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MacBook Air's PCIe-Based Flash Storage Approaches 800 MB/s Read and Write

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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flash_storage_icon.jpg
Aside from the "all-day" battery life that comes alongside the upgrade to Intel's Haswell processors in the new MacBook Air, one of the other major improvements is the adoption of PCIe-based flash storage for much faster performance. The new PCIe flash will also be coming to Apple's radically redesigned Mac Pro later this year, and undoubtedly other Macs as well.
Available in capacities up to 512GB, this next-generation flash storage is up to 9x faster than a traditional 5400-rpm notebook hard drive. And it's up to 45 percent faster than the flash storage in the previous-generation MacBook Air. So when you flip open MacBook Air, it's ready to go right away. Even after a month in standby mode, the screen springs to life.
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AnandTech has taken a closer look at flash storage performance and other benchmarks in the new MacBook Air, finding that read/write speeds are approaching 800 MB/s.
The drive in my system uses a Samsung controller, although I've heard that SanDisk will have a PCIe solution for Apple as well. A quick run through Quick Bench reveals peak sequential read/write performance of nearly 800MB/s.

This is a pretty big deal, as it is probably the first step towards PCIe storage in a mainstream consumer device that we've seen.
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macbook_air_2013_ssd_speed.jpg
Beyond battery life and flash storage enhancements and the shift to Haswell, Apple's new MacBook Air brings several other enhancements as well, including faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi and dual microphones for reducing background noise.

Article Link: MacBook Air's PCIe-Based Flash Storage Approaches 800 MB/s Read and Write
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/06/11/macbook-airs-pcie-based-flash-storage-approaches-800-mbs-read-and-write/
R

raejae

macrumors newbie
Aug 11, 2003
13
0
Add to the power savings: No more need for a SATA controller!

Too bad they're probably just using a stock Intel northbridge that includes it anyway.
 
Klae17

Klae17

macrumors 65816
Jul 15, 2011
1,227
1,578
I'm really trying to convince myself that I don't need this upgrade from my 2012 MacBook but the battery life and now this!
 
M

milo

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2003
6,891
522
Is there a chance the flash module is the same form factor as the upcoming Mac Pro?

OrangeSVTguy said:
That's pretty fast. The 2014-15 Airs will be faster than the unupgradable 2013 Mac pros lol.
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1.25 gigs per second > 800 megs per second

Not to mention that it might not be hard to beat a dual core cpu at 1.3 Ghz.
 
J

Jugney

macrumors member
May 6, 2008
72
22
I disagree with complaints out there that the MBA upgrades were optimized primarily for battery life, and not performance. As an example, the clock speeds were lowered to further extend battery life - keeping Geekbench performance roughly on par with last year's machines rather than providing the standard 20% improvement.

For one thing, this new Flash architecture isn't something to sneeze at.

But more importantly, I bet you anything the rMBP's are where they will look more to performance. Which only makes sense, as it would continue differentiating the two lines.

And if that's the case, going all-in for battery life is the right decision for their consumer-grade notebooks.

As an aside - 9to5mac anecdotally reports double the battery life on a 2008 MBP running Mavericks. Imagine combining those OS gains with the new Haswell machines!!!
 
Stridder44

Stridder44

macrumors 68040
Mar 24, 2003
3,973
198
California
Now THIS is a good trade-off for lack of accessibility. While the Macs in general are getting less and less accessible, doing awesome things like this (where you wouldn't be able to swap out the flash chips anyway) is A-Okay with me.
 
WilliamLondon

WilliamLondon

macrumors 68000
Dec 8, 2006
1,699
13
gibbz said:
I already lost that battle and ordered a new one :)
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Me too, just put my 2012 model 11" MBA up for sale, planning to upgrade my gen 1 Airport Extreme Base Station at the same time, hoping to see some improvement in connection speeds on home network too. Now, when this thing goes retina, what a fab machine it'll be (even more than it is already!). Love my MBA, will love the new one even more! :)
 
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