New MBA disappointment

[DisplacedMic]

I was in the market for an MBA so I went over to a retailer to try them out. Very nice machine, quality, etc.
I am, however, disappointed with the SSD. Now that may not be the problem of the MBA but rather SSD's in general.

My point : where's that phenomenal speed everyone's talking about ? SSD's get so hyped and so you build up expectations. I thought that clicking on an application in the dock would launch it instantly, instead of me having to wait 2 seconds. The applications in question were iTunes, iPhoto and Activity monitor and to be honest, launching these on my iMac with HDD is only slightly slower.
So, based on my first impressions, SSD's aren't worth the money (well, not now anyway, perhaps in a year or two when they become affordable).

something was wrong. itunes on my air opens instantly - one bounce of the dock icon and it's up and going.

in fact, it's open before the icon finishes bouncing...no exaggeration.
same goes for Activity Monitor. didn't try iphoto, don't use it so that wouldn't be fair since it's empty.

i ran that same experiment at the apple store on their i5s and everything opened instantly - and i mean everything. i clicked on every icon on the dock one after the other so that they were all open an running. that's when i decided to by the air...

glad i tried it - the first gen was awesome for what it was, but as a workhorse it was useless to me. now my air is my primary machine.

sorry - got off the subject there...seriously: instant.

 

[wrinkster22]

The screen grab is based on the 500GB SSD in my rMBP...It gives a rough idea of what to expect from an MBA, although a slightly slower result would not be of concern.

Mid 2011 air is much slower. 256 apple upgrade.

 

[palpatine]

View attachment 438000

Mid 2011 air is much slower. 256 apple upgrade.

I've got 160 (I've seen up to 197 on occasion) / 465 on a 128 GB 2013 MBA -- this would be a slightly slower read, much faster write than the MBP numbers you posted.

I'm sure the numbers vary over time, but they are dramatically improved over my 2011 MBA, and my 2011 MBP didn't even come close to these speeds. Of course, when everything is up and running, I don't notice the difference as much. Overall, though, 2013 is a snappy, energy conserving pleasure. This is a huge improvement over the 2012 MBA in terms of battery life without any loss in performance -- the best machine I have ever owned.