Is the new mba cool?

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Chris1111


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I've got a 2009 mba and you can **** near fry an egg on the bottom of it after about 20 minutes of use. It gets so hot that it slows down and basically becomes useless.
I blame the tiny little vents on it and am seriously thinking about modifying the case with more and longer slits.

Are the new mba's with SSDs any cooler running?
 
chscag

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The new MBA machines do not use a SSD for storage. They use flash memory storage which is different (and faster). I haven't heard anyone say the new Air was running hot or that it slowed down from the heat.
 
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Wow, I didn't know that about flash memory.
 
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The only time the fans have kicked in on my new MBA was when I did the first software update the day I bought it.

Other than that, it runs cool and silent; I only notice the slightest warmth on the bottom when it's sitting in my lap.
 
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chscag said:
The new MBA machines do not use a SSD for storage. They use flash memory storage which is different (and faster). I haven't heard anyone say the new Air was running hot or that it slowed down from the heat.
Click to expand...

I'm thoroughly confused now. I thought that SSDs ARE flash-based? I've never used one and have never really studied the architecture of the SSD but I had always heard/assumed that it was the flash memory that made the SSD faster and less susceptible to damage than a standard HDD.
 
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The difference is in the physical makeup. You'll see what I mean by going here and see what OWC is selling: LINK
 
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chscag said:
The difference is in the physical makeup. You'll see what I mean by going here and see what OWC is selling: LINK
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I'm still fuzzy, though. The description on the OWC site states,

240GB OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express Solid State Drive for MacBook Air 2010 Edition. High performance internal MLC flash storage with 7% over provisioned redundancy. 3 year OWC warranty. (OWCSSDAPAE240)
Click to expand...
 
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Why all the confusion ? SSD drives ARE made with Flash memory, they're one in the same. Not sure of why you'd contradict that chscag ? There are of course different types of Flash memory, and generally speaking, the only difference in consumer based drives is the housing, as you've stated.

The MacBook's use MLC based Flash (multi leveled cell) vs the faster SLC (single level cell). But the generic term for the kind of drive they are in the context of being in a laptop etc.. is Solid State Drive.

Flash memory-based

Most SSD manufacturers use non-volatile NAND flash memory in the construction of their SSDs due to the lower cost compared to DRAM and the ability to retain the data without a constant power supply, ensuring data persistence through sudden power outages. Flash memory SSDs are slower than DRAM solutions, and some early designs were even slower than HDDs after continued use. This problem was resolved by controllers that came out in 2009 and later.[citation needed]
Flash memory-based solutions are typically packaged in standard disk drive form factors (1.8-, 2.5-, and 3.5-inch), or smaller unique and compact layouts due to the compact memory.
[edit] Single-level cell (SLC) vs multi-level cell (MLC)

Lower priced drives usually use multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory, which is slower and less reliable than single-level cell (SLC) flash memory.[27][28] This can be mitigated or even reversed by the internal design structure of the SSD, such as interleaving, changes to writing algorithms,[28] and higher over-provisioning (more excess capacity) with which the wear-leveling algorithms can work.[29][30][31]
Click to expand...

SSD is just too generic a term, but it still applies, nonetheless.

Doug
 
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It's a fact that both are made up of flash memory.... it's just the physical makeup that differs. A typical SSD drive is designed to fit and replace an ordinary drive while the flash storage unit in the MBA is not. (As you can see from the OWC picture of it.) So I guess you could rightfully refer to both as SSDs. Just don't try to put that kind of SSD in a MBA. :Smirk:
 

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