mac mini disk speed 50MB/s ?

[sampers]

I did a speed test, to try to see what a difference an SSD would be.
but the speed test showed me a max write speed of 50MB/s.

I thought Sata and the stock HDD would be capable of faster speeds?

I tested my external lacie disk over firewire, that had speeds close to 70MB/s.

Is this normal? and what's the explanation?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Have you tried AJA System Test or Xbench* yet to benchmark your HDD?

*

 

[sampers]

not much difference, shouldn't it be faster?

 

[The-Pro]

Well my 2010 mini with the 320GB 5400rpm drive has the results in the attached screenshot. So pretty much the same.

Your external is a probably a 3.5" correct? I have several 3.5" lacie externals and they are all 7200rpm drives. Even the really cheap one I bought.
3.5" HDD's are quicker than 2.5" and also your stock mac mini HDD is 5400rpm. The external drive is a lot quicker then the your MM drive, its probably maxing out the firewire speed, and would presumably be capable of around 100MB/s connected directly through a SATA port. My 2.5" lacie little disk connected though FW800 is a 5400rpm drive and averages 55MB/s.
I haven't seen a 2.5" 5400rpm go above 70MB/s in benchmarks and above 55-60MB/s in real world usage.

The speeds you are getting from your MM is normal for a 2.5" 5400rpm HDD. The 7200rpm HDD that was in my MBP achieved a max Read 110MB/s, but was averaging about 90MB/s.

 

[philipma1957]

quick rule of thumb

2.5 inch

500gb 5400 rpm long read write maxes at 60 at the beginning of the drive

500gb 7200 rpm long read write maxes at 90

fastest 2.5 inch is wd scorpio black 750gb can run at 110 long read writes.

for 3.5 inch some 2tb can go to 150 on long read writes.

long read write numbers only offer value for cloning time.

that is to say a 2tb hdd like a caviar black filled with 450gb of info like movies will clone way faster then a 500gb 5400 rpm mac mini internal hdd filled with 450gb of movies. clone time may be 1 hour vs 3 hours in this example.

most hdds are slow as molasses when writing and reading small files. .5mb to 2mb is common. that is why ssds seem really quick opening and closing programs.

 

[sampers]

wow, thanks for the great reply's!

so if i understand it correctly, i'm better off keeping my video's on an external 3,5" firewire 800 disk. and an SSD should be what's really inside my mini.
maybe along with a 7200 2,5" drive?

and if I boot from external disk, there wouldn't be much difference?


btw, can a Sata-to-CF be interesting for something?

 

[The-Pro]

wow, thanks for the great reply's!

so if i understand it correctly, i'm better off keeping my video's on an external 3,5" firewire 800 disk. and an SSD should be what's really inside my mini.
maybe along with a 7200 2,5" drive?

and if I boot from external disk, there wouldn't be much difference?


btw, can a Sata-to-CF be interesting for something?

yep, keep large files like videos on an external so your internal int cluttered full of stuff. You can, if you want, change the location of your iTunes library to your external so to again save space, but thats not too important unless you have like a 300GB iTunes library
SSD would be great, just a small one, around 60-80GB for the OS and applications. A 7200rpm drive in addition to the SSD inside the mini would be nice but then you would only benefit of the speed of the 7200rpm drive when transferring files to it, from the external or SSD, or from it. You wouldn't notice a difference from your current 5400rpm for the normal opening of files. So buying 7200rpm would be a waste of money in my opinion if you can just use the current HDD as a secondary to an SSD.

I dont think there would be a really noticeable speed difference as the FW 800 is being maxed out by the drive and is only a little bit faster than the internal. You can try it out but I, personally wouldn't bother. Your mini should be booting in like 1 minute, thats not horribly long

 

[sampers]

yeah absolutely true! I was just asking, now that i've opened a thread anyway.

I've had my iTunes library on my external disk, because i do have a 100GB music library and on my old iMac i just had an internal 250GB disk.
But now i'd like to keep my iTunes in the machine. I take my mini with me everyday to work, and when i have some spare time, i add some music of the old library and put in the correct artwork and info.

So I'm gonna move my movies and series on the external disk.

Am i correct if i state an eSata connected 3,5" e.g. 2TB disk would be the fastest a HDD can be?
I would love to see some thunderbolt hub with an eSata connection.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

yeah absolutely true! I was just asking, now that i've opened a thread anyway.

I've had my iTunes library on my external disk, because i do have a 100GB music library and on my old iMac i just had an internal 250GB disk.
But now i'd like to keep my iTunes in the machine. I take my mini with me everyday to work, and when i have some spare time, i add some music of the old library and put in the correct artwork and info.

So I'm gonna move my movies and series on the external disk.

Am i correct if i state an eSata connected 3,5" e.g. 2TB disk would be the fastest a HDD can be?
I would love to see some thunderbolt hub with an eSata connection.

The Mac mini or any other Mac, doesn't come with an eSATA port, it can only be added to the Mac Pro or PowerMac or Macs with ExpressCard slots.
While copying via eSATA is faster than FW800, FW800 should more than suffice for playing back entertainment media. Even USB 2.0 is fast enough for that. Only the copying process will take a while longer.

 

[sampers]

yeah, that i do know;

I actually bought the external disk because it has firewire 800, and I used to edit videos on the disk. Now I don't really edit at home anymore, but I found it weird that my internal disk wasn't faster. Never came up my mind that it was slower, but now i see it's logical