Disk speed testing on Apple Silicon: AmorphousDiskMark, Blackmagic, etc. [MERGED]

[dmccloud]

I’m pretty sure that the M2 is using PCIe gen 4 but that doesn’t mean Apple is using PCIe gen 4 NAND.

The speed bump from M2 to M2 Pro/Max is sizeable though.

 

[ondioline]

4TB Studio M2 Ultra

 

[t2jd1967]

Just saw this thread and I am contemplating buying an 15" M2 MBA as an intermediate solution between the 14" M1 MBP Max that is unfortunately going away (loved that machine) and the wait for an 14" M3 Max, after which the MBA will be sold on. Based on the screenshots, it looks like:

• The M2 MBP model needs 1TB or more because the 512GB models only get two drives (chipsets) instead of 4 for all other configurations.
• The M2 MBA model needs 512GB or more because the 256GB models only gets one drive (chipset) instead of 2 for all other configurations.

I do get the point that performance will degrade the more a drive gets filled up, but most of my video stuff gets uploaded to S3 anyway. I am trying to figure out whether I should save the money on the upgrade from 512GB to 1TB for the MBA.

Any thoughts?

Edit: wording.

 

[Rockanrolero]

Ran a series of speed tests on Blackmagic (1GB to the Documents folder) and keep getting similar results for both read and write... any ideas what might be causing this? I have a 15" M2 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

 

[MarkC426]

I was about to reply, but then noticed the read is '10k'......
Initially I thought it was 1k.
That seems very fast.

Try AJA speed test, from the App Store, see if it gives the same results.

 

[herbert7265]

When testing my internal SSD with the BM Disk Speed Test I also get sometimes “interesting” results… they vary based on the folder I use for the test, the test file size and sometimes even, nothing changed, from one day to another.

Maybe you also want to repeat the test with different parameters, just to see what happens?

But to be honest, I have never seen such a result (>10k), my results vary in the range from 4k to 7.5 k.

Herbert

 

[vanc]

Ran a series of speed tests on Blackmagic (1GB to the Documents folder) and keep getting similar results for both read and write... any ideas what might be causing this? I have a 15" M2 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

View attachment 2239556

That doesn't seem right. The READ speed is too good to be true. Around 30% faster than M2 Pro/Max?

 

[RedTomato]

Have there been any tests of how the M1 or M2 SSDs degrade as they get filled up?

I'm trying to decide which size to get and if the SSDs in them are able to run - for example - at 90% speed when 90% full, then I can get a smaller SSD. If as I suspect, it's 90% speed when 60% full then I'll get a bigger size SSD.

 

[ArkSingularity]

Have there been any tests of how the M1 or M2 SSDs degrade as they get filled up?

I'm trying to decide which size to get and if the SSDs in them are able to run - for example - at 90% speed when 90% full, then I can get a smaller SSD. If as I suspect, it's 90% speed when 60% full then I'll get a bigger size SSD.

My M1 MacBook Pro (13" base model, 256GB) has about 40GB of free disk space, so it's a little over 85% full. My write speeds are about ~2300 MB/sec and my read speeds are about ~2800 MB/sec according to BlackMagic disk speed test. Not sure how that compares to the speeds when the drive is less full, but I don't think they're too far off from the numbers I've seen elsewhere.

(Random read/write speeds I'm less sure about. BlackMagic doesn't seem to test for this, but if anyone has a suggestion for an easy benchmark to perform on it that I don't have to pay for, I'm happy to perform it and post the results.)

 

[elfamosisimoJON]

Recently arrived M2 Max Mac Studio 12c CPU, 38c GPU and 4TB SSD:

 

[andrewmarich]

MAC PRO - M2 ULTRA - 24 CORE CPU - 76 CORE GPU - 192GB RAM - 8TB SSD

OWC - ACCELSIOR 8M2 - PCIe - 16TB

OWC - THUNDERBLADE - THUNDERBOLT 3 - 16TB

 

[jdb8167]

if anyone has a suggestion for an easy benchmark to perform on it that I don't have to pay for, I'm happy to perform it and post the results.

It’s literally in the first post of this now merged thread.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...k-blackmagic-etc-merged.2378298/post-31909532

 

[ArkSingularity]

It’s literally in the first post of this now merged thread.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...k-blackmagic-etc-merged.2378298/post-31909532

 

[wegster]

Results from both my 2019 MPB16, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD and my MBP 1 M1 Max 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD. Also including Amorphous Memory results as well for both.

2021 MBP 14 M1 Max 64GB 2TB SSD

2019 MBP 16 Intel 2.4GHz 32GB RAM 2TB SSD

 

[acuriouslad]

Curious, if anyone can answer the following:
I understand that more NAND chips allows for much higher sequential speed for read and write, however the 4kb random reads and writes appear fairly similar between the 512GB and 1TB M2 models. So other than large sequential transfers, it more thinking day to day use, writing 40kb Word document changes, etc. would there be any noticeable difference in the reduced amount of NAND modules?

And what would be the best way to determine this daily use pattern on an SSD? I see someone earlier in this thread referring to 16kb being how the operating system works, which showed large performance increase. However, does theIs mean smaller file changes are being written over at 16kb and therefore 4kb is really an ineffective metric for MacOS?

 

[ori69]

MAC PRO - M2 ULTRA - 24 CORE CPU - 76 CORE GPU - 192GB RAM - 8TB SSD
View attachment 2244831
OWC - ACCELSIOR 8M2 - PCIe - 16TB
View attachment 2244834
...

iroN 2022

Internal SSD 4TB

Internal RAID 8TB (4x2TB)

 

[Burnincoco]

iroN 2022

Internal SSD 4TB

View attachment 2265888

Internal RAID 8TB (4x2TB)

View attachment 2265889

Those are 2010 RAM speeds!

 

[Chancha]

That is a great difference, SEQ1M QD8 for read speed is twice as high on the M1 Pro. Both machines have the same amount of used storage, RAM, and total storage. Do you know why?

It has been well known that the entire M2 generation has the base model SSD number of NANDs gimped, all the way up to the Studio base.

 

[konstantin1122]

It has been well known that the entire M2 generation has the base model SSD number of NANDs gimped, all the way up to the Studio base.

Ah, right, my bad.

 

[Chancha]

Ah, right, my bad.

What’s worse is that, I don’t see this changing with this M3 launch. We will see in a few hours anyway.

 

[konstantin1122]

What’s worse is that, I don’t see this changing with this M3 launch. We will see in a few hours anyway.

Exactly. I am looking forward to the disk tests for the different SSD capacities.

 

[Chancha]

Exactly. I am looking forward to the disk tests for the different SSD capacities.

Looks like Apple saw this coming. Every single review unit came with 1TB or more, lol. They even kit out iMacs with 24GB and 4TB lmao.

 

[Blaine]

Which metric matters most for boot up speed and launching of applications?
Is it RND4K QD1?

I'm also anxious to see the m3 results

 

[mecloud]

M3 Max Blackmagic internal SSD test: is this result strange?

These of course are not “bad” numbers by any means, it just seems a little odd to me that the read speed is measuring quite a bit slower than the write.

This is on the top-end CPU configuration of the M3 Max, with the base 48gb RAM and 1TB SSD.

 

[mecloud]

Same computer as mentioned above, the base 48gb/1TB config of the top-end M3 Max.