peharri
Sep 23, 10:25 AM
Perhaps we've just been exposed to different sources of info. I viewed the sept 12 presentation in its entirety, and have read virtually all the reports and comments on macrumors, appleinsider, think secret, engadget, the wall street journal, and maccentral, among others. It was disney chief bob iger who was quoted saying iTV had a hard drive; that was generally interpreted (except by maccentral, which took the statement literally) to mean it had some sort of storage, be it flash or a small HD, and that it would be for buffering/caching to allow streaming of huge files at relatively slow (for the purpose) wireless speeds.
I've read absolutely everything I can too and I have to disagree with you still.
It makes absolutely no sense for Bob Iger to have been told there's "some sort of storage" if this isn't storage in any conventional sense. Storage to a layman means somewhere where you store things, not something transitory used by the machine in a way you can't fathom. So, we have two factors here:
First - Bob's been talking about a hard disk. That absolutely doesn't point at a cache, it's too expensive to be a cache.
Second - Even if Bob got the technology wrong, he's been told the machine has "storage". That's not a term you generally use to mean "transitory storage for temporary objects".
The suggestion Bob's talking about a cache is being made, in my view, because people know it'll need some sort of caching to overcome 802.11/etc temporary bandwidth issues (Hmm. Kind of. You guys do know we're talking about way less bandwidth requirements than a DVD right - and that a DVD-formatted MPEG2 will transmit realtime on an 802.11g link? What's more, for 99% of Internet users, their DSL connection has less bandwidth than their wireless link, even if they're on the other side of the house with someone else's WAN in range and on the same channel. Yes, 802.11 suffers drop-outs, but we're talking about needing seconds worth of video effected, not hours) As such, you're trying to find evidence that it'll deal with caching.
YOU DON'T NEED TO. A few megabytes of RAM is enough to ensure smooth playback will happen. This is a non-problem. Everyone who's going this route is putting way too much thought into designing a solution to something that isn't hard to solve.
Nonetheless, because it's an "issue", everything is being interpreted in that light. If there's "storage", it must be because of caching! Well, in my opinion, if there's storage, it's almost certainly to do with storage. You don't need it for caching.
I'm trying to imagine a conversation with Bob Iger where the issue of flash or hard disk space for caching content to avoid 802.11 issues would come up, and where the word "storage" would be used purely in that context. It's hard. I don't see them talking about caches to Iger. It makes no sense. They might just as well talk about DCT transforms or the Quicktime API.
I'm perfectly willing to be wrong. But i don't think i am. Let's continue reading the reports and revisit this subject here in a day or two.
Sure. I'm perfectly willing to be wrong too. I'm certainly less sure of it than I am of the iPhone rumours being bunk.
Regardless of the truth, I have to say the iTV makes little sense unless, regardless of whether it contains a hard disk or not, it can stream content directly from the iTS. Without the possibility of being used as a computer-less media hub, it becomes an overly expensive and complicated solution for what could more easily be done by making a bolt-on similar to that awful TubePort concept.
I'm 99% sure the machine is intended as an independent hub that can use iTunes libraries on the same network but can also go to the iTS directly and view content straight from there (and possibly other sources, such as Google Video.) I can see why Apple would make that. I can see why it would take a $300 machine to do that and make it practical. I see the importance of the iTS and the potential dangers to it as the cellphone displaces the iPod, and Apple's need to shore it up. I can see studio executives "not getting it" with online movies if those movies can only be seen on laptops, PCs, and iPods.
If Apple does force the thing to need a computer, I think they need to come out with an 'iTunes server' box that can fufill the same role, and it has to be cheap.
I've read absolutely everything I can too and I have to disagree with you still.
It makes absolutely no sense for Bob Iger to have been told there's "some sort of storage" if this isn't storage in any conventional sense. Storage to a layman means somewhere where you store things, not something transitory used by the machine in a way you can't fathom. So, we have two factors here:
First - Bob's been talking about a hard disk. That absolutely doesn't point at a cache, it's too expensive to be a cache.
Second - Even if Bob got the technology wrong, he's been told the machine has "storage". That's not a term you generally use to mean "transitory storage for temporary objects".
The suggestion Bob's talking about a cache is being made, in my view, because people know it'll need some sort of caching to overcome 802.11/etc temporary bandwidth issues (Hmm. Kind of. You guys do know we're talking about way less bandwidth requirements than a DVD right - and that a DVD-formatted MPEG2 will transmit realtime on an 802.11g link? What's more, for 99% of Internet users, their DSL connection has less bandwidth than their wireless link, even if they're on the other side of the house with someone else's WAN in range and on the same channel. Yes, 802.11 suffers drop-outs, but we're talking about needing seconds worth of video effected, not hours) As such, you're trying to find evidence that it'll deal with caching.
YOU DON'T NEED TO. A few megabytes of RAM is enough to ensure smooth playback will happen. This is a non-problem. Everyone who's going this route is putting way too much thought into designing a solution to something that isn't hard to solve.
Nonetheless, because it's an "issue", everything is being interpreted in that light. If there's "storage", it must be because of caching! Well, in my opinion, if there's storage, it's almost certainly to do with storage. You don't need it for caching.
I'm trying to imagine a conversation with Bob Iger where the issue of flash or hard disk space for caching content to avoid 802.11 issues would come up, and where the word "storage" would be used purely in that context. It's hard. I don't see them talking about caches to Iger. It makes no sense. They might just as well talk about DCT transforms or the Quicktime API.
I'm perfectly willing to be wrong. But i don't think i am. Let's continue reading the reports and revisit this subject here in a day or two.
Sure. I'm perfectly willing to be wrong too. I'm certainly less sure of it than I am of the iPhone rumours being bunk.
Regardless of the truth, I have to say the iTV makes little sense unless, regardless of whether it contains a hard disk or not, it can stream content directly from the iTS. Without the possibility of being used as a computer-less media hub, it becomes an overly expensive and complicated solution for what could more easily be done by making a bolt-on similar to that awful TubePort concept.
I'm 99% sure the machine is intended as an independent hub that can use iTunes libraries on the same network but can also go to the iTS directly and view content straight from there (and possibly other sources, such as Google Video.) I can see why Apple would make that. I can see why it would take a $300 machine to do that and make it practical. I see the importance of the iTS and the potential dangers to it as the cellphone displaces the iPod, and Apple's need to shore it up. I can see studio executives "not getting it" with online movies if those movies can only be seen on laptops, PCs, and iPods.
If Apple does force the thing to need a computer, I think they need to come out with an 'iTunes server' box that can fufill the same role, and it has to be cheap.
Cutwolf
Mar 18, 01:35 PM
There are quite a lot of people in this thread who sound like AT&T employees trying to add to the scare tactics.
The cheapest and most efficient way for AT&T to "detect" tethering would be to monitor data usage and accuse high data users. They anticipate a lot of them will be uneducated and believe they have really been caught and switch to the official tethering plan (losing their unlimited, which I believe is AT&T ultimate goal here), or will simply ignore the text and they can automatically switch them, accomplishing the same thing.
If AT&T accuses you, and you refuse to switch to the new plan and claim you're not tethering, and they switch you anyway, you'd almost certainly be entitled to cancel with no ETF, legally at least. Particularly if they refused to do anything more than say "we suspect you are tethering" without providing any support.
To be fair, AT&T contract does say they can modify or terminate your account if the simply believe you are tethering, but no court would hold that belief, without a legitimate basis, is grounds for modification or termination, and it's hard to believe that 20 gb of data usage in a month would be a legitimate basis for that belief (those who are reaching ridiculous numbers like 50+ might be a different story.
My take (law student with no tech background): if they accuse you and send you the message, call them and play dumb and say you do a lot of streaming. If they buy it, great. If they end up switching you anyway, or forcing you to switch, you can presumably get out of the contract with no ETF. If this fails, and you have money to blow to prove a point, you can probably seek an injunction preventing AT&T from altering your contract, or a declaratory judgment that the contract permits you to get out of it without an ETF in this circumstance.
Odds are that AT&T would be unlikely to show up for any lawsuit filed by an individual over a few hundred bucks, which would entitle you to both the ETF and your legal fees.
Granted, I'm a student not yet a practitioner, so all of this should be taken with several grains of salt. Additionally, none of this should be construed to constitute legal advice.
The cheapest and most efficient way for AT&T to "detect" tethering would be to monitor data usage and accuse high data users. They anticipate a lot of them will be uneducated and believe they have really been caught and switch to the official tethering plan (losing their unlimited, which I believe is AT&T ultimate goal here), or will simply ignore the text and they can automatically switch them, accomplishing the same thing.
If AT&T accuses you, and you refuse to switch to the new plan and claim you're not tethering, and they switch you anyway, you'd almost certainly be entitled to cancel with no ETF, legally at least. Particularly if they refused to do anything more than say "we suspect you are tethering" without providing any support.
To be fair, AT&T contract does say they can modify or terminate your account if the simply believe you are tethering, but no court would hold that belief, without a legitimate basis, is grounds for modification or termination, and it's hard to believe that 20 gb of data usage in a month would be a legitimate basis for that belief (those who are reaching ridiculous numbers like 50+ might be a different story.
My take (law student with no tech background): if they accuse you and send you the message, call them and play dumb and say you do a lot of streaming. If they buy it, great. If they end up switching you anyway, or forcing you to switch, you can presumably get out of the contract with no ETF. If this fails, and you have money to blow to prove a point, you can probably seek an injunction preventing AT&T from altering your contract, or a declaratory judgment that the contract permits you to get out of it without an ETF in this circumstance.
Odds are that AT&T would be unlikely to show up for any lawsuit filed by an individual over a few hundred bucks, which would entitle you to both the ETF and your legal fees.
Granted, I'm a student not yet a practitioner, so all of this should be taken with several grains of salt. Additionally, none of this should be construed to constitute legal advice.
Blue Velvet
Mar 27, 08:16 AM
That sounds like an ad hominem attack against Nicolosi. I agree with him and with his coworker who gave the lecture.
On what basis? Solely because it confirms your prejudice? Being gay has nothing in the slightest to do with gender identity, nor does Joseph Nicolosi's work have any standing of substance in the medical and psychiatric community.
What Joseph Nicolosi does is run a racket. He's little more than a grifter, a trait often found in religious circles.
For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’s concern about the position’ espoused by NARTH (The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.
In short, he's a fraud.
On what basis? Solely because it confirms your prejudice? Being gay has nothing in the slightest to do with gender identity, nor does Joseph Nicolosi's work have any standing of substance in the medical and psychiatric community.
What Joseph Nicolosi does is run a racket. He's little more than a grifter, a trait often found in religious circles.
For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’s concern about the position’ espoused by NARTH (The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.
In short, he's a fraud.
radio893fm
Aug 29, 12:29 PM
I have to say, I am APPALLED by the irresponsible attitude of some people on this forum (and probably the world). Businesses, corporations, governments, AND individuals should all be behaving in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. This is in no way "anti-progress". When did you all gain the right to be so selfish, self-centred, and bigoted in your beliefs?
Are you really surprised? The Apple FAN BOYS won't ever see the light. Whatever Apple does is simply RIGHT for them, even if it means killing the world.
Sad...
Are you really surprised? The Apple FAN BOYS won't ever see the light. Whatever Apple does is simply RIGHT for them, even if it means killing the world.
Sad...
Hellhammer
Mar 13, 02:54 PM
It's not good, I'll never be convinced otherwise. Look at countries like Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia how well they manage their power, the research, alternative (green) energy sources in play and working NOW ... it's incredible and goes unnoticed.
Yet they are still dependent on coal, oil and nuclear. Green energy isn't efficient enough. Also, if you didn't know, Denmark has one of the highest household electricity prices in the world.
NO nuclear.
Currently, that is same as saying no to electricity.
Yet they are still dependent on coal, oil and nuclear. Green energy isn't efficient enough. Also, if you didn't know, Denmark has one of the highest household electricity prices in the world.
NO nuclear.
Currently, that is same as saying no to electricity.
LagunaSol
Apr 28, 09:21 AM
PC (Personal Computer) is an architecture defined in the 80s by IBM. pc is a personal computer. Learn the difference boys and girls.
What the heck are you talking about??? :confused:
What the heck are you talking about??? :confused:
citizenzen
Mar 15, 11:24 PM
Have I defined "contain" to your satisfaction?
Not really.
Here. I'll provide an example of equally insightful commentary ...
One day, this will all be over.
Not really.
Here. I'll provide an example of equally insightful commentary ...
One day, this will all be over.
jiggie2g
Jul 12, 04:18 PM
we are not saying conroe is crap it just is not suitable for a mac pro.
My point exactly...Mac Snobbery at it's finest.
My point exactly...Mac Snobbery at it's finest.
iSee
Apr 15, 07:50 AM
1. Pressing delete when you've selected a file in finder doesn't delete the file. You've gotta use the context menu or <gasp> actually drag it to the garbage.
I know this one: Use Command-Delete
I know this one: Use Command-Delete
bigwig
Oct 27, 06:08 PM
Multimedia, I was wondering if you could address the FSB issue being discussed by a few people here, namely how more and more cores using the same FSB per chip can push only so much data through that 1333 MHZ pipe, thereby making the FSB act as a bottleneck. Any thoughts?
I don't know if Intel ever changed it, but one of the historical reasons you couldn't make a scalable multi-cpu x86 system is that x86s did bus snooping. Once you got more than ~3-4 x86s on the same bus the bus would be saturated by snooping traffic and there would be little room for real data. I think that's why Intel is pushing multi-core so much, it's a hack to work around Intel's broken bus. The RISC cpus (MIPS et al) didn't do that, that's why all the high cpu count systems used them.
I don't know if Intel ever changed it, but one of the historical reasons you couldn't make a scalable multi-cpu x86 system is that x86s did bus snooping. Once you got more than ~3-4 x86s on the same bus the bus would be saturated by snooping traffic and there would be little room for real data. I think that's why Intel is pushing multi-core so much, it's a hack to work around Intel's broken bus. The RISC cpus (MIPS et al) didn't do that, that's why all the high cpu count systems used them.
dante@sisna.com
Sep 28, 04:59 AM
Surprised to see this thread come to a grinding hault after only 145 posts. I pledge right here and now to be one of the first to buy a NEW 8-core Dual Clovertown Mac Pro as soon as it becomes available. I will not wait for them to go refrub although I will probably wait for them to come with iLife '07 if they are added to the BTO page before the January 9th SteveNote.
I turn 60 on January 12th. :) Happy Birthday to me it will be. :eek: :D
Okay, I will jump onboard and be the second.
Clovertown Power -- bring it on.
Dante
I turn 60 on January 12th. :) Happy Birthday to me it will be. :eek: :D
Okay, I will jump onboard and be the second.
Clovertown Power -- bring it on.
Dante
jasonbrennan
Jul 12, 12:34 PM
What about BLU RAY?
Am I the only one who hopes/thinks that we might see a bluray drive in the new mac pros? I mean, Apple is, afterall, a member of the br camp. And they always seem to want to be the "first" to have a new standard (wifi, dvd burning, firewire)...yes, I know they didn't invent any of these, and they may not have been the absolute first, but you know what I mean
Last year was supposed to be the "Year of HD", but we really didn't see a whole lot of it other than h.264. I think It would be really impressive if we saw at least a BDROM drive, if not a BDR would be hella cool
Am I the only one who hopes/thinks that we might see a bluray drive in the new mac pros? I mean, Apple is, afterall, a member of the br camp. And they always seem to want to be the "first" to have a new standard (wifi, dvd burning, firewire)...yes, I know they didn't invent any of these, and they may not have been the absolute first, but you know what I mean
Last year was supposed to be the "Year of HD", but we really didn't see a whole lot of it other than h.264. I think It would be really impressive if we saw at least a BDROM drive, if not a BDR would be hella cool
TheSlush
Oct 8, 11:11 AM
Gartner's crazy.
AidenShaw
Jul 12, 11:22 PM
SW engineers usually optimize their systems with expectations of the environment they will run in. Pro-level applications often run much better in systems that use SMP, but not all. Sometimes it is better to pipeline a few processes at high speed, rather than do a lot of task swapping. Most of Apples core customer's application seem to benefit from SMP. So, that is what they are going to expect from Pro-level hardware.
Please don't confuse SMP with multi-socket. You must have an SMP (or even an ASMP) operating system to use any computer with more than one core.
It doesn't matter if the two cores are in one socket or two - both require SMP in order to manage the cores.
Saying that a dual-socket system is "SMP" and a single-socket dual-core system is "not SMP" shows that you don't quite understand the computer technology required to do multi-processing.
Please don't confuse SMP with multi-socket. You must have an SMP (or even an ASMP) operating system to use any computer with more than one core.
It doesn't matter if the two cores are in one socket or two - both require SMP in order to manage the cores.
Saying that a dual-socket system is "SMP" and a single-socket dual-core system is "not SMP" shows that you don't quite understand the computer technology required to do multi-processing.
OllyW
Apr 21, 07:06 AM
I struggle with the LTE angle mainly due to the fact in the UK we haven't even got visual voicemail working on the iPhone 4
Speak for yourself, it works on mine. :p
Speak for yourself, it works on mine. :p
Eidorian
Oct 26, 10:31 PM
Exactly
I hope Apple comes out with a single clovertown chip tower in 07 that runs on cheap standard DDR2 memory and maybe just one optical drive bay. I do like the 4 HD bays though.
On a side note, the people arguing that 8 cores is just too much power are pretty damn funny. There are thousands of people like multimedia that need more cores. I'm not one of them but at least I understand their need. Some poeple on here are clueless.I don't think Cloverton will run on standard DDR2. Kentsfield sure but doesn't Xeon REQUIRE ECC/FB-DIMM?
I hope Apple comes out with a single clovertown chip tower in 07 that runs on cheap standard DDR2 memory and maybe just one optical drive bay. I do like the 4 HD bays though.
On a side note, the people arguing that 8 cores is just too much power are pretty damn funny. There are thousands of people like multimedia that need more cores. I'm not one of them but at least I understand their need. Some poeple on here are clueless.I don't think Cloverton will run on standard DDR2. Kentsfield sure but doesn't Xeon REQUIRE ECC/FB-DIMM?
NathanMuir
Apr 24, 12:15 PM
And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope...
Sorry, couldn't help myself.
What about fear of hell in the afterlife? Pretty powerful motivator that.
That all depends upon what branch of religion you follow/ believe in.
Your little Pope quip illustrates that you're unaware of just how narrow you made this thread.
You're sadly mistaken if you think that the Pope presides over all religious activity. There are a great many religious belief systems besides the Catholic Church.
Fear of death. That's why religion was invented and why it will always exist.
It must be very simple and claustrophobic up there. ;)
Who would I be to argue with such an excellent generalization?
Sorry, couldn't help myself.
What about fear of hell in the afterlife? Pretty powerful motivator that.
That all depends upon what branch of religion you follow/ believe in.
Your little Pope quip illustrates that you're unaware of just how narrow you made this thread.
You're sadly mistaken if you think that the Pope presides over all religious activity. There are a great many religious belief systems besides the Catholic Church.
Fear of death. That's why religion was invented and why it will always exist.
It must be very simple and claustrophobic up there. ;)
Who would I be to argue with such an excellent generalization?
Sm0kejaguar
Oct 26, 11:09 AM
I am pretty excited about this, because if i read it right...
the new mac pro's will possibly come out at the same price point's as the higher end model's.
which when these come out... would mean that the ones out now may DROP in price. hey just a thought. a good one :p
Thats what i'm worried about!!! Ahhhhh!!! guess i can always wait a month and pay my 250 dollar restock!
the new mac pro's will possibly come out at the same price point's as the higher end model's.
which when these come out... would mean that the ones out now may DROP in price. hey just a thought. a good one :p
Thats what i'm worried about!!! Ahhhhh!!! guess i can always wait a month and pay my 250 dollar restock!
nbs2
Aug 29, 12:06 PM
I'm sure that if I cared about Greenpeace, I might care about this news. But honestly, I really could not care less about them. So I don't care.
People like you (who don't give a rat's a$$ about environmental issues) are exactly what the world needs more of at this point in time.
Not caring about the morons at GP, PETA, etc has nothing to do with the underlying issues. I care about eating a good hamburger, but McD's "can suck my left toe."
People like you (who don't give a rat's a$$ about environmental issues) are exactly what the world needs more of at this point in time.
Not caring about the morons at GP, PETA, etc has nothing to do with the underlying issues. I care about eating a good hamburger, but McD's "can suck my left toe."
awmazz
Mar 12, 03:29 AM
Of course as with all nuclear disasters there's the usual 'don't worry, it's not that bad' while at the same time they evacuate 45,000 people from the immediate surrounds..
Analysts say a meltdown would not necessarily lead to a major disaster because light-water reactors would not explode even if they overheated.
Well, that map seems to show Japan itself will be okay from the fallout at least.
EDIT- They've extended the evacuation radius around the #2 plant to 10km, the same as the #1 plant. The #1 plant is the one which had the explosion.
Analysts say a meltdown would not necessarily lead to a major disaster because light-water reactors would not explode even if they overheated.
Well, that map seems to show Japan itself will be okay from the fallout at least.
EDIT- They've extended the evacuation radius around the #2 plant to 10km, the same as the #1 plant. The #1 plant is the one which had the explosion.
daneoni
May 2, 11:06 AM
I turned off automatically open safe files years ago in Tiger and have migrated that setting over since.
saving107
Apr 15, 10:02 AM
Later on in life, most of them will probably have a beer with you and apologize.
If you want to really take on bullying, you need a totally different kind of campaign.
I got the impression that this campaign was not for Bully Awareness, but to let those who are getting bullied know that "It gets Better" and to guide you to the right place if you need someone to talk to before things get worse.
If you want to really take on bullying, you need a totally different kind of campaign.
I got the impression that this campaign was not for Bully Awareness, but to let those who are getting bullied know that "It gets Better" and to guide you to the right place if you need someone to talk to before things get worse.
FarNorth
Jun 16, 09:26 AM
Bear in mind that Apple/A T & T were VERY liberal letting people upgrade out of 3G phones, allowing folks to preorder with 6-9-12 months left on contract, a reversal of past practice. Also note that Foxconn gave their workers two pay raises in the last few weeks that add up to 122%. That money came for somewhere so clearly Apple as taking no chances on a supply interruption.
They are very agressively keeping old customers while courting new - in 12 months, we are going to say that the iPhone 4 was the single most successful product Apple history.
They are very agressively keeping old customers while courting new - in 12 months, we are going to say that the iPhone 4 was the single most successful product Apple history.
ChrisA
Sep 26, 12:08 PM
What incentive does anyone ever have to buy if they keep announcing new chips?
What incentive? Money. If you need to get some work out to a client you need to have some kind of computer. For example we bought a new Dual Xeon system with 4GB RAM and a set of SCSI disks because the old box was "way slow" now I can do many more Build/Test/Debug cycles every day. Yes there are now even faster boxes but I've gotten much more work done that had we waited would not have gotten done. The $4500 computer paid for it self rather quickly
On the other hand if a computer is to be used as a game console and media player you can never justify the price. It's just a toy and you buy it with "disposable" income with no hope of a return on the investment
But most of these Mac Pros are sold to people who at least hope to make more money with the machine than they spent for it. So for most users waiting is simply to expensive.
Also solid state drives are needed to properly service the I/O needs. Why NOT put a solid state SATA drive in one slot on a MacPro so you can use it for a swap space?
How many "page outs" per second does your system do? If you have enough RAM not many. Even those few writes DO go into RAM. There is likey a large RAM cache built into the disk drive. As for "page ins" they mostly come from your Applcations Folder, not the swap space. Mac OSX is smart enough to know that it does not need to write RAM pages to swap space if the RAM page contains only executable code. If you want to make the system go faster you would put your applactions in the solid state SATA so as to speed up page ins. But if space is limited a better way would be to put only the applactions you are currently using in the solid state SATA but to go even faster why not skip the bottleneck of the SATA interface and put the RAM that would have gone into the solid state SATA on your system bus. This is what modern computers do. They maintain a RAM cache of the disk(s). With the data (cache of the disk) in system RAM it need not even move. The OS simply does some "magic" with mapping registers and the data appera to move without need of any physical copy. A write to a register is more than 1000 times faster then moving data off a sold state SAYA drive.
The ONLY cases where a solid state SATA disk could improve performance is (1) if you have already maxed out the computer's system RAM and need to add even more. So either your Mac Pro is at 16MB or you imac is at 3GB and you need more. or (2) You have a huge abount of dta to process and you put the data in the solid state drive. This means the drive will be hugely expensive. Cheaper to use something like a SAN storage.
What incentive? Money. If you need to get some work out to a client you need to have some kind of computer. For example we bought a new Dual Xeon system with 4GB RAM and a set of SCSI disks because the old box was "way slow" now I can do many more Build/Test/Debug cycles every day. Yes there are now even faster boxes but I've gotten much more work done that had we waited would not have gotten done. The $4500 computer paid for it self rather quickly
On the other hand if a computer is to be used as a game console and media player you can never justify the price. It's just a toy and you buy it with "disposable" income with no hope of a return on the investment
But most of these Mac Pros are sold to people who at least hope to make more money with the machine than they spent for it. So for most users waiting is simply to expensive.
Also solid state drives are needed to properly service the I/O needs. Why NOT put a solid state SATA drive in one slot on a MacPro so you can use it for a swap space?
How many "page outs" per second does your system do? If you have enough RAM not many. Even those few writes DO go into RAM. There is likey a large RAM cache built into the disk drive. As for "page ins" they mostly come from your Applcations Folder, not the swap space. Mac OSX is smart enough to know that it does not need to write RAM pages to swap space if the RAM page contains only executable code. If you want to make the system go faster you would put your applactions in the solid state SATA so as to speed up page ins. But if space is limited a better way would be to put only the applactions you are currently using in the solid state SATA but to go even faster why not skip the bottleneck of the SATA interface and put the RAM that would have gone into the solid state SATA on your system bus. This is what modern computers do. They maintain a RAM cache of the disk(s). With the data (cache of the disk) in system RAM it need not even move. The OS simply does some "magic" with mapping registers and the data appera to move without need of any physical copy. A write to a register is more than 1000 times faster then moving data off a sold state SAYA drive.
The ONLY cases where a solid state SATA disk could improve performance is (1) if you have already maxed out the computer's system RAM and need to add even more. So either your Mac Pro is at 16MB or you imac is at 3GB and you need more. or (2) You have a huge abount of dta to process and you put the data in the solid state drive. This means the drive will be hugely expensive. Cheaper to use something like a SAN storage.