SSD Benchmark in OS X

If someone were to ask me, a Windows user, what is the most frustrating part about using Macs, well, I'll tell you what it isn't. It's not the inferior OS X, and yes it's inferior. It's not the hardware, because it's far superior to Windows machines, even expensive ones. The worst thing about the Mac ecosystem is Mac users. None of them know anything about anything. Are they all retarded? No. Are they mostly retarded? Yes.

Don't ever go to macrumors and ask them how to do anything that is the least bit not iSteve default.

"Hey, can I customize X?"

The first response will always be, "But why would you want to do that? Apple isn't made to do that. If iSteve didn't want it in there, it's because it isn't necessary. If it IS in there, it's because iSteve is a genius."

end RANT.

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I have a Vertex 2 and if you've been following the OCZ debacle, you'd naturally be curious about your own SSD. I wanted to check speeds and don't want to bother to open my machine until next week when my Intel SSD arrives. So, I want to bench it. But how?

After searching high and low for benchmarking software for OS X, I found links to XBench 1.3 (updated in like 2006; and giving me ridiculously wrong speed numbers) and DriveGenius, which you have to pay for and should really be called DriveIdiot.

Instead, you should download AJA System Test 6.01 (current as of this post on 4.7.2011). I think it's originally a part of a suite for ppl who do movie/film/video editing. It doesn't matter. It works, it's free and if you want SSD benchmarks on OS X, you should get it.

Please post your findings here with settings exactly like mine so we're comparing "apples to apples," so to speak. Also indicate your hardware: MB Pro, regular, unibody, desktop, Sandy Bridge, etc.

Feedback will be used to adjust this post.

RESULTS:

60GB - 25nm ( no) - 220MB/write 225MB/read - 2010 MBP
120GB - 25nm ( no) - 215MB/write 236MB/read - 2011 MBP
120GB - 25nm ( yes) - 183MB/write 220MB/read - 2009 MBP

 

I'm a MacRumors user and I've seen stuff like that but overall there are some very knowledgable people and I like to contribute as well. Anyway yeah I found AJA a few days ago and actually ran this benchmark as well doing the 4GB one with the 1080p one and here are my numbers:
Ran the one you ran also for comparison. 120GB Vertex 2 pre-25nm also.

 

Thanks for posting. Looks good so far unless we both have 32nm haha. But then Anand did say that IOMeter would come up with similar results regardless. Don't know how that compares. I wish we had a benchmark for random 4Ks.

 

Vertex 3 - definitely worth it


and Quickbench

 

ha!

LOL!!!!... oh the irony!

 

Man. You are such a DIIIIIIICK. Awesome speed.

 

Superficially, perhaps. However, Apple fanboyism is palpably different than anything else. I'm a fan of technology and progress. I'm a fan of what companies do, not entities per se. Therefore, I'll buy good products that Apple puts out and will recognize when they do things right. I will also not hesitate to point out the things they do wrong. This latter point is what fanboys will not accept. And that is the difference between me and cult members.

 

The benchmark isn't very good. It only tells half the story and what most consider to be the least important. It only shows sequential performance. That's great for video editing which the test is designed for, but 4K random performance is arguably more important for OS speed and application loading.

 

Yes, already mentioned in OP. Still, impressive. No Vertex 3 for me though, since I'm limited to SATA II.

 

as long as I can move and copy and chop huge files FAST, then it works for me. I am looking forward to be able to use the thunderbolt port.

 

Am I the only one, aside from doh, who sees the irony in this opening paragraph? It is fine if someone thinks that OS X is inferior to Windows (I am guessing Windows 7 as anyone who thinks Vista is better than OS X needs to have their computer privileges taken away from them) or that there are some retarded Mac users out there. I have come across a fair share of them just as I know some stupid people that blindly follow Windows releases. For example, my cousin was adamant about installing Windows 7 Professional x64 on her desktop simply because it had an AMD 64 processor. Forget about the lack of drivers for the old hardware on her motherboard or that she would never access anything above 2GB of RAM. She insisted on going that route and it didn't work out for her.

However, after making all of those connections, sugar states that Apple hardware is superior. That right there is ironic in that Apple pretty much runs the same hardware as everyone else. A new Sandy Bridge quad-core Core i7 processor in a 15" MBP is the same one featured in a Dell XPS 17, HP Pavilion, and so on. The hardware itself is the same as what everyone else is running. In fact, Apple still charges more for their systems. You can buy a Dell XPS 17 for $1400 (that is with a 3 year warranty covering everything including accidental damage) with the same processor as a 15" MBP coming in at over $2000 by the time a three year warranty is thrown in. They would both have really nice displays, the same processors, comparable GPU performance (the XPS would actually be better), hard drives that are very similar, and so on.

So, after all of those remarks, it just seems ironic that sugar would rightfully bash some Mac users only to make a statement that they have been spewing ever since Apple started going up against the Intel+Windows combination.

 

I'l keep this brief as I don't want to get entangled in some fanboy crap.

Hardware: Yes, Apple hardware is superior. If you're talking CPU, RAM and HD space, then no, it's not superior. But if you're talking about build quality, design, thoughtful placement, heat distribution, amazing freaking mousepad, low to zero noise, then yes, it's far superior to Windows machine.

Software: Is there TRIM support in OS X? Is there a way to hide your SAMBA shares upon boot up? Is there a way to customize your dock without a 3rd party application? I could go on for days. OS X is not garbage. It's just horrible next to Windows 7.

Ironic? No. It's called nuanced thought. Seeing the good for good and calling out the bad when it's bad.

 

1. I am not a fanboy.

2. The design of a notebook is not the same as its hardware.

3. I never said that OS X was superior to "Windows" other than Vista being crap.

4. TRIM support is coming in OS X Lion and you also can't really customize the "not-a-program-dock" in Windows 7 without the aid of third party programs either.

I still find it ironic that you made those statements. Back in the day, Mac die hards had to defend themselves against the Wintel group. HP, Dell, Gateway, IBM, and Compaq (something that wasn't part of HP at the time) were coming out with systems running Windows 95 (and then Win 98) all with Intel hardware for $1000-$2000 less than what Apple was charging for their higher end systems. People continued to buy Mac and, when in a heated debate with a Wintel user, would fire back "at least it looks better than what you are running." I admit that there are some design aspects that help increase performance. Apple's trackpad is still unmatched and it is nice that they put it smack dab in the middle of the notebook. That being said, it is still ironic for someone to make educated comments and then come back with something that is essentially "it looks nice."

I am not hammering you or trying to bring up some aged old debates that get heated on both sides. I was just pointing out the irony in your statements (as was doh).

 

when you think your opinions are facts, and others opinions are crap, but you have no good argument as to why, its always easiest to just call them fanboys and say they are insane.

yes

yes... easiest way, keep it disabled... but all this changes in Lion since they are getting rid of samba. You can still always manually install your own versions of samba and config them any way you want though.

visual customizations are lacking... it would be nice for them to add some theme support. Wether that makes anything inferior, or actually superior, all depends on your point of view. Apparently you cannot understand someone liking that, so you think they are insane and fanboys.

only in your opinion

good and bad in this case is all subjective, there is no absolute truth type of good or bad here. The problem is trying to take your opinions as facts, and then insulting everyone that doesn't agree with you, then trying to get some type of feedback after trying to insult most of the people who might respond.

 

Heh. I love Windows 7 and am looking forward to returning to it (or 8) one day, but I stopped reading the OP's post after the "and yes it's inferior" comment.

 

It brings much consternation to know that I'm not invited to the fanboy club.

 

@sugarkang

Just curious, after scanning this thread....

Why do you have a Mac?
You are irritated by Mac users and irritated by OSX....is the hardware the only reason?

Honestly, I am just curious.

 

I guess being a fanboy means that you point out the irony and lack of factual statements (opinions != facts) in what other people are saying. Who knew? I thought fanboy meant something completely different.

 

I'm not really irritated by OS X. It's just an inferior operating system is all. Now, when I say that it's just a subjective opinion. After all, the lack of features can be very good for someone who is not technically inclined. e.g., mom, grandpa, club chick, English majors, Luddites, etc. And the way Apple does the whole Genius Bar appointments thing is really wonderful for people not technically inclined. I wish I could opt out of it and save a few hundred bucks.

But for someone who needs features and customization options and is willing to put up with a slight learning curve to get it, well, OS X can be a little underwhelming. Now, that said, it's not a bad OS. It mostly does what I want. After I remapped the keys and physically switched them out, cross platforming is near seamless with my Win7 desktop.

The real awesomeness of MacBooks (and they really are awesome) is all of the stuff you don't see on the specs page. Just one example of many: PC notebooks tend be noisy, particularly with cooling fans. In the last decade, I've spent a lot of time trying to have the quietest components possible (I used to frequent SPCR a lot). But MacBooks are just quiet out of the box and they don't even advertise that as a feature.

Three finger swipe to the left on the touchpad serves as a "back" button. Swipe to the right and it serves as a forward button. That alone obviates the need for a mouse. Once I figure out how to make 4 finger swipe open and close a new browser tab, there's probably no going back to Windows (on a notebook, at least).

So, I can deal with the quirks of OS X because Apple hardware is no longer overpriced, hipster crap. It's actually kind of a bargain from an industrial engineering standpoint ever since the Unibody designs. Prior to that, definitely overpriced, hipster crap. Of course all the normal tech specs are the same like CPU, RAM, resolution and all that. But those other, lesser tangibles that I really care about are sort of prepackaged in the deal.

As soon as Windows box makers come out with specs that match Apple, I will go back in a heartbeat. And yet, for the past 3-5 years, they seem to be falling further behind. I keep waiting for the day that will never come.

So, really. It's just these fanboys that are irritating. Seriously, just Google the MacRumors forum on any topic regarding how to customize your MacBook. I am telling the truth about this (exaggerated, of course). But mostly, I just ignore fanboys. They're actually kind of funny. Check out how this one guy insists that OS X has TRIM functionality. He feels that's an honest, defensible position.

So, I do consider myself a Windows user. But I'm not tied to any OS, or any hardware. I buy the stuff that best suits my needs. I am platform and hardware agnostic and just call it like I see it. Some people think that's asserting my opinion as fact, but I think it's just asserting my opinion and other people getting their feelings hurt.

If someone were to disparage Windows users as lonely, middle aged losers, the last thing I would feel is personally hurt. These Mac people, on the other hand, somehow transmogrify their individual identities and sense of self worth with some corporation. By reading the dialog, that fact should be readily apparent to some, but tragically not all, people.

 

are you seriously kidding around here or something? I'm just wondering if your trying to be funny, or just trolling... or if its just a lot if ignorance and arrogance mixed.

and yes Mac OS X 10.6.7 can use TRIM. I never said it was supported or easy to get working, but it does have the functionality, as many people are using it now... its only officially working and supported on 10.6.7 on 2011 Macs that have an Apple branded SSD, but people have gotten it working on non Apple and non 2011 machines... its not easy to do it manually, though you can try something like TrimEnabler to do the hard work for you.
groths.org Blog Archive TRIM Enabler for Mac

 

I agree with your point regarding some Mac users. Both platforms have their fan bases, and it's unfortunately that a large section of the user base ruins it for the rest of us.

I don't agree with your comment about OS X being inferior though.
In what way is it inferior?

I've worked with numerous platforms and strikingly different hardware. The majority of my multi user, multi thread, high throughput work is always done on high end Unix servers. You choose your processor and OS based on the workload. But the one thing that become apparent is that the Unix systems however varied they are, generally have a performance edge over their Windows based counterparts.

For a start, Windows (and it's DOS origins) have come from personal computer origins with single user in mind. Unixes are a fair deal older, and have always been optimised for multi user, networking and high security years/decades before Windows even needed to be concerned with it.

They all do it slightly differently - whether it be AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, BSD, OS X.

But there it is from this Unix family tree that an additional 15 years of development and improvements specifically for a multi-user/network oriented environment - come efficiencies with filesystems, memory and processor utilisations that haven't really yet been realised with Windows systems.
It's only since Windows 95 and the availability of Internet connectivity in the home, Windows multitasking and file sharing that Microsoft has had to think about making improvements on such things. But 1995 they were 18 years behind.

Another excellent bonus is a decent command line. Choose your shell, and out of the box access to vi, see, awk, perl, grep and basic compilers.

I think Apple was wise to dump their own Mac OS to choose a BSD base, which had already had 23 years of maturity before Apple had got their hands on it.
It's with this 23 years, that leaves OS X with efficiencies that continue to evade Microsoft.

A couple of points straight off the bat: Windows user security model (inc. admin rights as default), inefficient disk writes which lead to the necessity to defrag, poor handling of processing threads, poor memory management.
The area where they're certainly ahead is in their creation of Direct X and the advantages this has had on computer gaming.

 

Windows cannot be considered superior until it sheds the system registry and the bloated WinSXS folder. The combination of which will require you to format & reload your system annually in order to maintain peak speed. Even on Windows 7.

 

Well regarding the original idea of this post...

System:
MBP 5.1 2.53 ghz C2D
6GB RAM
Vertex 2 120 gb 25 nm

AJA Write @512mb - 183
AJA Read @512mb - 220

I see that the 34 nm version someone posted earlier is significantly faster...but I question how much faster it is in real world usage. To me at least, it is much faster than the 7200 rpm drive I had in there before.

 

I added your numbers to the first post. 2009 MBP?
It'll be better than any mechanical drive (for most uses).

I'm actually trying to figure out if there's a difference between 32nm and 34nm SSDs. It will probably be difficult to find through benchmarks.

 

I don't know about this. I used to hate the system registry, but now I'm glad it's there. I can go in there to do all sorts of tweaks that are unavailable thru control panel or admin tools. For example, I've hidden certain drives from view in Windows Explorer. System speeds no longer depend on how bloated the registry is as long as you are using an SSD for the OS drive. And we are, so it's kind of a moot point.

So, other speed related things for startup will be governed by msconfig, which you can configure to your heart's content.

It's nice that you can just drag an application into the trash and be done with it in OS X. But it's also stupid that I have to type in my password to do any kind of system edits or the tiniest re-arranging. This is after Apple made fun of the PC for having to verify UAC. At least I can turn UAC off.

I think for most people (non-tech people) the Apple way of computing is better. But for people who grew up on customization and are a bit more tech savvy than most, the experience can be very frustrating.

 

It's actually a 2008 unibody...the very first generation that came out in October 2008.

 

I think even you can agree that's very high-level usage for the system registry and out of the scope of feasibility for about 98% of PC users. Meanwhile, its inherent inefficiencies slow computers world-wide over time as apps are added and removed from the system or changed.

meanwhile, in OSX, once you delete an app (and maybe its preferences), it's gone. No remnants. No traces. No slow-downs.

and that damn WinSXS folder. I tell ya what: After 12-14 months, time how long it takes your computer to go from power-on to your desktop with all startup apps finished loading. Then format and reload. Install all the same apps and move all your files back into place. Time. I guarantee you you'll see speeds you had forgotten Windows was capable of. Meanwhile, you'll discover that 12 months from now, OS X will run just as fast as it did on day 1. It's an experience I'm not used to but am glad to have now.

Google WinSXS and see what it's doing for yourself. And the registry is well-known to people like us who've been dealing in PC support for decades. Hell, even the addition of fonts to the fonts folder is notorious for slowing apps and the OS.

Windows has a long way to go when it comes to cleaning up some of these things. And for every 1 advantage you can create for yourself in it, there are probably 1,000 PC users who'd never even think of opening the system registry for fear of messing something up.