TESTING IN PROGRESS:
What We Are Working On
Posted Friday, March 30th, 2010, by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist
Thanks for all the feedback on performance tests you want to see. Here's what we're working on:
1. Of course, we're working on comparing OS X 10.6.2 to 10.6.3 to see what performance gains are to be had.
2. We have a pair of 6 gigabit/second SSDs from Micron (RealSSD C300). These are capable of read speeds in excess of 350MB/s. However, you will need a 6Gbp/s SATA host adapter to squeeze out that speed. If you install them inside your Mac Pro using the built-in 3Gb/s interface, the read speed tops out at 273MB/s.
Write speed is no better than 3Gb/s SSDs no matter what host adapter you choose. The RealSSD tops out at 220MB/s on both 6Gb/s and 3Gb/s SATA interfaces.
At any rate, we will soon be posting the results of the RealSSDs with two different 6Gb/s SATA host adapters compared to the internal SATA interface of the Mac Pro.
3. The Wiebetech ToughTech Secure mini-Q portable pocket drive features 128 bit hardware encryption known as AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). We'll be testing it to see if there is any speed loss due to encryption. Wiebetech claims there is no speed loss.
4. What speed improvements does Apple Aperture 3 offer over version 2? We're trying to find out not only new code efficiencies but the role the GPU plays in determining performance.
5. The Ultimate iPad WiFi accessory: The Sprint 4G Overdrive portable hotspot. We'll let you know by the evening of April 3rd if the iPad WiFi takes full advantage of the 4G speed that the Overdrive offers. (You might recall the MacBook Pro takes full advantage but the iPhone 3GS ran so slow through the Overdrive, it was like having 56K dialup.)
By the way, the Wall Street Journal reported today that Apple is working on a CDMA version of the iPhone that will enable companies like Verizon and Sprint to get in the game.
6. The Raidon SR2760-2S-S2+ is an interesting RAID 0/1 module designed to mount two 2.5" HDDs or SSDs in the space of one 3.5" HDD. You can attach it on a Mac Pro drive sled and plug it into the drive bay backplane. The dual 2.5" drives are in trays that can be ejected.
The downside is that both drives are sharing the same data channel and port. So, like with other Port Multiplication storage systems, the speed is limited to around 240MB/s max. That's a bummer if you invested in a pair of SSDs capable of those speeds (or higher) as a single drive. But there are other advantages to this setup with SSDs:
