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Comment by altero | Hacker News Reader

Configuration is kind of joke. 16GB RAM and zero free slots on high end desktop?

My PC had the same price three years ago, but it has 5GHz CPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB on SSDs and 5 TB on spin HDDs.

The slots thing is a design decision. Apple doesn't think people need them, I think they may be right. The Thunderbolt connectors are direct to CPU, not even the north-bridge in the way.

I remember when they said people wouldn't need ADB or SCSI. Or floppies. Or serial ports. It worked out.

If your 5 GHz CPU a Xeon with ECC? The RAM can be upgraded (those are options), the SSD can be upgraded (1 TB is an option) and it's faster than SATA, and you can attach as many disks as you want in Thunderbolt arrays. Did you have dual GPUs for that price?

It's a nice looking machine, very quiet, and very innovative. Maybe it will be a misstep, but I'm glad Apple is trying something interesting. I want to see what happens with this.

>Apple doesn't think people need them

I am more inclined to say Apple doesn't want people to think they need them.

Thus far, they've made correct but initially mocked decisions on the necessity of floppy drives, optical drives, Ethernet ports, removable batteries, and physical keyboards.

This may be another such case.

I thing my desktop is nicer than this surounded by dozen external HDDs.

Perish the thought! The solution they have in mind for expansion is more like:

http://www.promise.com/news_room/news.aspx?m=23&region=en-gl...

E.g.,

http://store.apple.com/us/product/HE153VC/A/promise-pegasus2...

I have had the predecessor device, a 6bay Thunderbolt RAID 6, for two years and it has been quiet and reliable.

Oh those are pretty neat. Imagine if your motherboard was in there with your drives? That would be so convenient.

I'll be shocked if someone doesn't make a similar looking case for a stack of HDs.

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