ExpressCard/34 vs. SD Slot

[E. John Thawley III]

How many of you MacBook Pro users actually use your ExpressCard/34 slot for eSATA? Would you rather have the killer new screen, internal battery and built-in SD slot on the new MBP or would you prefer the previous generation (15") with the ExpressCard/34 slot?

For the sake of arguement, let's assume that price is not an issue (they cost nearly the same with my educator's discount...) they both have the same video card/RAM, same processor speed, same size/speed hard drive and same RAM.

Discuss.

[Robert Phelan]

I like the flexibility an ExpressCard slot brings. That said, I only ever used it for an SD card slot, and that was years ago when I had SD devices. Most everything that I do that's extremely external I/O sensitive is pulling data off my cards, and I've picked up the latest Lexar units to maximize that.

The only time I'm attaching external storage is when I'm backing things up, and that doesn't usually require the performance edge that eSATA could give me over firewire800 (and that would only be an advantage if I had RAID array or external SSD storage that could actually saturate the FW800 bus).

Given that I don't really use the express card slot I already have, I guess I would actually have to go with the unit with the longer battery life, as that affects me more in the field where everything is that much more critical. I originally voted for the ExpressCard version, but upon reflection, I'd stick with the new unit (especially because the new unit is supposed to have a nicer display?)

My big debate now is that when I replace my older machine, am I going to stick with another 17" that still has the express slot or am I going to go with the more easily portable, but less roomy 15"?

[Steve Stein]

I'd rather have the card slot so you can dump a eSATA card in there. Until USB 3, or next gen Firewire speeds up, backing up or using an external storage device on laptops is a speed bump.

Even though Apple swears that the new battery technology has better life and shouldn't need to be replaced as often as the older Lithium Ion battery packs, only time will tell. The big thing is what happens if there's a battery recall like previous versions had with Apple batteries. It means a trip and several days back at the repair depot.

[Robert Phelan]

USB 3 definitely looks to be hot, but remember that if you're copying from your local drive to a single drive external, the differences between eSATA and FW800 are practically nil. (USB2 vs FW800/eSATA is a different story). eSATA only gains an advantage if the devices you're copying between can burst more traffic per period time than FW800 can handle, which single traditional hard drives cannot.

If you're looking for a performance increase by changing your boot volume to an eSATA or FW800 external, you probably want to look in a different direction. These days when everyone has their RAM maxed out on the laptops, the biggest single performance improvement you can do is to pick up a GOOD SSD drive to replace your internal hard drive.

Yes, they're pricey, but they give a significant performance boost to your OS, programs, and user experience, especially when dealing with lots and lots of images. The current performance market leader for our market, hands-down, is the Intel X.25 M series. The X.25 E series gives you the same read as the M, but also boosts write speeds for about double the price. That said, 9 times out of 10, random disk reading is what we need the most (browsing large libraries, sorting by keywords which require small file database access, etc).

Beware of pretty much any other SSD drive, review after review shows that the cheap ones can be as bad as traditional hard drives, and review after review shows the X.25 M cleaning the clocks of all the competition, even in the same price bracket.

These drives wont help much with large post-production jobs or heavy Photoshop filter work, as those are more processor limited, but Aperture and Lightroom will seem much snappier, and for me that's definitely worth the cost.

This is the one I was looking at, a 160GB for about $650. An 80GB can be had for about half of that:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167015

Two points:
1. This is an emerging technology. Intel has worked out the major issues that plagued early SSDs, but the prices across the board are still dropping very quickly. In fact, rumor has it that Intel is announcing newer, larger, cheaper drives in the next couple of weeks, which is the only reason I've held off on buying the drive above. You will be paying a premium, and the guy who buys them next year will be getting a much better deal. But for my events, where I have to turn around images same day or next day, it's well worth the premium.

2. For those concerned about the relatively small size of the drives, you can always carry around a traditional firewire, bus-powered drive, OR there is a bracket you can get to install a second laptop hard drive where your CD drive usually is. I'm opting for the former as I need my optical drive too much.

On the battery issue, Steve does have a good point about the downtime involved if your battery needs to be replaced. It can probably be done same day at an Apple store, but not everyone has access to one, and sometimes they're booked up. The cost though seems to be the same as the old style batteries. Apple will swap your internal laptop battery for $130, which is about what the replaceable batteries cost to begin with. The only other major issue is if you're one of the folks that likes to travel with two or three batteries. You're kinda SOL with the new machines unless you invest in one of the external battery packs that plugs into the power port.

[E. John Thawley III]

Great feedback guys. Thanks.

The current performance market leader for our market, hands-down, is the Intel X.25 M series. The X.25 E series gives you the same read as the M, but also boosts write speeds for about double the price. That said, 9 times out of 10, random disk reading is what we need the most (browsing large libraries, sorting by keywords which require small file database access, etc).

Beware of pretty much any other SSD drive, review after review shows that the cheap ones can be as bad as traditional hard drives, and review after review shows the X.25 M cleaning the clocks of all the competition, even in the same price bracket.
I'd be interested in reading those comparisons if you remember where they were. I've got a neighbor who works for Kingston and can get me the long deal on memory. So I've already been eyeing their SSD...

The idea of getting a smallish SSD and something like the MCE OptiBay (http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/index.html) kit is appealing... Certainly tidy and more road-friendly than any sort of eSATA external job. (I only use my optical drive for installing software anyway, so it would not be terribly missed...)

The battery thing is not much of an issue for me. I've had two batteries for years and did a good job of cycling them both for longevity. One of them finally failed and I haven't missed it a bit. I'm rarely far from AC power. And I've got 4 Apple stores within 10-15 miles.

************

On a related note: I'm getting mixed signals about partitioning the internal drive. Some say that partitioning 16GB or so for dedicated scratch space is a good idea. Yet I've read elsewhere that drive partitioning is old school and kind of unnecessary with current OS and drive technology. Thinking from the Photoshop point of view, I know a separate scratch disc improves speed. Doesn't seem like a partition would offer the same level of advantage apart from maybe keeping an outer perimeter area clean for scratch use. Also, I don't even know that Lightroom even benefits from scratch the way Photoshop does. Any thoughts?

[Robert Phelan]

These are two of the most in-depth articles you will find on the SSD subject anywhere.

The initial review of the Intel X25 M:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=17

This is a followup and an overview of all SSDs from a tech standpoint, that takes into account the good and bad aspects of SSD technology, regardless of manufacturer, etc.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=1

Both articles go into incredible detail which may be a bit dreary to those not in the field, but you can always skim and skip onto the end for the final word. Though I promise if you read through the entirety of the second article you will be able to speak (and buy) very intelligently when it comes to SSDs.

Partitioning an internal drive would definitely count as "old school". It has some minor perks for scratch disk use in that you can set it to the outer area of the drive for better sustained read/writes, or on the inner area for lower seek times for random read/writes. You can also format it easily and it is less prone to fragmentation than a selection of space on your primary partition. (Though with modern OS's this is much less of an issue) It buys you nothing at all in terms of I/O throughput/competition. Both partitions are on the same drive, using the same controller, using the same bus. If you had two different drives on different buses, your system could be handling OS tasks on one and pulling scratch disk data simultaneously, partitioning does not help this in the least.

Throwing a SSD drive into your machine, even shared between OS/Apps/Files and scratch space, will totally blow away any other scratch disc "tactics" meant to squeeze the last drop out of a traditional drive. Look at the gaps between the traditional drives and the Intel SSDs in the second article to see what I mean.

As for the Lightroom/Scratch disk question, I'm afraid I can't really help you there, I'm an Aperture man myself.

As soon as the next Intel drives are announced, I will be picking one up, and I plan to write a review about my experience here and elsewhere. Stay tuned :)

[E. John Thawley III]

As for the Lightroom/Scratch disk question, I'm afraid I can't really help you there, I'm an Aperture man myself.
A recurring theme: those who tend to know the most about Macs also tend to have little experience with LR. <Sigh> (We are committed to LR at the college because it's dual platform.) I've got an email into a friend on the LR team at Adobe that will hopefully find its way to an engineer. I'll report back if I get anything substantive.

Thanks for your help.

PS: I learned yesterday that the Kingston SSD is actually a rebadged Intel X25 M...

[Robert Phelan]

Yeah, a quick review of the interwebs seems to confirm the comment about the Kingston. They charge a bit more for it, but it includes a 3.5" bay mounting bracket, PC drivers, and a USB enclosure (which seems silly, because a USB interface kinda defeats the fast I/O performance). I don't have any need for the additional bits and bobs, so I'll probably save $10 and get the bare Intel drive instead. That is once the next generation drives come out that is. Engadget reported last week that Intel's next generation MLC drives were due to come out in "two weeks".

Glad I could contribute something as opposed to just asking questions about lens values and best business practices.