13" Mbp Only 1.5gb Sata ? - SOLVED!!!!!!!!!

[mmoran27]

The whole point of the digg was to sensationalize it so Apple is forced into action

To fix the damn problem or fess up to poor decision making

 

[Unprocessed1]

We don't really fact check with Apple. Apple doesn't really talk to us. But I was wrapping up from WWDC and flying from West to East coast, so just haven't had much time to sit down.

arn

I guess I was talking more about Engadet, gizmodo, etc. I'm sure they at least ask a company for comment before publishing a final account of a story.

You never know, a story gets published by a website and 12 hours later the company fixes the problem.

 

[Ruahrc]

To fix the damn problem or fess up to poor decision making

And that's called poor journalism. Grow up and be better than the other n00bs on the internets.

 

[fungus]

Boom, frontpage.

https://www.macrumors.com/2009/06/14/13-and-15-macbook-pros-have-a-slower-sata-interface/

 

[mmoran27]

I am not a journalist

I am a burned user like everyone else that purchased the new Macbook Slows.

 

[Richard1028]

if you work like you read forums, i don't think you'll have that job much longer

Hey, no kidding! But it's either this or that, "I've got ants in my computer!" thread over in the macbook forum.

The sad thing is I don't even own a MBP. (But I'm rootin' for you guys!)

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

Boom, frontpage.

https://www.macrumors.com/2009/06/14/13-and-15-macbook-pros-have-a-slower-sata-interface/

wahoo i guess this is as much as we can do for now and let the news spread to a many websites as possible.

 

[Unprocessed1]

I wonder why 2 people have already rated the news as positive, lol.

Arn is the man!

 

[TEBnewyork]

Thanks!

Thank you Arn.

 

[wilmor42]

Should a Santa Rosa macbook pro have a sata speed of 3.0gb/s ? mine says 1.5 ...
is there no way that 10.5.7 could have done this?

 

[Unprocessed1]

is there no way that 10.5.7 could have done this?

No because the 17 inch and MBA are using 10.5.7 also, but who knows, maybe it is just a glitch?

 

[jeme]

Interesting and not scientific at all - but I was moving some files via class 6 SD card to my new 13 inch MBP with Intel 160GB SSD and also moving them from the same SD card to my PC desktop which has a 300GB Velicoraptor 10K RPM drive (SATA 3GB Interface).

The specific files were ISO files of Office 2007 Ultimate (545KB), Windows 7 RC1 (2,471,656KB) and Vista Ultimate w/SP2 (3,167,396KB). So altogether about 5.9GB.

To try to make this as equal as possible I put the card into a a USB Sandisk MicroMate reader so that each computer was using the USB 2.0 interface.

PC moving 5.9GB from SD card to 300GB 10000RPM Velociraptor HD - 6 min 40 seconds

New MBP 13inch moving 5.9GB from SD card to 160GB Intel X25 SSD drive - 7 min 18 seconds.

Not sure what this tells us and these are large file - so for what it is worth.

Oh - this was done with Vista with SP2 on the PC and Windows 7 RC1 on the Macbook via bootcamp.

 

[aleksandra.]

Yes like I mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't think this sata cap should prevent people from buying the new mbp or install an ssd because you are still going to see some of the major benefits of it, particularly faster boot time and app loading time. even if apple releases a fix for it, the boot/app load time will be the same.

Really? So what other bottleneck there is? Because if an app opens in 8 seconds, I say there's still room for improvement. It could open in 5 with SATA 3 Gb/s, for all we know. Any time you have to wait for something to load, you'd wait less with faster data transfer. Boot time and launch times aren't binary, either slow or fast. Even if they're fast, they could be faster. It's another matter entirely whether you need it or not.

 

[panzer06]

Interesting and not scientific at all - but I was moving some files via class 6 SD card to my new 13 inch MBP with Intel 160GB SSD and also moving them from the same SD card to my PC desktop which has a 300GB Velicoraptor 10K RPM drive (SATA 3GB Interface).

The specific files were ISO files of Office 2007 Ultimate (545KB), Windows 7 RC1 (2,471,656KB) and Vista Ultimate w/SP2 (3,167,396KB). So altogether about 5.9GB.

To try to make this as equal as possible I put the card into a a USB Sandisk MicroMate reader so that each computer was using the USB 2.0 interface.

PC moving 5.9GB from SD card to 300GB 10000RPM Velociraptor HD - 6 min 40 seconds

New MBP 13inch moving 5.9GB from SD card to 160GB Intel X25 SSD drive - 7 min 18 seconds.

Not sure what this tells us and these are large file - so for what it is worth.

Oh - this was done with Vista with SP2 on the PC and Windows 7 RC1 on the Macbook via bootcamp.

Isn't the primary benefit of the SSD technology available on sequential reads and reads in general? I know the specs always show 2 very different numbers for both.

Your test is geared toward sequential writes which would be slower on the SSD.

Cheers,

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

Really? So what other bottleneck there is? Because if an app opens in 8 seconds, I say there's still room for improvement. It could open in 5 with SATA 3 Gb/s, for all we know. Any time you have to wait for something to load, you'd wait less with faster data transfer. Boot time and launch times aren't binary, either slow or fast. Even if they're fast, they could be faster. It's another matter entirely whether you need it or not.

again, the sata interface (1.5 or 3.0) doesn't have any effect on the 'access time' of a drive. i wish i could post some hdtune results on a 13" umb vs 13" mbp, but that is one way where you'll see the actual numbers. for the actual 'access time,' it should be the same as long as you're comparing the same drive in both. i agree if an app opens in 8 seconds, there is room to improve on that time, but i think that part really depends on future drive technology. if they can somehow get access time down to 0.0, that would mean that applications would open right when you click on the icon.

i just did a quick benchmark of my ssd and access time is 0.2ms. from what i remember, hdd access was 14ms. this is why people experience faster boot/app load times.

 

[HunterMaximus]

I posted this in a related thread, but I think it needs to be reiterated here.

Okay, I think some people need to sit down and take a deep breath and consider some facts.

1. We don't know if this is intentional or an error, and if it will be fixed in a firmware update. It may be that in a week this is all moot.
2. Even for owners of the fastest SSDs, this doesn't make any real world difference. Why? Pretty simple - even if you can do 250 MB/s sequential transfers, you still need something to transfer to/from that can hit those speeds. With Gigabit Ethernet, you're hitting 100MB/s max, and almost certainly less. FW800 maxes out at 80MB/s generally. There aren't any faster interfaces available. If this were a Mac Pro where you could be transferring between multiple drives using SATA, then it would be a problem, but it's not.
   The only time that it's going to matter is if you're doing a substantial amount of copying on the same disk, or if you're somehow generating >150MB/s worth of data (in which case you're most likely doing some sort of research, and using a Mac Pro).
3. Even when you're copying on the same disk, it's very rare that it would make any real-world difference. Say for example you're copying a dual-layer DVD image (~8.5 GB). Even assuming you could copy data on the same drive at the max read rate (which obviously you can't), the difference between copying that data at 250MB/s (roughly the max read rate of a Vertex - X25-M is a little lower) and 150MB/s (max theoretical for SATA I) is 23 seconds. The real world difference will be far lower (and in fact speeds will be under the SATA I threshold, so again moot). How many people here honestly do those sorts of data transfers regularly enough that 20 seconds makes a big difference?
4. Finally, in no way does this impact the major selling point of SSDs - the random reads/writes and access times. Both are in no way constrained by the SATA bus.

Does it suck that they've decreased the spec in one specific case in a new generation of MBP? Sure. But it doesn't make any performance difference outside of benchmarks. And if you just want a machine that puts up pretty benchmarks, build a PC with desktop parts, and then go get a life.

And in reply to aleksandra, it's important to understand how the OS and programs perform disk access. When you load a program, it's not reading one big chunk of disk space, it's lots of small pieces, not necessarily in order. That's why SSDs are so much faster than HDDs in the first place - they excel in the small random access tasks. Latency (how fast a particular piece of data can be accessed) isn't limited by the SATA bus, and the small random reads and writes (that SSDs are best at) only reach around 50 MB/s for reads (i.e. 1/3 of SATA 1 speeds, and 1/6 of SATA 2), and even less for writes on the best SSDs.
The sequential speeds really only matter when operating on large files all at once, doing things like copying disk images, etc. And as explained above, there are other limiting factors for those operations.

 

[Unprocessed1]

Can anyone with a SSD and new MBP post a video of opening up applications, boot time, etc? It would be nice to see how daily life is being affected.

 

[Ruahrc]

Interesting and not scientific at all - but I was moving some files via class 6 SD card to my new 13 inch MBP with Intel 160GB SSD and also moving them from the same SD card to my PC desktop which has a 300GB Velicoraptor 10K RPM drive (SATA 3GB Interface).

The specific files were ISO files of Office 2007 Ultimate (545KB), Windows 7 RC1 (2,471,656KB) and Vista Ultimate w/SP2 (3,167,396KB). So altogether about 5.9GB.

To try to make this as equal as possible I put the card into a a USB Sandisk MicroMate reader so that each computer was using the USB 2.0 interface.

PC moving 5.9GB from SD card to 300GB 10000RPM Velociraptor HD - 6 min 40 seconds

New MBP 13inch moving 5.9GB from SD card to 160GB Intel X25 SSD drive - 7 min 18 seconds.

Not sure what this tells us and these are large file - so for what it is worth.

Oh - this was done with Vista with SP2 on the PC and Windows 7 RC1 on the Macbook via bootcamp.

All this really tells us is that the SD card reader on the MBP is slower than the MicroMate reader you used. I think in either case the speed of the transfer is limited by the SD card. Even if the SD card could be read infinitely fast the USB 2.0 interface is slower than the SATA interface (even the slower 1.5 one) therefore if the SD card could be read infinitely fast the transfer times would be the same because they would both be measuring the speed of the USB 2.0 bus.

 

[u49aa2]

I posted this in a related thread, but I think it needs to be reiterated here.


And in reply to aleksandra, it's important to understand how the OS and programs perform disk access. When you load a program, it's not reading one big chunk of disk space, it's lots of small pieces, not necessarily in order. That's why SSDs are so much faster than HDDs in the first place - they excel in the small random access tasks. Latency (how fast a particular piece of data can be accessed) isn't limited by the SATA bus, and the small random reads and writes (that SSDs are best at) only reach around 50 MB/s for reads (i.e. 1/3 of SATA 1 speeds, and 1/6 of SATA 2), and even less for writes on the best SSDs.
The sequential speeds really only matter when operating on large files all at once, doing things like copying disk images, etc. And as explained above, there are other limiting factors for those operations.

Fantastic analysis. It confirms my suspicion from the start of this thread. That people are making big fuss for a minor thing. I guess some people just like to have max specs, and they were disappointed for the spec reduction. Also many people misunderstand the function of the SATA.

 

[MacModMachine]

interesting, i ran some tests

Macbook Pro Unibody 2.4Ghz , 3gbram , x25m 80gb

Load Times

USB 2.0

Boot Time - 32 Seconds

Word - 2 seconds
Powerpoint - 2 seconds
Excel - 2 seconds
Word/powerpoint/excel - 4 seconds


SATA II

Boot Time - 14 Seconds

Word - 2 seconds
Powerpoint - 2 seconds
Excel - 2 seconds
Word/powerpoint/excel - 3 seconds


same drive using external usb 2.0 enclosure

will do it with firewire 400 and 800 also,

this shows that the usb 2.0 makes almost no difference in speeds with the x25m, aside from boot times.

i will rerun tests 3 times in a row and average results,

i think the first usb 2.0 32 second boot time was incorrect.

used a stop watch and timed from power button on.

 

[MacModMachine]

ok,,

firewire 400 - a very odd 49 seconds (tested 2 times in a row)

firewire 800 - 19 seconds (tested 2 times also)

pictures ...

 

[aleksandra.]

And in reply to aleksandra, it's important to understand how the OS and programs perform disk access. When you load a program, it's not reading one big chunk of disk space, it's lots of small pieces, not necessarily in order. That's why SSDs are so much faster than HDDs in the first place - they excel in the small random access tasks. Latency (how fast a particular piece of data can be accessed) isn't limited by the SATA bus, and the small random reads and writes (that SSDs are best at) only reach around 50 MB/s for reads (i.e. 1/3 of SATA 1 speeds, and 1/6 of SATA 2), and even less for writes on the best SSDs.
The sequential speeds really only matter when operating on large files all at once, doing things like copying disk images, etc. And as explained above, there are other limiting factors for those operations.

I understand how it works, although only basically (I'm more interested in software than hardware). As I said earlier, I didn't know what else may limit the speed. If access time would be limiting enough then I suppose there'd be no way to saturate the connection without big files. I was mostly comparing random reads with bigger chunks of data, partly because earlier someone posted results pointing to as little as 8KB being enough to saturate SATA 1.5 Gb/s connection, and applications usually contain many files bigger than that.

 

[MacModMachine]

firewire 400 boot is now 22 seconds with the oxford chipset instead of the sata link the other enclosure had.

22 seconds is better

 

[ltldrummerboy]

22 seconds is better

That sounds a lot more accurate. Thanks for posting those times.

 

[MacModMachine]

working on more apps over the several interfaces, i will do esata shortly,

i will add the following shortly

Entourage
Adobe Cs4
Imovie
Iphoto with 500 Photos
Safari 4 with 10 tabs

Leopard 10.5.5 install time