After a little digging I was surprised to find that the SSD on the MBA's are proprietary. That is interesting and I am glad to see a company already looking at improving the SSD limitation of the Air's.
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New MacBook Airs: Flash drive TRIM Support?
- Thread starter bobdolee
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After a little digging I was surprised to find that the SSD on the MBA's are proprietary. That is interesting and I am glad to see a company already looking at improving the SSD limitation of the Air's.
@kustardking
I cannot imagine that Apple didn't use a Sandforce based SSD in their most recent Air's given the benchmark speeds. If this is the case, it is very likely that the SSD will have garbage collection built into their firmware like pretty much every Sandforce based SSD.
If this is such a big problem for you that you want to sit for hours on this thread and spread your odd opinion then you could at least spend that time trying to contact Apple and see if they would provide you with the information. Good luck with the aliens
OK, so I followed your advice and did some checking. What I found is that the ever-so-tiresome, "very likely," that you pulled out continues to be synonymous with the blind leading the blind.
The flash in the Air uses a Toshiba controller model #T6UG1XBG. This is the same controller used in some of the "low end" Kingston SSD Now drives. It performs admirably for sequential operations, but is a POS for random reads and writes. This means email, word processing, HTML5 video viewing, basically all the stuff you could be doing with your 2003 Powerbook, will work just dandy. All that with a lot more style, of course, which is what I'm after, too. So, unfortunately, for those who want substance AND style, and I mean substantial substance, not pre-Copernican hooey about Apple being at the center of the universe, review the following benchmarks and see if the Air's flash suits you. Actually don't bother, I'm sure the Air DOES suit your needs. Right? I mean, that's why my opinion is "odd" and within a week one company is already making flash upgrades.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2968/...30gb-ssdnow-v-series-battle-of-the-125-ssds/6
Now I will make a prediction: you are an Agnostic. These are people who are actually closet Faithful, because in fact you can't have it both ways. They trick themselves into thinking they're rational by saying It *might* not exist, but this stance in fact requires a solid bedrock of It *does* exist. An Agnostic on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is Atheist and 10 is Faithful, is a 9. I think you are a 7. Now to truly understand, you have to be off that scale entirely. Atheist, though a more privileged position, is also nutty, because that stance is also hotly unilateral. The correct stance, and the one that bridges all things, is this: agreement through evidence. Now we have evidence that it isn't Sandforce, but instead a run-of-the-mill Toshiba controller designed for media consumption. Like I said, Apple is now in the biz of making TV-like devices. You might love them, but this thread was started because some people want more.
But shouldn't you spend your energy complaining against any one of the world's other PC-producers then, getting them to start making good looking computer technology?
I know you're kidding, or I hope you're kidding, but for those who might think the above suggestion has any merit, know this: you can't get blood from a stone. You see, Apple already has the design, and it is already a technology company. Or, did you really not think Apple is a capable technology company?
Now I would LOVE for another tech company to pick up design. I mean, look at Apple's COMPLETE turn around over the Adobe-Flash-To-iThang-Compiler. If someone else started having good design and good ecosystem, Apple WOULD do an about-face. Apple is a calculated bad boy, they CAN do whatever they want. I WISH they wanted to give berth to non-lemming consumers.
I'm certainly not kidding. Ever since Jobs' return Apple have presented a fairly limited scope of hardware options where people have constantly complained about "missing" products in the sense that they can't find the product befitting their own list of specifications. This seems to have worked out beautiful for the company and if anything has probably made it easier for them to focus on stuff like design and "benefits" through their complete control of software and hardware.
In the PC-world however you can get more or less the exact hardware specifications you like, although not necessarily in a "sexy" form-factor. This is however a business with an enormous amount of companies and while I sympathize with your lust for Apple's design it seems your demands/requirements are simply not in tune with the way Apple conduct their (very successful) business. When the drawbacks outweighs the benefits it seems you might be better off getting you hardware from another vendor.
Well, like I said, Apple already has both ingredients, others have but one. Design is the harder one to come by. Acuity with esthetics is more special than with miniaturization. In one way or another, everything Apple or any manufacturer puts out is just reorganized components, EXCEPT for the design. Certainly the design drives some custom parts, but at $1000 a pop with a hefty profit margin these are NOT seriously unique pieces. It is the DESIGN that sets them apart.
And, had you understood my rails, I would not need to quote myself: "I would sacrifice it all for the sake of design" - the caveat being the subject of this thread, the suspect character of the flash.
And, had you understood my rails, I would not need to quote myself: "I would sacrifice it all for the sake of design" - the caveat being the subject of this thread, the suspect character of the flash.
OK, so if I understand you correctly you really want an Air, but as you're unsure about the quality of the SSD's you won't take a chance. The article I linked to earlier suggest that earlier Airs (OSX? HFS+) does not slow down over time but that the performance is poor compared to other OS/filesystem/hardware/SSD-combos. As far as I understand the only question left is whether the Macbook Air SSD's are fast enough for your use? I guess the only way to tell is for you to check them out yourself or wait for some tech-savvy site to do a thorough test...
Enough of that, it doesn't matter what I want.
The closest answer to the original question thus far is in that article I linked to. It says that the Toshiba controller does support TRIM natively, but even in a Windows environment it wasn't firing. In OS X it won't fire for sure, being that OS X doesn't support TRIM.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2968/...30gb-ssdnow-v-series-battle-of-the-125-ssds/3
Furthermore, the flash module that Apple has chosen never leaves 1st gear (for random reads/writes), so you will NEVER notice degradation, because the module is junk to start with (again, for random reads/writes). If you are a media hound, or burning-******-in-your-pocket email aficionado, this will pose no problem whatsoever, so buy buy buy.
The closest answer to the original question thus far is in that article I linked to. It says that the Toshiba controller does support TRIM natively, but even in a Windows environment it wasn't firing. In OS X it won't fire for sure, being that OS X doesn't support TRIM.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2968/...30gb-ssdnow-v-series-battle-of-the-125-ssds/3
Furthermore, the flash module that Apple has chosen never leaves 1st gear (for random reads/writes), so you will NEVER notice degradation, because the module is junk to start with (again, for random reads/writes). If you are a media hound, or burning-******-in-your-pocket email aficionado, this will pose no problem whatsoever, so buy buy buy.
here are benchmarks (notice this is real info). Kustardking you really should post all this stuff if you are going to bash the SSD's performance.
Using X-Bench, we saw the 128GB modelthe APPLE SSD TS128Cgive the following numbers:
Seq Uncached Write: 134MB/sec (4k blocks)
Seq Uncached Write: 158MB/sec (256k blocks)
Seq Uncached Read: 68.5MB/sec (4k blocks)
Seq Uncached Read: 165.8 MB/sec (256k blocks)
Random Uncached Write: 32.18MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Write: 116.5 (256k)
Random Uncached Read: 8.27 (4k)
Random Uncached Read: 108.56 (256k)
Comparing this to a 15" unibody MacBook Pro, which has a 320GB 5400RPM Hitachi hard disk, the difference is significant:
Seq Uncached Write: 8 MB/sec (4k blocks)
Seq Uncached Write: 39.5 MB/sec (256k blocks)
Seq Uncached Read: 5.4 MB/sec (4k blocks)
Seq Uncached Read: 18 MB/sec (256k blocks)
Random Uncached Write: 0.7 MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Write: 15.14 MB/sec (256k)
Random Uncached Read: 0.25 MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Read: 12.51 MB/sec (256k)
I will do a little more digging to compare the performance to intel SSD's. Cheers!
This is obviously not up to Sandforce levels, but it's really fast nonetheless.
Here are the same numbers run on a heavily used Intel X-25 installed in a Mac system, with 30GB free (without TRIM of course). Thanks to Eli Hodapp of Touch Arcade for getting me these for comparison:
Seq Uncached Write 96 MB/sec (4k blocks)
Seq Uncached Write 90 MB/sec (256k blocks)
Seq Uncached Read 41 MB/sec (4k blocks)
Seq Uncached Read 207 MB/sec (256k blocks)
Random Uncached Write 14 MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Write 39 MB/sec (256k)
Random Uncached Read 4.59 MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Read 177 MB/sec (256k)
So I guess no Sandforce, which is sad. However, it is good that it is a proprietary hard drive solution. This opens the door for the possibility of Sandforce based SSD's in the future.
So Kustardking, stop your whining. The SSD in the MBA does not suck. It is not Sandforce level, but it does outperform many indiniix (sp?) controller drives. DONE!
One more thing. X-bench is a synthetic benchmark!!! Real-life tests and usage is where you will be able to tell if the MBA can handle what you need it for.
Kustard if you are so pissed, then don't buy one and wait for the user reviews to come out. Then you can make a more educated decision. Good luck finding that elusive perfect laptop
Kustard if you are so pissed, then don't buy one and wait for the user reviews to come out. Then you can make a more educated decision. Good luck finding that elusive perfect laptop
Sure, will copy-paste from article next time. But it is NOT really fast in comparison. Look at the relevant numbers:
Toshiba:
Random Uncached Write: 0.7 MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Read: 0.25 MB/sec (4k)
Sandforce:
Random Uncached Write 14 MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Read 4.59 MB/sec (4k)
20x on writes and reads. That is NOT comparable, which is exactly my point.
I'm used to Intel X25 speeds, and again you are not reading my posts properly, because you seem to have the binary Apple perspective. It does NOT need to be the "perfect" laptop, it simply needs to have the ability to express choice. Then, it can be made INTO the perfect laptop. In my case, since you want to bring it back to that, you will note that I am not after the Golden Fleece. Rather, this single part, which apparently is interchangeable, I'm sure to Apple's chagrin, has also caught the attention of at least one after-market tech provider. That's not my quest, that's a market response.
BTW, you shouldn't try to draw authority from my not copying the data to here. You were the one, afterall, who tried to assert with no basis that it was Sandforce, because anything else was beyond your "imagination." At least I posted a link.
Toshiba:
Random Uncached Write: 0.7 MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Read: 0.25 MB/sec (4k)
Sandforce:
Random Uncached Write 14 MB/sec (4k)
Random Uncached Read 4.59 MB/sec (4k)
20x on writes and reads. That is NOT comparable, which is exactly my point.
I'm used to Intel X25 speeds, and again you are not reading my posts properly, because you seem to have the binary Apple perspective. It does NOT need to be the "perfect" laptop, it simply needs to have the ability to express choice. Then, it can be made INTO the perfect laptop. In my case, since you want to bring it back to that, you will note that I am not after the Golden Fleece. Rather, this single part, which apparently is interchangeable, I'm sure to Apple's chagrin, has also caught the attention of at least one after-market tech provider. That's not my quest, that's a market response.
BTW, you shouldn't try to draw authority from my not copying the data to here. You were the one, afterall, who tried to assert with no basis that it was Sandforce, because anything else was beyond your "imagination." At least I posted a link.
Yes I did assume it was Sandforce because that makes the most sense if you are going to make a SSD based laptop. It is too bad that Apple didn't do that. Maybe they will offer an upgrade option (unlikely).
At least I posted the correct information. I did state that I thought it was "likely" a sandforce drive. I admitted that it wasn't and that is all fine. I don't have a problem saying that Apple should have put a Sandforce drive in the laptop. The one thing that we do not know is whether or not the customized firmware has some sort of garbage collection built into it like the Sandforce drives. If that is the case, then that would be great. However, given Apple's oversight of not using a sandforce controller it is more plausible that there is no garbage collection.
Did someone else not? Or, did you mean one of the following:
1) At least I posted the correct information that kustardking linked to
2) Alas, I posted the corrected information from my original Sandforce assertion
?
Neither do I have a problem saying that Apple should have used a monkey wrenched X25. But just like your statement, mine wouldn't do us any good.
Yes, GC is an unknown. But, given the numbers that you didn't recognize (random writes/reads), it doesn't really matter. The performance is SO abysmal that even untrimmed-as-a-Sikh it will get no slower. Again, and this is the part that seems to fall off the edge before you grasp it, the performance model of this flash module is that for the TV-viewing audience. The nature of big media blocks goes happy happy with big chunk reads/writes. You know what will help prevent criticism of this drive? Give yourself 5 seconds before reading on.....now read backwards to make sure you didn't accidentally cheat with peripheral vision: !strop htdiwdnab hgih oN
The punch line, I guess
1) Don't drink the Kool-Aid, and never say any variation of "very likely", "surely", or "I assume" in the same sentence as "because I can't imagine."
2) Don't be Faithful, Agnostic (aka Faithful), or an Atheist. You will fool yourself. Move forward based on evidence.
3) If you don't care about or understand the importance of small block random reads and writes, then pass GO, collect your $ and get the Air.
4) The random reads and writes on the Air's flash module, which uses a Toshiba T6UG1XBG controller, are terrible. You have landed on Luxury Tax and either you're out of the game or be ready to spend $ on making the Air a usable computer. Search Google for Photofast Macbook Air for a preview.
5) Be wary of people who prefer the use of (1) over evidence, and who then use YOUR evidence to promote their own goals without accreditation. For example, see this post...
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=11327993&#post11327993
...in which the poster only one hour earlier had said (in THIS thread) that it's unimaginable to be anything but a Sandforce. I have no problem with other people being right, myself being wrong, or the other way around, but it is rather chicken to not show provenance.
I admitted that it wasn't a sandforce controller and I also admitted that it was a poor decision to not use a sandforce controller.
You are a troll and I am done feeding you. Have fun living life without a MBA because you are too good for it, or you think it is an inferior product.
You are still touting synthetic benchmarks. If you had any computer knowledge at all you would know that synthetic benchmarks are not the end-all-be-all. Maybe you should walk your fat-ass into an Apple store and try the 13" MBA out. In the meantime, stop spreading FUD!
Check the time stamp moron. I made the statement that I couldn't imagine it wouldn't be a sandforce drive over 12 hours before I made the other statement you are referring to. Are you that much of an idiot that you can't understand I did a little research and found out for sure that the SSD in the MBA is NOT a sandforce drive.
Can you not understand that I never said, "The MBA definitely has a Sandforce SSD"? Are you that dense? I assumed that Apple would use the best technology available. Alas, they did not. Does that mean the Toshiba SSD is crap? No it doesn't. Keep spinning the negativity. If you really feel that strongly about it, why are you complaining to the forum and not to Apple directly????
You are a troll and I am done feeding you. Have fun living life without a MBA because you are too good for it, or you think it is an inferior product.
You are still touting synthetic benchmarks. If you had any computer knowledge at all you would know that synthetic benchmarks are not the end-all-be-all. Maybe you should walk your fat-ass into an Apple store and try the 13" MBA out. In the meantime, stop spreading FUD!
Check the time stamp moron. I made the statement that I couldn't imagine it wouldn't be a sandforce drive over 12 hours before I made the other statement you are referring to. Are you that much of an idiot that you can't understand I did a little research and found out for sure that the SSD in the MBA is NOT a sandforce drive.
Can you not understand that I never said, "The MBA definitely has a Sandforce SSD"? Are you that dense? I assumed that Apple would use the best technology available. Alas, they did not. Does that mean the Toshiba SSD is crap? No it doesn't. Keep spinning the negativity. If you really feel that strongly about it, why are you complaining to the forum and not to Apple directly????
My my, testy! I was done complaining, which you missed. You think I'm a troll because you can't tie multiple thoughts together. The conversation was done before you copied from the link I posted.
Anyway you should thank me for letting you blow off steam.
Anyway you should thank me for letting you blow off steam.
Nice to know you can't understand rational thought. Congrats on being awarded the "douche-bag of the day" award.
haha - ok, yes, I'll come back later. Good advice. In the meantime, I'd like to get that douch-bag certificate, it's been a few days since I won an award.
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I'm done. If he wants to troll, then I will let someone else put him in his place. I've wasted too much time already.
I'm done. If he wants to troll, then I will let someone else put him in his place. I've wasted too much time already.
You'd think with Apple always being on the bleeding edge of technology, they'd at least support TRIM if they haven't already. Shouldn't be that hard to implant into OS X Snow Leopard with a simple update. It's already in the Linux kernel (as of 2.6.33) and Windows 7.
Wow. Elitism at its finest. Brings a whole new meaning to "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." From putting words into others' mouths to preaching on about what he for fact knows about others' beliefs and how they must operate based on his standards instead, all from posts about SSDs and others' use of grammar. A lot of arrogance and imagined superiority there for someone I wouldn't give two looks at if I passed by him on the street, nor would he me.
Might have just found my first person to "ignore" on these forums. Too bad.
Can someone explain why which reading/writing speeds are more important than other ones? I also did not get whether that posted speed tests were before or after the ssd were already littered up with data that means: Are the speed test data the maximum or minimum speed?
Thanks, Fischel
Is there really no one how can/want to explain that. I would be gratefull and add you in my book of abso****ingloutely cool persons
Wow. What started out as a really great thread (now there is a new, albeit less informed, one) has degraded like a heavily used SSD
Until we see real life wear and tear on these new Airs I don't think any of us can make a very good guess. If, in fact, we have 50% decline of performance over 2 years of heavy use I'm sure aftermarket replacement drives will be available for reasonable prices. That makes me sleep better. Until then I'll just enjoy the incredibly faster performance of my new Air compared to my 15" original 4GB/9600GT unibody with an aftermarket 7200rpm Scorpio Black drive and avoid FUDruckers on this forum.
Until we see real life wear and tear on these new Airs I don't think any of us can make a very good guess. If, in fact, we have 50% decline of performance over 2 years of heavy use I'm sure aftermarket replacement drives will be available for reasonable prices. That makes me sleep better. Until then I'll just enjoy the incredibly faster performance of my new Air compared to my 15" original 4GB/9600GT unibody with an aftermarket 7200rpm Scorpio Black drive and avoid FUDruckers on this forum.