Another SSD vs HDD comparo test. [Boot and App Launch Videos]

[MazingerZ]

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/02/11/macbook_air_face_off_hdd_vs_ssd_with_video.html

Very interesting...

 

[MRU]

However, the speed launch trick is only impressive at the first launch of an application after a reboot. Mac OS X aggressively caches data to allow the slower HDD launch its applications nearly as fast on a second try (below).

very interesting.

So slightly faster boot times, and initial launch of an application. (who launches 16 applications at one time? )

But €1000 difference ? I'll stick with the HDD until the price of SSD has fallen to the €250 barrier (still ridiculously more expensive compared to a 320gb HDD 2.5" drive though), unfortunately this may be some time.

 

[Catch]

Nice article. Seemed factual without being loaded with emotion like most reviews seem to be.

I chose the SSD version and am very happy with it. My company paid for mine though. If I had to pay my own money over I would have gone with the HD version I think. I enjoy the fast file launches, but its a very expensive luxury right now...

C

 

[mrklaw]

from that, I'd like a hybrid HDD/SSD please. Prices of full sized 64GB SSDs are too high, and still too little storage.

give me a single platter 80GB HDD, plus an 8GB SSD dedicated to being virtual memory. That'd seem to be the ideal combo.

 

[matthewHUB]

well i'm glad i got the SSD. i know OS X caches data so re-launching is quick... but the programs one tends to use on the air all the time like Mail, Safari are quick to load anyway. It's nice to have the speed there when you decide to open something else like Pages or Word, or a random spreadsheet.

 

[barefeats]

HDD vs SDD - QuickBench 4 benchmarking

Here's the results of tests I ran today using QuickBench 4 from SpeedTools.com:

Small Random READ 4K - 1024K
HDD 80G = 9MB/s
SDD 64G = 35MB/s *

Small Random WRITE 4K - 1024K
HDD 80G = 11MB/s
SDD 64G = 16MB/s *

Small Sequential READ 4K - 1024K
HDD 80G = 40MB/s *
SDD 64G = 35MB/s

Small Sequential WRITE 4K - 1024K
HDD 80G = 30MB/s *
SDD 64G = 18MB/s

Medium Sustained READ (2MB - 10MB)
HDD 80G = 39MB/s
SDD 64G = 50MB/s *

Medium Sustained WRITE (2MB - 10MB)
HDD 80G = 41MB/s *
SDD 64G = 24MB/s

Large Sustained READ (20MB - 100MB)
HDD 80G = 35MB/s
SDD 64G = 51MB/s *

Large Sustained WRITE (20MB - 100MB)
HDD 80G = 35MB/s *
SDD 64G = 29MB/s

(* means fastest of the two for a given test)

I posted the graphs and analysis here:
http://www.barefeats.com/macair1.html

BOTTOMLINE: The SSD does small random read/write faster than any existing notebook drive. That's why it boots fast, launches fasts, and wakes fast. Haven't tested it but I bet it does Photoshop scratch disk and virtual memory more efficiently as well.