Find Out How Fast Your SSD Or Hard Drive Really Is [OS X Tips]

Geeky, yes. Cool? Yes, again.

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Sometimes, it’s just fun to compare scores with your friends. Without the urge to compete, we wouldn’t have sports, national videogame competitions, or reality television. Now there’s a new way to measure up against those around you – Solid State Drive (SSD) speed.

Ok, so it’s not really a thing, but here’s how you can benchmark your own SSD to compare it with other SSD devices, if you need to know how much faster one computer you own is than another. In fact, it’s a ton of fun to compare the speed of an SSD, say in this here Macbook Air, and that of a hard drive, like in my Mac Mini. Here’s how.

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Ivy Bridge MacBook Pro Benchmarks Surface

Apple is expected to refresh its MacBook Pro lineup this summer, and rumors have widely agreed upon a May-June announcement timeframe. The upcoming notebooks are expected to feature Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors and possibly sport higher-res, Retina-like displays.

Benchmarks have been revealed for what could very well be one of Apple’s upcoming MacBook Pro models.  The mysterious computer runs an unknown build of OS X Mountain Lion and features one of Intel’s high-end quad-core Ivy Bridge processors.

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Apple’s New MacBook Airs Beat Some High-End MacBook Pros in Early Benchmark Tests

Apple’s latest lineup of MacBook Air ultraportables are not only significantly faster than their predecessors, but thanks to those new Core i5 and i7 processors, they also beat the high-end 2010 MacBook Pro in early benchmark tests.

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Apple A5 Dual-Cores Clocked Lower Than A4 in Early Benchmarks

Early benchmark tests of Apple’s new dual-core A5 chip featured in the iPad 2 have revealed that each processing core is actually clocked at a slower speed than the previous A4 chip, which features in the original iPad, iPhone 4, and the latest iPod touch.

Tests performed by iOSnoops show that overall, each of the A5’s cores runs at least 10% slower than the single core featured in Apple’s A4 chip, running at around 890 MHz in comparison to the 1 GHz A4. The speed of the A5 fluctuates depending on the applications it’s running however, with its lowest speed clocked at 861 MHz and its highest at 894 MHz.

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