[Brian]

There were few surprises when Apple updated the MacBook Air line yesterday, adding a faster Intel Core i5 processor, more RAM, backlit keyboard and a few other goodies like a Thunderbolt port and Mac OS X Lion. We're most interested in the MacBook Air's SSD though; we quickly tore down the 128GB MacBook Air to see what's inside in this mini-review.

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[Phil]

Nice article Brian.

One addition: Apple still uses the Toshiba SSD too in MBA 2011. So if you got Samsung, you got lucky.

[golemB]

Great, quick review! This begins to answer some of the questions I have had since the new Air came out.

I'd like to request a couple of clarifications, however:

You wrote:

Quote

When switching to 256K, the 4K writes go to 194.80 MB/s and reads 212.40 MB/s.

This part was a bit confusing. Are you talking about 256K writes or 4K?

Also, did you test all three drives in the new MacBook Air, or are you just comparing the current stock Air and drive to older benchmark results in the 2nd gen Air? It's a bit unclear, and I'd love to see the numbers compared directly, particularly for the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express.

Finally, any chance you could graph the performance results (preferably including tests of the 3 different gum-stick drives in the same new machine)?

Thanks!

[Phil]

golemB, on 21 July 2011 - 06:06 PM, said:

and I'd love to see the numbers compared directly, particularly for the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express.

The Samsung SSD in MBA performs about the same as Samsung 470, the OWC like a Sandforce 1200 drive.

In real world situations they perform virtually the same: http://www.laptopmag...el-ssd-320.aspx

If you get the Samsung SSD there's no point in upgrading for performance. The Toshiba is slower than the OWC though.

[Brian]

golemB, on 21 July 2011 - 06:06 PM, said:

Great, quick review! This begins to answer some of the questions I have had since the new Air came out.

I'd like to request a couple of clarifications, however:

You wrote:

This part was a bit confusing. Are you talking about 256K writes or 4K?

Also, did you test all three drives in the new MacBook Air, or are you just comparing the current stock Air and drive to older benchmark results in the 2nd gen Air? It's a bit unclear, and I'd love to see the numbers compared directly, particularly for the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express.

Finally, any chance you could graph the performance results (preferably including tests of the 3 different gum-stick drives in the same new machine)?

Thanks!

Good catch on the typo. These results are basically the old drive in the old (2010) MBA vs the new drive in the new MBA. We don't have the OWC drive any longer, they usually ask for their product back. That's not to say we can't go get it again and re-run in the new MBA, if we can get time - I'll do that.

We just didn't have time to graph the results this time and since they're on different machines...there's a little bit of wiggle. This is meant more to be informational than decision making kind of data.

[udaman]

Brian, on 21 July 2011 - 01:24 PM, said:

We're most interested in the MacBook Air's SSD though; we quickly tore down the 128GB MacBook Air to see what's inside in this mini-review.

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Quote

Overall, the new SSD seems to perform well, in anecdotal testing the revised MacBook Air handles things like streaming HD video much better, where the prior generation quickly spun the fan into high gear and started stuttering during playback under heavy load.

http://www.barefeats.com/mba11_01.html

I should think that the improvements via CPU both i5 & i7 are nearly 2x faster than older 2010 model, GPU & memory bus increase would all have more and effect of handling HD video, as opposed to anything the SSD does?

Quote

GRAPHICS
The screen resolution of the 13" model remains at 1440x900. The integrated GeForce 320M has been replaced with an integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000. Video memory has been raised from 256MB to 384MB, though it's still shared with main memory. This GPU is fine for certain tasks but if you are a "laptop gamer," you'll want a MacBook Pro with a dedicated GPU with dedicated VRAM. The same is true if you are using apps like Final Cut Pro and Motion which "lean" on the GPU to help render effects.

[Phil]

Brian, on 22 July 2011 - 01:29 PM, said:

These results are basically the old drive in the old (2010) MBA vs the new drive in the new MBA.

FYI: It's actually Samsung vs. Toshiba. Several posters on Macrumors have confirmed that the Samsung and Toshiba SSD can both appear in MBA 2010 and 2011.

[Brian]

udaman, on 22 July 2011 - 09:28 PM, said:

http://www.barefeats.com/mba11_01.html

I should think that the improvements via CPU both i5 & i7 are nearly 2x faster than older 2010 model, GPU & memory bus increase would all have more and effect of handling HD video, as opposed to anything the SSD does?

Correct. I wasn't crediting the SSD with that performance gain, though this SSD does perform much better than the one I had prior.

[danwat1234]

Yeah with Sandy Bridge in the Air (thus Turboboost, up to 2.3GHZ/2.7GHZ/2.9GHZ boosted depending on whether you get the i5-2467m or i5-2557m or i7-2677m), performance should take a giant leap forward vs the C2D in the previous Air.

Too bad even the new Air and Macbooks don't have USB3 or ESATA, just thunderbolt, not that I'd ever buy an apple product


Edit: added all CPU options

This post has been edited by danwat1234: 25 July 2011 - 10:32 PM

[Brian]

I know, the lack of USB 3.0 is silly and just Apple being stubborn. It's even more silly to me that some accessories guys take this to mean they don't need USB 3 either, since they're just matching step for step with Apple. Ugh.