4 ms·

Does anyone know what the actual real world difference would be like between the Apple 256 GB SSD upgrade and the Intel 160 GB drive that everyone talks about?

lutorm 17y ago
Look at the Anandtech article. It talks about the disadvantages of the Samsung controller SSDs.
wmf 17y ago
Some Googling suggests that Apple's 256GB SSD is made by Toshiba. Since Toshiba doesn't sell any non-OEM version of this SSD (yet), sites like AnandTech won't review it. Given the wide variety of crap on the market, I wouldn't buy anything that hasn't been widely reviewed.
blasdel 17y ago
The Toshiba and Samsung SSDs that Apple uses are decent, and leagues better than the Taiwanese shovelware that was their only competition when they were introduced. They aren't plagued with embarrassing pauses, but unfortunately aren't particularly fast either. The Intel SSDs offer much better performance, but no OEM is shipping them due to supply-chain issues -- Intel isn't even close to making enough for the aftermarket.
ubernostrum 17y ago
I have a MacBook Pro with the 256GB SSD (it's a Toshiba drive, allegedly with their own custom controller, so be wary of people bashing on Samsung). After reading a lot of articles and using this machine for a while, I've come to the conclusion that the Intel drive would basically involve spending a few hundred dollars extra and voiding my warranty to get a speedup I'll never really notice. Yeah, maybe I could boot in eight seconds instead of twelve, but I don't really care so much about that; this thing's plenty fast for everything I do, and outside of actually benchmarking it on non-real-world tasks (I don't routinely write huge files, for example) it's just not a difference that'll show up, especially when lost in the noise of other factors.

4 ms·

Does anyone know what the actual real world difference would be like between the Apple 256 GB SSD upgrade and the Intel 160 GB drive that everyone talks about?

by rsanheim 17y ago

lutorm 17y ago
Look at the Anandtech article. It talks about the disadvantages of the Samsung controller SSDs.
wmf 17y ago
Some Googling suggests that Apple's 256GB SSD is made by Toshiba. Since Toshiba doesn't sell any non-OEM version of this SSD (yet), sites like AnandTech won't review it. Given the wide variety of crap on the market, I wouldn't buy anything that hasn't been widely reviewed.
blasdel 17y ago
The Toshiba and Samsung SSDs that Apple uses are decent, and leagues better than the Taiwanese shovelware that was their only competition when they were introduced. They aren't plagued with embarrassing pauses, but unfortunately aren't particularly fast either. The Intel SSDs offer much better performance, but no OEM is shipping them due to supply-chain issues -- Intel isn't even close to making enough for the aftermarket.
ubernostrum 17y ago
I have a MacBook Pro with the 256GB SSD (it's a Toshiba drive, allegedly with their own custom controller, so be wary of people bashing on Samsung). After reading a lot of articles and using this machine for a while, I've come to the conclusion that the Intel drive would basically involve spending a few hundred dollars extra and voiding my warranty to get a speedup I'll never really notice. Yeah, maybe I could boot in eight seconds instead of twelve, but I don't really care so much about that; this thing's plenty fast for everything I do, and outside of actually benchmarking it on non-real-world tasks (I don't routinely write huge files, for example) it's just not a difference that'll show up, especially when lost in the noise of other factors.