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SSD speeds in new 1.4GHz iMac

gregvet

gregvet

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 21, 2008
104
2
Brighton, UK
I have just ordered a new base level 21.4" 1.4GHz iMac for my work machine. The only upgrade i went for was the 256Gb SSD storage option. My thinking was that this is more than large enough for all the programs I will use at work, none of which are processor intensive, and we have on site RAID backup for files etc.

Reading the forum, there is a lot of variation in SSD speeds being quoted, with some of the new machines having ridiculous speeds.

Does anyone know how fast the base iMac with upgraded SSD is nowadays?
 
gregvet said:
I have just ordered a new base level 21.4" 1.4GHz iMac for my work machine. The only upgrade i went for was the 256Gb SSD storage option. My thinking was that this is more than large enough for all the programs I will use at work, none of which are processor intensive, and we have on site RAID backup for files etc.

Reading the forum, there is a lot of variation in SSD speeds being quoted, with some of the new machines having ridiculous speeds.

Does anyone know how fast the base iMac with upgraded SSD is nowadays?
Click to expand...

All iMacs only have 2 lanes enabled for the SSD, while rMBPs have 4 lanes enabled. This is because the remaining 2 lanes on the iMac are taken up by two extra USB ports and an Ethernet port.

Since you're getting a 256GB, there's a lottery between SanDisk and Samsung. Samsung variants perform at 650MB/s write, 720MB/s read. SanDisk ones perform slower at 550MB/s write, 700MB/s read.
 
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Reguardless of the drive maker you more than likely wont notice a difference in speeds unless you are running benchmarks. Ive not used the 1.4 iMac but I've used the 1.4 Mac Mini with an SSD and it was plenty fast for day to day tasks. That being said your not going to be editing 4k Go Pro footage with it quickly.
 
satinsilverem2 said:
Reguardless of the drive maker you more than likely wont notice a difference in speeds unless you are running benchmarks. Ive not used the 1.4 iMac but I've used the 1.4 Mac Mini with an SSD and it was plenty fast for day to day tasks. That being said your not going to be editing 4k Go Pro footage with it quickly.
Click to expand...

That's helpful, thanks. I will of course run the benchmark tests once I get the machine setup, just for my own interest.

There will be no 4k video editing on this machine, so good to hear that it will be fast for day to day stuff, as that was the intention :)
 
yjchua95 said:
All iMacs only have 2 lanes enabled for the SSD, while rMBPs have 3 lanes enabled. This is because the remaining 2 lanes on the iMac are taken up by two extra USB ports and an Ethernet port.

Since you're getting a 256GB, there's a lottery between SanDisk and Samsung. Samsung variants perform at 650MB/s write, 720MB/s read. SanDisk ones perform slower at 550MB/s write, 700MB/s read.
Click to expand...

That is quite interesting, in terms of only 2 lanes being dedicated for the SSD, would the same be true for the maxed up RiMac? Or did you mean the older Imacs?
I think it uses the: Model A1419 / EMC 2806 / 3.5 GHz Core i5 or 4.0 GHz Core i7 Processor. I am interested in the latter, however, decided to wait for the 2nd gen. RiMacs, as my current set-up is just about adequate. I am hoping the next release (late 2015) will see skylake, TB3, DP1.3, HDMI 2,
 
johnnyturbouk said:
That is quite interesting, in terms of only 2 lanes being dedicated for the SSD, would the same be true for the maxed up RiMac? Or did you mean the older Imacs?
I think it uses the: Model A1419 / EMC 2806 / 3.5 GHz Core i5 or 4.0 GHz Core i7 Processor. I am interested in the latter, however, decided to wait for the 2nd gen. RiMacs, as my current set-up is just about adequate. I am hoping the next release (late 2015) will see skylake, TB3, DP1.3, HDMI 2,
Click to expand...

The same applies to the retina iMacs.
 
yjchua95 said:
The same applies to the retina iMacs.
Click to expand...

Thanks for you reply,

Although, with the advent of PCI-e 3 ssds, i am hoping that the limitations you mentioned will be negated. This article purports the potential of PCIe-3 ssds, "breaking 2GBps performance barrier".

Skylake is thought to bring in PCI-e 4.0
<from wiki article>
- PCI Express 3.0's 8 GT/s bit rate effectively delivers 985 MB/s per lane, practically doubling the lane bandwidth relative to PCI Express 2.0.
- PCI Express 4.0, providing a 16 GT/s bit rate that doubles the bandwidth provided by PCI Express 3.0,

I will be looking at a 500/750gb ssd, and would be very happy with speeds over 1gb/s.
 
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yjchua95 said:
Even the current PCIe ones are already fast enough as it is. I mean, it's not like you're running a datacenter on your Mac, aren't you?
Click to expand...

Agreed,

Also, i think the biggest performance leap i noticed was swapping my stock spinning platter/ hdd to an ssd back in 2009/2010, ever since then i have used ssd only for osx, apps, and my home folder. So the tangible benefits of >1gb/s vs 520-700 gbs read/write is marginal, and perhaps, more grounded towards one's inner geek, whilst running synthetic benchmarks.

Finally, i found this article by the good folks over at OWC was rather interesting; they ascertained that the stock ssd on the 2014 rMBP (which i own) only negotiate a x2 PCIe, so they swapped the ssd out with a Mao Pro SSD blade, negotiating a x4 PCIe connection, and the performance difference was clearly discernible. However, whether this manifests into any real word benefits is debatable, imho probably not.


i have the APPLE SSD SM0256F 256gb, i believe from previous post on MR this is a samsung SSD, i get consistent read/write speeds >700mb/s. Filled my humble 256 ssd up many times, performance has remained impeccable.
From my sys. info. - Link Width: x2; Link Speed: 5.0 GT/s - which may suggest it is running a link speed over PCI-e 2.0?
Ultimately, i am extremely pleased with the performance with the stock ssd,
my earlier venture into 3rd party ssds reminded me of the fiasco with the sandforce controllers, and the hours i spent over on the ocz support forums :(
 
yjchua95 said:
Since you're getting a 256GB, there's a lottery between SanDisk and Samsung. Samsung variants perform at 650MB/s write, 720MB/s read. SanDisk ones perform slower at 550MB/s write, 700MB/s read.
Click to expand...

Looks like I got a Samsung then, write speed of 656, read speak of 717 :)
 
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