Apple has released its new-look MacBook Air range to much fanfare and people have been wondering what performance they can expect from these sleek and sexy machines. There's always an air of one-upmanship surrounding the release of benchmarks into the wild, and Primate Labs won this particular race. But what I would ask is this: how relevant are these numbers to the average user?
As Primate Labs is quick to point out, Geekbench 2 tests rate processor and RAM speed alone, so at best they just confirm what we could have predicted from a simple comparison spec sheet.�
At worst, though, they tell us nothing of overall system performance, not least because Apple has adopted solid-state storage for the new Airs in place of the traditional platter hard disk. It's a replacement that only aggravates the mismatch between individual component benchmarks and real-world computing that's been evident for years. But how did it ever get to this?
Out of whack
As we all know, advances in processing power have enabled computers to run more complex programs, and these in turn require more storage capacity. According to Kryder's Law, improvements in recording density have been able to keep pace with this need, thanks in large part to the hard disk development and manufacturing process that's been in place since the 1960s. But instead of a Moore's Law-like cost decrease in operations per second, the HDD industry has seen a relative fall in cost per unit of storage.�
This is a skew in system evolution that came about via a combination of software demands on traditional serial hardware architecture and commercial viability. So while processors and graphics cores have got faster year on year, cheaper year on year, hard disk capacity has simply responded in the only way it can. The negative impact is clear: the components we've come to rely on as factors guiding performance have been held back by a lack of acceleration in disk access speeds.
Manufacturers aren't stupid, though. They've tried to compensate by improving bus interfaces, upping disk revolutions per minute and bolting on bigger caches. But these measures are all eventually nixed by inherent mechanical limitations and only go so far before the bottleneck re-asserts itself. In fact, the hard disk's predicament reflects yet another important technological tenet: Amdahl's Law!
There's a law for that
This law is used to find the maximum improvement to an overall system when only part of the system is improved. NASA geeks and mainframe freaks have long used Amdahl's argument to design for the perfect balance among components and achieve the fastest possible systems. But consumer computers have since lost this parity, thanks to ? you guessed it! ? the lowly platter hard disk. HDDs have throttled the average system so much that we've unconsciously taken spin-up delays and seek times for granted. But the good news is, we no longer have to.
The rise of digital cameras, mobile phones, iPods and iPads has meant a flash manufacturing boom, and seen Apple become the third largest purchaser of flash memory. And thanks to cross-fertilisation in the Apple eco-system, flash-based solid-state drives are now a feasible alternative to mechanical hard disks, effectively redressing the hardware imbalance. It's no wonder MacBook Airs are outperforming MacBook Pros in real-world benchmarks. Amdahl would be proud!
While an SSD can't quite yet be considered 'cheap', the technology is getting more affordable by the day, and it's fast becoming the perfect upgrade path for existing systems. An SSD adds longevity to your current setup. It will make your Mac run like it should ? when all the parts are in sync and no one component is lagging behind. Trust me when I say, the difference in responsiveness can be staggering.
Upgrade time?
If you're the owner of a unibody MacBook or MacBook Pro, there's nothing to stop you fitting it with a solid-state drive. (We covered the pros and cons of specific brands in our SSD group test in MF217.) Swapping the drive in a unibody notebook is a cinch ? just check your manual, or take a look at the fantastic install videos over at OWC.
As you'll see there, non-unibody MacBook drive replacements are trickier to undertake, but not impossible. iMacs, however, are another issue altogether. Unless you buy your iMac pre-fitted with an 'Apple price-tag' SSD, be prepared for a total teardown job ? not for the faint-hearted.
You can learn more about the evolution of flash storage here.
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