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2011 iMacs: No SATA 6Gb/s, Yes to Multiple Drives

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 | Author: OWC Michael

With the unboxing completed, our Lab Team is hard at work testing compatibilities and seeing just how much upgrading can be done to the new line of 2011 iMac models released today.

We’ve been getting several questions on the prior posts today asking about the internal SATA bus speed on the new machines. While the processor was bumped up to the Sandy Bridge line, the bus speeds on the iMac are still SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s), just like the previous models.

Just to make it clear:
The 2011 iMac does not have ANY
SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s) connections.

Which means your best bet for upgrading to a Solid State Drive (or three) is still the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro and, if employing a RAID array, the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro RE series of drives.

With the physical build of the 2011 27″ iMac being so similar to the 2010 Apple iMac 27″ models, we are hard at work developing the necessary adjustments to add the new 27″ iMac to the OWC Turnkey Upgrade Program – including the external eSATA port option. Keep an eye out here for the official release soon.

***UPDATE 5/5/11***

Apple released a firmware update as of today’s date that gives both the 21.5″ and 27″ models TWO 6Gb/s data channels. See our blog post for more details:

http://blog.macsales.com/10050-firmware-update-enables-6gbs-in-2011-imacs

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Fresh from Apple
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OWC Offers Fix For 2011 17″ MBP SATA Problems.

Friday, April 15th, 2011 | Author: OWC Larry

In preparation for our official OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD introduction next week, our team has been focused of all aspects of performance of it and including (of course) that offered by the Apple MacBook Pro 2011 laptops, Apple’s first computers with a SATA 3.0 (6.0Gb/s) drive port. For over a month, we’ve been following reports from some MacBook Pro 2011 model users – almost exclusively those with 17″ models, where issues with other brand 6Gb/s SSDs have been encountered. The main issue reported was that the drive simply wasn’t being seen/working.

OWC makes it a point to have our lab equipped with all model/processor variations of each new generation system so full compatibility and performance testing can be performed. While we did not encounter any issues of non-function with our new Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSDs, we did see unexpected results when the drive was installed in the 17″ model. Essentially, the performance was not as high or as consistent as the same drive tested in same speed (2.2GHz and 2.3GHz i7) 15″ or even any of the 13″ 2011 model versions.

When we sent Lloyd Chambers of Mac Performance Guide a sneak-preview of our new SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s) drive, he popped it into his test machine and his results in the 17″ mirrored our own. Lloyd’s initial testing showed the same kind of performance and inconsistencies that were able to replicate here. Further, prior to testing our new 6G SSD, he reported that an Intel 510 6G SSD didn’t show up in his 17″ at all. Rob-ART from BareFeats had a similar experience in his MacBook Pro 17″, yet got the expected high performance results in his 13″ 2011 model, which was in line with all of our lab testing here. Article Continues…

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Category: Product Spotlight, Tech Tips
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Mid 2010 27″ iMac Turnkey Upgrade Benchmarks Posted

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 | Author: OWC Michael

We’ve been getting a lot of traffic regarding our OWC Turnkey Upgrade Program for the 2010 Apple iMac 27″ that allows you to customize your iMac with a high-performance eSATA interface port, OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs up to 480GB, hard drives up to 2TB, and/or OWC Memory Upgrades up to 16GB complete with shipping and warranty. The question asked most often though, seems to be what exactly is the benefit of upgrading my new iMac?

Well, the OWC Test lab has been a busy place and we’re pleased to announce that we’ve begun gathering the scientific data to show you just how fast you can make your iMac.

We’ve real-world tested the eSATA port and found data transfer rates are up to 3.3 times faster than FireWire 800 and an amazing 7.5 times faster than USB 2.0! We’ve put together hard drive configurations that achieve data transfer rates up to 6 times faster than the original stock hard drive alone! In adding more memory to an iMac, we’ve almost cut the processing time in half on our test machine.

For all the details, see our findings at http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/iMac_2010_27

This post has 7 comments.
Category: Benchmarking/Performance
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OWC benchmark tests prove iMac i5 & i7 machines solid to the core

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | Author: OWC Michael

imac21527Today we completed the benchmarking of the last two iMac computers that Apple introduced last month: The 2.66GHz iMac Intel Core i5 and the 2.8GHz iMac Intel Core i7.

With the ability to simultaneously run 4 cores and 8 cores respectively, these machines are quite the powerhouses of processing power.

It’s interesting to note that even with faster starting times than the other iMacs in this series, the RAM Hog II test (which simulates powerhouse usage where 80% of the machine’s resources are busy with other processes) was rendered satisfied after 12GB of memory was installed.

Not to say that 16GB didn’t show significant results in its own right. The After Effects Render Test (which spawns subprocesses for each core processor) showed steady improvement in times as more and more memory was added to the computer.

And speaking of that 16GB upgrade, to put a spotlight on the results, the i5 model was up to 44% faster in that RAM Hog II test with the maximum memory installed.

As always, what level to upgrade your Mac is a personal choice. You can check out all the Late 2009 iMac memory and hard drive upgrade options and decide if you want to go mild or wild.

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance
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OWC Benchmarks Show Newest iMacs 46% Faster With More RAM

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | Author: OWC Michael

FastiMacWe’ve received four configurations of the 21.5″ and four configurations of the 27″ machines so far.  The quad core i5 and i7 machines aren’t due out till later this month.  Between the advancements in Snow Leopard and adding additional memory to these computers, they sure can go fast!

In fact – we found up to a 46% performance boost by installing the OWC 16GB Memory Upgrade Kit versus the factory installed 4GB.

We’ve run the machines through a rigorous battery of benchmark tests to test not only the pure processing speed of these machines, but also show what adding OWC memory to the setup can do.  Additionally, the different video card options have also been pitted against each other, so if you haven’t purchased your iMac yet, we now offer a definitive tool for making an informed decision on which graphics card to order.  Both of the Radeon HD options prove to generate twice the gaming frame rates than the Nvidia equipped model.  Not too shabby!

Unlike the prior generation of iMacs, these models have a total of four DDR3 memory slots. You can add an additional 4GB kit and have 8GB total or an 8GB kit and have 12GB total without removing  the standard factory 4GB.

Should you want to max the memory up to 16GB, you will need to take out those original modules. While Apple officially supports up to 16GB in all the new iMac models, they only offer up to 8GB in the 21.5″ model. Not only does OWC offer you the options for up to 16GB total, but even if you just need an additional 4GB, we’ll save you 50% compared to the same installed by Apple.

The results make our company mantra ring true.  ”More Memory = Faster Mac!”

As additional machines are run through the same tests, they will appear on the same page as our overall goal is to have every Snow Leopard compatible machine tested using the same process.

This post has 10 comments.
Category: Benchmarking/Performance
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Breathe New Life into your Mac with SSD!

Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | Author: OWC Michael

stopwatchWe’re continuing  our diligent work here at the OWC testing lab benchmarking every machine compatible with Snow Leopard and should be ready to start posting some of the results soon.

In the meantime, however, we found some great nuggets of information that we’d like to share!

For our latest test, we took two machines in which the most memory that can be installed was 2GB, maxed out their memory, and checked the performance gains that installing a faster hard drive can provide.  The results were quite impressive!

The Contenders:

MacBookiMacG5The original 2006 MacBook 13″
1.83GHz Core Duo running OS 10.6.1


The 2004 iMac G5 20″
PowerPC 1.8GHz running 10.5.8

Heres what we found:DriveSpeedTests

  • The Photoshop Action Test measures the time (in seconds) it takes to execute a custom action script comprising of 47 commonly-used, memory-intensive processes on a 21 megapixel image using Adobe Photoshop CS4. It is designed to represent an average photo editing session of a graphic artist. No other processes are running in the background besides those that keep the machine itself running. This is pure, linear computing where every available resource is on hand for the one test running.  Lower times are better.
  • Our Stress Test is a variation on the Photoshop Action Test where the test is performed while iTunes is playing music with the visualizer running. This test adds one additional program to represent that additional light computing we do on the side in real life. With the Visualizer on, the resource draw on the machine is not limited to processor power and memory but to the video card and memory allocated for video as well. Lower times are better.
  • The 16 Program Launch test simply measures the time (in seconds) it takes for 16 common programs* from OS X and iLife to open simultaneously.  Lower times are better.
  • The Boot Time Test is exactly what it sounds like – the time it takes to boot the machine.  Again, lower times are better.

Considering the investment that a new Apple computer can cost, it makes sense to get all you can out of the machine you have before taking the plunge.  Installing a Solid State Drive can certainly extend the retirement date of your existing Mac for a fraction of the cost of a new computer.

*Address Book, Calculator, Chess, Dictionary, DVD Player, GarageBand, iCal, iChat, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, Preview, QuickTime, Stickies, and TextEdit
This test measures the time (in seconds) it takes to execute a custom action script comprising of 47 commonly-used, memory-intensive processes on a 21 megapixel image using Adobe Photoshop CS4. It is designed to represent an average photo editing session of a graphic artist. No other processes are running in the background besides those that keep the machine itself running. This is pure, linear computing where every available resource is on hand for the one test running. Photoshop CS4 is a 32 bit program that has a limit of 3GB of memory that can be used by the program itself so timing should not differentiate greatly with additional memory added to the system.
When CS5 is released from Adobe as a true 64 bit program, we are expecting that any additional memory added to the system is going to speed up a single process like this, but once you have all the memory in the system that the single process can use, and you’re running no other processes, the differences in time are very slight. Lower times are better.

This post has 7 comments.
Category: Benchmarking/Performance
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