Apple's New Mac Pro Gets High Repairability Score

iFixit has posted a teardown of Apple's new soda-can-shaped Mac Pro. Despite the unusual form factor, it earned a relatively high repairability score: 8/10. iFixit said, "For being so compact, the design is surprisingly modular and easy to disassemble. Non-proprietary Torx screws are used throughout, and several components can be replaced independently." They say it's easy to access the fan and the RAM slots, and while the CPU is buried a bit more deeply, it's still user-replaceable. The Mac Pro doesn't get higher than an 8 because its uses some proprietary connectors and the cable routing is cramped. They add, "There is no room, or available port, for adding your own internal storage. Apple has addressed this with heaps of Thunderbolt, but we'd personally rather use the more widely compatible SATA if we could."

Thunderbolt

[ThorGod]

Methinks if you can afford the new Mac Pro that you're not at all concerned about Thunderbolt vs SATA.

Re:Still like to have more then 1 port in side the

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, 256GB base makes perfect sense for a pro system –most of these guys are editing huge videos stored on SANs, there's no hope of storing them locally. All they need locally is their OS, and some very fast scratch space.

Re:sata is slower than thunderblot 2

[Anonymous Coward]

SATA also maxes out at 600MB/s transfer rate, while thunderbolt maxes at 2.5GB/s, 5GB/s if you use dual channel, 10GB/s if you use two parallel connectors (which the standard supports trivially). The kind of work people who buy MacPros are doing pretty typically needs enormous bandwidth to stream uncompressed video files. Thus Thunderbolt is in fact a much more sane choice than SATA for this machine.

Re:Still like to have more then 1 port in side the

[sribe]

Still like to have more then 1 port in side the system and 1TB max is not really that much and the 256 GB base is a joke for an pro system.

I'm pretty sure the assumption is that everyone in the target market for this machine will want external RAID, so the internal is really only for the OS & swap & apps and small files.

As for 1TB being "not really that much", please point me to a source of SSDs larger than 1TB. Uh, yeah, I thought so ;-)

Re:Still like to have more then 1 port in side the

[UnknowingFool]

It seems that every one of your complaints about the Mac Pro is that it doesn't make a good desktop. Let me repeat for you again: A Mac Pro is not a desktop. It is a workstation for professionals. People who are buying this will need TBs of storage (and this will grow quickly). Now if it was a conventional desktop, that would mean that they would have to buy disks all the time and their cases would be fill up quickly. However most people who are using this system are building (or have) SANs with a backup strategy. Often a SAN is required as their work is collaborative. Think a Pixar animator not a Crysis II gamer.

Re:Still like to have more then 1 port in side the

[berj]

Why is it a joke? The 256GB is perfect for my needs. We only put the OS and applications and various caches on the local drive of any of our machines (Linux or Mac OS). The rest (about 200-ish terabytes) is network attached.

I think your definition of "pro" is different from mine.

Re:Who takes apart their laptop?

[Ixokai]

I don't think mixing "literally" and "legitimately" in the same sentence make sense, since the latter is entirely a determination of opinion.

You may not agree with Apple's position that every single milimeter and ounce matters, but that position is legitimate. There are consequences to that position, such as not being able to replace the battery yourself -- but its not like Apple is hiding that its laptops don't have user replaceable batteries.

Its a perfectly legitimate design decision and trade off. Maybe for you that means the products aren't for you -- that doesn't make it not *legitimate*, let alone not *literally* so.

Re:it's apple only real non AIO desktop othen then

[UnknowingFool]

it's apple only real non AIO desktop other then the mini.

Again, it's not a desktop. It's a workstation. It was not designed for consumers to play games or surf the web. It is intended for professionals for work. As such it was designed with this in mind. Please stop confusing the two.

the mini lags in hardware and does not offer any better video then laptop based Intel on board chips.

Then don't buy a mini.

The imacs are ok but for stuff but for gameing other then maybe the top of line imac with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB upgrade are poor for there screen size.

Then don't buy an iMac.

and for the price of then top imac you can build an high system for about a $1000 less giving you a lot of room to add your own screen as well full desktop CPU's, HDD's, Video cards and more.

Then don't buy an iMac. The crux of your complaint is that Apple doesn't make the system you want them to make. Get over it. Don't buy Apple then. But complaining that Apple hasn't designed a system for you is just complaining to complaining. A Mac Pro was never intended for you. They are intended for professionals. That's like complaining that Mack Trucks doesn't make an 18-wheeler semi truck doesn't that seats 6 comfortably. That's not what it was intended to do.