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Z0MG

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
Just ordered an 11" MBA with 4GB RAM and 256GB SSD. Yes, the Apple product code is Z0MG. :cool:

Oops, meant to post this in Sunset...
 

cjlacz

Member
I've got the same machine with the i7 upgrade and absolutely love it. My favorite computer since the old 12" Powerbook. If it has a downside it does go through battery power when pushing the processor, but it gets it done fast.
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
My mail travel machine.
The MBP is tossed but the MP rules at home base.
-bob
 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
Yeah, I got the i7 upgrade too! For photography it seemed like a no brainer. I want the MBA pretty much exclusively for travel and coffee shop use; something I can toss in a bag without thinking about size and weight... My wife has the previous 11" MBA and it's pretty spiffy, and though perfect for her writing work it's underpowered for my photography. (The i7, 4GB RAM, 256GB should be perfect! Looking forward to receiving it...)
 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
You're all totally right... I absolutely love this little thing!!! It's going to be so excellent for travel. The 15" MBP is such a brick to haul around, by comparison!

What's a good little USB (TBolt?) CF+SDHC (or XC!) card reader for it?
 

LizaWitz

New member
I've had 3 SSDs in the past 3 years. Two of them have failed (so one of the three is its replacement... which is surviving so far.)

I learned my lesson, though, no more SSDs, *unless* they come from Apple stock.

I'm looking forward to next year when hopefully we'll get MacBook Pros without the optical drive. They can use that extra space for battery if they want. Hopefully there will still be a hard drive in there, and they'll put in the small SSDs they ship with the air (So combo SSD and HD. I have a 1TB hard drive for all my video and photos, and used the SSD for my boot/apps drive, now replaced with a 500GB HD.)
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
Lisa, what brand SSDs failed you? I have only used Mercury Pro SSDs since they became available from Other World Computing; I have had seven of them so far, in sizes ranging from 60–250GB, and all have proved reliable (so far!).

DigLloyd's testing has shown that, in intensive use, the Apple SSDs do not perform well; see here. Performance of the Apple SSDs deteriorates over time, too.

I realise that these results are unlikely to be significant for MacBook Airs, though; the testing that Lloyd subjected his test SSDs to would be unlikely to be replicated by the average user in ordinary daily use in a laptop. He makes a larger point, though, that data is best separated from one's system drive, and I use both of my laptops this way.

And OWC do have a "data doubler" as a replacement for any optical drive in the Pro line, but personally I find the optical drive helpful so I use FW drives for all intensive data needs.
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
It might not so much be speed (tho' faster is almost always better, in computing, at least), but load levelling. I do not know how the Apple MBA SSDs do in this regard, but the tests do show that the Mercury Pros fare much better over time than the Apple SSDs, as I mentioned above. Brilliant technology, in any case.
 
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