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iPad Pro Do you think there will be a noticeable difference in disk speed with 256Gb M4 iPads?

aevan

aevan

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Feb 5, 2015
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For the past three iPads, I went with 256Gb as it is more than enough. Even after years of usage and not thinking about space - I have more than 100Gb free. So, when ordering my new M4 13” iPad Pro, I went with that size.

Only now, I’ve read how this time the disk on the 256Gb model will come in a single package instead of 2x128 (similar to M2 base MacBook Airs). Do you all think there will be a noticeable impact to performance here? Not sure how much iPad swaps and how much the disk speed affects things.
 
There is certainly not going to be any impact in day-to-day use as the MacBooks didn‘t see an impact there either. And even with professional apps for video editing and such you‘re unlikely to store big amounts on the 256GB model in the first place. And with 8GiB of total memory and the apps being mobile apps suspending apps is child’s play for a SSD doing multiple GB/s. The iPad doesn’t really swap like a desktop OS, it suspends apps in the background when you don’t use them and like the iPhone is so efficient at it that you might not even know an app was suspended, closed and later reloaded. Although if all your browser tabs suddenly reload then you know it was suspended. To avoid that only more memory can help and for that you need a 1TB or 2TB model anyways.

Apple‘s hardware in iPhones and iPads is about as fast as devices of this class can be so how many chips the SSD uses is not a concern especially when the single most limiting factor is still iPadOS and the mobile apps with their limited functionality.
 
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okkibs said:
There is certainly not going to be any impact in day-to-day use as the MacBooks didn‘t see an impact there either. And even with professional apps for video editing and such you‘re unlikely to store big amounts on the 256GB model in the first place. And with 8GiB of total memory and the apps being mobile apps suspending apps is child’s play for a SSD doing multiple GB/s. The iPad doesn’t really swap like a desktop OS, it suspends apps in the background when you don’t use them and like the iPhone is so efficient at it that you might not even know an app was suspended, closed and later reloaded. Although if all your browser tabs suddenly reload then you know it was suspended. To avoid that only more memory can help and for that you need a 1TB or 2TB model anyways.

Apple‘s hardware in iPhones and iPads is about as fast as devices of this class can be so how many chips the SSD uses is not a concern especially when the single most limiting factor is still iPadOS and the mobile apps with their limited functionality.
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That was very informative. Thanks for that!
 
No one even knows if this is true, the M3 MacBook Air went back to using two chips.
Also, this originated in the M2 chip, which the iPad Pro already had, and I don’t recall any complaints about it at the Time of release.
 
Lounge vibes 05 said:
No one even knows if this is true, the M3 MacBook Air went back to using two chips.
Also, this originated in the M2 chip, which the iPad Pro already had, and I don’t recall any complaints about it at the Time of release.
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There is a mention on the Apple page that 256Gb version can't do ProRes @4K30fps, so it's probably due to slower disk speeds. Didn't know that M2 iPads also the same situation. Anyway, it probably won't affect anything noticeable. Thanks.
 
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aevan said:
There is a mention on the Apple page that 256Gb version can't do ProRes @4K30fps, so it's probably due to slower disk speeds. Didn't know that M2 iPads also the same situation. Anyway, it probably won't affect anything noticeable. Thanks.
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Same with the iPhone.
ProRes 4K/60 requires an external SSD, and 128GB are restricted to 1080P.
But I haven’t really heard of any complaints that the 128GB iPhones are significantly slower than the higher storage models.
 
Lounge vibes 05 said:
Same with the iPhone.
ProRes 4K/60 requires an external SSD, and 128GB are restricted to 1080P.
But I haven’t really heard of any complaints that the 128GB iPhones are significantly slower than the higher storage models.
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True, but iPhones don’t use swap. Still, yeah, I think it will be fine.
 
The difference will be hard to notice.

But I wouldn't spend that kind of money for something I was bothered about.
 
aevan said:
There is a mention on the Apple page that 256Gb version can't do ProRes @4K30fps, so it's probably due to slower disk speeds. Didn't know that M2 iPads also the same situation. Anyway, it probably won't affect anything noticeable. Thanks.
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I think they mean that you cannot record in ProRes 4k30 using the iPad’s camera as it will eat up the 256GB storage quick. I don’t think it’s to indicate the read/write speed of the internal SSD.
 
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mikethebigo said:
The difference will be hard to notice.

But I wouldn't spend that kind of money for something I was bothered about.
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People won’t be able to tell. What will happen is when the teardown happens and articles published, people will convince themselves they see ghosts and their pro is suddenly lagging and unusable.

They do the same thing with the Macs every year. This place is the worst about promoting mindhive mentality.
 
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aevan said:
True, but iPhones don’t use swap. Still, yeah, I think it will be fine.
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Given that swap is quite new to iPads (only introduced in iPadOS 16), is only explicitly noted to be used while in stage manager, and is only available on products with the M1 and at least 128 GB of storage, it’s unlikely many apps take much advantage of it.
Maybe they eventually will, but I think Apple needs to open up the iPads multitasking quite a bit more before it is really noticeable.
But until that day, even if it turns out the storage is slower, it’s very unlikely to be noticeable.
Unfortunate, but certainly not a dealbreaker, at least for me.
 
Lounge vibes 05 said:
Given that swap is quite new to iPads (only introduced in iPadOS 16), is only explicitly noted to be used while in stage manager, and is only available on products with the M1 and at least 128 GB of storage, it’s unlikely many apps take much advantage of it.
Maybe they eventually will, but I think Apple needs to open up the iPads multitasking quite a bit more before it is really noticeable.
But until that day, even if it turns out the storage is slower, it’s very unlikely to be noticeable.
Unfortunate, but certainly not a dealbreaker, at least for me.
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Yup, makes sense. And even on Macs (the base M2 Air) it wasn’t super noticeable in most scenarios.
 
gsal said:
I think they mean that you cannot record in ProRes 4k30 using the iPad’s camera as it will eat up the 256GB storage quick. I don’t think it’s to indicate the read/write speed of the internal SSD.
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That's not likely because with the M2 models, only the 128GB (single chip) couldn't do 4K ProRes. The 256GB could do it fine. So the 256GB size obviously isn't the issue as much as the single vs dual setup.
 
BradGD said:
That's not likely because with the M2 models, only the 128GB (single chip) couldn't do 4K ProRes. The 256GB could do it fine. So the 256GB size obviously isn't the issue as much as the single vs dual setup.
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SSD speed is not the issue. 4K30 ProRes is 6 GB per min, so it shouldn’t matter if it’s single or dual chip. In fact, Apple says even 4K60 requires only 220 MB/s write speed, and 4K30 is half the size.

However that 4K30 would exhaust a 128 GB SSD’s storage space in like 10 minutes, assuming the iPhone was already half full with the OS, apps, photos, etc. Similarly, 4K60 ProRes recording would fill up a half full 256 GB SSD in 10 minutes too.

I suspect the real reason is Apple upselling, but with storage space being a legitimate issue here.

BTW, these machines can record ProRes to external drives, as long as they are faster than 220 MB/s.

EDIT:

The 60 fps ProRes 4K files are 12 GB (!) per minute, which translates to 200 MB/s. Apple recommends a drive that can support 220 MB/s which adds a 10% cushion.

The 30 fps ProRes 4K files are 6 GB per minute, or not surprisingly 1/2 the size of the 60 fps files, which translates to 100 MB/s. If we use that same cushion percentage, that is 110 MB/s.

The “slow” M2 MacBook Air single-chip 256 GB SSD has a write speed of >1400 MB/s. The fast 512 GB model is >2800 MB/s.
 
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I didn’t buy my base model 11” M4 iPad Pro for music or video production, so I’m all good. Just gonna leave the Jazz Disk Lite speed test results for this model here for others:

Model: iPad 16,3
Capacity: 256 GB

Sequential
Read: 1651 MB/s
Write: 1497 MB/s

Random (4k)
Read: 49.88 MB/s
Write: 31.13 MB/s
 
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I made a similar thread, and the conclusion was that you won't really notice the SSD speed difference.
 
So, as expected, the read speed of the 256 GB is roughly half the 1 TB model. So, probably 1 chip (256 GB) vs. 2 or more chips. I'm a little surprised the 1 TB model didn't have a faster write speed though.

FWIW, Apple is not allowing internal recording of ProRes 4K 30 fps on the 256 GB model. It's a bit lame though, considering that @M4pro's and @iF34R's iPad Pros have similar write speeds at about 1350-1500 MB/s sequential, and ProRes 4K 30 only needs about 110 MB/s sequential anyway. I don't think this matters to most people though, since anyone shooting ProRes would be better off using an iPhone +/- external storage than this iPad Pro.
 
EugW said:
So, as expected, the read speed of the 256 GB is roughly half the 1 TB model. So, probably 1 chip (256 GB) vs. 2 or more chips. I'm a little surprised the 1 TB model didn't have a faster write speed though.
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Not necessarily. It may just be the NAND flash chips aren't dense enough to saturate the bus.
 
iF34R said:
I'd like to see which test is being used to get over 2000MB/s write speed.
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Screenshot 2024-05-16 at 12.50.53 AM.png
 
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