2018 Macbook Pro Touchbar has NO Data Recovery Port!

[DrMacintosh]

Time Machine! Time Machine! Time Machine! Time Machine! Time Machine! Time Machine! 

Developers \o/

 

Hourly (or however often you want) incremental full system imagines that back up literally everything about your system. Coming to Windows 10, never. 

[Drak3]

1 hour ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

To be fair though, this isn't even a uniquely Apple design, is it?  There are actually other laptops out there with soldered storage and no magic save-my-ass port, right?

Tons. But those other laptops can have the SSD desoldered and then resoldered to another mainboard, and it'll work if done right.

 

1 hour ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Yeah but those are 200$ 32GB EMMC HP streams, not several grand professional machines

Surface Pro/Book.

[vanished]

Just now, Drak3 said:

Tons. But those other laptops can have the SSD desoldered and then resoldered to another mainboard, and it'll work if done right.

Not that I feel this is a valid excuse to solder it, but wouldn't the same be true for the macbook?

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Not that I feel this is a valid excuse to solder it, but wouldn't the same be true for the macbook?

No, Apple uses a hardware based encryption that ties the drive and mainboard so that a transfer isn't possible.

[vanished]

Just now, Drak3 said:

No, Apple uses a hardware based encryption that ties the drive and mainboard so that a transfer isn't possible.

Oh lovely

[Zodiark1593]

5 hours ago, Monkey Dust said:

And if the SSD itself fails? Some people will just have to learn the hard way about the importance of backing up data you really don't want to lose. And encryption is pretty good reason to remove it, if that reason is genuine of course.

 

A data recovery port won't help if the laptop is stolen, submersed in water, or destroyed by fire. If it nudges people towards backups it's not the worst thing in the world.

Perhaps Apple should include a popup box that nags the user to backup if they're not already using external drives or iCloud, and also repeatedly states that Apple does not recover lost data at all.. Disabling the nag entirely can only be done in Terminal.

[DrMacintosh]

3 hours ago, Drak3 said:

No, Apple uses a hardware based encryption that ties the drive and mainboard so that a transfer isn't possible.

Evidence? 

[DrMacintosh]

24 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Perhaps Apple should include a popup box that nags the user to backup if they're not already using external drives or iCloud, and also repeatedly states that Apple does not recover lost data at all.. Disabling the nag entirely can only be done in Terminal.

They tell you before you take any of your devices into servicing, and the user is prompted to set up Time Machine on first setup. 

 

Users could use more reminding that they should be backing up, but then macOS is going to be more like Windows 10 which cries wolf just because you aren't paying for OneDrive Storage and are therefore vulnerable to Ransomware......which I don't think anyone wants. 

[vanished]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

They tell you before you take any of your devices into Terminal,[...]

What does that mean?

16 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Perhaps Apple should include a popup box that nags the user to backup if they're not already using external drives or iCloud, and also repeatedly states that Apple does not recover lost data at all.. Disabling the nag entirely can only be done in Terminal.

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

[...] and the user is prompted to set up Time Machine on first setup. 

 

Users could use more reminding that they should be backing up, but then macOS is going to be more like Windows 10 which cries wolf just because you aren't paying for OneDrive Storage and are therefore vulnerable to Ransomware......which I don't think anyone wants. 

Nagging them to use iCloud or whatever it is would be a bad move for obvious reasons, but I don't think reminders to backup (use Time Machine) would go amiss.  Far too few people - on Mac or Windows - do it, or do it often enough.  Regardless of what they do with the SSD and encryption or soldering, this really would help people more than it hurts them.

[DrMacintosh]

6 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

What does that mean?

 

That would have been an error caused by my brain being incredibly open to suggestion when typing or writing  

[D13H4RD]

Ah, this reminds me of the time I wrecked my hard drive and stupid me didn't even do a backup 

[Tenelia]

7 hours ago, 2FA said:

Any other brand of laptop with encryption will have the same exact issue. Crucifying Apple over better security is comical.

Amen. Meanwhile we have IOT botnets and nobody's raising hell over that. Applying so many manhours into heckling Apple misses other far more high impact issues.

[vanished]

31 minutes ago, Tenelia said:

Amen. Meanwhile we have IOT botnets and nobody's raising hell over that. Applying so many manhours into heckling Apple misses other far more high impact issues.

Perhaps the collective priorities could use a little straightening out, but the presence of something terrible should have no bearing on the presence of something bad.  ie, just because there might be something worse to complain about doesn't make it any less important to complain about other bad things that aren't as significant.  Sometimes I think there just isn't enough effort to go around though.

[Bananasplit_00]

Why can't they just use an M.2 drive... Come on... I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take up much more space

[DrMacintosh]

14 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Why can't they just use an M.2 drive... Come on... I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take up much more space

It actually would be impossible to fit an M.2 drive inside any of the MacBook Pros on the market. 

[avg123]

16 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Why can't they just use an M.2 drive... Come on... I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take up much more space

Look at how densely the Macbook is packed. Every square inch is filled with battery. The motherboard of the macbook is tiny and odd shaped to accomodate the fans.

 

There is no space on the Macbook motherboard to fit even 1 m.2 slot, let alone 2.

 

To fit a m.2 ssd, they will have to increase the size of the motherboard and decrease the battery size.

 

Macbooks have bigger batteries and better battery life than most Windows laptops.

[D13H4RD]

Just now, avg123 said:

Macbooks have bigger batteries and better battery life than most Windows laptops.

I'd probably keep it a little conservative and compare it to laptops of a similar size and form factor. 

[DrMacintosh]

10 hours ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

The Throttlebook Pro gets even worse. It's almost funny until you remember people buy this shit @DrMacintosh

I find it funny that people here are calling it the"Throttlebook Pro" because of one particular config when in reality every other config in the lineup performs just fine inside the 13" and 15" MBP designs. 

 

The new 13" Models are actually amazing machines now and nobody want's to give Apple credit for that because its not trendy. 

[DrMacintosh]

8 minutes ago, avg123 said:

 

It is unfortunate to see that the 2018 MBPs are not using terraced cells. There is some wasted space flanking the bottom right and left cells. 

[iamdarkyoshi]

9 minutes ago, avg123 said:

There is no space on the Macbook motherboard to fit even 1 m.2 slot, let alone 2.

Then they must, god forbid, make the machine larger. A soldered unrecoverable-if-the-board-dies storage device is NOT what I'd consider professional.

 

Yes, time machine works, and works well, but it really isn't an excuse for making a board's storage soldered and unrecoverable. 

[D13H4RD]

5 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

The new 13" Models are actually amazing machines now and nobody want's to give Apple credit for that because its not trendy. 

Likely because all eyes are on the 15", specifically the 8950HK config 

[DrMacintosh]

5 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Then they must, god forbid, make the machine larger. A soldered unrecoverable-if-the-board-dies storage device is NOT what I'd consider professional.

 

Yes, time machine works, and works well, but it really isn't an excuse for making a board's storage soldered and unrecoverable. 

Well, when you are Apple, the depth of the Drives retention screw is the difference between the thickness of the 2015 MBP and the 2016 MBP. Pros were going to have at least single redundancy anyway so while I don't think it was a good idea to remove the data recovery port, I also know it was a calculated risk with the infrastructure for it to not really be an issue having already been in place since OSX Leopard. 

[Arika]

i don;t care if they solder their SSD, but goddamn at least keep the recovery port, seems like a real dumb move

[Sauron]

12 hours ago, 2FA said:

Any other brand of laptop with encryption will have the same exact issue. Crucifying Apple over better security is comical.

Other brands may choose to bind that encryption to the user's password or fingerprint...

[Peskanova]

12 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Time Machine! Time Machine! Time Machine! Time Machine! Time Machine! Time Machine! 

 

Hourly (or however often you want) incremental full system imagines that back up literally everything about your system. Coming to Windows 10, never. 

Yes and you could cool your mbp with an air conditioner but that's not the case...