A Quick Comparison of SSD and HDD Performance
Even though it’s not the major purpose of this article, we can’t resist giving you an idea of the SSD’s performance.
Test configuration
The test configuration consisted of a 15" MacBook Pro (June 2007).
- Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz CPU (4 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz bus)
- 4 GB DDR2-667
- nVidia GeForce 8600M GT 128 MB graphics card
Obviously the storage medium is different – a Fujitsu hard drive (2.5 inches, 160 GB, 5,400 rpm) for the hard-disk version and an Mtron SSD (2.5 inches, 32 GB) in the second case.
Startup
The MacBook Pro with an SSD was significantly faster than the hard-disk version and a little faster than the MacBook Air and its SSD.
Photoshop CS3
Launching Adobe Photoshop CS3 was incomparably faster on the SSD version. The loading time was divided by a factor of three. Opening a 500-MB image (TIFF format) was also significantly faster, though the difference wasn’t as great. Note that the MacBook Pro was a little faster than the MacBook Air, even though the memory and processor play a role.
Microsoft Word 2008
Launching Microsoft Word 2008, which is a very slow application, really got a boost from an SSD. The loading time was divided by three. But even with an SSD, Word 2008 still launches very slowly (especially compared to the Windows version).
File Decompression
For the last test, we tried decompressing an archive (.rar) containing a few large files (around 500 MB) and a large number of small files (less than 1 MB). With this specific test, we wanted to show up one of the weak points of SSDs – writing small files. The SSD in the MacBook Air, which is only average where raw speed is concerned, was a lot slower than the Mtron with the MacBook Pro. Even with this test, deliberately designed to challenge an SSD, the Mtron was faster than the hard disk.
