Apple likely to use NAND storage in upcoming MacBook Pros, analyst says
In a note to investors released on Wednesday, Ben Reitzes of Barclays Equity Research said that the adoption rate of Apple devices using SSDs, along with a continuing move to cloud computing, will push consumer laptop demand toward flash-based storage.
Perhaps the single greatest setback to flash adoption is that the price of solid state solutions grossly outweigh comparable HDDs, keeping the technology out of reach for everyday consumers. This cost ratio may tilt in the physical hard drive's favor, however consumers have recently started giving up storage space and low cost for design and performance benefits, evidenced by the success of the thin and light MacBook Air.
Reitzes believes that the advent of cloud computing will help ease consumers in the transition from physical drives to flash by offloading storage to servers, thus diminishing the need for pricey high-capacity NAND drives. Apple's iCloud is already well in-place and has the potential of filling offsite storage needs if the company chooses to move to a NAND-heavy laptop lineup.
For these reasons, the analyst expects Apple to reveal a NAND-equipped MacBook Pro as well as MacBook Airs with increased storage options in the near future.
"We believe these products combined can ramp quarterly demand for Macs by up to 1 million incremental units on a run rate basis - taking over a point of share from HDD-based PCs," Reitzes said.
He goes on to say that an estimated 5 to 10 percent of notebook PC sales have been cannibalized by NAND-carrying iPads and iPhones, further impacting HDD demand for PCs. The move to portable products has been dubbed as the "post-PC era," as consumers begin to replace computers with tablets and handset. Interestingly, this trend toward flash in consumer devices is seen as fueling data growth, which helps to augment sales of enterprise-class HDDs.
NAND (in yellow) storage in the new iPad. | Source: ifixit
Hard drive makers won't be the only ones to be affected by the trend toward cloud computing and flash storage, and Dell acknowledged earlier in May that PC demand was slowing due to the strong performance of tablets and smartphones. If rumors pan out, the PC market could see further pressure with Apple's debut of a smaller 7-inch version of the iPad later this year.
30 Comments
Most of my hard drive is taken up with my iTunes library because I've downloaded a lot of films and TV shows. If Apple allowed me to store these purchases in iCloud and stream the content rather than always having to download it I would be quite happy to downsize to a lower capacity SSD. I only really need to keep my music files locally which don't take up that much space.
Well, SSDs are already an option on Mac Book Pros. Are they trying to say that will be the only option? If so, they are wrong.
I am guessing nearly all the Mac Book Air buyers have another machine so a small SSD will work in that case. However, many people use a Mac Book Pro as a replacement for their desktop machine. In that type of scenario, the storage requirements are generally too great to be economically covered by an SSD alone.
What we will see in the next MBPs are Mac Book Air form factor SSDs with a mechanical HD as an option. The optical drive will be history.
-kpluck
Since Apple bought Anobit, everything will use flash someday. I think its a bit early for an Apple branded SSD, even if I would love to see it. Anobit controllers run at 660meg/sec. That is quite good. An educated guess is that the Macbook pro will get a small Macbook Air SSD and an optional 2.5 inch drive. (My old macbook pro hace 2x1 terra. WD have 2 terra 2.5inch. Fun to be able to have 4 terra in a laptop)
I just hope its standard SSDs that are also user upgradeable.
It would really suck if they were not user upgradeable.
A super-fast 16GB chip on the logic board for the OS and a backup, freeing up the real drive for your stuff.
That's all I want in this regard. Eventually hard drives AND RAM won't be user-upgradable…