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Apple's 2019 256GB MacBook Air Includes Slower SSD Than 2018 Model

Elyzien said:
Nice to see logic and brains make a comment for once.
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That's why is drives me nuts when Apple is pushing these super fast SSD's and people that buy them are bragging about their blackmagic disk scores ... when in real world use, there's little to no benefit of a 500 MB/s SSD vs a 2000 MB/s SSD.

I've used Macs with both speeds side by side and boot times, application launch times, file copying times are all virtually indistinguishable.
 
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Since the new line-up I believe the best value MBP 13" is the 2017 model in the refurbstore. For the same price as. the new 2019 base model you get: 256GB SSD upgrade, 16GB RAM upgrade, no Touch Bar, two fans, decent specs, faster SSD and $140 to spare.

Sure that model would have a slower processor but I think it's a more balanced computer for the average persons need.
 
ETJ said:
It's the same with the new 2019 MBP (vs the old non-touchbar), the SSD for 256GB is somewhat slower. I looked at several youtube tests (running Blackmagic Speed Test) of these models. The new 2019 MBP is around 200-300MB/s slower, so they must have changed something with this line-up.
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So where will you see that in every day usage? opening webpages? web? videos?
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BigBoy2018 said:
That's why is drives me nuts when Apple is pushing these super fast SSD's and people that buy them are bragging about their blackmagic disk scores ... when in real world use, there's little to no benefit of a 500 GB/s SSD vs a 2000 GB/s SSD.

I've used Macs with both speeds side by side and boot times, application launch times, file copying times are all virtually indistinguishable.
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exactly, some of these people get SOO into the weeds about the data/numbers, they forget the real world experience... totally... I have both the new 2019 1.4 MBP and the 2.4 when doing normal day task, indistinguishable.... completely
 
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Pelea said:
This is good news! Even though it may be slower, I’m sure apple managed to make the ssd thinner leading to better battery life! Thank you apple for innovating as always
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Dear Polly Positive,
It's not thinner, the SSD is already memory modules soldered to the main board. I think you're picturing a 2.5" SSD drive, which haven't been in MacBooks for years.

It's slower because of the price cut. 95% of the MacBook buyers will have no idea this happened and believe they are just getting a better deal because Apple is a "good" company. Others will find out, like you have, and assume it has somehow benefited them.
 
BigBoy2018 said:
The read and write speeds of SSD's are overrated. What matters a lot more in real world use is the access times.

Pretty much ANY SSD has an access speeds 100 times that of a spinning hard drive, and that's where the real payoff is.

Only if you're copying super large files might you start to see the benefit of crazy fast read/write speeds. And even then, only if you're copying that super large file from and equally fast drive (otherwise the source drive will be the bottleneck).
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Wow. You don't see this often on Macrumors; someone talking sense and logic.
 
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MacRumors said:
Higher capacity SSDs were not tested, but may display the same slight decline in performance.
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Ok, well it's clear MR knows who their audience is.

4 benchmarks listed: one is faster in the new system, one is slower, two are the same. Headline gives unqualified "slower", and speculates without data that other devices may be slower too.
 
I don’t get why Apple didn’t just offer a configuration that could get them to a $999 price point when they first launched this new Air. That was the time to get rid of the non-retina model (or drop the price and keep it around for education only purchases).
 
There goes the defense from the cheerleaders here who frequently spout off: "Apple get's to charge higher prices for their SSDs because they're so much faster than windoze SSDs!"

Now that Apple's SSD's are about as slow as 1TB NVME SSD's going for ~$100-$125 means the ripoff continues...
 
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With only 128GB of storage faster read/write speeds won't matter that much anyways. You'll only really see a benefit from higher transfer speeds if you're moving more data than that SSD is capable of holding.

Even on my personal machine running a SATAIII SSD, the bottleneck 99% of the time isn't the SSD but whatever device I'm copying to/from.
 
KGBguy said:
Slower, sure, but it's not going to make any difference for the majority of folks. Only if you copy a large file from an equally fast drive you would notice a difference.
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Actually, if you're copying large files from an equally fast drive then this new SSD is about 10% faster.
 
Yeah but that stock price though.

The accountant king is keeping the stock price up! Such high stock price!

What else matters guys. What else?

I can't think of anything else that would matter to a technology company.

Selling old junk at high margins is AWESOME for the stock price. Forever!!

#FIRETHEACCOUNTANT
 
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SoN1NjA said:
Alright guys let’s pretend to act surprised

Those price cuts had to come from somewhere :rolleyes:
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I'm surprised that they'd skimp so much on storage when the storage tiers offered are pretty run of the mill and should easily be able to handle faster than that.

to put it in perspective. You can pick up a NVME Based 500GB SSD for retail $110 capable of 3,000+mbps sustained read/write.

this cheapening out, especially on non-replacable parts like storage is further entrenching us old Mac fanboys that the Mac is a dumpster fire right now

Edit:
i'm wondering if it's not the storage itself that's slow and the bottleneck in the Air, but the lower classed CPU they downgraded to for the 2018 air. I'ts now using a "Y" series ULV (think MacBook CPU) instead of the previous Air's generation "U" series CPU. it's slower, less cores, less cache, less overall everything and less headroom for performance.

Both of these are pretty inexcusable cheaping out though for a $1000+ laptop
 
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People are idiots when they still buy Macs from a company that clearly does not want to produce computers anymore.

All the Air got was a tiny ass sensor as an upgrade oh an da ******** SSD. Cool guys. That's awesome after a year.
 
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Given the processor is not clocked particularly high, I wonder if there will be any real world difference for load times etc. I'd be interested to see a test.
 
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