13" 256GB SSD vs 11" 256GB SSD

[housecat]

Hey everyone -

So I'm getting conflicting information about the 256GB SSD's of both the 11" and the 13".

On one hand this thread shows benchmarks for the 11" vs 13" and the only big struggle between the two is the file transfer test

But look here! When the 2010 MBA is compared to the 2011 MBA, this test is identical

source

Is it possible they goofed? Why would everything between the computers be so similar except for that? How would it be identical to last years model despite the overhaul of faster components (including higher capacity SSD)?

Almost every benchmark posted is using the 1.6ghz i5 processor 11" against the 1.7ghz i5. What if the 1.8ghz i7's were in play?

Lastly, I called AppleCare and spoke to a tech agent for some time who "assured me" that the SSD's (and everything else if upgraded) were identical in the 13" and 11" models despite the conflicting benchmark results posted above.

If anyone out there currently has a 256SSD'd 2011 Air in their hands - can you tell us what is the maker of the memory? I'd like to get to the bottom of this.

Thanks anyone who actually read this far down

 

[KPOM]

It's possible that they didn't change the SSD controller in the 11" model but did in the 13" model. We won't know for sure until iFixit does a teardown.

 

[WardC]

The 11" models tested both had 128GB SSDs.

The 13" model had a 256GB SSD.

The 256GB SSD has a faster throughput...it has twice as many NAND Flash cells which read/write data concurrently. To make a comparison, it's like the difference in between using one 1TB HD or using a striped RAID0 array of two 1TB HDs (2.0TB striped RAID0). The 2.0TB striped RAID0 will read and write data nearly twice as fast as the 1TB because it is speeding the load over two disks at the same time, and writes half to one and half to the other at the same time, taking half the time to complete, compared to using one disk.

If the 128GB SSD has four cells and the 256GB SSD has eight NAND cells, the drive with eight NAND cells can write data faster, nearly twice as fast. Reads would be faster too.

This is the best explanation I have. Unless I find out otherwise that they were using 256GB SSDs across the board--then I would be boggled.

 

[housecat]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

Hard Drive Size
256GB
- from the spec sheet of the 11" they were using.
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/apple-macbook-air-11-inch-2011.aspx?mode=specs

 

[Philflow]

The 11" models tested both had 128GB SSDs.

The 13" model had a 256GB SSD.

Both 11" and 13" 2011 models in the chart have 256GB SSD.