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MacBook Air's PCIe-Based Flash Storage Approaches 800 MB/s Read and Write

This was a nice little surprise that I glossed over when following on the live streams. Along with the increase in battery life, GPU & stock SSD space, it's a perfect little computer.
 
This is all very impressive but it is going to take awhile before the real world effects of these drives can be admired. A Sata III SSD at this moment in time will probably open up application just as fast as this new SSD, albeit slightly faster. I can maybe see Mavericks taking advantage in terms of boot time.
 
Klae17 said:
I'm really trying to convince myself that I don't need this upgrade from my 2012 MacBook but the battery life and now this!
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Orlandoech.com said:
Lol... I know right!? I feel the same lol. I have a 2012 rMBP and I think I will def upgrade. Damn you Apple!
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your 2012 macs are definitely going slower since yesterday, and they keep slowing down if you don't buy a new one soon, so.. move on, don't waste time!
 
Comparison/Advice

Just curious and wondering if moving from a MBA 11" mid 2011 to one of these would be a noticeably big difference aside from the longer battery life? I'll appreciate any comments + or - .
 
Stridder44 said:
Now THIS is a good trade-off for lack of accessibility. While the Macs in general are getting less and less accessible, doing awesome things like this (where you wouldn't be able to swap out the flash chips anyway) is A-Okay with me.
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That depends on what type of flash it is and how many p/e cycles it can sustain. If it is the extended life (> 10,000 p/e cycles) type, then, I'm OK with it. If it is the cheap type (1,000-3,000 p/e cycles) then I'm not OK with it; well within the system lifetime it will slow way, way down.
 
Now I'm waiting for PCIe-Based Flash Storage on MacBook Pro Retina this fall .

This crazy speed is more faster than my G-RAID with Thunderbolt test !
 
Jugney said:
I disagree with complaints out there that the MBA upgrades were optimized primarily for battery life, and not performance. As an example, the clock speeds were lowered to further extend battery life - keeping Geekbench performance roughly on par with last year's machines rather than providing the standard 20% improvement.

For one thing, this new Flash architecture isn't something to sneeze at.

But more importantly, I bet you anything the rMBP's are where they will look more to performance. Which only makes sense, as it would continue differentiating the two lines.

And if that's the case, going all-in for battery life is the right decision for their consumer-grade notebooks.

As an aside - 9to5mac anecdotally reports double the battery life on a 2008 MBP running Mavericks. Imagine combining those OS gains with the new Haswell machines!!!
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You realize you just contradicted yourself?

1. Statement: The upgrades were NOT for battery life rather than performance.
2. Evidence: SAME benchmark performance.
3. Even if it is the case, it was the right decision.

Everything you said (with the exception of the SSD bit) supported the conclusion that Haswell will offer hardly any performance benefits, with almost improvements going towards battery life.

Real world scenario, unless you're running a workload that either has extreme seqential reads or writes (not likely, since you're on a small laptop with limited storage and IO options), or copied large files to and from a TB driven SSD, you're not going to see much real-world improvement from the increased speeds here.
 
kahkityoong said:
Another person who doesn't get the concept of humour without a smiley face, the equivalent of digital canned laughter.
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kahkityoong, your joke was not funny! 😱 Don't joke about the Mac Pro, it is a sensitive topic! LOL!

I am just worried about the new Mac Pro's price?
 
raejae said:
Add to the power savings: No more need for a SATA controller!

Too bad they're probably just using a stock Intel northbridge that includes it anyway.
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Unlike the desktop/mainstream laptop Haswells, the Haswell ULT/ULX (low power laptop/tablet) processors are a single-chip design with the only supporting chip built right into the CPU package. It is almost a SOC architecture, save for the fact that not everything lives on the CPU die, but in the package.
 
I assume these write numbers are for cold flash. I'd expect it to be dog-slow if TRIM gets activated, which it increasingly will as the drive gets used.
 
Has any of the reviews mentioned anything about heat?
With a lower clock speed I guess the new Airs could be running cooler than the previous generation?
 
Exhale said:
Not seen the +2000 megabytes per second PCI-E units? Mind you, cheap is the last thing I'd call those.

Though 800 megs per sec is still damn good speed in a lightweight machine; now I just wonder what its random I/O is - as thats still the big true-performance determining factor.
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I just meant for the price point of the Air. Those are RIDICULOUSLY fast speeds for that price point.
 
Awesome, I was considering switching to a Macbook Air, but for me the resolution is far too low.
 
Still a toss-up for me between this and whatever future rMBP Apple releases. I just don't know!
 
darn it

this makes ditching the iPad very, very tempting.

Now that I've pulled my head out of the ooh shiny glory gaze of the new Mac Pro (which someone here politely and rightlysaid was too much machine for me), the upgrades in the Air laptops are very nice indeed.
 
wiz329 said:
You realize you just contradicted yourself?

1. Statement: The upgrades were NOT for battery life rather than performance.
2. Evidence: SAME benchmark performance.
3. Even if it is the case, it was the right decision.

Everything you said (with the exception of the SSD bit) supported the conclusion that Haswell will offer hardly any performance benefits, with almost improvements going towards battery life.

Real world scenario, unless you're running a workload that either has extreme seqential reads or writes (not likely, since you're on a small laptop with limited storage and IO options), or copied large files to and from a TB driven SSD, you're not going to see much real-world improvement from the increased speeds here.
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Yeah, there isn't much of a speed bump, despite the new haswell chips being clocked lower they do perform a tiny bit faster than the previous generation..

But the Intel HD 5000 graphics upgrade is going to be a noticeable one, and also the SSD and battery life are still important upgrades in my opinion.
 
This is unusually impressive stuff. I wonder if Apple will do a version of this for the next full sized iPad as an energy savings and performance enhancement effort? Hmmm.

We have near perfect clarity on the next Air 2014 update. TB2 and retina.
 
Pegamush said:
your 2012 macs are definitely going slower since yesterday, and they keep slowing down if you don't buy a new one soon, so.. move on, don't waste time!
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The RDF bubble around your machine popped... Didn't you see that part of the live stream... Thats why apple has avoided them until now... ot doesnt actually affect YOUR computer toll you know about it.

That's right before when the Apple Board go behind stage with the giant magical pin!!! And the Apple magic is passed to the new devices just released into the world.
 
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