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2021 MacBook Pro M1 Max: SSD Speed vs Transfer Size
Related: 2019 iMac 5K, 2019 Mac Pro, 2020 iMac 5K, 4K and 5K display, Apple MacBook Pro M1, Apple Silicon, iMac, iMac 5K, laptop, Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Macs, SSD, video
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MPG tested the Apple 16.2" MacBook Pro with M1 Max Chip Z14X000HR, a maxed-out model in all ways except 4TB SSD instead of the maximum 8TB SSD.
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Real world speeds through the file system using diglloydTools DiskTester.
disktester run-sequential-suite --test-size 8G
This test charts the real-world speed for various transfer sizes for both reads and writes, because small I/O sizes are much slower than larger ones.
For example, 32K transfers are highly inefficient vs 1MB transfers—there is a difference of 32X times as many operating system calls to transfer 1MB in 32K chunks as with one call to transfer a 1MB chunk.
Fast small transfers translate to a more responsive system overall, while fast large transfers translate to better throughput for applications processing very large files, or very large numbers of moderate and large files.
If below are out of date: view current Mac wishlist and all current OWC wishlists.
Transfer speed vs transfer size
disktester run-sequential-suite --test-size 8G
The 2021 MacBook Pro M1 Max shows stunningly fast write speeds. Fast enough that one wonders if there is something sketchy going on (eg caching). Because there is no way it is honestly writing 32K chunks at 7.1GB/sec. Moreover the drive has read speeds little better than the 2020 iMac 5K until reads get into the 4MiB size. Apple is doing something new and unusual for writes, hopefully not a data-loss risk thing.
See the next test for more weird stuff.
2021 MacBook Pro M1 Max vs 2019 iMac 5K, 2020 iMac 5K
Sustained Performance Filling Capacity
Test volume size, APFS: 3TB ~= 2.78 TiB.
Write behavior is unlike anything MPG has ever seen in an Apple internal SSD. The behavior is repeatable.
To see an abrupt breakdown in SSD write speed for sustained writes suggests a 2-tier flash drive. The plummet occurs at file 479 of 1000, equating to 1331 GiB = 1430GB, or about 35% of the 4TB flash drive. Which makes no sense for a 2-tier design (1/3 fast flash, 2/3 slower).
Turning to thermal throttling as a theory, why the sudden plummet? With thermal throttling, one would expect a steady degradation, not an abrupt change.
Even the degraded write speed is in line with prior internal Mac SSDs (3.2 to 3.3 GB/sec) on iMac 5K, Mac Pro, etc. But when not degraded, the 7GB/sec figure is pretty awesome.
Further research is needed. Based on invoking the test a 2nd time, it appears that the SSD speed “regenerates” after the first test, so long as there is some time in-between. TBD.
The results for reads here are in excellent agreement with the test above: a bit over 5GB/sec, which is far above the ~3.3GB/sec achievable in prior Macs.
As reader Don H puts it:
Of course almost no one would have a task that requires this magnitude of data transfer in the real world, and even then the performance is still quite good, even with a slowdown. Short of the PCI-based storage in your Mac Pro this appears to be the fastest storage in any Mac to date. (It’s odd that the early write performance exceeds the read performance by so much, however.)
2.78GiB = 2.985GB per file.
Apple 13.3" MacBook Pro M1 Chip with Retina Display (Late 2020, Space Gray)
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