New MacBook Pros shipped with HDDs only have 1.5Gbps SATA enabled

Apple might have bumped the 13-inch unibody MacBook to Pro status at WWDC last week, but it looks like all the shuffling around to reduce costs has had an unfortunate side effect: new MacBook Pros that ship with HDDs only have a 1.5GBps SATA enabled, while SSD configs are apparently getting the full 3.0GBps SATA II experience that used to be standard. For most people this won't make too much difference since traditional hard drives can't move data that fast, but it's something to keep in mind if you're hoping to buy an HDD unit and swap in a speedier SSD, since your max performance will be bottlenecked. We've verified that our review units with HDDs all have the slower settings, but we've put in a call to Apple to get some more answers on this -- stay tuned.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 21st 2009 11:26PM]

It does not matter if a SATA hard drive has 1.5 or 3.0 Gb enabled or not. The hard drive can only communicate between 50MB and 80MB per/second. So it can't even talk at 150MB per second which is the estimated equivalent to a 1.5Gb connection. 1.5 is plenty and you won't even notice the difference. Brainwashed consumers.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 22nd 2009 10:10PM]

Mark:

Most people are not morons. Most people are talking about the interface for SSD's and not HDDs.

If Apple is shipping out UMBP's with pre-installed SSD's (NOT ones replaced by consumers), then there is a huge difference.

If people are complaining about HDD's not having 3.0, let them sit in a corner and grumble as they know not of what they speak.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 15th 2009 9:03PM]

so instead of clarifying why a person who buys a product with a single digit market share is a "sheep" you wanted to know what a CPU is?

[sevenfeet Posted Jun 15th 2009 9:22PM]

Interesting that my Mac Mini (current generation, purchased last month) is reporting a 3.0 Gbps SATA bus. Now I replaced the stock 120 gig drive with a 500 gig 7200 rpm Seagate Momentus so I have no idea if the stock drive reports 1.5 or 3.0 but I'm getting 3.0 now. The Mac Mini has the same controller as the current MBPs and is largely a laptop without a screen.

[Harrison Posted Jun 16th 2009 12:02AM]

I've got a feeling that Mac-fans will come on and somehow tell us that this is somehow a good thing.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 16th 2009 1:30AM]

always happens

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 15th 2009 10:42PM]

I'm in the Apple store (Spectrum center, Irvine CA) writting this post now. I can confirm that 13" white macbook and 17" pro are 3.0Gbps, new 13" and 15" unibody pro are 1.5Gbps on all different models. All these machines are using MCP79 AHCI but different version of firmware.

[RUGRLN Posted Jun 16th 2009 12:43AM]

Still...SATA I and IDE had hardly any difference in performance, it was SATA II that was the big deal, and saw the real performance boost..

[kelim Posted Jun 16th 2009 2:52AM]

Sure got told?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 16th 2009 3:47PM]

This is really weird. From what i've been reading everywhere there's no aparent reason for this: no significant battery savings or even cost reductions. It doesn't seem their doing a dirty trick either to make people buy a more expensive model because the 15 inch MBP has 1.5 Gbps aswell and the MB has 3 Gbps. And the weirdest thing so far is that people are complaining since at least June 12 and four days passed and still no official reaction from Apple in a situation concerning a "new launched" product. Whatever this is, feature, firmware problem, hardware problem or trick i believe this is bad publicity! I was going to buy a 13 inch MBP and now my money is staying in my pocket because, even if i won't notice the performance difference (HDD) still i will know that something is not as it should be!

WE WANT AN EXPLANATION APPLE!!!

[epwnym Posted Jun 17th 2009 12:13PM]

I'm guessing it's the HDD itself with a jumper on it.

I have a 15" unibody MBP (the previous one) and with its stock drive it's listed as 3.0 Gb/s.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 16th 2009 9:48PM]

Im in the same boat I was going to buy the 13 inch pro because I have long waited for a small pro macbook and they finally give it to us but they lessen the transfer rate. I guess ill hang on to my older macbook pro until this is cleared up.

[AaronX Posted Jun 17th 2009 2:49AM]

Could it be some form of compromise to add in Firewire 800?

[epwnym Posted Jun 17th 2009 12:09PM]

LOL @ the trollers

1) lol @ "taking apart a unibody macbook to replace a drive". It's designed for quick swapping of drives. You can do it in 2 minutes (even faster on the removable batter models with the quick release panel).


2) Rotation speed and cache are way more important factors in drive performance than the controller speed.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 18th 2009 5:41PM]

Any update on this? Did Apple had something to say about this? I'm really holding my purchase because of this issue.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 20th 2009 6:40AM]

Still waiting on a answer by Apple! I invite everyone one to join the twitter petition: http://twitter.com/applefixsatambp and contacting Apple trought their online feedback form!!!! Lets make some noise!!!

And what about you ENGADGET? Do you have your answer? Or did you think we forgot about it aswell?