MacBook Pro Dual Core?

Hello,

I don't own an Apple product yet, but I am willing to buy a MacBook pro (The cheapest one from store.apple.com right now).
I am using VMware on other laptop/desktops right now but I felt that it was quite hard to run on dual cores, now my question is:
Can I run parallels on a dual core i7 + 5400 rpm (1tb) hdd?
I also off course want it to run quick. The MacBook I want to get has 8 GB RAM so that won't really be a big problem, but I most likely just want to know if it runs smooth/fast with the specs above.

I hope someone can help me / reply

~I really need to know this before I buy it, and I am planning to buy one this week already (Unless parallels wont run smooth off course!!) ~

 

The 5400 rpm HD will be more of your limiting factor than anything else. Running Parallels on a PCIe based SSD makes it run as smooth as butter, and at so close to active speeds you wouldn't even know you were in a VM. I run Parallels 10 with Windows 7 on a 2008 MacPro (Dual Quad Core Xeon 2.8, so 8 cores). I dedicate 2 to of the cores to Windows. I upgraded it with a PCIe based SSD. Excel launches < 1 second. I am not kidding. < 1 sec. Windows gets a performance rating of 7+ (out of 7.9).
When I ran it on a 7200 RPM SATA HD Excel took about 30 seconds to launch.

So yes, it will run, but if you want to know what will be your biggest asset to performance, get a laptop model with an SSD, preferably one that is ONLY SSD (as in, one that comes with SSD with no HD option, because then it will be PCIe based rather than an SATA based)

 

Thank you for your answer.
I decided to buy the laptop already, but ordered it with 4gb ram and standard 500gb 5400rpm hdd. Next tot that I ordered an 500gb ssd and 16gb ram myself because it was much cheaper. The difference between the ssd I bought and the pci based in price is a huge number and the speed difference is only around 150mb/s. My biggest problem is still the dual core but since it had hyper threading it will probably just work as an quad i5 that soms people in my class use, well I hope it will run like that..

 

Take in consideration that non-Apple SSDs will lack TRIM support on OS X by default.
And as for hyper-threading, the way you are comparing them their quad-cores work as eight-cores, so the comparison is always lacking.

 

I have called Apple before ordering because I had soms other questions. They told me the ssd I ordered (mx 100) is fully supported. And an i5 doesnt have hyper threading so yet an i7 dual core is the same as an i5 quad when looking at logical cores.

 

Being fully supported unfortunately doesn't mean TRIM is enabled in this case, it just means it's compatible and it will work. Although there are 3rd parties utilities out there to enable TRIM on non-Apple SSDs anyway (e.g. TRIM Enabler).

I'm sorry, but you seem to have confusing information about Intel CPUs on MBPs, if you are talking about current models, as per Apple's site, the available CPUs are dual-core i5, dual-core i7, and quad-core i7, ALL OF THEM supporting Hyper-threading, and there are no quad-core i5s.

 

Could you explain me what you mean with TRIM please?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing)
http://www.cindori.org/software/trimenabler/

short story: something that the lack of it, with time, affects the performance.

 

Allright.. Thanks.
How do I remove or close this post?

 

Why would you want to do that?
Is this information not valuable or interesting to other users? Personally I object that, as the time I spent here was with the expectation it might also help other people with similar issues/questions.

 

If you buy an SSD with a sanforce controller (for example, from Other World Computing/Macsales,) you don't need trim support because it handles the reapportioning of data at the ROM level. So there are SSDs that are fully supported on Macs as in not needing TRIM support yet fully optimized for data reclamation.
That being said, the PCIe based SSDs are significantly faster. Sadly the 2011 MBPro I purchased with SSD from Apple by the luck of the draw I got one of the 1.5 SATA (even though the bus supports faster). Regardless, my 2008 Mac Pro with a PCIe based SSD puts it to shame in the speed department....

 

OOPS... SandForce is the name, Seagate is the company that makes those controllers. They offload the reapportioning of the data from the OS level directly to the SSD itself, bypassing the need for TRIM support at the OS level.... All MacSales (Other World Computing) drives have this support and do NOT require TRIM in Yosemite (they don't support TRIM on any version of the OS, and do not need TRIM)

 

Do not mistake Garbage Collection for TRIM support.

What those SSDs do is GC, in fact AFAIK they all do this nowadays, but it's not the same, and are complimentary technologies.
Source: http://www.thessdreview.com/daily-n...n-and-trim-in-ssds-explained-an-ssd-primer/2/

Ideally, and for the best performance and longevity, you should have both GC and TRIM.

 

On the NEXT page of the linked article:
...Therefore, an SSD with DuraWrite in a system that does not support TRIM behaves much like a regular SSD that does support TRIM.
​

 

Please, if you are going to quote the article please be intellectually honest and do not cherry pick quotes just to prove a point, it's a disservice to anyone reading this, one would think you would want to actually help people:

As I said, they are complimentary technologies (DuraWrite is a low level addition to GC that reduces writes) and together they give the best performance and longevity.

 

I tried to copy the whole thing and was told I must submit in English (it was) so I gave up and typed only the part that was needed. It turned out to be a single quote that was malformed...

You are being JUST AS disingenuous, since you are not including the continuation of what YOU quoted, see in bold:

Which brings me to the point I was trying to make - IF you buy a 3rd party SSD rather than getting one from Apple, you should get one that uses the SandForce controller because the performance gains you would attain by enabling TRIM are negligible if present, and you are better off NOT disabling the signing of Kernel Extensions, which is what the TRIM enabler does.

 

Mind as well quote the whole article, no?
The most important piece of information is the one pertaining to if DuraWrite makes TRIM obsolete or not, which was what you wrongly have been implying in your posts:

Now lets take apart the rest:

Does not linearly improve, but improves. Just not expect to have 50% more performance if you have 50% more space, this is what linearly means

Again, if you didn't understand, I'll explain, they are comparing an SSD drive with DuraWrite NOT using TRIM and an SSD without DuraWrite using TRIM, and in that scenario they are equivalent, however, contrary to what you have been implying this does not make TRIM obsolete, because:

which improves performance albeit not linearly.

1- You are changing your point, you have been implying DuraWrite makes TRIM obsolete, which is FALSE.
What you actually stated is: "If you buy an SSD with a sanforce controller (for example, from Other World Computing/Macsales,) you don't need trim support because it handles the reapportioning of data at the ROM level. So there are SSDs that are fully supported on Macs as in not needing TRIM support yet fully optimized for data reclamation." (this claim is also not true, AFAIK, DuraWrite reduces the writes and amount of data written, but it does not liberate more sectors for GC, which is what TRIM does)
2- SandForce controllers are not the only ones using similar technology to that of DuraWrite
3- "because the performance gains you would attain by enabling TRIM are negligible if present": Where's the data to back up this claim?

And, yes, I know that OWC has some blog posts about TRIM and SandForce, but they are the ones selling the drives to Mac costumers, so not exactly unbiased.
Do you really want to pursue this further and risk misleading people by giving incomplete or wrong information?

As for disabling signing of Kernel Extensions, I agree. However the whole point of the discussion was about buying a Mac with an Apple SSD or one without and getting an SSD from another vendor after, and the later has this issue with TRIM where in either case it's not a perfect solution, so people should be aware of what they are getting.

Edit: Several corrections and facts checked and updated accordingly.

 

Yes, you are correct I may have changed my point in what I was writing, I was not trying to make TRIM sound obsolete, I was trying to make the point that if you do NOT have TRIM, you should get a drive with said technology. I did not do a good job off the bat explain why I recommended getting a drive with SandForce controller. If you'd like to chime in on other drive controllers that support this, please do so (you say 'others' but don't mention any).

I will steer readers here to see about issues with Trim enabler by the creator of TRIM enabler. He makes a valid enough reason for me to stay clear of disabling kernel extension signing checks:

http://www.cindori.org/trim-enabler-and-yosemite/

Personally I would rather avoid these issues and have the machine behave reliably. I do find fault in any statement that would equate adding TRIM support (again, ONLY available if you bought the SSD from Apple without doing invasive modifications) with the loss of benefits gained by leaving TRIM support OFF and upgrading from a 5400 RPM HD to an SSD with similar technology to what SandForce offers. That being said, if you DO go the route of adding a 3rd party SSD and therefore taking the easier route of leaving TRIM off so as to avoid a crash caused by unsigned kernel extensions, you'd be better off getting one with such said technology (DuraWrite, what have you) then not...

 

Understood, I'm too of the opinion that the ideal option on Macs when it comes to SSD is to get a Mac with an SSD from Apple, failing that, get a 3rd party SSD with DuraWrite or equivalent, if neither, consider enabling TRIM.

Durawrite is a good technology but one last thing should be said when it comes to 3rd Party SSDs, be prepared to flash the firmware, the 'smarter' these hardware firmwares are, the more complex and more prone to bugs they get, if you get a Mac with an Apple SSD, you get these updates seamlessly.

As for other competing technologies, I've heard of Endurance Write from Memoright which Marvell has teamed up with (http://www.techspot.com/news/51217-...o-supply-firmware-for-solid-state-drives.html).

Anyway, thanks for sharing information about the SandForce controller, I think there's valuable information here for anybody considering getting a 3rd party SSD.

 

As a long time Other World Computing customer (I get no kickback and am not affiliated with them), I trust the decisions they make and the hardware they supply. The best option for ME was the Accelsior_E2 which gave me PCIe class performance (unavailable to me via SATA options). I would never again get an SSD that is attached to my Mac via any interface other than directly to the system bus, which means that with a laptop I would get it configured by Apple. While there is a possibility that my performance might be improved in the situations of low disk space if TRIM were available for it, the difference between what I had before (SATA II HD) and what I have now (PCIe based SSD running at 688MB/s) is so vast that I would not go any other way.
Having it for the last 3 months now, I am shocked how much more reliable my Mac Pro is. That is the weirdest of them all. I have had this Mac Pro for 7 years, and as it has aged and the OSs got larger and larger and took longer and longer to boot my stability went to crap (I think it was due in part to how slow certain system services may have been starting up). Since the upgrade to SSD I have had not one system crash or lockup. And I can run Windows 7, in a VM, with a performance index of 7.5.