I realize that this is idealistic of me but data loss should never be an issue. This is 2019 and backups have been drilled into everyone's heads for years and years and years. You can still access the drives in these via Target Disk mode (and I've had to do a few recoveries through that so I know it works) and it's likely that the pros outweigh the cons.
- There's the adage in the enterprise space that, if you haven't tested your backups, then you don't really have backups. Most consumers, and even professional users, aren't likely going to be in a position to verify their backups before they actually need them.
- Not even being able to do simple repairs or upgrades massively reduces the ROI. This is especially for high-end, professional equipment.
When I first started my current job, everyone was given the option of a Thinkpad with linux or a Mac. Both units had 16GB of RAM. When it became apparent that 16GB was insufficient for my workloads, it was simple for IT to upgrade my Thinkpad to 32GB. My coworkers with Macs were not so fortunate.
Backups are boring.
Restore from backup is quite exciting.
This is why having more than just one computer is beneficial. Because I jump between multiple laptops, desktops, and other devices, and perform my work and other activities, I bring with me copies of my data between devices by necessity, whenever I need that data.
And I think that is actually the way to do it. Not to focus so much on trying to keep multiple copies of all of your data since forever, because then you get bogged down in details about keeping everything in sync and everything organized, but instead to just focus on the data that you actually need, and being conscious about making copies of data when you use it.
In the past, when I was using fewer computers, I had one computer that was sort of the canonical location of data. And I’d access it over the network and work on my data there. It had great uptime too. On the order of months. Then one day there was a power outage and that was when I realized that I had no idea what I had set as the password for the full disk encryption on said machine. Ooops :^)
I lost a fair bit of data that day. But I learned something too, and that learning has shaped my habits in how I deal with data and I can proudly say that in the years that have passed since then I have been able to hold on to all of the data that is most important to me.
I almost got blindsided by 2FA a couple of years ago, because I didn’t know that the keys for the second factor were intentionally kept device-local. But thankfully I was changing phones with the old one still functional and in my possession and was waiting with performing factory reset until after I’d set up the new phone and seen whether or not I had all that I needed. So because of that all I needed to do was to log in with the 2FA of the old phone on each service I had it on, temporarily disable 2FA and then reenable it with the new phone and when I did that I also saved all of the new 2FA keys so that in the event that I might actually end up having to switch phones because the new one broke in the future I would not end up locked out of my accounts.
But data loss is an issue. Network backups are great, and I use them, but they're bandwidth bound. Local external drive backups are great, and I do them, but less frequently. And I don't test my backups (yet)... do you? Having removable storage -- or even storage that's reliably accessible in the face of other component failure -- provides an extra margin against the risk of loss that can creep in even with a set of responsible backup habits.
What's the pro of soldering storage to the board that outweighs these cons?
That's the problem. Instead of replacing a $200 SSD, you have to replace the entire $2000 machine.
Upgradability is good if you intend to make a lower initial investment and increase capacity at a later point. This laptop is not a toy and, if you are buying one, it's reasonable to expect a return on your investment.
It almost never makes sense to overbuy storage and memory, which tends to be a cyclical market that drops in cost over time. Doubly true with Apple that marks up both commodities dramatically.
Not clear on your meaning here. Are you saying that upgradability increases ROI, and that it is something one should expect in a professional laptop? If so, I agree.
In either case, you're not accessing any stored data from a broken Macbook.
My setup backs up to both local and networked disks (both disks listed in Time Machine, so backups alternate between them). The networked disk is actually a folder in a Debian VM that, from time to time, sends the backup to AWS.
A bit paranoid, but little added effort (figuring out and setting everything up took about an afternoon).
