Speed up
The OWC drive saw sequential reads ranging from 38.21MB/s for 4KB files to 336.85MB/s for 1MB files, with an average of 204.62MB/s. The original MacBook Air SSD ranged from 29.59MB/s to 253.04MB/s for the same sizes, with an average of 151.55 MB/s.
Quickbench
Sequential Read Speed
Throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better
Sequential Write Speed
Throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better
Sequential writes were 35.36MB/s to 446.55MB/s, averaging 252.68 for the OWC, and 25.28MB/s to 232.12MB/s, averaging 140.33MB/s for the standard SSD.
Random reads were 23.21MB/s to 428.99MB/s, averaging 209.79MB/s for the OWC and 12.55MB/s to 226.83MB/s, averaging 102.42MB/s for the standard SSD.
Quickbench
Random Read Speed
Throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better
Random Write Speed
Throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better
Finally, random writes were 34.86MB/s to 445.86MB/s, averaging 236.48MB/s for the OWC and 24.33MB/s to 232.79MB/s, averaging 123.57MB/s for the standard SSD.
The bad news is that my machine also ran hotter with the OWC drive inside, and the fan began to kick in even for simple operations like using Chrome with five or six tabs open.
Verdict
There's no arguing the OWC drive is way faster than a stock SSD, but the question to ask yourself is really whether that increase in speed is of any real benefit to you. You'll also trade off fan noise, which is going to hit battery life too. It's not a cheap upgrade either, so it's really only worth doing if every ounce of speed is essential to you. ®
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COMMENTS
I don't wish to be pedantic but
calling Torx screws non standard is a bit mistaken.
Back in the 80s Compaq used them on almost, everything the Amiga RF shield used them
Since then the car industry has fallen in love with them.
Ok so they're not common in a domestic setting, but then neither are SSD drives
Whole hearted pedantry
Never apologise for pedantry! You're 100% correct, and the reason they're used is touched on in the article - they're designed to not slip (unlike Phillips) in order to achieve consistent torque (where the name comes from?). Presumably one of the reasons the car industry loves them too.
They're an ISO standard these days.
Clarifications to article from OWC
Some inaccuracies or assumptions here that need to be addressed:
1. the Connectivity spec....it's not mSATA 6Gb/s...we use a custom connector.
2. the heat increase is related to freeing up the 6Gb/s bus so the processor can do more tasks faster. Now the drive is not the bottleneck and the machine can run as it was intended to.
3. related to above then, one won't experience significantly lower battery runtime if the time to complete various tasks is reduced significantly. For most users running multiple tasks....the issue of time spent vs battery life used (compared to stock machine) is a wash....meaning no major difference in battery runtime from factory SSD vs ours. Does ours use more? Yes...but not to the detriment suggested.
And at idle, the power use results are nearly the same.
More pedantry
The Torx screws on the base of the Mac Air are 5-point compared with the usual 6-point which I have in my Uber-Mac User's toolkit. Wondered why my T5 didn't fit ...
