Is MBA the right machine if I do lots of file write/delete?

[pkiula]

Hi. I'm in a profession where we produce massive 3D files, sometimes in video format, which need to be on my computer for demo purposes. Almost all the MB Pros I've had in the last 5-6 years have slowed down considerably after just 9-10 months of use (and all the "defrag" software are basically useless).

My worry is that the MBA will in fact be worse for wear after some time if the SSD disk had a lot being written to it, and then deleted week after week?

Thanks for any tips/advice.

 

[thelookingglass]

Hi. I'm in a profession where we produce massive 3D files, sometimes in video format, which need to be on my computer for demo purposes. Almost all the MB Pros I've had in the last 5-6 years have slowed down considerably after just 9-10 months of use (and all the "defrag" software are basically useless).

My worry is that the MBA will in fact be worse for wear after some time if the SSD disk had a lot being written to it, and then deleted week after week?

Thanks for any tips/advice.

Not something to worry about. Your computer is constantly reading/writing on the SSD, regardless of how big your files are. If your concern were valid, those of us with big iTunes libraries would have to really watch our consumption and media management habits. But, we don't and our computers still run fine.

 

[B...]

SSDs last 7-20+ years with 10GB of writes a day. Anandtech has a chart. Small SSDs last shorter than large ones.

 

[blesscheese]

SSDs last 7-20+ years with 20GB of writes a day. Anandtech has a chart. Small SSDs last shorter than large ones.

^ what he said.

On a related note, I first worried about this issue with my Newton 2100's and my 16MB flash cards...so I took real good care of them, didn't surf the 'net much (lotsa read/writes with the cache files, etc.).

Well, here it is in 2013, and I still have my Newton and 16MB flash cards, everything still works fine, and I'm thinking I could have lived on the edge more back in '99 and '00.

 

[techn0lady]

File writes and deletes do not slow a hard disk down let alone an ssd. If your machines have "slowed down" then some other factor is at play.

Macs don't need to be defragged as the OS takes care of sector placement automatically.

 

[mayuka]

SSDs last 7-20+ years with 10GB of writes a day. Anandtech has a chart. Small SSDs last shorter than large ones.

That's not true. The numbers you present account for SLC NAND flash. However, the technology used in current Apple products (and most consumer flash drives) is based on MLC NAND. You can expect a life-span of 3-6 years instead!

Large SSDs do not necessarily last longer than small ones. It all depends on the amount of free space available.

 

[Mrbobb]

and all the "defrag" software are basically useless

Air's solid state drive doesn't need defrag because there is no RW head. It should perform pretty much consistently until it wears out and i have no data on that.