There haven’t been a lot of real rumors regarding the next version of Apple’s beastly, goliath-like Mac Pro, other than a statement from Tim Cook claiming something of the sort would launch in 2013 – but an unconfirmed report from Bright Side of News (via MacRumors) may have provided the first tangible details about the next-gen desktop. According to the report, Apple is actively working on a massive 2TB SSD to work with the device – although you can bet your boots that won’t come without a hefty price tag.
From the report:
While touring the facility on a completely unrelated subject, we encountered something very interesting – an initial run of Solid State drives bearing a logo which is very recognizable in the West – Apple Inc. The fruity company from Cupertino remained silent on the strategy with their professional line of products, Mac Pro. They also keep on making the iMac as thin as humanly possible, using the same components as on their notebooks.
But seeing a 2TB Solid State Drive with an Apple logo on it opens very large ground for speculation. Given that we were not able to learn more about the parts in question, we have to leave it at that. But from the looks of it, the 2TB drives used industry standard 3.5” form factor, full height (just like your regular 3.5” spinning drive) and a SATA connector (not SAS or some proprietary port).
The report also points out that if Apple keeps a similar design in their next-gen Mac Pro, then the desktop would be able to hold a whopping 8TB of SSD storage within its banks – that’s quite a massive heap of ultra-fast storage, likely at a cost that I don’t even want to begin to think about.
Other than “sometime in 2013”, it’s unclear when a new version of the Mac Pro might launch. Going by Inter’s road map for their next-gen Xeon desktop chips (the next logical chip that could power a new Mac Pro), it’s unlikely that we’ll see new models sooner than late 2013 – although Intel and Apple could easily surprise us with something sooner, especially if Intel grants Apple early access to the chips.
