Hardware

Jun 15 2011

OWC Releases Mercury Electra SSD, 6G Speed for 3G Prices

OWC aka MacSales has released a new line of SSD’s called the Mercury Electra.  These are the latest in a series of high performance SSD’s marketed towards the Mac Market.  It comes with the latest SandForce processor and over 500MBs Peak Rates which means it can exceed the capabilities of a 3G sata port.  So for those who have iMac’s or MacBook Pro’s from 2011 will be able to take advantage of this new SSD and bask in the glory of a super fast Mac. Add in a lifetime warranty and that the product is made and supported in the USA, it’s a good deal to support our economy as well.  You can read about the new SSD here.

By Corey • Hardware • 0 • Tags: , ,

Jun 15 2011

Speeding up Virtual Machines on a Mac

It’s kind of no brainer that a VM placed on a SSD would work better.  The only problem is that they can take up a bit of space.  Recently I got tired of the VM degrading the regular HDD performance which works just fine for what I do on my MacBook Pro that I finally began breaking down my windows powerhouse machine.  I had not had it turned on for a few months and jeez my power bill went way down.  Go figure.  So I had a few spare 128Gb SSD’s hanging around and I decided to use one for my wife’s Mac Mini (Coming soon) and the other was just sitting there and I did not know what I should do with it.

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By Corey • Accessories, Hardware • 0 • Tags: , ,

Jun 15 2011

27″ iMac BTO i7+SSD Fastest Mac Ever?

According to MacWorld it is.

“The 27-inch 3.4GHz Core i7 iMac with SSD is the fastest Mac we’ve tested. The previous Speedmark 6.5 record holder was a build-to-order Mac Pro with a 3.33GHz Xeon Westmere six-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and a price of $4074. Add a 27-inch Apple LED Cinema Display and the price jumps to $5073.”

 

You can read about it here.

By Corey • Hardware • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Jun 12 2011

Rumor – MacBook Air Wednesday June 15th

Update:  The real story it seems was the device ID’s turned out to be iPhone device id’s possibly unlocked iphones!

 

Chronicwire over at Twitter has put out that Apple may release a SandyBridge based MacBook Air this June 15th 2011.  There have been rumors picking up over the last few days about this from the usual sources.  This new MacBook Air may contain along with the usual new ThunderBolt port, but SATA 6G performing SSD’s.  It will also come with a free upgrade to Lion as with any other Mac’s being sold after the WWDC announcement.  Suspect it will be an i3, with BTO to i5 or i7 processors, 4G of memory standard, and may start with a 240/256G SSD.  The long shot would be a Tri Gate 22nm processor which Intel may or may not be producing in quantity, but Apple has a record for being the first to out new tech from Intel.

By admin • Apple, Hardware, MacBook Air, Rumors • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Jun 9 2011

Blast at Intel “Tri Gate” Fab to Delay Mac Pro Refresh

If Apple keeps up it’s momentum in fielding the latest Intel chips, then it’s logical to assume that the 2011 Mac Pro would have these chips in them when the next hardware refresh happens.  However, today Intel reported that there was a blast at their Fab 32 plant in Arizona which is the home of their 22nm fab process that produces the “tri gate” transistors which will make these processors more powerful and use less power due to the tech not leaking as much power as traditional transistors.

The blast which injured 7 employees happened in an external building which housed chemicals used in the creation of wafers.

If Apple did not field these processors then they may find that people who do not need thunderbolt but like the Mac Pro skipping a generation and waiting for the latest chips.  That may hurt sales in the short term, but not likely Apple profits as their mobile products are generating a lot more money for them than their stationary counterparts.

By Corey • Apple, Hardware • 0 • Tags: , , ,

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