Slow PCI SSD Read/Write Speeds Late 2013 Macbook Pro

[SantaRosa2.2]

I received my New Late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro 13" today. It is the 2.4ghz/8gb/256gb Model.

I decided to go ahead and run a black magic speed test. I was excited to see the blazing fast speed afforded by the PCI SSD. I've watched countless videos showing 700+ MB/s Read and Write Speeds on my exact model.

Much to my dismay, read/write speed don't seem up to par... see the screenshot of my results... I tried various stresses 1gb-5gb and they were all the same.

Doesn't seem right to me, these are the speeds of my previous Macbook pro with a SATA SSD.

Filevault 2 is turned on can it degrade performance that much?

Any ideas? Is there a problem?

 

[capathy21]

I received my New Late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro 13" today. It is the 2.4ghz/8gb/256gb Model.

I decided to go ahead and run a black magic speed test. I was excited to see the blazing fast speed afforded by the PCI SSD. I've watched countless videos showing 700+ MB/s Read and Write Speeds on my exact model.

Much to my dismay, read/write speed don't seem up to par... see the screenshot of my results... I tried various stresses 1gb-5gb and they were all the same.

Doesn't seem right to me, these are the speeds of my previous Macbook pro with a SATA SSD.

Filevault 2 is turned on can it degrade performance that much?

Any ideas? Is there a problem?

There is no problem.
The speed varies greatly depending on manufacturer of your drive and from my experience, it's pretty much a crapshoot from machine to machine as to which one you will end up with. For example, I have owned about 4 different mac's in the last month (long story but ended up with 2, one for me and one for wife). I started with a 13 inch MB Air base model 128ssd. When I ran black magic on it, it was pulling over 600 on both read and write. It had a Samsung ssd. I ran it on the 8/256 retina(same model you have) and also got similar numbers, also a Samsung drive. I currently have a base model 13 inch Air(for wife) that pulls just over 300 on the write while still getting 600 plus on read. My base model retina 13 shows almost the same(300-350 and 500-600). Both of our machines have Sandisk branded drives. If you go to your Apple logo in top left corner, then about this mac, then more info, then system report, then select SATA/SATA Express It will say APPLE SSD then it will have an abbreviation followed by the size of your drive. Mine says SD0128F. SD stands for Sandisk. I believe Samsung is SAM or SMG or something of that sort. Chances are yours is a Sandisk like mine.

For whatever reason the Sandisk drives are considerably slower than the Samsung.

Can I tell a bit of difference in day to day operations? Nope, but I can understand your initial disappointment as I felt the same way(especially after having a faster one then exchanging it and receiving a slower one) but let me assure you it doesn't really make much difference if any.

 

[SantaRosa2.2]

If you go to your Apple logo in top left corner, then about this mac, then more info, then system report, then select SATA/SATA Express It will say APPLE SSD then it will have an abbreviation followed by the size of your drive. Mine says SD0128F. SD stands for Sandisk. I believe Samsung is SAM or SMG or something of that sort. Chances are yours is a Sandisk like mine.

For whatever reason the Sandisk drives are considerably slower than the Samsung.

Can I tell a bit of difference in day to day operations? Nope, but I can understand your initial disappointment as I felt the same way(especially after having a faster one then exchanging it and receiving a slower one) but let me assure you it doesn't really make much difference if any.

Capathy,

Thanks for the explanation, very thorough. I checked system information. I do have the sandisk....APPLE SSD SD0256F.

 

[Meister]

The numbers blackmagic speedtest shows are nit the only indicator for ssd performance.

+ what capathy wrote.

 

[alex0002]

Filevault 2 is turned on can it degrade performance that much?

Here is another thread mentioning Filevault which might help.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1516964/

There are other factors too, such as SSD supplier, SSD capacity (larger is often faster) perhaps firmware and other differences.

 

[SantaRosa2.2]

Here is another thread mentioning Filevault which might help.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1516964/

There are other factors too, such as SSD supplier, SSD capacity (larger is often faster) perhaps firmware and other differences.

Alex,

Thanks for the input,good information.