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OWC Shares Mid-2014 Retina MacBook Pro Unboxing, SSD Tests

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Following this morning's release of Retina MacBook Pros with improved Haswell processors, OWC has procured both the entry-level 13-inch and and the entry-level 15-inch 2014 Retina MacBook Pro and provided a gallery of unboxing photos featuring the new devices.

As expected, the packaging on the updated versions is the same as previous-generation Retina MacBook Pros. The site did a quick teardown as well, revealing the internals of the new machines, which also appear unchanged.

retinamacbookpro13.jpg
Internal view of the mid-2014 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro​

OWC also conducted some speed tests on the solid state drives of the two machines, testing the 128 GB drive of the entry-level 13-inch version and the 256 GB drive of the entry-level 15-inch model using QuickBench 4.0.

With the standard QuickBench 4.0 test, the 15-inch machine (equipped with a Samsung SSD) saw top random read/write speeds of 524/567 MB/s, and top sequential read/write speeds of 584/555 MB/s. Large tests saw read/write speeds of 741/714 MB/s.

mbpr_15_2014_ssd.gif

The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, meanwhile, saw top random read/write speeds of 438/310 MB/s and top sequential read/write speeds of 593/547 MB/s with its Marvell-controlled SanDisk SSD using the standard test. Large tests saw read/write speeds of 723/374 MB/s.

mbpr_13_2014_ssd.gif

Launched earlier today, the new Retina MacBook Pros feature upgraded Haswell processors, more standard RAM for entry-level machines (8 GB for the 13-inch model, 16 GB for the 15-inch model) and a $100 price cut for the high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. The refreshed Retina MacBook Pros are available at Apple retail stores and in its online store.

For the full array of unboxing and teardown images, make sure to check out OWC's blog post.

Update 7/30: This post has been updated to reflect additional disk speed tests conducted by OWC.

Article Link: OWC Shares Mid-2014 Retina MacBook Pro Unboxing, SSD Tests
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/29/mid-2014-retina-macbook-pro-ssd-test/
Last edited:
O

OzyOly

macrumors 6502a
Jun 3, 2009
777
140
Is it me or does the 13" pciSSD perform much less than a budget Samsung Evo?
 
O

OzyOly

macrumors 6502a
Jun 3, 2009
777
140
ValSalva said:
The low end PCIe SSD's are often under-performers. It seems like only the 512GB and 1TB PCIe SSD's take advantage of the wider PCIe bus.
Click to expand...

If I knew my 256GB would be slower than a £90 samsung SATA III SSD I would have upgraded to the 512GB model. :(
 
K

kwikdeth

macrumors 65816
Feb 25, 2003
1,141
1,714
Tempe, AZ
Is it just me are these supposedly "superior" flash drives actually fairly poor? My neutron gtx ssd in my 2010 macbook still posts scores after 2 years of use that absolutely smoke these...
 
R

Rayd5365

macrumors member
Aug 31, 2010
74
162
Because of the way the write, larger SSD's are pretty much ALWAYS much faster than smaller ones, even when they are otherwise identical.
The larger ones have more banks of memory and when the writes are spread across multiple banks, speed goes up dramatically.
 
O

OzyOly

macrumors 6502a
Jun 3, 2009
777
140
Rayd5365 said:
Because of the way the write, larger SSD's are pretty much ALWAYS much faster than smaller ones, even when they are otherwise identical.
The larger ones have more banks of memory and when the writes are spread across multiple banks, speed goes up dramatically.
Click to expand...

I was comparing to an equal sized drive (with a different controller).
I think I might have to import an OWC drive...
 
Peel

Peel

macrumors 6502a
Aug 30, 2004
579
89
Seattle
Granted I'm not that familiar with how SSDs perform their reads/writes vis-a-vis against magnetic media, but the numbers cited in the article seem a little suspect:

Code: 
             R-Read       R-Write         S-Read       S-Write
256GB        194           322             262           245
128GB        165           131             263           244
How is a Random Write faster than anything else?
 
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
OzyOly said:
Is it me or does the 13" pciSSD perform much less than a budget Samsung Evo?
Click to expand...

These are random reads and writes. In sequential read and write, the SanDisk 256GB SSDs in the 13" get 700MB/s read and 550MB/s write.

The 256GB in the 15" is Samsung, which clocks in at 720MB/s read and 650MB/s write.

These figures were obtained off some machines that I have, with SD0256F and SM0256F drives.

All 512GB and 1TB drives are Samsung only.
 
O

OzyOly

macrumors 6502a
Jun 3, 2009
777
140
yjchua95 said:
These are random reads and writes. In sequential read and write, the SanDisk 256GB SSDs in the 13" get 700MB/s read and 550MB/s write.

The 256GB in the 15" is Samsung, which clocks in at 720MB/s read and 650MB/s write.

These figures were obtained off some machines that I have, with SD0256F and SM0256F drives.

All 512GB and 1TB drives are Samsung only.
Click to expand...

Cheers buddy. :) I might call apple and cancel my order for a 512GB drive. ;)
 
PocketSand11

PocketSand11

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2014
688
1
~/
This is why I don't upgrade my Macs with SSDs. Whatever eSATA (EDIT: I mean SATA) SSD I get will still be lame compared to these awesome PCIe SSDs and will probably cost around the same (high) price. One day, I'll just buy whatever is the latest Mac, and it'll be ridiculously fast by that time.
 
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M

Mac.User

macrumors 6502
Aug 25, 2013
348
6
PocketSand11 said:
This is why I don't upgrade my Macs with SSDs. Whatever eSATA SSD I get will still be lame compared to these awesome PCIe SSDs and will probably cost around the same (high) price. One day, I'll just buy whatever is the latest Mac, and it'll be ridiculously fast by that time.
Click to expand...

esata? Why would you get an external sata drive for an upgrade and compare it to an internal drive?
 
stiligFox

stiligFox

macrumors 65816
Apr 24, 2009
1,483
1,328
10.0.1.3
Does anyone know if the motherboard has been updated to the Z97/H97 type? I haven't seen anything about that yet.
 
D

Dayadan

macrumors newbie
Jul 29, 2014
3
0
Not sure if I can compared these tests with my blackmagic disk test results, but the speeds I'm getting on my late 2013 13" Macbook Pro retina is around 710mMB/s+ writes and 720MB/s+ reads. Just bought it 3 weeks ago so the disk is pretty fresh.
 
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jclo

jclo

Managing Editor
Staff member
Dec 7, 2012
1,971
4,305
Dayadan said:
Not sure if I can compared these tests with my blackmagic disk test results, but the speeds I'm getting on my late 2013 13" Macbook Pro retina is around 710mMB/s+ writes and 720MB/s+ reads. Just bought it 3 weeks ago so the disk is pretty fresh.
Click to expand...

I don't think the two tests are comparable. From what I understand, Blackmagic measures the read/write speeds of large chunks of data while this QuickBench test is measuring the read/write speeds of smaller chunks of data.
 
macduke

macduke

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,141
19,677
Away from my MacBook now, but I could have sworn my 2012 rMBP had reads around 400MB/s and writes around 500MB/s.
 
J

JamesInLA

macrumors member
May 28, 2012
47
43
So can we reasonably assume that the 256 and 512 GB drives in the new 13" will have the better performance seen here in the 15"/256?
 
HiRez

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,250
2,576
Western US
Why does my 2011 MacBook Air get better SSD performance than a 2014 MacBook "Pro"? That's just not right.
 
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