More SSD and HDD Comparisons and Testing Methodology

[MacRumors]

Walt Mossberg weighs in on the Solid State Drive (SSD) vs Hard Disk Drive (HDD) debate. The issue has become relevant now that Apple offers a SSD option on the MacBook Air, and this feature will certainly trickle down to future Apple laptops.

An earlier comparison from Arstechnica was difficult to interpret due to differences in machines (1.6GHz vs 1.8GHz) and non-standardized testing.

Mossberg offers at least one piece of standardized data on the SSD vs HDD comparison in the MacBook Air. He compared two 1.6GHz processor MacBook Airs which only differed in the type of hard drive (SSD vs HDD) and ran a standardized test case: "turn off all power-saving software, set screen brightness to maximum, turn on the Wi-Fi and play an endless loop of music."

As always these tests come with some considerations. After some investigation, it appears that iTunes explicitly turns off Mac OS X's file caching, so the drives are being accessed with regularity in this test. This drive access, however, is small and sequential which does not take advantage of SSD's strengths (random non-sequential). With these notes in mind, the results of the test revealed almost no difference (5 minutes in favor of SSD).

Not all SSDs, HDDs and laptops are made equally, however. Mossberg also compared a Toshiba Portege R500 with a 1.8" HDD and a 1.8" SSD drive. In the same test, Mossberg found the Portege R500 ran 1 hour and 21 minutes (36%) longer with the SSD. Now, the reason for this large difference is unclear. Update/Correction: the Toshiba also uses the 1.8" drive, not the 2.5" drive previously reported here.

Similarly, MacLife found that the 32GB DVNation SSD drive installed in a MacBook Pro saw 55% increased write speeds and 88% increased read speeds compared to the stock HDD. They also saw similarly dramatic speed increases in "real world" tasks as well as a 14% battery life gain with the SSD drive.

As a result of these discrepant findings, the SSD vs HDD debate will likely be reintroduced with every new laptop introduced, as findings seem to vary by individual model and task. At this point, however, it seems the accepted advantages for the SSD drive in the MacBook Air is a more responsive user experience, and less vulnerability to data loss.

Article Link

 

[deathshrub]

As a result of these discrepant findings, the SSD vs HDD debate will likely be reintroduced with every new laptop introduced

Gee, that sounds like it will be fun.

Edit: @Shingo: Massive fail.

 

[Gunga Din]

Woo Hoo!

If people have to go to this much trouble to decide which drive is better, than obviously SSD is not worth it. Its gotta be clear cut or to me SSD is a scam at this point to get more money out of our pockets. Now don't get me wrong, one day i'm sure it will SSD FTW but not right now.

I mean, how can there be a debate about a $1000 f ing upgrade?

 

[nagromme]

Clear cut?

An SSD has no moving parts. That's VERY clear cut. Reliability is the biggest reason I would want SSD.

Speed and battery life have not YET been measured adequately, but that will come. Meanwhile I don't think "scam" is justified.

And yes it's expensive--it's new technology, worth it to only a few. As prices drop it will be worth it to more. Nothing unusual about that pattern.

 

[AppleMojo]

If people have to go to this much trouble to decide which drive is better, than obviously SSD is not worth it. Its gotta be clear cut or to me SSD is a scam at this point to get more money out of our pockets. Now don't get me wrong, one day i'm sure it will SSD FTW but not right now.

I mean, how can there be a debate about a $1000 f ing upgrade?

Your last statement is accurate. It's obvious that SSD is a better all around and future technology. The benefits out weigh current storage mechanisms in nearly every aspect.

Why these comparisons pop-up, is simply because of the $ issue. Many folk are trying to find out if the $1000.00 is justified in general purpose use of the notebook.

In all actuality, at this price point SSD is just a novelty item and not really a luxury, as it isn't proven to be a serious performance contender.

When SSD capacities increase and cost reflects it appropriately, the benefits are then more obvious.

 

[bdkennedy1]

I'm about 80% done with hearing about the drive comparisons on Air Books. There's no major difference between the two drives except the price. Move on.

 

[kskill]

If people have to go to this much trouble to decide which drive is better, than obviously SSD is not worth it. Its gotta be clear cut or to me SSD is a scam at this point to get more money out of our pockets. Now don't get me wrong, one day i'm sure it will SSD FTW but not right now.

I mean, how can there be a debate about a $1000 f ing upgrade?

i feel like there's more hype about SSD than there is demand.

 

[Gunga Din]

Clear cut?

An SSD has no moving parts. That's VERY clear cut. Reliability is the biggest reason I would want SSD.

Speed and battery life have not YET been measured adequately, but that will come. Meanwhile I don't think "scam" is justified.

And yes it's expensive--it's new technology, worth it to only a few. As prices drop it will be worth it to more. Nothing unusual about that pattern.

Tech and business are a scam. Releasing things before they are ready for mainstream and charging outrageous prices. I agree with you, wait and it will be worth it. I've just never like this pattern. Same thing with HD tv's when they were going for 7k and had zero content for yrs. Just think about 1080P HD, to get that via cable , satellite or over the air , you will have to wait at least 3-4 yrs for them to change everything. The only way to get 1080P content is to purchase a HD player that can display at that format.

So, you would want to buy a 1080P set in 3-4 yrs not pay extra for tech you don't need. Samething with the SSD. Waiting a yr or 2 and boom, your gonna be set. Guess I just don't need the latest and greatest or don't have as much $$ as some. So, I have to target my purchases at the right time.

 

[asdavis10]

I understand that for people who can't afford the extra $999, the HDD option is the only choice. But if you can afford it, why would you want your data being stored on a 1.8" iPod drive. Those drives crash all the time. If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch you can understand the reliability you get with flash based storage. Battery life and benchmarks are irrelevant with the Air. The differences between HDD and SSD models is measured in seconds. The main difference is the reliability of your data. Bottom line.

 

[SheriffParker]

Well if it makes programs open even a few seconds faster, as some people have said, then the SSD would be well worth it. A snappy user experience is worth a lot.

 

[Gunga Din]

I understand that for people who can't afford the extra $999, the HDD option is the only choice. But if you can afford it, why would you want your data being stored on a 1.8" iPod drive. Those drives crash all the time. If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch you can understand the reliability you get with flash based storage. Battery life and benchmarks are irrelevant with the Air. The differences between HDD and SSD models is measured in seconds. The main difference is the reliability of your data. Bottom line.

As far as i'm concerned , for $1800 you should have the SSD. and say a 128 version for 3k. Something like that. That ipod drive is an insult to people paying $1800.

Dell has a nice 13" for comparison if anyone cares.

Tuxedo Black
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
Standard Display with 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
High Reliability: 64GB Solid State Drive
CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS
Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card
Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
Dell Bluetooth Travel mouse
56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition
Biometric Fingerprint Reader

$2500

 

[MarkMS]

I'm about 80% done with hearing about the drive comparisons on Air Books. There's no major difference between the two drives except the price. Move on.

Well, I'm 99% done with hearing about it. I'm a huge Apple fan, but the Air (to me) is a big disappointment with or without SSD. I was willing to purchase this sexy machine and accept all the "flaws", but the battery life was the last straw.

2.5-3.5 hours on a charge? C'mon, I get more out of my MBP with full brightness!

Anyway, in regards to SSD, I'll probably jump on the "hype" once I see 128GB disks for $400.

 

[motulist]

As a result of these discrepant findings, the SSD vs HDD debate will likely be reintroduced with every new laptop introduced.

Gee, that sounds like it will be fun.

I disagree with that conjecture. SSD is a very new technology that is all set to see advancements in leaps and bounds. There's new SSD tech that's about to hit the market that is super fast to read as well as write. SSD is about to start getting much cheaper as it hits economies of scale. And of course that's all on top of the already much faster read speeds and much greater durability over hard drives.

Almost certainly within 1 to 3 years there'll be little debate that SSD is much better tech, and within 5 to 8 years years there won't even be an economic advantage to disk over SSD.

 

[Analog Kid]

At this point, however, it seems the accepted advantages for the SSD drive in the MacBook Air is a more responsive user experience, and less vulnerability to data loss.

The most clear cut and succinct summary of the debate that I've seen. I'm growing increasingly convinced that it is more about user experience than it is about performance-- people don't like the little pause they get when opening an app, even if it only accounts for a tiny fraction of their usage.

I'm not as convinced on the reliability argument, at least not as it concerns the average user. This might be important in an industrial laptop, or where the value of the data being generated between backups is extremely high. For most of us, we're more worried about having to replace the laptop because the LCD cracked when it fell, and are able to back up hourly via TimeMachine. We've all heard of hard drive failures, but they still qualify as rare events-- and since these drives are smaller, many people will still risk losing data on external drives.

If people have to go to this much trouble to decide which drive is better, than obviously SSD is not worth it. Its gotta be clear cut or to me SSD is a scam at this point to get more money out of our pockets. Now don't get me wrong, one day i'm sure it will SSD FTW but not right now.

I mean, how can there be a debate about a $1000 f ing upgrade?

What I'm seeing isn't people trying to decide between infinitesimally different products, but rather trying to figure out how the heck to measure the difference reliably. I'm also seeing a lot of education going on as people start to understand the differences in the technologies.

 

[MacFly123]

If people have to go to this much trouble to decide which drive is better, than obviously SSD is not worth it. Its gotta be clear cut or to me SSD is a scam at this point to get more money out of our pockets. Now don't get me wrong, one day i'm sure it will SSD FTW but not right now.

I mean, how can there be a debate about a $1000 f ing upgrade?

Seriously, and less space lol. I think I'll hold out about 5-10 years or so

 

[Gunga Din]

Look i'll be honest with you all. I'm trying to purchase my first Mac and was set on the MBP update. I'm just heated about the Mac Air and feel its pushed my purchase date back because its consumed Apples time and development for the MBP's .

I don't mean to sound like a hater, my apologies.

 

[Analog Kid]

I disagree with that conjecture. SSD is a very new technology that is all set to see advancements in leaps and bounds. There's new SSD tech that's about to hit the market that is super fast to read as well as write. SSD is about to start getting much cheaper as it hits economies of scale. And of course that's all on top of the already much faster read speeds and much greater durability over hard drives.

Almost certainly within 1 to 3 years there'll be little debate that SSD is much better tech, and within 5 to 8 years years there won't even be an economic advantage to disk over SSD.

Flash has already hit economies of scale-- there's not much left to be squeezed out. They are commodity parts-- have been for years. The achilles heel of SSD in 1 to 3 years will still be capacity. Spinning disks will still have a lock on price per GB.

What we might see is that spinning disks exceed the capacity people need-- just as we've seen with iPods. Flash is still much more expensive than magnetics, you can get 16GB of Flash for the same price as 160GB of disk in an iPod, for example, but if you don't need more than 16GB then the point is moot. Laptops may go the same way. My laptop drive can never be big enough, but for some people 64GB might be enough. When we reach the point where 64GB costs the same as the lowest sized disk (which will probably be 3 years or so), people may find the SSD to be the preferred option because they don't need a terabyte in their laptop.

If Flash can iron out the last lagging performance issues by the time this happens, I can see it taking over the mainstream.

 

[kuwisdelu]

Well, I'm 99% done with hearing about it. I'm a huge Apple fan, but the Air (to me) is a big disappointment with or without SSD. I was willing to purchase this sexy machine and accept all the "flaws", but the battery life was the last straw.

2.5-3.5 hours on a charge? C'mon, I get more out of my MBP with full brightness!

Anyway, in regards to SSD, I'll probably jump on the "hype" once I see 128GB disks for $400.

Go look at the battery threads over in the MacBook Air forum. Most people there are seeing 4-5+ hours battery life. Only one or two people there have claimed anything less than 3 hours, it seems, and usually the unsatisfied are the first to cry out. So if battery life were a real problem, you'd hear it from them. You'll get better battery on the MBA than your MBP. Don't worry.

 

[a456]

it seems the accepted advantages for the SSD drive in the MacBook Air is a more responsive user experience, and less vulnerability to data loss.

Article Link

Ironically these are the two things that will be least important to MBA users. They are willing to compromise on speed for the sake of size/weight. They are also likely to have to back up their system to a desktop or hard-drive because of limited space.

 

[Macmel]

Ironically these are the two things that will be least important to MBA users. They are willing to compromise on speed for the sake of size/weight. They are also likely to have to back up their system to a desktop or hard-drive because of limited space.

I agree. So you MBA users are going to buy a crippled computer just because it is lighter and thinner and it's going to look good while sitting at Starbucks reading your e-mail (which is pretty much all you can do with it) and then you are worried about a delay of a fraction of a second in opening Safari. Worried to the point of paying $1000 more?. I don't get it.

 

[Jacquesass]

PATA vs. SATA

I think many of people's letdown regarding SSD in the MBA is related to the drive interface. Unlike the two laptops mentioned in the article, the MBA only uses PATA. I don't know if this would influence battery life (although SATA may be a more power-efficient protocol) - but it is not surprising to me that Apple used a relatively slow SSD, knowing that the drive performance was limited by PATA.

 

[milo]

Tech and business are a scam. Releasing things before they are ready for mainstream and charging outrageous prices.

It's not a scam, it's simply the fact that new technology costs more to manufacture, and that economies of scale mean that things get cheaper as quantities go up. While the prices seem outrageous, that's what they generally must be sold at initially to make a profit.

As far as i'm concerned , for $1800 you should have the SSD. and say a 128 version for 3k. Something like that. That ipod drive is an insult to people paying $1800.

Dell has a nice 13" for comparison if anyone cares.

Tuxedo Black
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
Standard Display with 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
High Reliability: 64GB Solid State Drive
CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS
Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card
Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
Dell Bluetooth Travel mouse
56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition
Biometric Fingerprint Reader

$2500

Doesn't the fact that Dell's SSD machine is $2500 contradict your claim that apple should have SSD for $1800? If you think it's possible to ship a machine with 64 gigs of SSD for $1800, show a machine for that price.

I agree. So you MBA users are going to buy a crippled computer just because it is lighter and thinner and it's going to look good while sitting at Starbucks reading your e-mail (which is pretty much all you can do with it) and then you are worried about a delay of a fraction of a second in opening Safari. Worried to the point of paying $1000 more?. I don't get it.

It's not "crippled", it's just designed with different goals. You might as well say all laptops are "crippled" because you can't put 3 hard drives in them. Or that towers are "crippled" because you can't use them on a plane.

And I think the main point of the SSD is reliability - a hard drive is much more likely to fail due to rough handling.

 

[twoodcc]

interesting. well i guess we'll be seeing/hearing lots more of SSD vs HDD in the future

 

[Macmel]

It's not "crippled", it's just designed with different goals. You might as well say all laptops are "crippled" because you can't put 3 hard drives in them. Or that towers are "crippled" because you can't use them on a plane.

And I think the main point of the SSD is reliability - a hard drive is much more likely to fail due to rough handling.[/QUOTE]

What I meant is people have been arguing for the last few weeks about how this computer is intended for users who don't need horsepower or multiple ports or ethernet connection or optical drive... All that because this a second computer for people who already have a primary computer with all that, including a big HD (or more than one) to back up all your files.
Ans now, all of a sudden, it turns out that the HD in the MBA is not anymore something to store a few files you need on the road (it's ultraportable, right?) and a few songs and movies for your amusement in the plane. Now it has to be the fastest most reliable HD ever and you would pay even $1000 more just for a small improvement.
BTW, I don't know what you do to your HDs, but none of my computers have evers suffered from a total crash of the HD. I have only seen something like that in very old computers that should've been replaced long ago.

 

[jragosta]

I'm about 80% done with hearing about the drive comparisons on Air Books. There's no major difference between the two drives except the price. Move on.

And reliability. And random access where SSD is 10 times faster, yielding a 'snappier' user experience.