MacBook Air solid state drive questions

[johnbro23]

Just a few questions...

What will the start-up times be?

Why is 64GB $1400? A 4GB micro SD card is like $25, so the math there just doesn't make sense. 64BG should be $400 in that case.

What do you expect the benchmarks to be? Would a SSD MBA be as fast as a fully loaded MBP?

[swiftaw]

Price does not increase linearly with size

[Cybergypsy]

I bought the air, but got the regular Pata drive, Think a update in a year will increase it more then 128 :)

[crazzyeddie]

A SSD is a different type of flash memory than an SD or other type of media card. Its faster and has many, many more write/rewrite cycles.

[johnbro23]

Price does not increase linearly with size

Yeah, but I'm assuming its not an issue of manufacturing size. If you get 16 micro SD cards, that'll be a lot smaller physically than a 1.8" HD (since I have a pretty good idea of the size of that, and I'm assuming the SSD in the MBA would be similar)

[johnbro23]

I bought the air, but got the regular Pata drive, Think a update in a year will increase it more then 128 :)

How much was a 64GB SSD a year ago?

[iWizzard]

Don´t think they existed for commercial use a year ago.

[matthewHUB]

are we certain that the connector is the same from the PATA drive to the SSD?

Will there be any way to replace to drive at a later date without voiding warranty?

[tdhurst]

Yeah, but I'm assuming its not an issue of manufacturing size. If you get 16 micro SD cards, that'll be a lot smaller physically than a 1.8" HD (since I have a pretty good idea of the size of that, and I'm assuming the SSD in the MBA would be similar)

I could be wrong, but I'm going to assume that a 64 gig SSD drive is a little more complicated than simply piecing 16 four gig micro SD cards together.

Just maybe.

[tdhurst]

are we certain that the connector is the same from the PATA drive to the SSD?

Will there be any way to replace to drive at a later date without voiding warranty?

Just got my crystal ball back from Diane Summers. She says..."only if you're really, REALLY good at it."

Magic 8 ball says...not likely.

[danish1542]

is the ssd much much faster than the 4200rpm option?

[skyrider007]

is the ssd much much faster than the 4200rpm option?

Obviously! At US$3000 it better be.

[benpatient]

is the ssd much much faster than the 4200rpm option?

In many tasks, it will be quicker than the 10,000 RPM Raptor hard drives. At least if they use a good SSD, it will.

Check out TomsHardware or Anandtech's coverage of SSD drives and see how they compare. For most people, the difference will be really impressive. Especially people used to laptop hard drive speeds.

It will also pull 1/10th the battery power to do the same amount of work, and generate almost 0 watts of heat.

But for 1000 dollars, i don't think it is really a smart buy yet. Now in a couple of years, as early adopters buy these things at insanely high prices and hopefully encourage manufacturers to ramp up mass production, we'll see the price per GB drop off to something probably closer to double that of spinning hard drives, and at that point, you would be stupid not to buy one as your main boot/scratch drive. Rotating hard drives will continue to increase in storage and decrease in price for a long time, so they will probably still make sense for "mass" storage of things like audio, video, and pictures. Media storage, basically, and backup.

but yes, SSDs are, even at this early stage in their life cycle, easily faster than regular hard drives.

[tdhurst]

This site should give an idea of what kind of speed boost to expect.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9025278

Looks like...a lot.

[MacsAttack]

How much was a 64GB SSD a year ago?

Six months ago a 32GB SSD would have cost you what this 64GB drive would have, and I don't think there was a 64GB SSD in a 1.8 inch drive form factor. You would have to have gone for a 2.5 inch drive - or maybe even a 3.25 inch drive form factor - and the cost would have been more than the 1.8 SSD MBA.

Flash memory density is increasing very fast. Performance is improving. Costs are plunging. hard disk manufacturers are abandoning the 1.8 inch format mechanical drives in favor of flash drives. Apple only used one to get the price of the MBA down to a "reasonable" level for the launch. I don't expect that model to survive more than one refresh - if that! SSDs could well be down in price to the point where the SSD migrates to the 1.6 and the 1.8 gets a 128GB drive (at which point I'll have to fight the desire to buy one).

[MacsAttack]

is the ssd much much faster than the 4200rpm option?

An SSD will give a 7200rpm 2.5 inch drive more than a run for its money (write speeds are a little low in comparison, but in just about every other category but price the advantages are all with the SSD). In comparison a 4200rpm 1.8 inch drive is going to be pants (that means not-good).

I'm interested in just how much the 1.6 MBA is going to suck, and how well the 1.8 MBA is going to scream (that means is-good). Just as well it has a decent 2GB of memory - its going to need it.