HDD to SSD – a real life comparison

I decided that what is on offer from Apple at this time is not enough interesting for me to dish out several €€€. Therefore, since my MacBook Core 2 Duo is ageing fast (we are reaching the 4+ years mark), I thought that one way to improve my current “home computing” experience, was to do something I meant since the first day I heard about SSDs a few years back.

Therefore, thanks to lowered price and improved performance, I bought myself yesterday for a price of 205€ (here) the Corsair Force F120 (specs here).

My MacBook is from November 2006 and supports SATA I interface with max 150MB/s transfer rate. This means that this drive (which is SATA II) can max out the laptop drive interface with its throughput.

The results are just astounding.

I first installed the drive to give it a quick drive and after Mac OSX 10.6 booted, the first time, I started to realise the potential of this SSD. It would boot *so* quick – in about 10 seconds. And this is with a 2GB 667MHz RAM, 2GHz Core 2 Duo. I cannot imagine what happens with a 8GB Core i7 iMac…

Then I re-installed the OS, by transferring all my data using Time Machine. So I got a “copy” of my HDD into the SSD. These are the results with OSX 10.6.5.

Boot time (from apple to desktop) 45″ to 15″ (-60%)

XBench 117 to 177 (+51%) – hard drive section only 40 to 206 (+400%)

Mail 4.4 (64 bit) 4″ to 2″ (-50%)

Firefox 4.0b7  3″ to 2″ (-33%)

iPhoto 7.1.5 (750 items library) 8″ to 3″ (-60%)

Delicious Library 2.5 (700+ elements) 10″ to 4″ (-60%)

Openoffice 3.2.1 11″ to 4″ (-60%)

Safari 5.0.3 (64 bit) 5″ to 3″ (-40%)

An Automator Script 8″ to 2″ (-75%)

Shut Down 6″ to 3″ (-50%)

Essentially all my application load times are 2 to 4x faster. Boot time is now similar to a wake from sleep. Waking from sleep in instantaneous. Overall response is quick! With 200€ I almost got a completely new laptop. The best money ever spent in electronics, after moving to the Mac.

I cannot yet judge the benefits on battery consumption. The SSD consumes 2W max in active mode, 0.5W in other states. The 80GB Fujitsu 5400 rpm drive I had before consumed 5W on start, 1.9W max in active state and 0.13 to 0.6W in other states. I might get a bit more juice out my battery.

If you want to start a completely new computing experience, ditch your (boot) HDD drive and do yourself a favour – get an SSD, now it’s the time.

[Added 02.12.2010]: a nice comparison table between HDD and SSD available here.

7 is better than 5 (speakers that is).

I have since several months a 5.1 surround system at home. Everything sounds great. I had a Bose System 5, III with 2.1 speaker set up and I never really thought that adding 2 speakers on my couch (using the wall as a way to keep them steady…8-) ) would make much difference.

I connected them yesterday just for fun, and it *does* make a difference. With music the experience is so much more immersive with Neo:6 Music speaker output.

If you have a 5.1 system that can support 6 or 7 speakers, try attaching 2 before having anybody telling you it is not worth it because the room is too small or the speakers are not far enough back behind your head. Any modern amplifier with automatic setup utility will be able to set them up properly and get the best out of them.

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No, it’s not (yet) 64-bit capable

The new iTunes 9 released today by Apple is still not 64 bit capable – it runs in 32 bits mode. Should it run in 64 bits? Maybe, or maybe not, but it has been a bit of a let down.

If Apple doesn't start to release its software in 64 bit versions, why upgrade to Snow Leopard for 64 bit support???

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Now we need 64 bit apps: a performance overview of Snow Leopard vs Leopard vs Tiger

I have installed Snow Leopard today and did some testing with regards to its performance in booting, shutting down and launch times of applications. At the same time I check the RAM usage soon after the booting process is completed.

I have first done an upgrade of 10.6 upon my existing 10.5.8 installation and then (like it is always better to do in a complete new OS version) I did a clean install. The results are interesting.

I compared these numbers, with the timings I have recorded in the past with a 10.4.9 installation and a 10.5 clean install to see how Snow Leopard stacks up. 

All tests are made in the same way on the same hardware (2GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook with 2GB RAM), averaging 3 consecutive measurements after each booting/shutdown cycle. 

Though the absolute numbers are obviously not important, their relative value between different OS versions is what counts the most.

RAM usage (in brackets the differences wrt 10.6 clean install):

10.6 (clean install)              –> 470MB

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8)  –> 554MB (+15%)

10.5.8                               –> 474MB (0%)

10.5 (clean install)              –> 349MB (-35%)

10.4.9                                –> 405MB (-16%)

10.4.7 on Power PC (Mac Mini) 206MB (-128%)

For the following measurements no reference to the Mac Mini with PPC processor are made, since the hardware changes are too radical (especially processor absolute speed, e.g. MHz, and 2 cores, rather than 1).

Booting:

10.6 (clean install)              –> 27"

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8)  –> 38" (+29%)

10.5.8                               –> 41" (+34%)

10.5 (clean install)              –> 44" (+39%)

10.4.9                                –> 26" (0%)

Mail:

10.6 (clean install) – Mail 4.0 (64 bit)              –> 4"

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8)  - Mail 4.0 (64 bit) –> 5" (+20%)

10.5.8 – Mail 3.6                                          –> 6" (+33%)

10.5 (clean install)                                       –> N/A

10.4.9 – Mail 3                                             –> 4" (0%)

iTunes (currently only available in 32 bit):

10.6 (clean install) – iTunes 8.2.1 (empty library)              –> 5"

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8)  - iTunes 8.2.1 (empty library) –> 5" (+20%)

10.5.8 – iTunes 7 (empty library)                                     –> 9" (+44%)

10.5 (clean install)                                                         –> N/A

10.4.9 - iTunes 7 (empty library)                                     –> 8" (+38%)

Firefox (currently available only in 32 bit):

10.6 (clean install) – FF 3.5.2             –> 6"

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8) – FF 3.5.2 –> 12" (+50%)

10.5.8 – FF 3.5.2                               –> 13" (+54%)

10.5 – FF 3.5b4                                 –> 7" (+14%)

10.4.9 – FF 2.0.0.3                            –> 7" (+14%)

iPhoto (currently available only in 32 bit):

10.6 (clean install) – iPhoto 7.1.5 (library with 1700+ pics)              –> 5"

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8) – iPhoto 7.1.5 (library with 1700+ pics)  –> 5" (0%)

10.5.8 – iPhoto 7.1.5 (library with 1700+ pics)                                –> 8" (+38%)

10.5 – iPhoto 7.1.5 (empty library)                                                 –> 2" (-150%)

10.4.9 – iPhoto 6 (library with 6700+ pics)                                      –> 7" (+29%)

OpenOffice/Neoffice (currently available only in 32 bit; OpenOffice native versions not requiring X11 were not available until 1 year ago):

10.6 (clean install) – OpenOffice 3.1.0              –> 12"

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8) – OpenOffice 3.1.0  –> 15" (+20%)

10.5.8 - OpenOffice 3.1.0                               –> 15" (+20%)

10.5 - OpenOffice 3.1.0                                  –> 13" (+8%)

10.4.9 – NeoOffice 2.1 Patch 1                        –> 25" (+52%)

Safari (used only since the release of version 4.0):

10.6 (clean install) – Safari 4.0.3 (64 bit)              –> 3"

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8) – Safari 4.0.3 (64 bit)  –> 3" (0%)

10.5.8 – Safari 4.0.3 (32 bit)                               –> 6" (+50%)

10.5 – Safari 4 beta (build 5528.17) (32 bit)          –> 1" (-200%)

Shutdown:

10.6 (clean install)              –> 4"

10.6 (upgrade from 10.5.8)  –> 5" (+20%)

10.5.8                               –> 8" (+50%)

10.5 (clean install)              –> 18" (+78%)

10.4.9                                –> 19" (+79%)

Comments:

• Clearly a clean install is to be preferred to an upgrade install. The benefits of a freshly cleaned hard drive, with the apps and libraries, defragmented and all close to each other, does bring it's benefits. On average, the 10.6 clean install provided me with an additional 20% performance increase compared to the upgrade install measurements. Also the installation process is considerably shorter, 23' instead of 32' (30% less – but you still have to re-install everything though…).
• Memory usage: 10.6 has about the same footprint of 10.5.8, but strangely 20-30% more footprint compared to 10.5 and 10.4.9; 10.6 brings 64 bit & native multi-core support and several other improvements. Clearly the Intel architecture is extremely inefficient compared to PPC architectures, requiring more than 2x RAM after boot. With about the same RAM usage you get a system that is on average 40% faster than 10.5.8 and 30% faster than 10.4.9; on the same hardware!
• Regarding HDD usage, after the upgrade I had gained 3GB of free space; your mileage may vary, depending on installed applications and whether you are using Xslimmer or not. The System folder now is 200MB (-5%) smaller, the Library folder is 1 full GB smaller (-33%) and the user's library is 500MB less as well (-40%). Installing 10.6 is a no brainer in that sense.
• Booting is about 30% faster compared to Leopard; strangely no difference wrt 10.4.9. If you do a clean install, you get a 30% speed bump compared to the upgrade install.
• Shutting down is 50% to 80% faster. A clean install gives a 20% faster shutdown compared to an upgrade install.
• Regarding single applications loading times, wrt 10.5.8 there are benefits across the board, also on 32 bit applications, waiting for an upgrade to 64 bit. Notable examples are iTunes (20% to 40% faster), Firefox (20% to 50% faster; it has never been a lighting bolt…), iPhoto 7 (30% to 40% faster) and Openoffice (10% to 20% faster, but still stubbornly above 10" – about forever!); it would be interesting to see the performance of the 32 and 64 bit versions of a program side by side…
• Safari is weird: the current 64 bit version is yes, 50% faster than it's 32 bit counterpart, but 3x slower than the 32 bit beta that was available in 10.5.8 – why?

Bottom line: 10.6 from the outside doesn't seem to bring much – after reboot the only thing that gives a hint that you have upgraded is the new Aurora desktop wallpaper (more violet), the black pop-up menus for Dock Icons and a few other minor things here and there. But under the hood, there are major changes, last but not least, full multi-core management, 64 bit apps, cleaned up code (i.e. Finder). For 30$/€, with essentially the same RAM footprint you get more speed, faster booting and shutdown times and more hard drive free space.

Many applications are not yet optimized for multi-core processors and 64 bits, so the best is yet to come…

Apple again has managed to make a major transition seem effortless for the user. The OS, although at his first release shows, until now, some very minor bugs, but nothing that will not prevent you from working like you did before in 10.5.

It is true, 10.6 has booted the 32 bit kernel. I have tried  to force it to 64 bit,  but without success. But all applications and OS services that can run 64 bit, will do. The kernel runs currently, according to several sources outside of Apple, to guarantee the maximum compatibility with non 64 bit kernel extensions that will simply not work under a 64 bit kernel. Because the applications can and do instead fully work in 64 bit mode, there is no reason to panic. Likely in a couple of OS patches (i.e. 10.6.2) 64 bit kernel will be enabled, and probably the user will not even notice it.

Moreover if you have less than 4GB of RAM, right now there will be no additional benefit.

Interesting will be to see what 10.6 will bring to my Mac Mini running a Core Duo processor that does not support 64 bit processing. Will Grand Central Dispatch provide some benefit? Will I get more hard drive space?

More to come in the next few days, after the upgrade.

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The Myth About Exercise

I have read this week a very interesting article on Time about exercising and loosing weight.

I have been going consistently to the gym for the past 2 years. And despite my efforts, I am always weighing the same and my body composition has moved more in the direction of increasing fat, instead of muscle mass.

So I was wondering – am I just loosing my time? why going to the gym at all?

Time's article "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin", by John Cloud, has been published at the right time. It is very well written and explains, based on the latest research in the field, why going to the gym is only one part of the equation.

Summarised, it goes more or less like this:

1. going to the gym is helpful and good for your health, no doubt about it
2. going to the gym makes you more hungry than usual
3. after leaving the gym one tends to eat more than necessary, feeling the need of eating more not just because you are hungry, but because "I am training!"
4. you tend to indulge more on sweets or fat foods, because you know that you will go to the gym or you have gone to the gym and you will burn extra calories off (wrong)
5. you have gone to the gym = you move less during the rest of the day
6. you end up gaining weight because of all the above or in the best case you weigh the same – fat converting to muscle is only one part of the equation
7. even if you were superman and managed to convert, say, 5 kg. of fat into muscle, the overall daily basic need of calories changes minimally (in this example about 40 cal./day – though I am not too sure about it)

This means, that if you go to the gym to loose fat, you need to eat *exactly* the same as when you are not going to the gym and you need to keep doing the same physical activities out of the gym as usual.

If you go to the gym to build muscle mass, you need to eat exactly the same as before or be *very* careful how many and what type of calories you eat.

Good luck with all that….

(read  the article – it is worth the read).

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iPod/iPhone firmware .ipsw files (can be deleted)

(This post will likely not interest most of my friends and contacts – it is here more as a reference in case somebody out there is looking for this information and Google has indexed this page…)

The iPod firmware files, usually located in the /%Username%/Library/iTunes/iPod Software Updates and named, e.g., "iPod1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw", may take some HDD space. They are around 250MB in size.

I have found on my Mac mini the following ones, giving actually a good idea on how the size of the firmware has changed through the various versions. From OS 1.x to OS 2.x there was quite a jump, but OS 3.0 is actually smaller than the latest OS 2.2.1.

Here the details:

iPod1,1_1.1.4_4A102_Restore, 165.5MB, March 2008

iPod1,1_2.0.1_5B108_Restore, 246.7MB, August 2008

iPod1,1_2.0.2_5C1_Restore, 246.2MB, August 2008

iPod1,1_2.1_5F137_Restore, 239.5MB, September 2008

iPod1,1_2.2_5G77_Restore, 248.1MB, November 2008

iPod1,1_2.2.1_5H11_Restore, 248.1MB, January 2009

iPod1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore, 231.2MB, June 2009

The date is when the update was done – in my case is typically 1-2 weeks after the firmware was released, so they should be pretty accurate.

According to this post in the Apple forums, it is safe to delete all files to recover disk space.

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Why Apple is keeping a customer (happy).

After months experiencing disappointing customer services, finally today something really nice happened. Though I don't like making free advertising for companies in general – I do want to recognise quality and good service when you get it.

In this case it goes to Apple. 

My 2.5 year old white MacBook had the top keyboard cover broken near the border and two thin pieces of white plastic were about to break off on both sides of it. I had fixed both with super glue and though it didn't look perfect, it was OK.

Today I decided to go to the Apple Store here in Munich to see what it could be done, since I had also read that Apple was changing for free the white casings in case of severe cracking – they recognised the bad quality delivered and they are doing something about it.

So, first good impression, you book an appointment via the internet – you just don't have to go to the store and hope after waiting forever that somebody will ask you "may I help you" – as it sometimes happens in shops. 

Though mine was fixed at 18:20, and arrived at 18:25 (I lost the subway…), a nice lady at the "concierge" told me to take a seat and that I would be called. After 5-10 mins she picked me up *personally* (no shouting), and a friendly (honestly) Genius called Philipp looked at my MacBook.

After 30 secs and without any "but" or "if", he told me that they would change *for FREE*, completely out of warranty!!, the top keyboard cover, complete of keyboard itself and trackpad, since it was due to a faulty design. The cracks and the plastic splits are due to the thin plastic spacers located on the screen lid, where the magnets that keep the lid closed touch the top keyboard cover. He checked whether they had all the parts in-house, called a supervisor (30 secs total) to approve the free repair out of the 2 year warranty (in the EU we have 2 years warranty – the benefits of being in the bureaucratic EU), got my mobile number and took the MacBook with him. He said they would call me on the mobile within 8pm.

After 30 mins, I have been called on the mobile (!!) and went back to the Store and I was given back a "new" MacBook. The plastic keyboard cover, the keyboard itself and the trackpad are brand new.

All for 0€.

I have no idea whether another company could provide such a service, so fast.

So, certainly Apple is not perfect, and I was lucky that all parts were available so that they could give me a prompt service, but they certainly fare much better than others. And with this free repair, that costs Apple maybe 10-20€, they have renewed my loyalty as a customer for my next laptop – in 1 or 2 years, if nothing changes and the quality remains the same, I will buy another MacBook.

This is how you secure business. This is how you keep customers happy. So, if you ask me, buy a MacBook.

People talk about the "apple tax" – if paying a tax gives you 2 hours of excellent customer service and free out of warranty repairs, "no questions asked", then I rather pay it. I am still convinced there is a Windows-PC tax as well – and you get nothing in return; no sorry, you get Vista.

And this goes along the line of other extremely positive impressions I got from Apple Customer Service: my iPod Shuffle (1st generation) substituted out of warranty; the reimbursement of 100€ for the Apple Cinema Display due to the "price matching policy": after 1 day of purchasing it on the Apple Online Store, I found on the internet an offer 100€ cheaper. I sent a screenshot of the internet page with the cheaper offer from another shop to an Apple email address and after 1 week the money was on my credit card account. No fuss, no discussions, no questions.

If there were only more companies working like Apple…..for example Deutsche Telekom could be a just a tad better, just a "bit"…..

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