Apple’s entry-level SSD slowdown rears its ugly head once more

Here at Macworld, we are likely to advocate that prospects not purchase the entry-level configuration of any Mac. It typically doesn’t have sufficient storage for most individuals, even individuals who rely closely on iCloud or different cloud storage will probably run into house constraints down the road.

But there’s one more reason why you may wish to keep away from the entry-level configurations of Apple’s newest Mac minis and MacEbook Pros, which went on sale Tuesday. While the brand new $599 M2 Mac mini is a really good laptop at an incredible value, it hides an unsightly secret we’ve seen earlier than: a slower SSD. MacRumors reviews that benchmarks of the machine present that the 256GB SSD is as much as 50 % slower than the 256GB SSD within the M1 mannequin it replaces. 

The purpose for the slowdown is similar as with the 256GB SSD within the 13-inch M2 MacEbook Pro and M2 MacEbook Air: Apple makes use of a single NAND chip within the SSD, whereas the M1 Macs they changed used two NAND chips. YouTuber Brandon Geekabit confirmed that Apple makes use of one NAND chip in his teardown of the M2 Mac mini.

A single chip could be good for Apple’s space-challenged engineers, however with regards to SSD storage, there’s a general principle that impacts efficiency: an SSD makes use of a number of channels in parallel to learn/write knowledge to an SSD’s NAND chips. The extra chips which can be in play, the extra channels which can be out there, and the extra channels out there, the higher the efficiency.

Somewhat surprisingly, the brand new base configurations of the MacEbook Pro are additionally affected, regardless of having a 512GB SSD. 9to5Mac reviews that in its testing and teardown of the 14-inch MacEbook Pro with a 10-core M2 Pro processor, the SSD is compromised of two 256GB NAND chips, half as many as discovered within the 512GB SSD within the M1 Pro mannequin. And on account of the less chips, the 512GB M2 Pro MacEbook Pro has slower SSD efficiency than its predecessor. We assume the entry-level 16-inch MacEbook Pro, which additionally has a 512GB SSD, has the identical efficiency points as properly.

While we will perceive the choice to make use of fewer chips within the lower-end Macs, the brand new MacEbook Pro begins at $1,999 and is predicted to be the final word in efficiency. Most customers who purchase one need the quickest speeds in all facets of their machine. In the higher-end mannequin we examined, disk speeds had been as anticipated, with write scores that blew previous the M1 Pro and M2.

After 4 fashions, it’s clear that Apple has determined that the velocity sacrifice is simply one thing prospects must stay with with regards to the most cost effective configuration of its Macs. Granted, most customers received’t really feel the distinction in on a regular basis use and can solely discover it the slowdown when utilizing software program that should learn information from the SSD often–however we advocate getting no less than a 1TB SSD anyway so there are sufficient knowledge channels in use to make the velocity distinction unnoticeable.