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32GB iPhone 7 Has 8 Times Slower Storage Performance Than 128GB Model (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Next Web: Apple isn't telling you everything about its phones. Few weeks back, GSMArena reported that the 32GB iPhone 7 and 7 Plus had significantly slower storage performance than the 128GB and 256GB models of the device. In a new video, Unbox Therapy's Lew Hilsenteger conducted a series of speed tests that confirm the discrepancy in storage speeds between the different configurations of Apple's phone -- and it turns out the 32GB iPhone is about eight times slower than the larger capacity storage version of the device. For his first test, Hilsenteger used the free PerformanceTest Mobile app to compare the read and write speeds of the iPhone. While there was little difference between the read speeds of the 32GB and 128GB models, there's a huge disparity when it comes to write speed. The 32GB iPhone writes at 42MB per second, which is nearly eight times slower than the 128GB version's 341MB per second. Hilsenteger then performed a real-world speed test, which included transferring movies from a MacBook to the iPhone using a USB cable. While the 256GB model took two minutes and 34 seconds to complete the 4.2GB file transfer, the 32GB iPhone 7 needed a total of three minutes and 40 seconds for the same transmission.
Smaller thing is also slower thing.
The larger capacity phone has to have faster storage because there is just so much of it!
It does suck if your phone doesn't get the performance that could be achieved (and is achieved by other phones) but I'm not sure what this would mean in real life.
Do you need this performance on a mobile device such as a phone? As the data transfer test proved, it's not eight times slower for that, it only takes somewhat longer.
I thought it was normal the fewer flash chips perform worse.
nt
Two minutes and 34 seconds is hardly eight times faster than three minutes and 40 seconds for the same transmission.
So forking the extra $100 for the extra storage also gets me a faster component. Glad to hear it.
So, in the real world the difference is not a lot.
Just another click bait bollocks article.
The suckers' choice.
Well, the 32er model has also 4 times less memory than the 128er model, so it's in no haste to save stuff, it will fill up quickly enough anyway.
When writers use words like that, do they understand what they mean in mathematical terms? I have my doubts.
(this is not a
i like to back up my filth so when i let it go it can just soak me and i can sit there for hours doing nothing but being filled with my filth over and over
As long as the phone is not remarkably slow, does it matter if the storage is slower than the upper model? People buy the iPhone for iOS and its ergonomics.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
as massive numbers of dissatisfied customers return their new iPhone 7's complaining that they are too slow!
Apple is said to be refusing the returns claiming, "at least they don't catch fire!"
It must be written in blocks and erased before rewrites, making it painfully slow and requiring extreme care to avoid destroying existing data. Access times are a bit better, but a performant device requires many channels and an intelligent controller to tie it all together. The firmware has the complexity of a log-structured filesystem, and we are expected to trust that a myriad of Chinese vendors in a race to the bottom implement it correctly to safeguard our data? Maybe Apple does a little better; after all, they claim that their storage is perfectly reliable, and use that as a justification for lack of data checksums in their new APFS filesystem.
Of course the larger devices perform better; the real question is why Apple is so keen to starve their users of local storage capacity, when it only costs a few cents to provide a decent amount.
I wonder how the flash is organized. Is it just a question of a single flash chip of varying size, or is it possible that the 128GB model is somehow comprised of 4x 32GB segments which allow write interleaving to happen?
The only other explanation that I can think of would be that 128GB represents a level of density that requires superior flash chips which really are faster, and that 32GB uses older parts that are just plain slower.
That depends 100% on the sort of controllers & memory layouts that are involved.
Do you have specific information that Apple does this? I don't.
Given that:
- nearly all modern smartphone/tablets/etc. do no go the extra headache to implement some weird custom solution for their mass storage.
- instead they all go for simple, standard, cheap of the shelf technology.
- [ BTW: eMMC (embed MMC - i.e.: an SD Card, without the plastic package, but directly available over an MMC bus) seems to be the most frequent solution ]
- Most of the flash anywhere, including thousands of SD Cards on the market right now, follow the exact same tendency: bigger model have more chips and can spread their write/erases among more chips ("quasi-RAID") giving better performance. That's why the "Class 10 UHS III" SDXC cards are only available on the bigger models, smaller models are slower. Same difference between microSDXC and regular SDXC cards (bigger cards can pack more chips and you have a greater choice of faster cards. At the micro level, it's only 128GB and above capacity that usually come with "Class 10 UHS III").
- Even more gory details if you care to read the benchmarked read/write speeds of each card. (again, more chips - found in larger package or bigger capacity - manage higher write/erase speeds).
Given all the above, there's high expectation that iPhones are following the trend.. :
But hey instead of speculating and calling each other names, let's check actual real heardware
iFixit, Chipworks, SK Hynix Datasheet
What a surprise~ iPhone are exactly everyone else~ and source cheap of the shelf parts instead of re-inventing the wheel~~ Who would have though this~~~
iFixit's 32Gb iPhone use H23QEG8VG2ACS - a stack of 4 chips, with 256Gibits total (or 32GiB if used alone like in this phone).
Chipworks's 128GB iPhone use - a stack of 8 chips, with 1024Gibits total (or 128GiB when used in alone configuration)
So without even taking into account anything else, 32GB iPhone can only spread their writes among half of the chips available to a 128GB iPhone.
So they already start with a 50% malus at the hardware level.
That said, 128GB should only be 4 times faster than 32GB, so if these figures are correct then the 32GB units are also using lower spec memory.
Nope. At all. Like you said it entirely depends on the flash configuration. 128 isn't necessarily 4x more chips than 32.
Some constructor would go for 8x more chips of half the capacity.
In Apple case, they went for 2x more chips at 2x more capacity (more expensive but faster, enabling them to have bigger marging on the smaller/slower 32GB).
Which again goes back to the point of what I have posted... and this article.
Which goes back to the answer which you were given:
- YES, nearly every last constructor of flash is doing "quasi-RAID", i.e.: stacking/bonding more chips in the same package and spreading the write/erase among that.
That single fact can account for a huge part of the difference between models.
Then the thing is designed by Apple.
They run iOS on it. i.e.: the same "Darwin" core ( Mach microkernel + BSD monolithic kernel + BSD user space) as Mac OS X, only with a different interface.
They probably *still* use the same asinine file system as always HFS+
And that one is completely inadequate for flash.
It's a classical "inplace" writing file system.
This dramatically increase the "write amplification" typical with random-writes flash media. (each time you need to change some data, you would need to erase and re-write a whole block).
This probably *also* accounts for the dramatic performance
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The write speed doesn't matter. The read speed is fast. Usually you transfer data from a phone to your laptop PC. If you want to do it the other way around, then you are holding your laptop wrong.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
My yPhone has a very fast tape recorder memory. Whole 800 bauds per second! Beats ZX Spectrum in all spectres!
"8 times slower"
That's a meaningless statement. Remember when we used to pretend people here knew a little arithmetic and numbers.
If by "severe defect" you mean perfectly expected behavior of NAND storage systems. See the comments that are elsewhere for explanations.
Must be a coincidence.
The solution is easy, just install Linux on the Phone.
Seriously as long as it's not terrible (Nexus 7 2012) and works who gives a xxxxx ? What possible application is there for the higher rate apart from flattening your battery ?
Trump is a dirtbag, but I would never release tax returns during an audit. Millions of people looking from every possible problem is far worse than a small team of auditors. That's just common sense. Clinton is a dirtbag. Trump is a dirtbag. And don't release taxes during an audit. Oh, and the IRS sucks.
Since there's a full time battery, and since auto-refresh requires almost no power to operate, just rip out the NAND and use DRAM. The DRAM can be auto-refreshed while the phone is off with minimal power draw from the battery.
128 GB users will copy more data than 32 GB users. Nothing to see here.
New slashdot meme, the fart analogy:
Its customary for me to say excuse me when I pass gas. If I didn't, you would think me rude and poorly mannered. If I not only didn't, but I laughed about the horrible smell you would probably think me an immature ahole.
So yes its customary and not required. Laughing about the stink of his own finances and the fact that hes not going to tell you about them? Makes him an ahole.
...will any customer notice, that his iPhone is having slower memory under normal use cases. And the answer is: "No". So, why bother?
Are there situations where a user would notice a slower flash write speed on their cell phone?
The only time I can think of where a phone would need to write massive amounts to flash is during an OS upgrade (which is hopefully a rare thing) -- even during an app install, the user is likely to be bounded by their network's download speed, not by the speed of writing to flash. Similarly, while recording live video, the phone only needs to write at the bandwidth of the video stream, no faster.
Is there some use case I'm missing?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I remember something like this being said about the MacBook Air. The bigger capacity drives were faster than the smaller ones. Even a difference between the 13" MBA and the 11" with similar drive capacity. For me I just found it probably a difference in suppliers on one manufacture vs another. You also have some other hardware differences. Probably similar to some PC notebooks having similar hardware but different results. Your going to have some variations in performance.
Do they mean that it has 1/8 the speed, or 12.5%? Because there is no real measurement of "8x slower" unless you have a common base for comparison.
You can say the 32GB model is 8x faster, but "8x slower" doesn't really make sense.
There is no legal requirement to not release tax returns while under audit, but there is plenty of legal advise not to, from tax lawyers.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If the 32GB iPhone 7 can write to its flash at 42MB/s, then why is the transfer rate of a 4.2GB movie 220 seconds (19 MB/s) -- seemingly well within that 42MB/s maximum? I sense something else going on here.
should check out the 6s/6s+ the 32Gb seemed slower to me
it's a feature!
calm down sir... the video clearly shows that you are BSing
Do you guys not realize there are methods of writing other than transferring data via cable or wifi? I see a lot of comments saying it doesn't matter, but it could if you're taking high resolution video. I hear that some of these overheat a bit during that, but I'm curious if that is only the case with the one with fewer chips, thus too much activity on a single chip causes the heat issue?
Could it be that they are simply using 8 chips in parallel to make the 128 and 256GB sizes?
Or that the larger sizes can access more layered wafers in parallel?
As pointed by krakelohm above,
and dgatwood below,
that "potential future successor to 'HFS Plus'" is NOT in production yet, and misses important features.
Let's be frank.
This thing is so much over-due, and has been post-poned so much, that it might as well be considered as Apple's new "Copland".
(And in this metaphore, ZFS is probably the thing that will play NextStep's role as the "external technology that got bought and hastily re-branded in order to save the situation in a last-ditch effort".
I'm starting to get bets).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'm betting that once Apple is done ridiculling themselves with their "too little, too late + NIH" catastrophe with APFS,
their probably going to silently acquire OpenZFS, and rebrand it as "Apple's CoW System".
I'm taking bets.
See Copland and NextStep for Apple's historical precedent.
(And see CUPS, LLVM, the KHTML-WebKit-Blink family, and countless of better external technologies that Apple ended-up buying/acquiring/taking over.
OpenZFS - if/when my prediction happens - will be just one extra point on this list)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]