Real Kato Blog: Apple Watch: MacBook Pro Update, ZFS Thoughts

Apple introduces updated MacBook Pro laptops, and Sun lets it slip that Leopard will include ZFS.

Apple introduced new MacBook Pro laptops this week. Here's what's new:

On the 15" low-end model:
- 2.20 GHz Core 2 Duo (was 2.16 GHz)
- 800 MHz Bus speed (up from 667 MHz)
- LED backlit display
- 2GB RAM standard (up from 1GB)
- 4GB Max RAM (up from 3GB)
- 6-hour battery life (up from 5 hours)
- 802.11n standard (no $1.99 enabler required)
- 128MB Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT (instead of ATI Mobility Radeon X1600)
- 8x SuperDrive (up from 6x)
- Optional 160GB 7200 rpm HD (instead of 5400rpm)
- 5.4 lbs (down from 5.6 lbs)

On the 15" mid-range model:
- 2.40 GHz Core 2 Duo (was 2.33 GHz)
- 800 MHz Bus speed (up from 667 MHz)
- LED backlit display
- 2GB RAM standard (up from 1GB)
- 4GB Max RAM (up from 3GB)
- 6-hour battery life (up from 5 hours)
- 802.11n standard (no $1.99 enabler required)
- 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT (instead of ATI Mobility Radeon X1600)
- 8x SuperDrive (up from 6x)
- Optional 160GB 7200 rpm HD (instead of 5400rpm)

On the 17" high-end model:
- 2.40 GHz Core 2 Duo (was 2.33 GHz)
- 800 MHz Bus speed (up from 667 MHz)
- Optional 1900x1200 high resolution display
- 2GB RAM standard (not changed)
- 4GB Max RAM (up from 3GB)
- 5.75-hour battery life (up from 5.5 hours)
- 802.11n standard (no $1.99 enabler required)
- 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT (instead of ATI Mobility Radeon X1600)
- 8x SuperDrive (not changed)
- Optional 160GB 7200 rpm HD (instead of 100GB)
- Optional 250GB 4200 rpm HD (instead of 200GB)

ZFS in Leopard? Looks like it. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz was quoted as saying that ZFS will be "the" file system in Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard". This could be very interesting. ZFS has a number of interesting features, including the ability to virtualize a single logical disk across multiple physical volumes. So you might be able to increase capacity by adding more drives, but have everything look like a single partition.

One thing that I caught (and I don't know if anyone else did): Apple recently filed a patent to allow converting one file system to another, without reformatting or extensive file copying. I noted this fact in a comment on MacSlash. It's quite possible that one will be able to convert an HFS disk to ZFS in-place, once Apple includes this technology in the OS.

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