reaches its full potential next year, since you can’t easily upgrade it once you buy it.