15-Inch MacBook Air With 256GB Storage Has Slower SSD Speeds Than Higher-Capacity Models

[boss.king]

Max Tech is great and highly informative for potential buyers. Their content is also to a high standard when it comes to new hardware. Apple doesn't advertise SSD speeds anywhere, so at least content creators provide that information. For some people, it matters.

It's not. It's quickly made filler content that is frequently wrong, misleading, or clickbaity. There are channels doing better hands-on videos and channels doing better in-depth tear-downs, reviews, benchmarks, etc. Max Tech, from all the videos I've seen, has somehow managed to thread the needle of doing it all to a mediocre standard.

I guess their production work (the camerawork, lighting, editing, etc) is decent considering how they churn these things out, but that's where my compliments to them end.

If you enjoy their videos, that's fine, everyone is allowed their personal preferences.

 

[boss.king]

Imagine if the M2 chip was slower than the M1. Would you then say it's not a big deal, still plenty fast? As was shown in this thread Apple advertised the improved SSD speeds for the M1 Air and then quietly dropped that for the M2 model. What if Apple updated the Air to M3 without any big announcement or presentation, no claims about speed improvements. You'd still assume by default that the M3 Air will be at least somewhat faster than M2 Air, right? And it will be, because Apple knows it would be absurd to release a newer model that is slower than the old one. Yet that is exactly what they did with the M2 Air's storage.

A lesser SoC impacts use far more than reduced read/write speeds, so I'd say that's not a great "what if" scenario. But even then, if they didn't falsely advertise the capability of the chip (as is the case with the read/write speeds in the machines) then it'd be fine, I just wouldn't buy that config of machine. Don't impulse-buy laptops and you'll be safe.

This is something other manufacturers have been doing for a long time now, you'd read a review of a device and when you actually bought it months later, it came with cheaper and sometimes worse performing components that technically still adhered to the advertised specs because the specs were quietly changed on their website in some obscure place.

SSD manufacturers are notorious for doing this, you have a SSD model with a specific model number and if you buy 3 of them, you might find that each one has entirely different hardware (controller as well as NAND storage chips) and is literally a different SSD with different performance. Western Digital did this with their SN550 for example, the later ones cut the performance in half just like Apple did here.

This isn't what Apple is doing. They didn't bait-and-switch with a component change mid-cycle, they launched the computer with a set of components and continue to sell it with those same components.

 

[t0rqx]

After two major OS releases the system slows down automatically "forcing sooner than usual upgrades" especially with these basic system. People who paid attention know this.

 

[cdarlington1]

Anybody buying the 256 GB model does not care. They do a little bit of email, surf The Internet, Facebook. Non-story, like every year.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

It is fine, if someone notices, just go on restaurant-rumors.com and keep making posts saying it is a non-issue.

hilarious

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

Anybody buying the 256 GB model does not care. They do a little bit of email, surf The Internet, Facebook. Non-story, like every year.

yeah, that's not true

 

[thadoggfather]

It's double

That’s interesting ! And a little encouraging haha

But puts m2 pro’s in a weird spot now

 

[DaveCummings]

Call me crazy but "up to 1x as fast as previous gen MacBook Air" doesn't seem like a great selling point. Are you mad that they didn't promote a non-feature? They're not going to keep comparing to the Intel Air every time, and not every feature gets a big bump with each release. This is hardly rocket science.

at first when I started watching MaxTech, it was right before the M1 machines came out and they hyping it up and praising it. When the M2 macs first debuted, all that changed. They started going on about the SSD as well as making it sound like the M2 Macs heat up like Intel machines. They noticed they get a lot of attention, so then ALL their videos go with the hot take, gotcha type videos. Its annoying.

But one thing, someone mentioned it earlier and I’ve been wondering it too, but NONE of the YouTubers who are going on about the SSD compared to the M1 have bothered to check to see if the M1 MacBooks still available through Apple are still using 2 128gb chips or if they went with the 1 256 chip. Of course they won’t check…it won’t get them views

 

[thadoggfather]

at first when I started watching MaxTech, it was right before the M1 machines came out and they hyping it up and praising it. When the M2 macs first debuted, all that changed. They started going on about the SSD as well as making it sound like the M2 Macs heat up like Intel machines. They noticed they get a lot of attention, so then ALL their videos go with the hot take, gotcha type videos. Its annoying.

But one thing, someone mentioned it earlier and I’ve been wondering it too, but NONE of the YouTubers who are going on about the SSD compared to the M1 have bothered to check to see if the M1 MacBooks still available through Apple are still using 2 128gb chips or if they went with the 1 256 chip. Of course they won’t check…it won’t get them views

I’m pretty sure there are no videos bc there is no update


Apple products are looked at under a microscope constantly and they likely have an endless backlog of 2x128 NAND inventory for m1 sku’s

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

at first when I started watching MaxTech, it was right before the M1 machines came out and they hyping it up and praising it. When the M2 macs first debuted, all that changed. They started going on about the SSD as well as making it sound like the M2 Macs heat up like Intel machines. They noticed they get a lot of attention, so then ALL their videos go with the hot take, gotcha type videos. Its annoying.

But one thing, someone mentioned it earlier and I’ve been wondering it too, but NONE of the YouTubers who are going on about the SSD compared to the M1 have bothered to check to see if the M1 MacBooks still available through Apple are still using 2 128gb chips or if they went with the 1 256 chip. Of course they won’t check…it won’t get them views

Yeah it's quite crazy, I haven't been able to find new M1 buyers to test it

If you do, mind tagging me please ? I'm curious

 

[Gherkin]

Even at only 1,500MB/s.... the base 256GB SSD still faster than anything I would be copying to or copying from.

My SD cards are rated at 95MB/s and my portable T5 drive is 500MB/s 🤣

But I can see the frustration.

haha wow, is that really the “slow” speed? I wonder then what are some examples will a “pro” user would really notice this? I’m a photographer and all my cards are 300 MB/s, so not even close.

edit… actually I do have a 2TB SanDisk extreme pro SSD that’s is rated at 2000 MB/s. I’m thinking it still wouldn’t be noticeable really. I use mine to edit 4K video.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Quickly went through the video and omg there’s just so much fluff to make the video longer

You must be new to YT videos or just biased against MaxTech. Practically every review (2 days ago) about the MBA 15 from all the YT barkers was the same. Apart from the screen size and 2 speakers there is nothing new but they have long videos filled with what? They have to fill a video with something!

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

But one thing, someone mentioned it earlier and I’ve been wondering it too, but NONE of the YouTubers who are going on about the SSD compared to the M1 have bothered to check to see if the M1 MacBooks still available through Apple are still using 2 128gb chips or if they went with the 1 256 chip. Of course they won’t check…it won’t get them views

The M1 didn't allow 1 chip. The M2 does. As much as you want one, there isn't a conspiracy here.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Anybody buying the 256 GB model does not care. They do a little bit of email, surf The Internet, Facebook. Non-story, like every year.

Another "expert" that somehow knows what everyone does with their MacBook and their feelings on performance.

 

[boak]

You must be new to YT videos or just biased against MaxTech. Literally every review (2 days ago) about the MBA 15 from all the YT barkers was the same. Apart from the screen size and 2 speakers there is nothing new but they have long videos filled with what? They have to fill a video with something!

My point still stands with neither statements holding true.

 

[mcnallym]

I'm not sure you understand anything of what you wrote.

An M1 Max is far superior than a base M2 found in the Air.
Everything on the Pro laptop is also better from the screen refresh rates, screen brightness, SSD bandwidth, speakers etc.

So your "latest and greatest" comment doesn't apply because you're not comparing the same teir of product.

And explain this, because you wanted a larger screen, you upgraded your CPU from a Pro to a Max? That also makes no sense.

You would be banned decision making in my house hold.

Wasn’t going to be quite as harsh but what I was thinking.

 

[mcnallym]

Apparently same situation with the new M2 Studio. Just got the base Max with the 512GB SSD. Read/writes are in the 3,000-3,500 MB/s range which is only a bit faster than the 512 GB MBA. My M2 MBP 16 with the 1TB SSD runs in the 5,000-6,000 MB/s range. While I agree this difference doesn't matter to many (most?) users, it kinda sucks that the SSD in the mighty Studio is barely faster than an MBA with the same storage capacity.

Got news for you.

blackmagic diskspeed test on my 12month 512gb Studio M1 Max is in the 3000-3500 range.
so the m2 studio max with 512gb no slower then the 512gb M1 Max.

a quick check on Google shows 1tb SSD M1 Max Studio in the 5000-6000 range so the same as your m2 MBP with 1tb.

Apple use nand flash with the controller in the SoC as opposed to an actual seperate SSD stick that has controller and firmware in it.
if use the same NAND chips on different models then the storage going to be the same spec.

so the Studio is NOT the same situation with the m1 studio vs m2 studio mba Showing a decrease in performance from moving from dual 128 to a single 256 nand however the 512gb in studio still 2 x 256, with 1tb being 4 x 256. Studio retained the same performance as m1.

 

[freedomlinux]

That only applies to one config, and the solution is simple — don't get the base config. [...] The only people who would be meaningfully impacted by the single chip config are the people who wouldn't be buying that spec of machine in the first place.

From a practical standpoint, I agree. The problem is easy to avoid, and SSDs in general are fast enough that the customer experience isn't much at risk. From an ideological standpoint, the issue is even *knowing* that this change happened & that upgrading can avoid it. Apple does not specifically indicate the SSD speeds of all products, so the only way for customers to know this is to follow third-party reviews and teardowns. Apple can solve this with increased transparency on the technical specifications.

IMO: The problem is not about the *absolute* performance, but the *relative* performance to other products. If the previous SSD configuration wasn't so good, no one would be complaining about the current performance at all.

 

[mcnallym]

The M1 didn't allow 1 chip. The M2 does. As much as you want one, there isn't a conspiracy here.

Is it that didn’t allow or simply that Apple didn’t ship 128gb storage models so there were none shipped.

honest question, not trying to be funny as wasn’t aware that the storage controller required 2 nand chips.

found statements where Apple says m2 uses new higher density nand which why a single 256gb chip used rather then 2 x 128gb but cannot find anything that shows m1 required multiple nand chips.

 

[okkibs]

A lesser SoC impacts use far more than reduced read/write speeds

For many users the CPU will sit at or near idle most of the time and the GPU often won't see any load whatsoever -over the entire device lifespan- beyond perhaps sometimes driving an external monitor, which even the entry M1 SoC can do just fine. If a M3 was back to M1 speeds many MBAir users would never notice as the M1 was overkill for them already.

But even then, if they didn't falsely advertise the capability of the chip (as is the case with the read/write speeds in the machines) then it'd be fine

No further interest in this, that's obviously completely absurd to say if Apple just silently dropped performance of the M2 chip to below M1 levels, then "it'd be fine" because there was no false advertising. It's really the customer's fault for not waiting for reviews. Silly consumers expecting newer revisions to be faster than the older hardware they are replacing.

 

[jlc1978]

Another "expert" that somehow knows what everyone does with their MacBook and their feelings on performance.

Perhaps not everyone, but I'd bet most users of an M2 Air 256 GB will never notice or care that the speed is slower than an M1 or 512 M2 Air. What counts is overall performance, and SSD speed has a minimal impact in most use cases. The extra second or two is irrelevant in the overall performance; especially since most users are likely not doing sustained writes or dealing with large files regularly. Unless they need a lot of storage and 256 is not enough space, upgrading to 512 for the speed difference makes no economic sense.

Forum users can argue over it all day long while most users will simply go on using and enjoying their machine.

 

[mcnallym]

Perhaps not everyone, but I'd bet most users of an M2 Air 256 GB will never notice or care that the speed is slower than an M1 or 512 M2 Air. What counts is overall performance, and SSD speed has a minimal impact in most use cases. The extra second or two is irrelevant in the overall performance; especially since most users are likely not doing sustained writes or dealing with large files regularly. Unless they need a lot of storage and 256 is not enough space, upgrading to 512 for the speed difference makes no economic sense.

Forum users can argue over it all day long while most users will simply go on using and enjoying their machine.

You can sum the whole thread up as.

there are two kinds of computer users in the world my friend.
those that turn there computer on to complete real world tasks
and those that turn them on to run benchmarks.

yes I do love the good the bad and the ugly.

 

[redheeler]

The effective starting price for me is $1,700. For a MacBook Air. These prices are why I run Macs into the ground instead of upgrading more often.

 

[Chancha]

blackmagic diskspeed test on my 12month 512gb Studio M1 Max is in the 3000-3500 range.
so the m2 studio max with 512gb no slower then the 512gb M1 Max.

My base M1 Max Studio, also bought almost exactly 12 months ago (June 17th) ran at 5500 / 5300 when new.

Just now I ran a new test, with the drive >70% full and after one year of hammering it still benched 4000 / 5000.

If an M2 Max base, new and almost empty benches at 3500-ish then it looks like a clear downgrade.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Is it that didn’t allow or simply that Apple didn’t ship 128gb storage models so there were none shipped.

honest question, not trying to be funny as wasn’t aware that the storage controller required 2 nand chips.

found statements where Apple says m2 uses new higher density nand which why a single 256gb chip used rather then 2 x 128gb but cannot find anything that shows m1 required multiple nand chips.

There actually was a 128GB SSD model of the 2020 MBA 13 M1.
I found a picture of the system board here and it shows even the 128GB system board has 64GB x 2 SSD NAND chips.