MacBook Air: SSD vs HDD

[bpreles]

Jump over to Ars Technica web site and check out their review of the MacBook Air HDD and SSD model. Interesting stuff plus they pose the question is the extra $1,300 for the SSD worth it?

MacBook Air HDD Review

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbook-air-review.ars

MacBook Air SSD Review

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbook-air-ssd-review.ars

[roland.g]

That's what I was worried about. Battery life. I've heard less than good marks on that so far.

[clayj]

Very thorough reviews.

I'm still happy I got the SSD model, though, for one main reason: No more drive crashes. Even though I keep rigorous backups of my data, I've suffered through several HD crashes in my life, and it's painful every time. Switching to SSD will hopefully eliminate (or reduce substantially) that problem for me. Sure, the SSD is a lot of extra coin right now, but prices will come down...

And I'm used to being on the bleeding edge, anyway. It's good geek cred to have the SSD. ;)

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

ArsTechnica compares (http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbook-air-ssd-review.ars/1) the Solid State Drive (SSD) and Hard Disk Drive (HDD) versions of the MacBook Air to see if the SSD upgrade is worth the additional cost.

Their benchmark results are consistent with earlier benchmarks (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/02/01/macbook-air-1-6ghz-hdd-vs-1-8gh-sdd-benchmarks/) revealing that the SSD drive is slower at writing and sequential reads than the HDD. The SSD, however, is faster than the HDD at random (non-sequential) disk access.

This difference shows itself in "real world" test such as Exporting a 60MB Quicktime, Compiling an Application or Unzipping an archive. As expected, the large file export, which performs a large sequential write to disk favored the HDD model. Meanwhile, building Webkit and Unzipping an archive showed off the speed advantage of the SSD.

Ars also looked at battery life of the MacBook Air and in their HDD review (http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbook-air-review.ars) found that their Air averaged a paltry 2.5 hour battery life in their "real world tests". Questions on the validity of these results have been raised, with other anecdotal claims of battery life as long as 4-5 hours on the same configuration. Indeed, reports are varied:

Forums: 56% left after 2:15 (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=4907185&postcount=14), 5+ hours? (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=4907117&postcount=12); Engadget: 2:25 watching movie, 3:35 light usage (http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/25/macbook-air-review/)

Ars, however, is pretty confident in their battery life tests for their machine and felt it was consistent with some other reports. They found that the SSD didn't seem to offer a significant longer battery life (on average), however, their battery tests were not standardized.

In the end, they felt the SSD upgrade was not worth the additional cost ($999), but noted the biggest advantage of the SSD was a lack of disk-access related slowdowns that they experienced on the HDD model.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/02/06/macbook-air-ssd-vs-hdd/)

[DizzyRose]

How many comparisons do we need? I'm sure we've got the point now :D

[tibi08]

Disappointing as I wanted to spunk the extra cash on this.

Hmm, building Webkit. I do that all the time.

[MacBiscuit]

Perhaps what this shows is that a larger footprint laptop (say the next MBP) could usefully use both SSD and HDD. Use a small capacity SSD for the OS and a large capacity HDD for storage...

[arn]

battery life tests are annoyingly inconsistent.

There needs to be a "standard" battery suite that runs, and you let it run until the battery is drained. This is of no help by itself... but at least you could run it against many different machines to get a sense of relative battery life.

arn

[xUKHCx]

Would this be altered by going to a larger form factor 2.5" and SATA rather than PATA. i.e. for the MB and MBPs.

[ts1973]

Let me be the first to say it in this thread, before anyone beats me to it : who cares about the air, where the hell is that Macbook Pro ? :D:p

Seriously, this is no news : everyone knows by now that writing to flash media is slower than writing to a normal hard drive. I however do not really doubt Arstechnica's results, they have a pretty solid reputation when it comes to reviewing.

[tibi08]

battery life tests are annoyingly inconsistent.

Yes but why. Is there anything to learn here about how to extend your battery life?

[arn]

Would this be altered by going to a larger form factor 2.5" and SATA rather than PATA. i.e. for the MB and MBPs.

The 2.5" drives are doing to be different SSD. It seems SSD varies depending on who you buy it from. MacLife did a SSD benchmark on a $725 32GB 2.5" SSD drive in a MacBook Pro.

http://www.maclife.com/article/dv_nation_mtron_32gb_sata_ssd

The SSD Mac was 50 percent faster in our Photoshop CS3 Action test, 33 percent faster when exporting a GarageBand track to iTunes, 57 percent faster when creating a PDF in Adobe InDesign, and 171 percent faster when adding 196 JPEGs to iPhoto. Any task that would spin the hard drive platters in a normal Mac is crazy fast in an SSD-equipped Mac—booting was 148 percent faster than on the normal MacBook Pro, and launching Photoshop CS3 was 229 percent faster. Flash memory is easier on the battery—the SSD Mac lasted 3 hours and 14 minutes doing normal office tasks, a 14 percent gain.

[sterlingindigo]

Perhaps what this shows is that a larger footprint laptop (say the next MBP) could usefully use both SSD and HDD. Use a small capacity SSD for the OS and a large capacity HDD for storage...

I've read this before (perhaps from you) and I really like the idea.

[happydude]

yeah, to me, just doesn't sound like the $1000 isn't worth it . . . glad there's a new option that is finally making it in that has benefits, but as of now . . . until price comes down and capacity goes up, HDD still seems more worth it to me.

[arn]

I however do not really doubt Arstechnica's results, they have a pretty solid reputation when it comes to reviewing.

I don't doubt that they got those times on their laptop. I just don't know if you can apply that to your own life and a purchasing decision regarding the Air.

arn

[Lord Sam]

Wow. Maybe Apple will lower the price of upgrade.

[xUKHCx]

The 2.5" drives are doing to be different SSD. It seems SSD varies depending on who you buy it from. MacLife did a SSD benchmark on a $725 32GB 2.5" SSD drive in a MacBook Pro.

http://www.maclife.com/article/dv_nation_mtron_32gb_sata_ssd

Oh thats good to know because I saw these earlier and thought that moving to SSD on my MB would not really be worth it, not that im considering this for a least a year due to price and by then i'm sure the tech will have matured to give faster results probably for less battery power as well.

[MacSamurai]

lol at that price it was never worth it

[Wild-Bill]

In my opinion, it's just not fiscally responsible to purchase the MBA with the SSD at this time. The writing is on the wall that SSD drives are the wave of the future for OS and application-level access, but the price premium at this point in time is just not worth the benefit.

For those who are contemplating an MBA with the SSD but have "sticker shock" so much so that they have not pulled the trigger, I say wait. I suspect (and this is my opinion only) that in 6-8 months time we'll see the prices begin to come down. This time next year they should be priced more reasonably.

[ziwi]

$1000 for that upgrade was a stretch to begin with - never thought it was worth it personally for the little you get - price needs to come down on SSD before it is a real option.

[33scottie33]

I saw the MBA for the first time last night and compared the boot times. The HDD took about 60 seconds longer to boot than the SSD. I don't think the $1K is worth the upgrade. However, IF I needed a MBA now, I would strongly consider it.

[NAG]

Yeah, SSDs are nice but they aren't worth the cost just yet, in my opinion. I'm getting more than 2.5 hours on my Macbook air for battery life. So beats me about that.

[shadowfax]

I think the consensus is definitely that it's wiser to wait till they can get a faster, hopefully cheaper SSD into the MBA. Could be awhile.

I dunno, though. If you have money coming out the wazoo, you really might as well. It's not going to save the world, but it sounds like it would save you a lot of irritation if you do much file transfer (like Firefox, backup, etc.).

[amac4me]

The price difference is huge. I wonder what percentage of new MBA's have SSD vs HDD. I would imagine it is quite low.

[milo]

Wow. Maybe Apple will lower the price of upgrade.

Doubtful since that's about what others are charging for the same thing (if not more). Prices will come down when the apple's cost from the manufacturer comes down.

Besides speed, are there other benefits? Weight? Heat?

At the very least, I'd be less worried about hard drive failure from moving the computer around. The HD based ipods seem to have a much much higher failure rate than the flash based models.

[ltldrummerboy]

"It's expensive, but boy is it fast." Didn't SJ say something along those lines at MWSF? Is it $1000 fast?

[quantumbits]

If Ars' results hold up in the least, then I can't wait to read the subjective spin that will ensue. Its already transcended comical...absurdity is sure to follow.

[island]

SSD is only worth it if money isn't an object. If your on a budget it's not worth it at all.

[Freyqq]

I thought SSD was much faster than a HD. Kinda disappointing. The numbers seemed so close that I bet a 7200 drive would beat a SSD in every way.

[gotohamish]

Doubtful since that's about what others are charging for the same thing (if not more). Prices will come down when the apple's cost from the manufacturer comes down.

Besides speed, are there other benefits? Weight? Heat?

At the very least, I'd be less worried about hard drive failure from moving the computer around. The HD based ipods seem to have a much much higher failure rate than the flash based models.

I agree. Perhaps you could RAID two of the flash cards buried within the new iPod Touch?

[Slipperyskates]

At the very least, I'd be less worried about hard drive failure from moving the computer around. The HD based ipods seem to have a much much higher failure rate than the flash based models.

Its different in iPods, though, because they don't do a whole lot of writing to the drives. SSD has a finite write limit, so I would worry more about failure of SSD for non-physical reasons.

I'll be interested to see the data when it comes out of the lifespans of SSD MacBook Airs.

[bxs]

Very thorough reviews.

I'm still happy I got the SSD model, though, for one main reason: No more drive crashes. Even though I keep rigorous backups of my data, I've suffered through several HD crashes in my life, and it's painful every time. Switching to SSD will hopefully eliminate (or reduce substantially) that problem for me. Sure, the SSD is a lot of extra coin right now, but prices will come down...

And I'm used to being on the bleeding edge, anyway. It's good geek cred to have the SSD. ;)

I would agree with this reasoning for having the SSD model, be it the 1.8 GHz or 1.6 GHz model (with the 1.6 saving as much as $300 off the 1.8).

I've gone through too many disk crashes and/or simply data corruption at the worst possible time. Loss of data to a business person can add up to $1000s and can be both time consuming and frustrating to the casual home user who may have lost personal current financial data.

The SSD hopefully provides good insurance against data loss when compared to the 1.8" HDD which has not had a very good history of reliability - (opinions and mileage may vary on this though).

If SSD offers same or slightly worse performance to HDD so be it. If it offers significant performance benefits over HDD that's also very good.

Is the SSD worth the extra $999 ? It all depends..... right ?

[BornAgainMac]

I can see a revision B release of Macbook Air next year being a lot better. I consider this just a prototype that just happens to be good enough to ship.

I can hardly wait to see what Apple does to their flagship Macbook Pro line. It is a true desktop replacement that doesn't weight that much for what you get.

[BWhaler]

My new MBA is sitting on my desk, 1.8 SSD, and this review broke my heart.

My initial battery life showed less than 2 hours. I kinda freaked out, but I also knew the battery was calibrated, etc. Still has me worried that perhaps I got a bad build, but I'm not going to freak out about it yet.

I still love this little sucker (so far.) Bad reviews and all...

[gothamm]

In a series of benchmarks, both Macbook Air variants had their asses handed to them by their beefier cousins, the Macbook and the Macbook Pro. But even when just comparing the two Macbook Air models there was such a tiny difference in performance as to make it unnoticeable. Booting up was quicker (about 12 seconds quicker, to be exact), yes, but still slower than a Santa Rosa Macbook Pro. And while random disk tests and reading from the disk was a bit faster on the SSD model, due to slower read times than the HDD, it actually performed worse when it came to sequential disk tests and general writing to the disk.

But what about battery life, that had to be way better, right? Nope. Battery life wasn't affected at all, strangely enough, with the SSD model providing a paltry 2.5 hours of use before needing to be recharged. In fact, it seems like there was really only one place where the performance was better on the SSD model.

HAH!

sorry ssd mba owners, but apple owns you. They will shove down your throat whatever they think is best for you, and you eat that ***** up like no other! (nice justifications on the posts above btw ;) )


don't get me wrong, i am not hating on the mba. only the grossly overpriced SSD version =]

[cohibadad]

Interesting the discrepency between MR battery life reports and Ars. hmmm.

[MazingerZ]

don't get me wrong, i am not hating on the mba. only the grossly overpriced SSD version =]

What's overpriced about it? From the comments when the MBA was announced, the SSD upgrade was in line with that other manufacturers were charging.

[Bukem]

Obviously SSD drives will have their (dis)advantages, however besides the potential for speed and reduced energy consumption I would like to add another ingredient into the mix;

Reliability !

At least I have a feeling it'll be much more reliable than a traditional HD with moving parts. On the other hand the technology is still very much in its infancy whereas the traditional HD drive has been "tried and tested". Can anybody comment on it's reliability?

I noticed that DV Nation offers a consumer and pro grade drive for servers etc. If this is a solid state drive - why the hefty premium for a "server grade" SSD?

Bukem

[iProd]

My iBook G3 gets 5ish ours with my new battery :D

[bxs]

Doubtful since that's about what others are charging for the same thing (if not more). Prices will come down when the apple's cost from the manufacturer comes down.

Besides speed, are there other benefits? Weight? Heat?

At the very least, I'd be less worried about hard drive failure from moving the computer around. The HD based ipods seem to have a much much higher failure rate than the flash based models.

Right on my friend. The aspect of data loss/corruption means or could mean a loss of $1000s in a business environment. The extra $999 pales in comparison. In a personal home use it could mean the loss of valuable and irreplaceable photos, docs, financial data, etc.

The SSD is a wise choice if the above is meaningful to you. It's simply a better insurance against data loss.

[NYCMacFan]

I saw the MBA for the first time last night and compared the boot times. The HDD took about 60 seconds longer to boot than the SSD. I don't think the $1K is worth the upgrade. However, IF I needed a MBA now, I would strongly consider it.

You know I did find it odd that they did not mention boot time in the article. Not a huge issue for most people, but a convenience one that is fair to mention.

One reason I love my ibook is how long it takes me to boot my PC at work.

[NYCMacFan]

My new MBA is sitting on my desk, 1.8 SSD, and this review broke my heart.

My initial battery life showed less than 2 hours. I kinda freaked out, but I also knew the battery was calibrated, etc. Still has me worried that perhaps I got a bad build, but I'm not going to freak out about it yet.

I still love this little sucker (so far.) Bad reviews and all...

You should try again and let us know. I am going 1.6 SSD to maximize battery life. I do wonder about the wide variances though. Seems strange...

[NYCMacFan]

Yeah, SSDs are nice but they aren't worth the cost just yet, in my opinion. I'm getting more than 2.5 hours on my Macbook air for battery life. So beats me about that.

Do you have the 1.6 or 1.8? How long precisely? Have you tried it with bluetooth and wireless off? Just curious.

[Sweetbike40]

So what's the point of it being so portable if the battery life sucks. I'd expect a lower battery life from my MBP but not on something that doesn't do nearly as much. Like i said before.... how will that power adapter fit into the envelope? I don't dislike the MBA for what it is otherwise. Although... i wasn't floored by it in person. I could look at it again and change my mind. I think just the black keyboard bothers me butto others, the black keyboard may be a nice thing.

[milo]

Its different in iPods, though, because they don't do a whole lot of writing to the drives. SSD has a finite write limit, so I would worry more about failure of SSD for non-physical reasons.

I'll be interested to see the data when it comes out of the lifespans of SSD MacBook Airs.

But hard drives have a write limit as well, how do the two compare?

My new MBA is sitting on my desk, 1.8 SSD, and this review broke my heart.

Why did you rush to buy the SSD before anyone had a chance to review it?

[Starfall]

Regarding the battery test...

From the ArsTechnica review:
"I did less during the second rundown than the first, since my cable service was down and I couldn't do anything on the Internet. I wrote a few paragraphs of this review and watched some TV shows stored on my drive...I didn't do anything intensive"


Since when is a sustained H.264 (most likely) decode "not intensive"?

[MacTheSpoon]

Maybe there is a battery vendor problem here, I wonder. Some people in the forums have reported excellent battery life with their SSD. I remember one person unplugged an MBA SSD in an Apple store and it showed 7 hours of battery life remaining.

I'll be interested in Ars Technica's followup investigation of the battery discrepancies.

[gothamm]

So what's the point of it being so portable if the battery life sucks. I'd expect a lower battery life from my MBP but not on something that doesn't do nearly as much. Like i said before.... how will that power adapter fit into the envelope? I don't dislike the MBA for what it is otherwise. Although... i wasn't floored by it in person. I could look at it again and change my mind. I think just the black keyboard bothers me butto others, the black keyboard may be a nice thing.

the next macbook pro's are speculated to be graced by the presence of those black mba keys.

[MacTheSpoon]

Regarding the battery test...

From the ArsTechnica review:
"I did less during the second rundown than the first, since my cable service was down and I couldn't do anything on the Internet. I wrote a few paragraphs of this review and watched some TV shows stored on my drive...I didn't do anything intensive"


Since when is a sustained H.264 (most likely) decode "not intensive"?

Good point! This could be making the difference.

[Sweetbike40]

the next macbook pro's are speculated to be graced by the presence of those black mba keys.

YIKES

Now i am even happier i bought mine when i did. It's just my personal taste. Wouldn't keep me from buying it if i was in the market again for one.

[meces]

It has been my experience over the last 3 days of heavy use that the SSD and its superior random access speeds lends itself to superior overall performance. I have moved back and forth from my 17" MBPro 2.6Ghz with 5400 RPM Seagate 320 GB (16 MB Cache) Drive and 4 GB RAM and my 1.8 Ghz SSD MBA and I find that for general work related tasks (i.e. opening and editing spreadsheets, editing charts and graphics and even Parallels for some legacy applications) are superior on the MBA with the SSD than the MBPro. I know if I fire up Final Cut or Photoshop that will not be the case. But for daily work it is superior. I also greatly appreciate the superior start-up/shutdown times. Of course this is simply subjective data, but it has been my experience. The MBA will work great for providing an effective platform for working while being mobile. My MBPro will always be the cornerstone.

Also it is important to point out that with a HDD system starting and shutting down the systems causes a significant amount of I/O which has a significant impact upon battery life.

[wizard]

My new MBA is sitting on my desk, 1.8 SSD, and this review broke my heart.

Why the hell would that happen? What did you do buy some technology without understanding it?

The primary reason to get a SSD is the ruggedness that it should impart to the laptop. Read speed should be a distant second.


My initial battery life showed less than 2 hours. I kinda freaked out, but I also knew the battery was calibrated, etc.

Actually you should freak out. The battery is one of AIR short comings. It is not just the fact that it is built in, but also that it is the first battery powered device that is missing Apple advertised marks by such a wide margin.

Still has me worried that perhaps I got a bad build, but I'm not going to freak out about it yet.

Well if you got a bad build then a lot of others have also.


I still love this little sucker (so far.) Bad reviews and all...
Hey if it meets your needs go for it. As I've posted before though, I suspect that this will be an outstanding Apple product in only one respect - that would be its low resale value after people decide to ditch the machines.

Dave

[shawnce]

Actually you should freak out. The battery is one of AIR short comings. It is not just the fact that it is built in, but also that it is the first battery powered device that is missing Apple advertised marks by such a wide margin. Yet I see many reports of folks getting great battery life with the MBA. Really do need a standardized way to test and validate battery life. Also we need folks to ensure their batteries are calibrated and fully charged before running such tests.

[Aurum]

This is a bit off topic, and for that I apologize, but does anybody know if Apple is planning on making bigger screens for the macbooks, air or otherwise? I'm looking to upgrade my very old iBook g3 but I want at least 15" and I'm not shelling out $2100+ for a macbook pro, I'm not that heavy of a user.

[MacTheSpoon]

In the thread on ArsTechnica, a commenter noted that Notebook Review got 4.3 hours on a MacBook Air with HDD. "With screen brightness at 25%, Bluetooth off, and WiFi on, the MacBook Air got 4 hours and 20 minutes of battery life with above average web activity. Half of this time was spent in Mac OS, with the other half in Vista."

That jibes more with MacRumors commenters' accounts.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4238

[EDdoc]

SSD is only worth it if money isn't an object. If your on a budget it's not worth it at all.

I agree, if you are on a budget it is excessive, but I will be using my MBA over the next 2 years or so and every time I launch one of those programs or boot up I will have the joy of working on a quicker computer. It will be that much nicer to have the edge, even if it is little. It's like flying from LA to NYC. It does not matter if you travel in Coach or First Class as you will arrive at the same time. However it sure is more comfortable and nicer in First Class.

[wizard]

This discussion has me wondering a bit about the implementation of the PATA port in the AIR. That is are the drivers and hardware fully enabling the best transfer rates possilbe on this old I/O port?

The other thing for users of the SSD to consider here is that the Flash drive might not be a high performance model. Contrary to popular opinion SSD do not automatically imply fast access. Considering the PATA port this could be a SSD implemented on an old compact flash controller. As we all know there is a wide range of performance available out of compact flash drives. Maybe somebody can come up with a manufactures number off their SSD drive.*

In any event I think the people that where barfing at the PATA port upon the AIR's arrival where entirely justified. PATA is no place to implement modern technology like flash much less the high speed stuff coming down the pike. Sadly I must agree with other posters here that describe the AIR as a prototype.



*
Note; if this speculation is indeed correct I will laugh my ass off as ASUS is using a compact flash controller in their EEE PC. This would be another aspect of the AIR that would justify calling it Apples most over priced hardware yet to date.

Dave

[notjustjay]

Regarding the battery test...
Since when is a sustained H.264 (most likely) decode "not intensive"?

Bingo.

Just look at the difference in battery life on the iPods, when they're playing videos as opposed to playing music. A small fraction of the playback time.

There's your problem.

[asdavis10]

Benchmarks mean very little to me. I'm sure their valuable to most people but the differences between the HDD and SSD models were going to be so slight anyway. The SSD model wasn't going to blow away the HDD model just because on a flash based drive and .2GHz faster processor. Come tech boys. I'm playing with my SSD Air now and from my experience with the HDD model at the Apple Store, there is no comparison if you have the extra money to spare. The OS boots quicker than anything I've ever experienced (not that its that big of a high note). Applications load after only one bounce, if that. Just keep in mind how many times your iPod has frozen on you with that same 1.8, single plater, HDD. Your data is much safer on a SSD. And don't talk about the finite around of writes that you can do on a SSD. You will have long replaced your computer before that becomes an issue. Face it, the Air was never going to be a must-have product. So why is everyone talking about it like it is? Either you have some money sitting around and you WANT one or you don't. No one who buys an Air will be able to say that they NEED it. You could have spent a lot less on a MacBook with higher specs. And don't cry about multi-touch not being in your MacBook or MacBook Pro. Its coming so just wait.

[wizard]

Yet I see many reports of folks getting great battery life with the MBA. Really do need a standardized way to test and validate battery life. Also we need folks to ensure their batteries are calibrated and fully charged before running such tests.

I have some trust in ARS. The wide range of on battery performance we are seeing could be a number of things including poor quality control at the battery manufacture.

I'm more interested in the subject form the technical standpoint as I've already figured out that the AIR just isn't configured for my needs. At least right now. With respect to the SSD there are a number of things that really haven't been tested well yet.

For example just how much does it improve battery life. Note this isn't easy to test as all batteries are a bit different. Ideally you would have two machines on hand and swap the "drives" between the two.

Another issue is more subjective but just how does the SSD impact the feel of the machine. Does getting rid of the seek time and the slightly better read times make for a better user experience. I'm wiling to bet it does.

How does the Apple supplied drive stack up against the competition. There are a lot of SSD drives out there that I'm sure would provide interesting data for discussion. The problem of course is that it costs $$$ to test these and on something like the air wouldn't be easy to do.

Dave

[Yanimac]

To me the main advantage of an SSD drive is that it won't fail like a Hard Drive as there are no moving parts. This is a laptop that can seriously be shaken and stirred. It's a bit like the regular ipods having hard drives that can risk failing a lot easier than the ipod touch.
With my current ipod touch I can shake it and move it like crazy while in operation without worrying. If it was hard drive based then I'd be extra careful in how I would handle it.
As a Mac Tech I have seen so many student laptop hard drives fail for which I assume is mishandling. If they had SSD's instead, then that would alleviate the problem. (Keep in mind, that I think some students know exactly how to crash a hard drive so that they can have an excuse not to hand in their homework on time ;)

[xraydoc]

Last weekend at my local Apple store I rebooted the MBA with a SSD and a black MacBook at the same time and watched them start. The 2.2GHz MacBook with a 160GB 5400 RPM drive booted about 8-10 seconds faster than the MacBook Air with the SSD. And about 20 seconds faster than the Air with the HDD.

Some online reports say the MacBook Air with the SSD boots faster than the standard MacBook, but slower than a MacBook Pro (which I find interesting, since if you assume the MBP doesn't have a 7200 RPM HDD, the 2.2GHz MB and base 2.2GHz MBP should be otherwise the same in terms of speed (with exception of graphics-dependent applications). Both have same processor speed, bus speed, RAM speed and drive speed. Both use the same Intel chipset with the exception of the integrated graphics controller.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that.

[clevin]

half of the claimed battery life? lol, nowadays these companies are all liars. My EEE only last 2.5, compare to claimed 3.5.

[tstarks33]

What's overpriced about it? From the comments when the MBA was announced, the SSD upgrade was in line with that other manufacturers were charging.

Well, I would assume he's talking about price to performance ratio. If something costs over $1000 more, yet is barely faster (and slower in some respects) than the cheaper model, many folks would call that overpriced.

[Alfadoc]

half of the claimed battery life? lol, nowadays these companies are all liars. My EEE only last 2.5, compare to claimed 3.5.

My MBA lasts 3:58-4:40, compared to claimed 5 hours. :D

[Tummy]

the next macbook pro's are speculated to be graced by the presence of those black mba keys.

After sufering with the aluminum color keys for a long time, I'm very happy with the change.

In medium lighting, with the backlight on, you can not see the letters on the aluminum keys, where white on black is much easier to see in all lighting conditions.

[kuwisdelu]

Well, I would assume he's talking about price to performance ratio. If something costs over $1000 more, yet is barely faster (and slower in some respects) than the cheaper model, many folks would call that overpriced.

Yes, but I think his point was it's not overpriced relative to other companies. The original comment had some rather nasty things to say about Apple, when really it has nothing to do with Apple. That's just how SSD's are priced right now. If they're overpriced, they're overpriced across the board. Apple has nothing to do with that, at all, and certainly isn't "shoving" anything down anyone's throat...

I'm curious how they did these tests and what exactly impacts daily use the most. Because lots of the users here report the SSD models to be quite "snappy" and don't "feel" any slower than their MBP's. I can't report anything since I've used neither in person, but it's curious. Lots of users here also report much longer battery life than that 2.5 hours. If you check the battery threads, it seems like lots of them are getting about 4-5 hours, except for a few duds, in keeping with Apple's estimates (given light use).

[dsnort]

HAH!

sorry ssd mba owners, but apple owns you. They will shove down your throat whatever they think is best for you, and you eat that ***** up like no other! (nice justifications on the posts above btw ;) )

That so much anger and bile could be generated by an inanimate object like the MBA is astounding!

Peace gothamm, anger hurts only the angry. :rolleyes:

[Freyqq]

To me the main advantage of an SSD drive is that it won't fail like a Hard Drive as there are no moving parts. This is a laptop that can seriously be shaken and stirred. It's a bit like the regular ipods having hard drives that can risk failing a lot easier than the ipod touch.
With my current ipod touch I can shake it and move it like crazy while in operation without worrying. If it was hard drive based then I'd be extra careful in how I would handle it.
As a Mac Tech I have seen so many student laptop hard drives fail for which I assume is mishandling. If they had SSD's instead, then that would alleviate the problem. (Keep in mind, that I think some students know exactly how to crash a hard drive so that they can have an excuse not to hand in their homework on time ;)

I walk around with my mbp on all the time and don't have any issues. Just don't jump on a trampoline while watching a TV show and you should be fine.

[petrocket]

I noticed in this review they don't show the random/sequential stats for a regular speed hard drive (laptop or desktop or scsi). :confused: They just compared ssd with the 4200 rpm drive. Most laptops come with drives at least 5400 rpm and you can get some faster. Desktop drives and SCSI go up to 10,000+ rpm. While that may not do much for the random read/writes, it should put the sequential read/writes of the SSD to shame.

[liveexpo]

Bingo.

Just look at the difference in battery life on the iPods, when they're playing videos as opposed to playing music. A small fraction of the playback time.

There's your problem.

Surely its more the fact that you'd be using the screen constantly when viewing a video, rather than not when listening to music?

Tired of people desperately trying to defend Apple......they made a sucky product. Get over it.....

[alexcellent]

Right on my friend. The aspect of data loss/corruption means or could mean a loss of $1000s in a business environment. The extra $999 pales in comparison. In a personal home use it could mean the loss of valuable and irreplaceable photos, docs, financial data, etc.

The SSD is a wise choice if the above is meaningful to you. It's simply a better insurance against data loss.

The HDD MBA has backup taken care of..kind of. If you are worried about your machine crashing and losing files/data, you can access the harddrive from another machine via wireless... or a 99 dollar .mac account gives you online storage.
Or if you have irreplaceable photos, GET AN EXTERNAL HD.

[ncbill]

Yep, the review shows just how much of a compromise even a cutting edge 1.8" hard drive (cutting edge = 4200RPM instead of 3600RPM) is compared to the cheapest currently shipping 5400RPM 2.5" hard drive.

Would anyone be willing to tolerate the multiple beachballs reported in the article on a lowly MacBook?

I noticed in this review they don't show the random/sequential stats for a regular speed hard drive (laptop or desktop or scsi). :confused: They just compared ssd with the 4200 rpm drive. Most laptops come with drives at least 5400 rpm and you can get some faster. Desktop drives and SCSI go up to 10,000+ rpm. While that may not do much for the random read/writes, it should put the sequential read/writes of the SSD to shame.

[arn]

Does anyone have a 1.6GHz SSD? I'd be curious to see how that compares to the 1.6GHz HDD.

arn

[twoodcc]

yeah, sounds like the SSD is not worth the money

[Catch]

HAH!

sorry ssd mba owners, but apple owns you. They will shove down your throat whatever they think is best for you, and you eat that ***** up like no other! (nice justifications on the posts above btw ;) )


don't get me wrong, i am not hating on the mba. only the grossly overpriced SSD version =]

"When reviewing the HDD model, using a high I/O browser like Firefox or transferring files over the network to my hard drive threw me more beachballs than a Girls Gone Wild party and rendered the machine relatively useless. The SSD model exhibited little of this behavior—if I were to take my totally unscientific experience and translate it into a number, I would say that such slowdowns were reduced by 90 percent."

Once you have lived a little longer and had more experience with real life, you will understand that its easy to quote things other so called 'experts' say to support your argument. See what I did there sport?

I read the article and am still happy that for me the SSD model was the right choice. If the MBA turns out to be what I am hoping for I will be buying the same one for my wife. The article changed nothing for me. On the contrary, I think the SSD, judging by the article, will make opening applications and files will feel extremely snappy. :)

Thanks for posting the original articles, they were very informative.

Regards,

C

[notjustjay]

Surely its more the fact that you'd be using the screen constantly when viewing a video, rather than not when listening to music?

Well, the same could apply for the Macbook Air.

My 12" PowerBook G4 got over 5 hours in its day.. but that was with wifi and bluetooth off, screen set to 1 bar of brightness, sound off. What on earth could you possibly be doing with those settings, you ask? Taking notes at school, of course.

Contrast it to watching TV shows... you've got brightness turned up, sound turned up...

I'm not defending Apple as much as you think. Apple promised the 12" PBG4 could get 5 hours. I got 5 hours, but ONLY in the above conditions. Similarly, Apple promised the MBA would get 5 hours, and the Ars tester didn't get 5 hours, but he was not using the above conditions. Where's the story?

[arn]

Update: Several readers note that the SSD model had a 1.8GHz processor, rather than a 1.6GHz processor, so equivalent battery life is likely an improvement. Also, another big advantage to SSD is durability -- with no chance of a hard drive "crash".

[filman408]

only the grossly overpriced SSD version =]

Apple sell's it to us at-cost (wholesale).

If you look online for the same drive, places are asking around $1400+ for it.

[tstarks33]

"When reviewing the HDD model, using a high I/O browser like Firefox or transferring files over the network to my hard drive threw me more beachballs than a Girls Gone Wild party and rendered the machine relatively useless. The SSD model exhibited little of this behavior—if I were to take my totally unscientific experience and translate it into a number, I would say that such slowdowns were reduced by 90 percent."

Once you have lived a little longer and had more experience with real life, you will understand that its easy to quote things other so called 'experts' say to support your argument. See what I did there sport?

I read the article and am still happy that for me the SSD model was the right choice. If the MBA turns out to be what I am hoping for I will be buying the same one for my wife. The article changed nothing for me. On the contrary, I think the SSD, judging by the article, will make opening applications and files will feel extremely snappy. :)

Thanks for posting the original articles, they were very informative.

Regards,

C

There will be barely any noticeable different when opening programs. Don't buy SSD MBA for that reason...

[BWhaler]

Well, the MBA has been sitting on my desk today.

I reinstalled Leopard, installed about 6 programs, and did a whole bunch of configuration.

The battery has been a solid 3-4 hours I guess, so I'm not as sad as this morning.

I'm going to let the battery dry--it's minutes away from being dead, and do the calibration steps. Hopefully this will give me what I need.

So far, I have been pleased with the MBA. I didn't get one of the wobbly ones, the screen is better than most of the crap I have seen from Apple--the 30" and the last 3 MBP17's--so I can't complain.

I worry about battery life. Not having a swappable battery was a very aggressive decision for what must have been basically aesthetics. But this MBA better put out 5 hours with wireless, more time in "airplane mode."

But overall, I'm pretty pleased.

[Analog Kid]

Obviously SSD drives will have their (dis)advantages, however besides the potential for speed and reduced energy consumption I would like to add another ingredient into the mix;

Reliability !

At least I have a feeling it'll be much more reliable than a traditional HD with moving parts. On the other hand the technology is still very much in its infancy whereas the traditional HD drive has been "tried and tested". Can anybody comment on it's reliability?

It's worth noting that reliability is the only benefit that Apple touts on their site. Reliability is a question of how you measure it though-- that iPod drive will probably out-live the display in a drop test. Those little 1.8" drives don't have much mass to get thrown around.
Right on my friend. The aspect of data loss/corruption means or could mean a loss of $1000s in a business environment. The extra $999 pales in comparison. In a personal home use it could mean the loss of valuable and irreplaceable photos, docs, financial data, etc.

The SSD is a wise choice if the above is meaningful to you. It's simply a better insurance against data loss.
A wiser choice might be the 10-12 external drives you could buy for the same cost. One drive gives you a backup and keeps your data safe if your laptop is stolen. A second drive gives you the above benefit plus protection against your house burning down. A third drive... you get the idea.
Also it is important to point out that with a HDD system starting and shutting down the systems causes a significant amount of I/O which has a significant impact upon battery life.
By shutting down, you don't mean sleep, right? I've heard sleeping is much slower with the SSD because of the long memory dump to disk.

[7racer]

Barefeats has acquired a MBA with SSD.

No formal numbers yet but he seems to like it

On Monday, February 4th, the local Apple Store business rep called me to say he had a MacBook Air 1.8GHz with SSD in stock. We jumped in the MINI and drove 70 miles to the store.

I'm having a blast with it.

I ran the QuickBench "small random read/write" test on the SSD. I compared that to the fastest MacBook Pro drive referenced in the table above. The SSD was two times faster in READ speed and equal to it WRITE speed. There's no spin up or latency so when you open the lid, "BAM!" Instant readiness.

The keyboard is better than the MacBooks. The keys are similar the new aluminum keyboards for desktops only black. The backlighting works as well as the MacBook Pro, which has always been one of my favorite features.

It's like the MINI Cooper S of Mac Laptops: small, light, quick, fun. You can't haul as much as a Chevy Suburban, but it's a gas, gas, gas. The "AirBook," as Bettay calls it, is the ultimate accessory for our MINI Cooper S "JCW." (Stay tuned for a complete review with performance graphs.)

[Gunga Din]

I think the consensus is definitely that it's wiser to wait till they can get a faster, hopefully cheaper SSD into the MBA. Could be awhile.

I dunno, though. If you have money coming out the wazoo, you really might as well. It's not going to save the world, but it sounds like it would save you a lot of irritation if you do much file transfer (like Firefox, backup, etc.).

This was my thought exactly. Apple should have waited 1 yr before incorporating SSD into any laptop, any ! The whole idea never made sense to me. The Air should have been released in 2009 and to make matters worse, it took time and development from the Macbook Pro update (which most of us would rather have).

I don't understand why most of you just can't deal with the fact that this laptop was a bad idea at this time. Now i'm looking to purchase my first Mac (Macbook Pro) so I have a very honest view. I don't care PC or Mac blah blah blah. I look at the product for what it is and feel too many of you are giving this machine too much credit.

[Resolution]

I look at the product for what it is and feel too many of you are giving this machine too much credit.

Agreed. Also, just because there are no mechanical parts in a SSD, doesn't mean it is invulnerable to damage or data loss. I'm getting the sense that a lot of people are suggesting this along with a bunch of other uneducated nonsense I've been reading on here lately.

[Gunga Din]

Agreed. Also, just because there are no mechanical parts in a SSD, doesn't mean it is invulnerable to damage or data loss. I'm getting the sense that a lot of people are suggesting this along with a bunch of other uneducated nonsense I've been reading on here lately.

Yes, I was thinking about that as well. The SSD sounds indestructable from what i'm hearing lol.

[gothamm]

"When reviewing the HDD model, using a high I/O browser like Firefox or transferring files over the network to my hard drive threw me more beachballs than a Girls Gone Wild party and rendered the machine relatively useless. The SSD model exhibited little of this behavior—if I were to take my totally unscientific experience and translate it into a number, I would say that such slowdowns were reduced by 90 percent."

Once you have lived a little longer and had more experience with real life, you will understand that its easy to quote things other so called 'experts' say to support your argument. See what I did there sport?

I read the article and am still happy that for me the SSD model was the right choice. If the MBA turns out to be what I am hoping for I will be buying the same one for my wife. The article changed nothing for me. On the contrary, I think the SSD, judging by the article, will make opening applications and files will feel extremely snappy. :)

Thanks for posting the original articles, they were very informative.

Regards,

C

I like your points and elaborate explanation but dude...its $1300 dollars. how can you possibly justify the 10-15% performance boost (if that) :confused:

[jragosta]

If Ars' results hold up in the least, then I can't wait to read the subjective spin that will ensue. Its already transcended comical...absurdity is sure to follow.

It's already here. People are whining about the SSD's speed without thinking about what they do with their computer.

Hint: Which do you do more often - sequential writes (where SSD is slightly slower) or random reads (where SSD is something like 7-10 times as fast).

In terms of how responsive your computer feels, random reads are far more important. There are already reports that it feels much snappier.

And that doesn't even consider the likely benefits in reliability.

Your usage may differ, but saying that anyone buying SSD is an idiot isn't justified- since some people apparently see the benefit of it.

Well, I would assume he's talking about price to performance ratio. If something costs over $1000 more, yet is barely faster (and slower in some respects) than the cheaper model, many folks would call that overpriced.

Only if those folks choose to whine about something they don't understand.

AND if those people aren't bright enough to realize that benchmark performance is only one of the features that SSD offers.

I walk around with my mbp on all the time and don't have any issues. Just don't jump on a trampoline while watching a TV show and you should be fine.

There are plenty of reports of 1.8" disk failures, so I wouldn't be so sure that no one is going to ever have a problem just because YOU haven't had a problem on your MBP.

I noticed in this review they don't show the random/sequential stats for a regular speed hard drive (laptop or desktop or scsi). :confused: They just compared ssd with the 4200 rpm drive. Most laptops come with drives at least 5400 rpm and you can get some faster. Desktop drives and SCSI go up to 10,000+ rpm. While that may not do much for the random read/writes, it should put the sequential read/writes of the SSD to shame.

Sure it would - if you ever figure out how to put a 10,000 rpm SCSI drive into a 3 lb laptop that's 3/4" thick. (and that doesn't even consider that SSD would still win on random reads - which are more important for 'snappiness' than sequential reads/writes).

They compared SSD to 4200 rpm because that's the only other choice people have with the MBA. Duh.

"When reviewing the HDD model, using a high I/O browser like Firefox or transferring files over the network to my hard drive threw me more beachballs than a Girls Gone Wild party and rendered the machine relatively useless. The SSD model exhibited little of this behavior—if I were to take my totally unscientific experience and translate it into a number, I would say that such slowdowns were reduced by 90 percent."


Funny how the Apple bashers all missed that part.

There will be barely any noticeable different when opening programs. Don't buy SSD MBA for that reason...

And your evidence for this statement is........?

[Salty Pirate]

My 2 cents:

I went to the apple store and tried them both out. I felt the SSD was way faster for opening and closing programs, which I do alot of.

So I bought the 1.8/SSD and it rocks. I am getting 4-5 hours from the battery and this thing "feels" much faster than my MPB 2.4 GHz w/ 4 GB RAM and a 200 GB 7200 disk.

I did experience the slowdown thing when I was moving my 13 GB itunes library off a USB drive, but how often do you do that? That is such a non-issue! Jacquie, IMHO is way off in her review. How can you claim a technology that eliminates the "slowdowns" by 90% and makes everything teh snap, how is that not a justified $1000 upgrade?

I love my MBA. I love the form factor, I love the weight or lack of it on my shoulder and I love the performance.

[Tosser]

Maybe there is a battery vendor problem here, I wonder. Some people in the forums have reported excellent battery life with their SSD. I remember one person unplugged an MBA SSD in an Apple store and it showed 7 hours of battery life remaining.

I'll be interested in Ars Technica's followup investigation of the battery discrepancies.

Haha, if it really is a battery vendor problem, a lot of people will p.o'd when they have to send it back to have it fixed. So much for the "neatness" of the non-replaceable battery.

[Analog Kid]

It's already here. People are whining about the SSD's speed without thinking about what they do with their computer.

Hint: Which do you do more often - sequential writes (where SSD is slightly slower) or random reads (where SSD is something like 7-10 times as fast).

I've seen this assertion that the system performs more random reads than anything else a lot in these threads, but I haven't yet seen any real support for that assertion.

There is merit in simply improving the subjective performance even at the penalty of true performance-- Be did that with their massive threading through their UI. All those threads incurred overhead and actually reduced the available processing, but it gave the impression of a much snappier system. This is what the "I went to the Apple store and launched 6 applications at once" test demonstrates.

I think those two effects should be separated out though: getting more work done in a day versus a more pleasant feeling while that work is being done.

[Starfall]

Surely its more the fact that you'd be using the screen constantly when viewing a video, rather than not when listening to music?

Tired of people desperately trying to defend Apple......they made a sucky product. Get over it.....

Decoding an H.264 video stream is a fairly CPU-intensive task and will draw down the battery faster than, say, standard internet and word processing tasks will. So it seems inaccurate to represent "watching a few TV shows" as light to moderate usage.

[UMHurricanes34]

This is very interesting. Very interesting, indeed.

I don't think this is a short-coming of Apple, but of the SSD technology itself in it's current state.

That being said, I really don't think it's worth the outrageous prices that suppliers are selling these drives for, but hopefully the Air will move SSD in volumes and help drive prices down.

[benryu94]

well the macbook air was definently the predictednew gen laptop apple was comin out with but i really find it redundant. Yes it's so very thin and so very portable but think about losing it, dropping it. My point and hope is that apple predicted this redundancy. The sells are reflecting on it...

[ob81]

I was going to invest in the SSD. So happy I waited. I was holding off because I wasn't 100% sure that I wanted an Air, but I knew I would eventually get one. After these numbers, I would be a freaking idiot to trade my Macbook in for one.

More money to make the system comfortable, less battery life, less space, equal portability. Someone may say that the Macbook Air isn't made for me. At these specs, you are damn right. It isn't made for a lot of people.

"But it's thin!"

:rolleyes:

[plasmaflow]

I went into the Apple store and spent some time working on both models. I rebooted, launched multiple applications at once and used iPhoto. I have to say that I am definitely going to get the SSD. The Ars review states that the extra usability doesn't justify the extra $1300. I disagree.

I use my computer all the time (currently a MBP CD 2.16, 2GB ram, 100GB 7200RPM, drive, matte screen). I travel a lot with it. I use it for photos, a little programming, surfing, email, movies, and music. I also run Fusion on it with XP (have to for work). Using my computer is not a casual thing for me. It is a critical tool that I could not function without.

With respect to the SSD v. HDD models of the Air, the difference in app launching speed (in particular the Office apps) can be stark. In addition, and more importantly, the system slow down when the disk is being heavily accessed on the HDD is palpable. It isn't like the computer is slow. Rather, it is unusable for a brief time. Now it seems that the Ars reviewer thought that getting rid of this brief moment wasn't worth the $1300, and it is there that our opinions diverge.

Waiting for a tool to be ready puts the tool between you and your work. When I have to wait for my system, I have to disengage from my work. When I have to disengage from my work, I get distracted and lose my state of flow. I can't overstate how important it is to me to be able to maintain that state. It makes my work about my work and not about what I am using to get my work done. Imagine if a sculptor had to wait for his chisel to be ready for a strike. That would suck. I realize that sometimes we have to wait for a tool to be ready; technology can only move so fast. However, if you can make it so you don't have to wait, do it.

In contrast, when my system is quick and responsive, I stay focused and fluid. The computer becomes an extension of me rather than an impediment to me.

With respect to the cash, I am all about saving a buck, but spending $1800 on something that will frustrate me v. spending $3000 on something that won't isn't even a decision. I have learned that trying to save money on things that I use all the time is usually a waste of money. Many things are expensive for a good reason: they serve a need better than a lower priced alternative. In addition, if I bought the HDD, when that Word icon bounced for the 12th time and my music started to stutter because Fusion was slaying my hard drive, that extra $1300 in the bank would be cold comfort.

A couple other examples:

Luggage: I bought a Tumi travel bag about 6 years ago. I have no idea what I paid for it; I just remember that it was a lot more expensive than just about every other bag I looked at. I still use it today and love it. I have friends with crappy luggage that they have replaced 3 times in the past 6 years. And even when it was new, the straps didn't hold; the wheels were wobbly.

Knives: Have you ever used a high-quality chef's knife? It is a pleasure. My wife has an incredibly expensive set of high-quality knives because she loves to cook. The knives make her cooking experience that much more enjoyable (the knife stays out of her way and becomes an extension of her). Sure, she could probably get the job done with a set of steak knives from K-Mart, but how much would that suck?

The stuff that we buy shouldn't frustrate us or get in our way. I'm not saying that the HDD (or a duffel bag or a K-Mart steak knife ) will make everyone miserable. For a lot of users, the 1.6 HDD is perfect. For goodness sake, it is a 3 lb. slab of 3/4 inch (or less) aluminum that runs (pretty darn quickly) Mac OS X. If I were one of those users, I would happily buy it and save $1300. I just know that I'm not. I know that I will be using the computer in such a way that those system slow downs will occur and that the unresponsiveness will drive me up a wall.

The bottom line is, if I bought the HDD, after using it for a while I would feel like I wasted $1800. When I get the SSD, I won't even think about what I spent on it.

Peace.

[MayaTlab]

With my base model MBA I get 4h30 of battery life with the brightness at 40%, bluetooth off, sound off, a strong wifi connection and the MBA set to "maximum battery life".

However as soon as I go on websites which use Flash the battery life is reduced, since Apple has not yet released a decent Java driver, thus resulting in an intensive processor work.

[shadowfax]

well the macbook air was definently the predictednew gen laptop apple was comin out with but i really find it redundant. Yes it's so very thin and so very portable but think about losing it, dropping it. My point and hope is that apple predicted this redundancy. The sells are reflecting on it...

I'm confused by a lot of what you are saying, but I will say this, having damaged a laptop before: it doesn't matter if I paid $1200 for a MacBook or $2500 for a MacBook Pro, or $3100 for an MBA (or for that matter $3200 for a 1GHz TiBook in 2002), it's a sick feeling to lose/break it. And no matter what you spent on it, it's awful. I would not buy a cheaper laptop just because I thought it would be less of a loss if it were damaged/lost.

[phuong]

Perhaps what this shows is that a larger footprint laptop (say the next MBP) could usefully use both SSD and HDD. Use a small capacity SSD for the OS and a large capacity HDD for storage...

somebody already did that. he replaced the optical drive with a SSD. http://www.ryanblock.com/2007/11/the-first-macbook-pro-with-a-64gb-ssd/

[nanok]

Wirelessly posted (Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/3.1.8295/1724; sv; U; ssr))

What about drive noise, fan speed and heat? There's a LOT of talk about performance in the SSD vs. HDD debate, but for me (surfer/writer) the main attractions with the ssd would be a possibly more quiet and cooler notebook. I got a thinkpad now and I hate the hdd clicky noise, I want total silence, like the old cube - how far from silent is the ssd option?
best regards, nanok (sweden)

[TNM]

This is a weird thread....

Why do people care to criticize Apple for launching an SSD airmac. I mean... whats the big deal. Be happy that some people pay the extra for it.

It means that volume goes up. Competition increases. Prices goes down and performance improves.

I am really happy for every person buying that stuff as it means I will be able to own a laptop like an SSD which performs much better than current technology sooner.

While cheap SSDs todays only outcompetes hard drives on certain tasks, there should be little if any doubt that SSDs a few years down will outcompete harddrives on all benchmarks and should have the potential to provide even higher capacities.

As for the benchmarks, I have criticized similar benchmarks of ssd/flash based memory with regards to battery life on many occasions in the PC world. I think they forget something very important when they benchmark.

After a few months of use with lots of extra tools installed, people usually get all these programs running that does a little bit of background I/O.

Could be an IM client which downloads an advertisment every few minutes or a browser refreshing a page or maybe some application that writes to a log file or in the PC world, one of these stupid little toolbar thingies that checks new software versions.

You never notice this on performance normally because the amount of I/O is so small, but it prevents any laptop drive from falling asleep or maybe even idle properly.

Macs probably have less of a problem here than Windows laptops as there are so many ad infected utilities there and people generally install less utility programs (and apps are less bloated in general vs. the windows world), but I am pretty sure that its a problem in the mac world as well, and all it takes is a small write every minute or so and your disk will never sleep.

This seriously drains battery life but differently from what benchmarks does.

Benchmarks that does I/O also tend to use heavy processing, while most people does light weight stuff most of the time.

People usually does notice as the battery drain increases gradually over time as they install more programs.

In any case, I would bet that a frequently used SSD laptop has a more noticeably better battery life 1 year down the line.

I also agree to those that think the SSD unit is snappier. If you play with the HDD vs SSD versions in the shop, you will not notice the difference much normally as both will have frequently tested apps in cache.

Reboot at load without the cache and things are much more different. Word 2008 loaded in 1/3 of the time when I tested.

I would love to get that extra snappyness, but I will probably wait until the early adopters has bought enough units that SSD prices is down to at least half :)

Thank you to everybody buying the SSD units. I love you all!

[VicMacs]

good step towards making it a standard, what apple does best