Probably the first of many posts on my recent SSD upgrade, but here are some hard numbers for now.

Using Xbench, first, the 5400 RPM stock drive that came with my 17″ MacBook Pro.

Results 25.96

    System Info

        Xbench Version      1.3
        System Version      10.6.2 (10C540)
        Physical RAM        4096 MB
        Model       MacBookPro5,2
        Drive Type      FUJITSU MHZ2320BH FFS G1
    Disk Test   25.96

        Sequential  29.52

            Uncached Write  31.66   19.44 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write  34.00   19.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read   24.57   7.19 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read   29.57   14.86 MB/sec [256K blocks]
        Random  23.17

            Uncached Write  9.73    1.03 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write  38.94   12.46 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read   41.98   0.30 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read   49.22   9.13 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Compared to the new OCZ Agility SSD drive.

Results 225.00

    System Info

        Xbench Version      1.3
        System Version      10.6.2 (10C540)
        Physical RAM        4096 MB
        Model       MacBookPro5,2
        Drive Type      OCZ-AGILITY
    Disk Test   225.00

        Sequential  218.78

            Uncached Write  288.14  176.91 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write  250.35  141.65 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read   121.72  35.62 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read   384.23  193.11 MB/sec [256K blocks]
        Random  231.58

            Uncached Write  74.76   7.91 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write  421.12  134.82 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read   2764.59 19.59 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read   862.34  160.01 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Freaking A. An order of magnitude difference. I can feel it, too.

It’s nice to see how the drive performs over the max write speed of 135 MB/s. Probably will go down as I start using the drive more. All in all, a nice investment.