Contradicting
earlier reports that Apple has used slower SSDs in its 2014 MacBook Air
refresh, news website MacRumors has published information indicating
that the variance detected in initial benchmark was due to Apple's
practice of sourcing SSDs from multiple vendors, rather than sourcing
different SSDs entirely.
Apple has shipped MacBook Airs with SSDs
made by either Samsung, Sandisk or Toshiba, without any difference
indicated to consumers. Early benchmark results reported by multiple
sources had indicated that there was a significant speed difference
between the 2013 and 2014 MacBook Air models, but MacRumors attributes
this to the fact that different drives from different vendors were
tested.
It is possible that Apple requires a minimum level of
performance from each vendor but accepts models which exceed that level,
leading to discrepancies through the product line. Newer benchmarks
conducted by Other World Computing, which has identified the specific
SSD models used in its 2013 and 2014 MacBook Air units, indicate
near-identical performance between the two using Blackmagic Disk Speed
Test. OWC is run by MacSales.com, a vendor of third-party upgrades
including the PCI-express SSDs used in Apple's newest computers.
OWC's
findings contradict those of MacWorld, which had found that ordinary file
compression, decompression and copy operations took up to three times as
long on the newer models. MacWorld had compared a variety of models
with 128GB and 256GB drives, both 11-inch and 13-inch, using real-world
operations as well as the same benchmark utility. Even accounting for
the speed improvements inherent to larger SSDs, significant variance was
detected. However, MacWorld's test units were not all uniform in terms
of SSD vendor.