13"MBP 2.53" Stock 256 GB SSD: First impressions

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Level 1

5 points

13"MBP 2.53" Stock 256 GB SSD: First impressions

I received the said MacBook Pro today. Perfectly silent. Restarts are practically instantaneous. No disadvantage apart from the price. By the way, these are the specs from the profiler

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

APPLE SSD TS256A:

Capacity: 251 GB (251,000,193,024 bytes)
Model: APPLE SSD TS256A
Revision: AGAB0202

How can I know what brand / model this SSD really is?

Anyway, if the thing continues to work like that, SSDs are the best thing since 1984. Any advice on keeping it running smoothly?

MBP 2.53, 256GB SSD, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Sep 7, 2009 9:33 AM

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Answer 1

PhilippeY Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 7, 2009 1:47 PM in response to PhilippeY

Some Xbench 1.3 data on this machine. Does it look like it is a "slow" SSD relative to the newest ones? Does someone know?

Results 177.50
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6 (10A432)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacBookPro5,5
Drive Type APPLE SSD TS256A
CPU Test 180.54
GCD Loop 295.59 15.58 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 145.36 3.45 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 119.58 3.94 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 283.29 49.33 Mops/sec
Thread Test 295.61
Computation 324.75 6.58 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 271.27 11.67 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 192.68
System 237.97
Allocate 418.81 1.54 Malloc/sec
Fill 182.21 8859.51 MB/sec
Copy 211.39 4366.13 MB/sec
Stream 161.88
Copy 154.47 3190.42 MB/sec
Scale 154.55 3193.00 MB/sec
Add 170.18 3625.15 MB/sec
Triad 169.79 3632.22 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 195.98
Line 172.06 11.46 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 220.35 65.79 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 191.78 15.63 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 199.63 5.04 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 202.46 12.66 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 88.01
Spinning Squares 88.01 111.65 frames/sec
User Interface Test 275.39
Elements 275.39 1.26 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 191.26
Sequential 126.88
Uncached Write 180.49 110.82 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 167.01 94.50 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 63.90 18.70 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 229.91 115.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 388.27
Uncached Write 228.62 24.20 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 306.51 98.13 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1207.21 8.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 544.30 101.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]

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Answer 2

RJC101

Level 1

7 points

Sep 9, 2009 2:36 PM in response to PhilippeY

I have a MacBook Pro 15", 2.53GHz late 2008 (model 5,1). I do have a Crucial 256Gb SSD installed as of today, my xBench is below. I was running a full TM backup at the time too.

Results 180.35
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6 (10A432)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacBookPro5,1
Drive Type CRUCIAL_CT256M225
CPU Test 174.96
GCD Loop 291.59 15.37 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 140.85 3.35 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 114.07 3.76 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 280.42 48.83 Mops/sec
Thread Test 313.51
Computation 408.06 8.27 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 254.54 10.95 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 188.18
System 231.71
Allocate 391.73 1.44 Malloc/sec
Fill 181.60 8829.96 MB/sec
Copy 204.58 4225.49 MB/sec
Stream 158.42
Copy 150.50 3108.62 MB/sec
Scale 152.03 3140.99 MB/sec
Add 167.82 3574.88 MB/sec
Triad 164.79 3525.24 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 196.29
Line 171.28 11.40 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 222.13 66.32 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 192.41 15.68 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 199.52 5.03 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 203.14 12.71 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 84.20
Spinning Squares 84.20 106.81 frames/sec
User Interface Test 276.73
Elements 276.73 1.27 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 249.34
Sequential 211.15
Uncached Write 244.61 150.19 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 235.51 133.25 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 122.30 35.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 410.99 206.56 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 304.40
Uncached Write 110.90 11.74 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 394.55 126.31 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2634.75 18.67 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 826.85 153.43 MB/sec [256K blocks]

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Answer 3

Ashit

Level 1

95 points

Sep 9, 2009 2:54 PM in response to PhilippeY

Hi Philippe,
I presume EFI 1.7 is already loaded on your machine (since you mentioned that the SATA speed is 3 Gbps). I am hoping you aren't experiencing any of the beach ball issues that others are reporting for the recent MBPs.
Also, was 10.6 pre-loaded on your MBP.
From the numbers posted for the Crucial SSD, it looks like the stock SSD is decent. BTW, have a look at this thread http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9880453&#9880453 in case you'd like to compare your SSD's performance to a traditional HDD 🙂
The random read/write numbers for the SSD are much better. I wonder though what the write numbers will look like once the drive starts filling up.

Message was edited by: Ashit

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Answer 4

PhilippeY Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 9, 2009 9:01 PM in response to Ashit

Yes it looks decent, yes I got the machine with 10.6 and no, no beach ball.

Thanks

Philippe

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Answer 5

Sep 10, 2009 12:11 AM in response to PhilippeY

hi philippe

TS is toshiba ..

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Answer 6

PhilippeY Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 10, 2009 10:35 AM in response to Sascha H-K

Hmmm

According to Anandtech, in an article dated Aug 30, 2009

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=19&cp=22

All the SSDs in Macbooks and Macbook Pros are Samsung.

And according to Xbench, the performance of my SSD, with more than half the drive apparently empty has already dropped significantly (but I can't feel any real world difference):

Results 144.85
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6 (10A432)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacBookPro5,5
Drive Type APPLE SSD TS256A
Disk Test 144.85
Sequential 98.32
Uncached Write 112.94 69.35 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 78.95 44.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 67.66 19.80 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 228.26 114.72 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 274.92
Uncached Write 233.38 24.71 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 133.33 42.68 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1057.49 7.49 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 549.68 102.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Down from around 190 only a few days ago.

Philippe

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Answer 7

Sep 10, 2009 10:45 AM in response to PhilippeY

in your post: Model: APPLE SSD TS256A you see TS (toshiba) and not tsamsung 😉

please look also in the macrumors forum ...

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Answer 8

Sep 15, 2009 1:58 AM in response to Sascha H-K

Hi PhilippeY ,

How is running your SSD 256GB after a couple of weeks?
I'm about to buy a computer just like yours and I hesitate: wait for the Core i7/Core i5 or buy just today, SSD 128GB or 256GB, ...

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Answer 9

Mac-DJ

Level 1

0 points

Sep 23, 2009 10:52 AM in response to elhombretranquilo

I got my 256GB SSD upgade for my MBP from Foremay, and it works great. I forgot the specific model number, but something called EC188 Jaguar.

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Answer 10

Oct 15, 2009 12:09 AM in response to Mac-DJ

I just read about the EC188. Can I ask where you got it, and how much it cost? I was evaluating the Intel option based on Anandtech, but this looks very interesting.

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