On the Macbooks (running MacOS), RAM has been used as data cache to speed up data read/write performance until the actual SSD storage operation completes. It makes sense for Apple to account for with higher RAM spec for the 1TB/2TB configurations.
I'm pretty sure that's what all modern operating systems are doing.
Apple uses it for segmentation and nothing else.
Modern being - since the 80s.
Apple doesn't do this, and use their tight integration to perform a similar function using system memory. So there is some technical justification, I think. They are 100% price gougers though.
Gave me a chuckle ;)
It's also still typically just worse than an actual dram cache.
I think it is strictly for that purpose.
The justifications I see are to reduce the number of models needed to stock and to keep the purchasing decision simple for customers. These are very good reasons.
Some calculation like:
total storage size / page size per LBA (512B or 4KiB usually) * mapping data structure size
Are LBA's a thing on SSD's nowadays? I thought it was the legacy of the spinning rust.
SSD's operate on memory pages of the flash memory, and the page management is a complicated affair that is also entirely opaque to the host operating system due to the behind the scenes page remapping. Since flash memory is less durable (in the long term), the SSD's come overprovisioned and the true SSD capacity is always more (up to a double if my memory serves me well). The SSD controller also runs an embedded RTOS that monitors failures in flash chips and proactively evacuates and remaps ailing flash memory pages onto the healthy ones. Owing to this behaviour, the memory pages that the SSD controller reports back to the operating system have another, entirely hidden, layer of indirection.
As you mentioned, over-provisioning and other NAND flash memory health management techniques like garbage collection and wear leveling are needed for usable modern SSDs. Modern SSD controllers are complex beasts having 3-7 microprocessor cores (probably double digit core counts now with PCIe 5.0), encryption engines, power & thermal management, error correction, multiple hardware PHYs, etc.
Example product sheet: https://www.marvell.com/content/dam/marvell/en/public-collat...
But no 16GB without more SSD? lol?
The iPhone SE exists because there is a market for this form factor. If you look at the specs, you would notice it uses hardware previously used by more expensive models.
> iPhone, iPhone Pro, iPhone Pro Max
Again, different customers for different form-factors. These phones differ more than just SoC in them.
You understand that having N different colors of iPads is different from having N different SoCs for the same model of an iPad.
And that decision somehow turns into making budget conscious people's UX shittier? How is that a reason not to make 16gb RAM, which is almost a bare minimum in 2024, available to everyone?