Sunday February 03, 2008
- MacBook Air benchmarks posted - Lionel - 19:01:55
Macrumors has recently tested both default configurations of the MacBook Air; the 1.6GHz HDD, and the 1.8 GHz SSD. How do they measure up to more conventional Apple portables?
Macrumors achieved the following using XBench:
Immediately, our interest gravitates toward the performance gain brought by the 1.8" SSD found in the high-end model. The performance gains correspond with what one would expect when comparing solid-state flash memory to a conventional 4200 RPM hard disk. The SSD is incomparibly faster in all but a couple tests, where the conventional hard disk pulls away in sequential writes, which has always been a weak point for NAND flash memory. Looking at the rest of the results, the MacBook Air seems to be very slow compared to even a regular MacBook. However, intended as a satellite machine, the MacBook Air's power-to-size ratio, along with software features such as remote disk and wireless Time Machine backup, make it seem a logical choice for those of us with more than one Mac.
[translation by JCantrell]
- Ultra rapid NAND Flash - Lionel - 10:42:00
Source : TGdaily
Intel and Micron have announced a new generation of NAND chips that are 5 times faster due to a new interface.These chips are available in 2 and 4 GB and are capable of writing data at 100 MB/s and of reading it at 200 GB/s compared to 20 and 40 GB/s for NAND currently.
Of course, one can already imagines what this would do for SSD disks; equipped with this memory, probably data flow in the neighbourhood of the 500 MB/s would be possible. This boost in speed is obtained by simultaneously reading and writing several chips.
However there remains the problem of the low density of the SLC NAND chips and their price that still stops large scale production.But if this technology could be used to boost the speed of MLC NAND chips, then there would be SSD disks able to make big inroads into the traditional hard disk market.
The mass production of these products will start in Q2.
[translation by crispin]
- iFixit has done the MacBook Air - Lionel - 10:20:29
As normal, IFixit has already completely dismounted their MacBook Air.
Like us, they were very impressed by the ingenuity shown by the designers of this machine.
Excellent news, if you exclude the screen the machine is very simple to disassemble. However you will need patience to reach the end since 88 screws need to be removed.
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/Mac/MacBook-Air
[translation by crispin]
