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Is the toshiba SSD really that bad?

M

macguy360

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
I just bought an 11" macbook air from best buy yesterday and I came home to set it up and found out I got the toshiba ssd.

I was wondering if it is really worth it to go ahead and return it or if I won't really notice a huge difference.

I will be using the macbook for college work like typing, making power points and some small video editing using iMovie.

Thanks for your response.
 
The difference between the two is negligible in real world. People are way too concerned about this whole SSD thing.
 
Thanks hellhammer. So far it seems like it is really fast and I don't notice any issues with it.
 
Ridiculous....this board is ripe with two new viruses:

SSD mfr hypochondria
Display mfr hypochondria

oh yeah a new one:

"My batt is only at 96% hypochondria"


for god sakes people, go play outside for while, it's summer...😀😀
 
Yes I care about this, because I am a customer.

What about this, next time, Apple will put a random i5 cpu in the air, 1.4Ghz and 1.6Ghz for the same price. What do you think?


macguy360 said:
I just bought an 11" macbook air from best buy yesterday and I came home to set it up and found out I got the toshiba ssd.

I was wondering if it is really worth it to go ahead and return it or if I won't really notice a huge difference.

I will be using the macbook for college work like typing, making power points and some small video editing using iMovie.

Thanks for your response.
Click to expand...
 
glen e said:
Ridiculous....this board is ripe with two new viruses:

SSD mfr hypochondria
Display mfr hypochondria

oh yeah a new one:

"My batt is only at 96% hypochondria"


for god sakes people, go play outside for while, it's summer...😀😀
Click to expand...

LOL! This made me laugh... 🙂

----------
zzz99 said:
Yes I care about this, because I am a customer.

What about this, next time, Apple will put a random i5 cpu in the air, 1.4Ghz and 1.6Ghz for the same price. What do you think?
Click to expand...

If they made the specs of the SSD a part of their product advertising (like they do with the CPUs) you would have a point.... 😛
 
You are right.

Well, I am just glad that I got the Samsung SSD this time, my 2010 mba was Toshiba.


ZBoater said:
LOL! This made me laugh... 🙂

----------



If they made the specs of the SSD a part of their product advertising (like they do with the CPUs) you would have a point.... 😛
Click to expand...
 
Not. At. All.

I have a 13" with a Toshiba SSD and a 11" with a Samsung SSD. I really can't discern a difference between the two in my everyday use as far as performance is concerned. They're both incredibly speedy.

I envy those who are going to get flawless open box MBA's on the cheap.
 
glen e said:
Ridiculous....this board is ripe with two new viruses:

SSD mfr hypochondria
Display mfr hypochondria

oh yeah a new one:

"My batt is only at 96% hypochondria"


for god sakes people, go play outside for while, it's summer...😀😀
Click to expand...

I wish I could: it's death to step outside in this furnace. 🙂
 
ZBoater said:
If they made the specs of the SSD a part of their product advertising (like they do with the CPUs) you would have a point.... 😛
Click to expand...

The silly thing is that midway through the Rev C lifecycle (July 2009 - October 2010), Apple quietly replaced the relatively slow Samsung SSD (about 1/3 of the speed of the 2010 SSD) with a faster Toshiba SSD that supports TRIM in 10.6.8 and 10.7. Yet there was virtually no outcry about that.

That move almost tripled the SSD speed. The difference between the Toshiba and Samsung SSDs now is measured in small percentages, and isn't noticeable at all in real-world usage. I had the Toshiba drive in my 2010 model and it was fine.
 
zzz99 said:
Yes I care about this, because I am a customer.

What about this, next time, Apple will put a random i5 cpu in the air, 1.4Ghz and 1.6Ghz for the same price. What do you think?
Click to expand...

Question -- how does the difference between the two SSD's affect you in real world usage? Please cite specific examples of actual differences in the time it takes to do common tasks. I'm fine with "back of the envelope" calculations.

I'm trying to understand in what situations the SSD is the bottleneck and actually creates a perceptible delay from one model to the other.

The CPU example is a straw-man and is not comparable.
 
KPOM said:
The silly thing is that midway through the Rev C lifecycle (July 2009 - October 2010), Apple quietly replaced the relatively slow Samsung SSD (about 1/3 of the speed of the 2010 SSD) with a faster Toshiba SSD that supports TRIM in 10.6.8 and 10.7. Yet there was virtually no outcry about that.

That move almost tripled the SSD speed. The difference between the Toshiba and Samsung SSDs now is measured in small percentages, and isn't noticeable at all in real-world usage. I had the Toshiba drive in my 2010 model and it was fine.
Click to expand...

50% is not small percentages, the samsung is faster by as much in some test.

deeddawg said:
Question -- how does the difference between the two SSD's affect you in real world usage? Please cite specific examples of actual differences in the time it takes to do common tasks. I'm fine with "back of the envelope" calculations.

I'm trying to understand in what situations the SSD is the bottleneck and actually creates a perceptible delay from one model to the other.

The CPU example is a straw-man and is not comparable.
Click to expand...

I can only think of one, if you use a pegasus R6, it'll take longer to copy from/to the air with the toshiba.
 
jsolares said:
50% is not small percentages, the samsung is faster by as much in some test.
Click to expand...

I ran Xbench on both (I own both) and the difference is less than 10%. And I can only tell reading the results, because nothing else I do on either machine reveals to me which is which.
 
jsolares said:
50% is not small percentages, the samsung is faster by as much in some test.
Click to expand...

It's closer to 25% or less in most of the tests I've seen.

http://9to5mac.com/2011/04/16/apple...r-samsung-ssds-for-new-macbook-air-shipments/

The next big leap will come with SATA 3.0 SSDs capable of 6GB/s. I think the ASUS UX21 and UX31 may ship with those drives. Those would be noticeably faster than either the Toshiba or Samsung drives. I've heard that the MacBook Air controller is capable of accepting SATA 3.0, so it's entirely possible we'll see these drives added mid-stream, just as we saw the Samsung drives added mid-stream into the 2010 MacBook Air, and the Toshiba SSD added mid-stream into the 2009 MacBook Air.
 
KPOM said:
It's closer to 25% or less in most of the tests I've seen.

http://9to5mac.com/2011/04/16/apple...r-samsung-ssds-for-new-macbook-air-shipments/

The next big leap will come with SATA 3.0 SSDs capable of 6GB/s. I think the ASUS UX21 and UX31 may ship with those drives. Those would be noticeably faster than either the Toshiba or Samsung drives. I've heard that the MacBook Air controller is capable of accepting SATA 3.0, so it's entirely possible we'll see these drives added mid-stream, just as we saw the Samsung drives added mid-stream into the 2010 MacBook Air, and the Toshiba SSD added mid-stream into the 2009 MacBook Air.
Click to expand...

Samsung even has a new SATA 6Gb/s controller which is good for up to 500MB/s.
 
ZBoater said:
I ran Xbench on both (I own both) and the difference is less than 10%. And I can only tell reading the results, because nothing else I do on either machine reveals to me which is which.
Click to expand...

Sequential Write 4k:
277MB/s vs 198MB/s = 39.9% samsung advantage

Sequential Write 256k:
185.22MB/s vs 173.21MB/s = 7% samsung advantage

Sequential Read 4k:
29.50MB/s vs 34.51MB/s = 17% toshiba advantage

Sequential Read 256k:
209.65MB/s vs 210.91MB/s = 0.6% toshiba advantage

Random (same order as above)
84.58 vs 52.51 = 61% samsung advantage
193.31 vs 215.02 = 11% toshiba advantage
12.39 vs 15.59 = 25.8% toshiba advantage
160.80 vs 112.09 = 43% samsung advantage

Unless you're plugging in something to the thunderbolt port that can take advantage of the speed the difference becomes moot, usb and wifi will be the bottleneck and both are slower than what either drive is capable of.

----------
KPOM said:
It's closer to 25% or less in most of the tests I've seen.

http://9to5mac.com/2011/04/16/apple...r-samsung-ssds-for-new-macbook-air-shipments/

The next big leap will come with SATA 3.0 SSDs capable of 6GB/s. I think the ASUS UX21 and UX31 may ship with those drives. Those would be noticeably faster than either the Toshiba or Samsung drives. I've heard that the MacBook Air controller is capable of accepting SATA 3.0, so it's entirely possible we'll see these drives added mid-stream, just as we saw the Samsung drives added mid-stream into the 2010 MacBook Air, and the Toshiba SSD added mid-stream into the 2009 MacBook Air.
Click to expand...

I wonder when those drives will come to the Air, probably silent upgrade, hopefully my ssd dies within applecare and after those are the norm XD

In the mean time i'm pretty happy with the performance of the toshiba ssd and the lg screen
 
Nice thread. thanks for the info. Before i got my 11" ultimate I had been reading these and getting worried about which ssd i would get. of course when i checked i had the toshiba. in the end i decided to just keep it. after 3 hours of migration assistant why the hell bother with trading it in for another in the hopes of some mythical real world advantage. For what i use mine for i don't see that it would be worth it. maybe for someone out there but not for me.
if i even keep this laptop for more than 2 years i can always upgrade to the newest SSD that will be available
 
jsolares said:
Sequential Write 4k:
277MB/s vs 198MB/s = 39.9% samsung advantage

Sequential Write 256k:
185.22MB/s vs 173.21MB/s = 7% samsung advantage

Sequential Read 4k:
29.50MB/s vs 34.51MB/s = 17% toshiba advantage

Sequential Read 256k:
209.65MB/s vs 210.91MB/s = 0.6% toshiba advantage

Random (same order as above)
84.58 vs 52.51 = 61% samsung advantage
193.31 vs 215.02 = 11% toshiba advantage
12.39 vs 15.59 = 25.8% toshiba advantage
160.80 vs 112.09 = 43% samsung advantage
Click to expand...

So what do these results mean? From the bleachers it looks like give or take the same thing. One is faster here, the other is faster there. Nothing that any user would notice unless they were timing it with a very good stopwatch....
 
ZBoater said:
So what do these results mean? From the bleachers it looks like give or take the same thing. One is faster here, the other is faster there. Nothing that any user would notice unless they were timing it with a very good stopwatch....
Click to expand...

That's the point.
 
ZBoater said:
So what do these results mean? From the bleachers it looks like give or take the same thing. One is faster here, the other is faster there. Nothing that any user would notice unless they were timing it with a very good stopwatch....
Click to expand...

It probably only matters if you're editing video or something like that, for most users the difference will be 0.5s or less and who's going to notice that?
 
mikethebigo said:
That's the point.
Click to expand...

homer_doh.png


Don't mind me then... 😀
 
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