This week Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), launched new models of MacBook Air in its stores around the world, and the first performance tests proved it that the increase is less than 10% in their case. Doing some performance tests and for SSD- implemented in the new products, those from Macworld they demonstrated the fact that they have lower performances than those used in previous models. More exactly, MacBook Air 2013 was 2 times faster than MacBook Air 2014 in tests regarding copying or compressing files, the difference being impressive.
Copying 6GB of files and folders took 28 seconds on last year's 11-inch MacBook Air, but took nearly twice as long (54 seconds) on this year's 11-inch model. With solid-state storage, lower capacity drives are often slower performers, and last year's 11-inch had the higher capacity 256GB of flash. However, the new 11-inch model was also slower than last year's 13-inch model with 128GB of flash storage.
128 GB and 256 GB flash SSDs were used for the tests, and the differences became smaller after the files used for the tests were reduced in size. Unfortunately, flash SSDs from 3 different manufacturers were used for the tests, Samsung, Toshiba and SanDisk currently supplying this type of components for the MacBook. Even if it is normal for SSDs manufactured by different manufacturers to have different performances, halving them is not so normal.
- 2013 13-inch with 128GB SSD: 445/725
- 2013 11-inch with 256GB SSD: 687/725
- 2014 13-inch with 256GB SSD: 520/676
- 2014 11-inch with 128GB SSD: 306/620
To be honest, I think the performance problem has more to do with inappropriate drivers and not inferior hardware, so an OS X update could improve performance.
