- Solid state drives for mac mac os#
- Solid state drives for mac update#
- Solid state drives for mac full#
Playing back 255 tracks of 24‑bit, 96kHz audio (Logic Pro's maximum track count) was no problem, nor were 32 tracks of heavily edited audio. The setup also flew through the real‑world tests. I had a hunch that this setup would be impressive even when powering up, as boot time was very fast and applications also loaded quickly. Taking 43 seconds to copy a 1.67GB folder back to itself (compared with 62 seconds for the Firewire 800 drive), its performance is up there with eSATA Raid systems (the same task took three minutes and 16 seconds with a stock 5400rpm MacBook hard drive!). To begin, I performed the obligatory disk‑speed testing, for which I used QuickBench from With random read and both types of write tests scoring over 70MB/s, and the sequential read speed measuring 83.5MB/s, this SSD drive wipes the floor with any opposition, and is also faster on all counts than an external Firewire 800 drive attached to the same computer. Actually taking it out of the box is now a slightly disappointing experience, as you pretty much just get the laptop, a PSU and the discs all the gadgets (the remote, the VGA adapter, the plug you never used) are optional extras. The first set of tests was carried out with the MacBook as it came out of the box. Perhaps not surprisingly, this configuration is hard to find even Apple's mighty PR machine could not source one for test!
Thanks must go to the ever‑helpful Jigsaw Systems of Nottingham, UK, for supplying the machine on test.
Solid state drives for mac update#
I wondered if this update would make any difference to the performance of the supplied drive, which is 'Apple qualified'.
Solid state drives for mac full#
This is a so‑called 'June 2009' model, released without the EFI firmware update 1.7 that allows owners of machines released at this time to access the full potential of third‑party SATA 3 GB/s devices (although Apple themselves do not qualify or supply these devices, and say "their use remains unsupported”). The SSD fitted is the 128GB version (a 256GB option is also available).
Solid state drives for mac mac os#
The machine on test is a MacBook Pro with 15‑inch screen, 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB of memory (1067MHz DDR3), supplied with Mac OS 10.5.7. For the MacBook Pro, it makes less sense at first glance, as the capacity is lower than cheaper HDD alternatives, so I was keen to see if the performance benefits might balance or even outweigh the high cost. For the Air, the option makes sense, as it raises the capacity previously limited by the physical size of high‑capacity hard disk drive (HDD) mechanisms, uses up to 50 percent less power and has no moving parts, so it can withstand the shock and vibrations to which an ultra‑portable device such as this might be exposed. I've tested a variety of hard drive setups during the last few years and was intrigued when Apple released a solid‑state device (SSD) option for the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air in 2008. Have you wondered how well Apple's solid‑state drive option for their MacBook Pro and MacBook Air actually performs? This month we put it to the test.Īs a change from the usual digest of news and rumours pretending to be news, this month I'm looking at one product in a little more detail.
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