I literally cannot tell between my 512GB M2 Pro and 1TB M1 Pro I had previously. I just didn't need the extra storage. What I can tell however is how much snappier native Apple apps at opening are despite the slower SSD. I guess that single-core gave it a little lift.
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Avoiding the M2 Mini slow SSD's - what to do
- Thread starter ZipZilla
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He means that if you only have 8GB RAM then swap will happen more so that the slower SSD will come into play more, thus producing a noticeable difference.
If RAM has an insufficient amount of memory to hold a process, it borrows some amount of memory from a secondary storage, such as the SSD. As a result, the slower speed of the SSD does impact how snappy the system feels in everyday activities, such as cycling through a photo collection in Preview, using multiple internet tabs, etc. This is especially noticable on systems with 8GB of RAM, becuase macOS will start using the SSD for memory swap more frequently.
As mentioned though, this has been discussed endlessly.
If you're at that point, more RAM would be much better than a faster SSD.
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The OP is a Youtuber who also does voiceover work. It is reasonable for them to be thinking about this.
We aren't talking about "most folks" in this tread.
I understand that. The focus of the thread and the OP is SSD speed.
I don't think the average user needs to worry and get all obsessed about technical write / read speeds. Many on here do need to take note because their daily work flow would be impacted from a time cost perspective, where time is money. For others here, it is merely academic.
As someone still rocking a 2010 Mac Pro in my workflow and is limited by SATA 2 speeds. Thank you. Speed doesn’t guarantee pro. YOU are the pro. I can work just fine on SATA 2 SSDs and still get my work done.
And goody. I look forward to the internet having another meltdown for a year on this.
Then…..buy more RAM? I don’t understand this line of thinking. “Sure I’ll get 8GB of RAM and swap terabytes daily!”
If you are worried about SSD performance due to swap, you didn’t buy the right RAM.
I would recommend going with the storage you actually need, not what I or anybody else suggests on a forum. On my work M1 Air I have 90Gb used after almost two years. I should’ve gone for the 256 but went 512.
It all depends on what you use it for. Recommend people to “going 1 Tb no matter the situation” is actually terrible advice. Just my 5 cents.
macOS will RAM swap even with larger amounts of RAM. The unified AS architecture is well, very unified. Plus you will still be hit with the slower SSD when doing any kind of exporting, transcoding, etc.
I have a 64 GB RAM Mac Studio and the swap is very very VERY small for a days work. Small enough where even SATA 2 speeds would handle it just fine.
Thanks all. Going with the M2 Pro 16GB and 1TB. No matter what I get, it will be lightyears ahead of the 2012 Mini I have with the 500mbs r/w SSD speeds.
Can you explain why you are concerned with sequential read/write speeds when talking about swapping to SSD? Wouldn't swapping to SSD be more of a random read/write scenario? How does having a single 256 GB NAND chip on an M2 or two 256 GB NAND chips on an M2 Pro affect random read/write speeds? Honestly, as far as I can see no one has tested that yet.
I understand what you are saying.
The issue for many people is that both 8GB of RAM and 256GB of slower SSD are a bottleneck for daily activity (now if a person cares if their new Mac is a little more or less laggy is a seperate issue). I think for general use, increasing the SSD to faster 512GB allows you to handle the not enough RAM issue "good enough" and also helps when using the SSD. If you just upgrade to 16GB of RAM and keep the 256GB of SSD, you will still be hit with a significant amount of RAM swap and the slower SSD speeds. I suppose Apple came to the same conclusion, because the stock configuration upgrades increase SSD size but not RAM.
I have found the base M1/M2 really needs 16GB of RAM and at least 512GB of SSD to get the most out of the chipset, but if you are only going to upgrade one, the SSD gives you more bang for the buck. That is for general computing in 2023.
Now if you are talking about the M1 Studio, which starts wtih 512GB of faster SSD and 32GB or RAM, then upgrading the RAM first (if you are using a lot of RAM) might make more sense.
All this heart wranglying is down to how Apple configures the base models and how they price structure the upgrade path.
There is so much discusson on this already. There are threads/articles/videos showing when you hit the cache limit for the different chip configurations, there are AmorphousDiskMark tests showing the different sequential and random speeds for different block sizes for the different chip configurations, there are time tests showing export times based on how many Chrome tabs you have open based on the different chip configurations, time tests showing how long it takes to cycle through 100 photos based on how many Chrome tabs you have open, how many 4k videos you can stream simultaniously before things get choppy based on the chip configurations etc, etc, etc.
No, I don't remember what article, video, or thread over the course of the last six months showed what test, but if you care about the difference having 1 or 2 nand chips makes, the info is out there.
Anyway, OP is a happy camper, so I am checking out.
So Funny, and so wrong. I only have 8GB of ram on almost never use a swap file. I transcode a lot using handbrake and almost never go over 6GB of used ram. so unless you have specific use cases where you do need the extra ram (then I also presume you would want a bigger Ssd as well), then your statement is just not reality
Another 2010 Mac Pro user here. SATA 2 speeds don’t hinder me at all, and I do video editing and large music projects pretty regularly.
Anyone who is using enough data to have an actual problem with the M2 SSD speeds is going to be buying a WAY higher spec option simply by default.
It’s a non-issue.
Just buy the M2 computer, forget about the “drive speed scandal,” and you won’t even notice. I guarantee it.
I agree, without being the fastest, it might make more economic sense to get the base M2 Mini at 599 (499 edu) and simply upgrade every 2-3 years instead of spending 2K now to keep the thing for 10 years. Due to inflation, the newer machines would be cheaper in today's dollars.
New Thunderbolt, WiFi, BT and HDMI standards would come with the newer models and the base say M4 Mini would surely beat the current M2 Pro Mini anyways in 2-3 years. To me the SSD's don't seem slow at all, they're just not as fast due to newer more denser memory modules being used which makes sense.
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There is another option. Ignore the internal SSD and buy this a: USB4 NVME M.2 SSD Enclosure with a SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD. It's cheaper and you get way more speed and storage + it's replaceable.
I have done this with my M1 Mac mini and get between 2700 / 2800 mb/s for both read and write.
I have done this with my M1 Mac mini and get between 2700 / 2800 mb/s for both read and write.
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256 GB is 1 unit on Mac Mini, 512 GB is 1 unit of MBP. 512GB is 2 units and Mac Mini and does not need to be avoided.
Vadim from Max Tech YouTube here.
Remember when many of you guys scolded me for making a huge deal about M2 MacBook Pro/Air single NAND SSD issues?
Told you so.
Hahah just messin' with y'all. Guess we should've made a bigger deal about it.
Now we're stuck with "Pro" machines with slower SSDs.
Just tested the 16" M2 Pro model. Read speed is 2x slower compared to 16" M1 Pro.
Instead of 5 NAND chips on the Logic board, we now have just two.
Remember when many of you guys scolded me for making a huge deal about M2 MacBook Pro/Air single NAND SSD issues?
Told you so.
Hahah just messin' with y'all. Guess we should've made a bigger deal about it.
Now we're stuck with "Pro" machines with slower SSDs.
Just tested the 16" M2 Pro model. Read speed is 2x slower compared to 16" M1 Pro.
Instead of 5 NAND chips on the Logic board, we now have just two.