In this
thread, a user found a reference to a Runcore branded 1.8" SATA drive available with a LIF interface. The
Runcore store has pricing info.
$479 is really expensive considering Apple only charges $300 more for the SSD MBA over HDD. And they get 2.13 over 1.86 CPU. I think the absolute best solution is for people to just buy their MBA with an SSD. Same situation when refurbished.
But, it is really nice to have another solution for those willing to pay. Based on an xBench performance posted, this Runcore SSD is faster than Apple's own by a large margin.
I think a cheaper solution for most with an HDD MBA is to sell their current version and buy a new MBA with SSD.
If a 256 GB SSD becomes available for the MBA, I will be on it in a heartbeat. But for just a little faster performance, it's not worth the upgrade hassle. I would think Apple will be ready with a 256 GB SSD MBA before it's available for a current MBA.
EDIT- Wow, the read speeds are actually nearly double. It's more impressive than I initially considered. To those out there stating the HDD is similar in speed to the Apple SSD, this tests shows Apple's SSD is faster than HDD by 5x to 10x on read tests!
Anyone is crazy to really believe that the HDD doesn't slow down the MBA considerably or by 80%!!! Let's face it, the SSD is the number one way to speed up a computer. It's the bottleneck of the whole system. Apple's own SSD improves read speeds by 5x to 10x over 4200 rpm HDD.
I wonder how much this Runcore SSD would improve boot and shutdown by? My MBA boots in less than 20 seconds and shuts down in about one second. I never get a spinning beachball on my MBA as it is. I suppose this could be really worth it to buy a new Runcore for $479 and sell old Apple Samsung SSD on eBay??? It may even bring the whole cost of the Runcore SSD? A lot of people that realize later they should have bought the SSD and would probably pay close to $400-$500 for the original SSD...
good find.
