2020 MBA SSD speed test 256 vs 512 vs 1TB

[IngerMan]

From previous Apple SSD capacity, the larger the size the faster the drive 😉. I don’t have my new 2020 i5 256GB for a few weeks. I am curious how each size rates for speed on apps like Black Magic .

if you could post your results it may have some interesting reads. If you could also list your CPU i3, i5, i7 and 8 or 16 of ram.

Thank you in advance for sharing.

 

[esphil]

Heres mine with a i5/16gb/512gb.

 

[KPOM]

Heres mine with a i5/16gb/512gb.

My results are very similar with the i5/8/512 model. I also briefly had the i7/16/512 model and got similar results, so I think they are using the same SSD controller and NAND for all the models based on capacity.

 

[IngerMan]

My results are very similar with the i5/8/512 model. I also briefly had the i7/16/512 model and got similar results, so I think they are using the same SSD controller and NAND for all the models based on capacity.

interesting 1300 read and writes on the 512GB 2020 MBA. I am a little disappointed. I get 1900 writes and 2700 reads on my 2018 mac mini 500GB, I get 1800 and 1900 on my 500GB 2017 MBP. I think 1300 speeds matches my old 256GB 2016 13" MBP. By all means its nothing to sneeze at and for sure supper speeds. It just seems it would be closer to the 2017 MBP then the 2016 13"

I have a 256GB coming in a few weeks. I hope that at least runs 1300 both on read and writes. If it runs 600/1300 I might return for the 512GB.

If a member with a 2020 256GB SSD could post their results to see if it also is 1300's on both read and write would be greatly appreciated.


2017 MBP 15" 512GB ------------------------------------------------------- 2018 Mac Mini 512GB

 

[KPOM]

interesting 1300 read and writes on the 512GB 2020 MBA. I am a little disappointed. I get 1900 writes and 2700 reads on my 2018 mac mini 500GB, I get 1800 and 1900 on my 500GB 2017 MBP. I think 1300 speeds matches my old 256GB 2016 13" MBP. By all means its nothing to sneeze at and for sure supper speeds. It just seems it would be closer to the 2017 MBP then the 2016 13"

I have a 256GB coming in a few weeks. I hope that at least runs 1300 both on read and writes. If it runs 600/1300 I might return for the 512GB.

If a member with a 2020 256GB SSD could post their results to see if it also is 1300's on both read and write would be greatly appreciated.


2017 MBP 15" 512GB ------------------------------------------------------- 2018 Mac Mini 512GB
View attachment 911025View attachment 911026

The 2018 MBA actually had a faster SSD. The 2019 and 2020 drives have comparable speeds. But we got a price drop. That said, most users won’t notice the speed difference. It’s still a lot quicker than SSDs were a few years ago.

 

[IngerMan]

The 2018 MBA actually had a faster SSD. The 2019 and 2020 drives have comparable speeds. But we got a price drop. That said, most users won’t notice the speed difference. It’s still a lot quicker than SSDs were a few years ago.

I agree @KPOM , but I thought the T2 chip was supposed to have some advantage for the SSD? Maybe I got that mixed up with something else. Again 1300 is awesome. It was not that long ago I was installing 400mb/s drives thinking I hit gold. lol

 

[robots3humans0]

I consistently get just about 1000MB/s write and around 1300-1400MB/s read on an i5/8/256.

Edit: FileVault is on.

 

[IngerMan]

So it looks like the Reads are the same 256 vs 512 but like previous Apple SSD capacities the writes increase with size.

256GB = 1,000 512GB = 1,300 1TB = ? Edit tested from @throAU 1,500

 

[throAU]

i7, 16GB, 1tb - after leaving it running for several iterations.... forgot it kept going so the read may be down due to not being in cache... also have all my regular workload running so... not ideal case.

May also be worth confirming whether FileVault encryption is ON or not. Mine is ON.

 

[IngerMan]

i7, 1tb - after leaving it running for several iterations.... forgot it kept going so the read may be down due to not being in cache... also have all my regular workload running so... not ideal case.

View attachment 911047


May also be worth confirming whether FileVault encryption is ON or not. Mine is ON.

Your Writes look write 1,500 given what we seen. I am sure you can get 1300 reads or better on a good run. Thank you for sharing.

 

[throAU]

Your Writes look write 1,500 given what we seen. I am sure you can get 1300 reads or better on a good run. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the reads were up above 1200 on a few of the runs, I just clicked stop at random when I noticed it hadn't stopped by itself and was just looping.

Given the CPU is on the weedy side, results could potentially be impacted by CPU usage in the background, and i3/i5/i7 may have an impact on that if you have FileVault enabled too. Encryption isn't free

 

[deeddawg]

I have a 256GB coming in a few weeks. I hope that at least runs 1300 both on read and writes. If it runs 600/1300 I might return for the 512GB.

I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

What workflow do you have where the write-speed of 1.3 gigabytes per second vs 0.6 gigabytes per second has a real, substantial, impact on that workflow?

 

[throAU]

I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

What workflow do you have where the write-speed of 1.3 gigabytes per second vs 0.6 gigabytes per second has a real, substantial, impact on that workflow?

This.

Unless you have some super niche workflow, 500 megabytes per second is plenty. How do I know this? I have a virtual machine lab PC (desktop in my sig) with multiple drives ranging from 3GB/sec NVME to SATA3 SSD and in general use they are difficult to tell apart.

What is more important for most people is IOPs (how many random accesses per second) rather than max data rate, and most SSDs are plenty fast enough in terms of IOPs.

 

[IngerMan]

I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

What workflow do you have where the write-speed of 1.3 gigabytes per second vs 0.6 gigabytes per second has a real, substantial, impact on that workflow?

Literally none. But when I get 2x the speeds from my older Macs, I was not expecting the new to be far less. It’s not a deal breaker for me just a disappointment. I thought with the t2 chip the speeds would be at least equal to my 2017 MBP.

when I run off my external SSD with 450mb/s on thunderbolt, I can tell it’s not as snappy as my 2x internal.

I guess it’s a trade off and that’s some minor reasons the MBA can be priced at where it is.

 

[deeddawg]

when I run off my external SSD with 450mb/s on thunderbolt, I can tell it’s not as snappy as my 2x internal.

Understood - though you're seeing more an effect on read-speed being limited than write-speed.

Which is why I was curious - not many workflows are heavily dependent on write-speeds, and those I can think of wouldn't really apply to a Macbook Air with a 256GB SSD.

 

[throAU]

I thought with the t2 chip the speeds would be at least equal to my 2017 MBP.

SSD speed is limited by

• number of PCIe lanes from CPU to the SSD
• hardware revision / PCIe generation of the PCIe lanes
• speed of the flash / number of flash chips

number of lanes hasn't changed
generation of lanes hasn't changed (still 3.0, intel cpus aren't on PCIe 4.x yet)
number of flash chips may have changed to a smaller number for the same storage on the low end due to bigger capacity NAND chips. or maybe there's more MLC/QLC NAND in there to get more capacity for less cost.

This is why higher capacity is generally faster. More NAND chips to access in parallel. If you want faster storage the higher capacities are what to go for. lower tier amounts will often be slower due to using fewer chips.

The t2 chip has basically nothing to do with these limits, especially on the MBA/lower tier Macs where PCIe lane count and number of NAND chips (and possibly NAND quality; SLC/MLC/QLC) are the major factors.

 

[kinchee87]

I have the i7/16GB/1TB variant with FileVault off. Below is a typical run after the dials have stabilised.

 

[IngerMan]

So it look like Reads go from 1250-1400, oddly on reads the smaller SSD appears faster reads but Writes is as expected.

Reads
1TB = 1250, 512GB = 1300, 256GB = 1400.

Writes
1TB = 1550, 512GB = 1300, 256GB = 1000

 

[throAU]

Given that black magic is doing random reads across the entire ssd it could be that the smaller drive is reading a smaller amount of SSD (because it’s smaller) and a gets a higher percentage of cache hits either in ram or SSD cache because of that.

 

[kinchee87]

I have the i7/16GB/1TB variant with FileVault off. Below is a typical run after the dials have stabilised.
View attachment 911163

My previous test used the 5GB setting, but I just changed it to 1GB and now I'm getting much faster write speeds:

 

[IngerMan]

My previous test used the 5GB setting, but I just changed it to 1GB and now I'm getting much faster write speeds:

View attachment 911674

That’s impressive. If we could have the rest set the limit at 1GB and share.