# Macbook pro flash memmory up to SSD speeds?



## Silence-is-Golden (Dec 24, 2015)

Is there a gear wizzard who knows whether Macbook pro ( an i7 2,3 ghz ) with flash memmory is comparable to SSD speeds?
I.o.w. Can you stream Kontakt samples from flash?


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 3, 2016)

No one?


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## Guffy (Jan 3, 2016)

I thought SSD and flash drive was more or less the same thing.
You can stream samples fine from a 7200rpm drive, so streaming from a MBP flash drive shouldn't be a problem


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 3, 2016)

Yeah a nice response!

ok, seriously: I couldn't find some substantial data from googling.
So it looks that flash memory is kind of similar like SSD's or more or less the same.

Thanks for your info! Seems like a good upgrade from my current mbp.


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## TGV (Jan 3, 2016)

What is "flash memory"? Can you link the page that describes it?


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 3, 2016)

Here is one:

http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/PCIe-SSD-What-it-is-and-how-you-can-use-it

If you google "PCIe based flash memmory or SSD" you will enjoy some more reading....


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## TGV (Jan 3, 2016)

That is utterly unhelpful: it doesn't say anything about the model you're interested in.


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 3, 2016)

well, hopefully some one else might be able to help you.

This is what I can do for you


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## TGV (Jan 3, 2016)

Wait. I thought you wanted to know if a certain Mac is good for streaming, right? Which model is it?


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 3, 2016)

Ah, misunderstanding you.

I thought you wanted to look for knowledge yourself. 

I put that in the first post I believe: i7, 2,3 ghz macbook pro, 16 gb DDR Ram.

It has got 480 GB flash memmory onboard.
It doesnt say which one


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## TGV (Jan 3, 2016)

I can't see that precise model on the current Apple store page, but 480GB flash in a MacBook Pro should indeed be a 480GB SSD, but attached to the computer in a different way. I could only find information on throughput speed, not on seek speed, but since that is usually very low for an SSD, you should be able to run quite a few Kontakt patches from it.

Do note that it's possible to fill up such drive quickly.


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 3, 2016)

Allright, sounds good for kontakt streaming.

480 gb indeed fills up quickly, but I dont need all the libs I use on my home iMac.
And budget is always a factor

The Macbook I am interested in is indeed not the current generation. Its a bit older with the thunderbolt connectivity still there.

Thank you for your help, and again apologies for the initial misunderstanding!


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## mc_deli (Jan 3, 2016)

This:
http://blog.macsales.com/14040-new-2012-macs-means-new-owc-ssd-designs
and Everymac are the best things I can find to explain this.

Flash drive is a terrible name. It is an SSD. But it is not an M2 like the new rMBP. Your best bet to find out more on the speed is to search and look at Parkdale and Blackmagic speed test results.

It is an SSD so it will be OK for sample streaming...


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## jsp21 (Jan 3, 2016)

Afaik, in this particular case "flash" should be referring to PCI-E based SSDs as opposed to your traditional SATA SSDs. It's fairly commonplace for Apple to not go into the 'details' of the specifications so as to not bring attention to the quality of the stuff inside (which is usually sub-par, considering the premium pricing).

Do keep in mind that larger capacity is a good thing with SSDs because even the current generation of SSDs will lose performance considerably if you fill them up over ~75% of their capacity (for example, >384gb on a ~500gb SSD).


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 3, 2016)

jsp21 said:


> Do keep in mind that larger capacity is a good thing with SSDs because even the current generation of SSDs will lose performance considerably if you fill them up over ~75% of their capacity (for example, >384gb on a ~500gb SSD).



That is useful to know.
Thanks for your responses


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## OleJoergensen (Jan 4, 2016)

I think I read somewhere thet Apple's flash based SSD reads around 800 MB/s. So they are faster then Sata 3 ssd which max read is around 550 MB/s.


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## TGV (Jan 4, 2016)

The 550 vs 800MB/s distinction is not very important in practice.

1. One Kontakt voice uses around 0.18MB/s. To go beyond 550MB/s, you'd need more than 3,000 voices, something your CPU cannot reach.

2. Seek time also matters. If you've got 3,000 voices, the "disk" needs to change stream more than 10,000 times per second. While SSD is fast, it still has up to 0.1ms seek time, so changing streams with 3,000 voices could take up all its time, resulting in no sound at all.

There's no need to worry about the speed at that level of performance.

BTW, there's no need to keep 25% of the disk empty. That's a very coarse rule of thumb from back when disks were smaller, and under the assumption that you're going to do a lot of writes, since writing slowly wears out the SSD. If you use your disk for samples, there are not that many writes. I'd keep 10% empty. That's plenty, unless you also plan to run disk intensive software such as a database server or video editor on the same disk.


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## jsp21 (Jan 4, 2016)

TGV said:


> 1. One Kontakt voice uses around 0.18MB/s. To go beyond 550MB/s, you'd need more than 3,000 voices, something your CPU cannot reach.



It's not Kontakt or the CPU at fault, it's just that, in most cases, sample files are so small that SSDs rarely build up to their max read speeds. Top speed does does benefit loading very large sample libraries, though.



TGV said:


> BTW, there's no need to keep 25% of the disk empty. That's a very coarse rule of thumb from back when disks were smaller, and under the assumption that you're going to do a lot of writes, since writing slowly wears out the SSD. If you use your disk for samples, there are not that many writes. I'd keep 10% empty. That's plenty, unless you also plan to run disk intensive software such as a database server or video editor on the same disk.



A lot of writes is no longer an issue with current gen. SSDs because they have very high endurance. The 25% spare area rule is for IO consistency and not wear n' tear. Problem is write amplification, but with more spare area on the SSD, it's controller has more headroom to clean up the disk. As before, it seems that the larger the sample library, the more noticeable this is. With decent PCIE SSDs, 10-15% spare area should be fine but I haven't tested this (I'll stay clear of PCIE SSDs for now).


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