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Imac 2017 Speed of Internal SSD vs. Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1

Ylan

Ylan

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 27, 2016
46
7
Stockholm
I believe I've read or heard that the internal SSD's in the new iMacs are several times faster than what you can get from an external SSD. Does anyone have any numbers on this?

I'm asking since Apple's prices for SSD's are, if not exorbitant, at least rather expensive.

On the other hand, external fast SSD's aren't cheap either, and slower.

So the question is, how much slower? How much cheaper?

Humbly, Ylan
 
This batch of iMacs uses SSD that can achieve 2000MB/s read and write, the only comparable 3rd products out there are Samsung 960 connected directly to a PC mother board.

External SSDs kind of suffer from interface standard, allocated PCI lanes, and various overhead in the chain. A single SSD over USB-C like the Samsung T3 gives like 400MB/s. To get anywhere close to the 2000 speed you need 4+ bay enclosure in stripped config over Thunderbolt 3.
 
Chancha said:
This batch of iMacs uses SSD that can achieve 2000MB/s read and write, the only comparable 3rd products out there are Samsung 960 connected directly to a PC mother board.

External SSDs kind of suffer from interface standard, allocated PCI lanes, and various overhead in the chain. A single SSD over USB-C like the Samsung T3 gives like 400MB/s. To get anywhere close to the 2000 speed you need 4+ bay enclosure in stripped config over Thunderbolt 3.
Click to expand...

Which would mean that i speed is of the essence, it won't be cheaper to runexternal.

Humbly, Ylan
 
Ylan said:
Which would mean that i speed is of the essence, it won't be cheaper to runexternal.

Humbly, Ylan
Click to expand...
In other words, the price that Apple BTO SSD while rather high, they at least are giving us highest calibre performance among comsumer available alternatives for pretty similar price (which cannot be said the same with RAM upgrades). The question is if the user really need the performance, and if so, it would cost the same if not more to achieve that via external alternatives.

Also, due to the relative difficulty of internal storage upgrades later yourself, it is generally best to choose more than what you need now.
 
Chancha said:
In other words, the price that Apple BTO SSD while rather high, they at least are giving us highest calibre performance among comsumer available alternatives for pretty similar price (which cannot be said the same with RAM upgrades). The question is if the user really need the performance, and if so, it would cost the same if not more to achieve that via external alternatives.

Also, due to the relative difficulty of internal storage upgrades later yourself, it is generally best to choose more than what you need now.
Click to expand...
I look at it not so much as needing the additional performance, but not having to deal with clunky and potentially temperamental external add-ons. So I always try to get as much as possible internally within budget.

This time I went with an internal 1 TB SSD. 512 didn't really help me because it didn't provide much advantage over 256 in a practical sense due to the size of my Photos library, etc. With either 256 or 512 GB, I'd have to move that folder off the internal drive, so I went 1 TB. I even considered 2 TB, but that was getting too costly, but in my case it was moot anyway because Apple doesn't allow us the 2 TB SSD unless you get the Radeon Pro 580.

When I thought about it though it wasn't actually THAT costly. An internal 2 TB SSD would cost another CAD$864 over the 1 TB SSD. Yeah, that's a lot of money, but a name brand USBC 1 TB SSD with 1/5th the performance costs about CAD$550-590 from a reputable store with a good return policy, so the price premium to get quintuple the speed and not have to deal with the issues associated with external drives was only about CAD$300, which is about US$230.
 
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EugW said:
When I thought about it though it wasn't actually THAT costly. An internal 2 TB SSD would cost another CAD$864 over the 1 TB SSD. Yeah, that's a lot of money, but a name brand USBC 1 TB SSD with 1/5th the performance costs about CAD$550-590 from a reputable store with a good return policy, so the price premium to get quintuple the speed and not have to deal with the issues associated with external drives was only about CAD$300, which is about US$230.
Click to expand...

I agree. I've been flirting with getting a 2 TB SSD just because the price difference while high isn't as much as some make it out to be. On top of this a 2 TB SSD will fetch a good bit of money if you decided to sell your iMac in 4 years. You can't unload used externals for much(at least that i am aware of). Not saying the 2 TB ssd is a good investment but it's not completely crazy.
 
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