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Base 13-Inch MacBook Pro With M2 Chip Has Significantly Slower SSD Speeds
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It will be noticeable when doing productive works like video editing that is the top target from MacBook Pro.
It’s not slow per se, but it’s arguably weak for a model in 2022 with “Pro” in its name.
It’s 50% faster, not 100%, but yes.
First: it’ll be slower. Whether that’s noticeable is harder to say.
For one, performance depends on multiple factors. The SSD is not the only bottleneck when launching an app. (In fact, macOS has a rather convoluted flow at this point, in order to do things like check Gatekeeper. Much of that isn’t sped up by a faster SSD.)
And second, sure, a 3 GiB/s disk will theoretically open a 3 GiB file in one second, when a 1.4 GiB/s disk will take more than twice as long, and over a second more is noticeable. But that’s typically not the scenario. You’ll be opening far smaller sizes, almost always.
Yes because the heavy, boxy soviet era design of the 14” (complete with notch!) just screams 21st century! 🙄
That's going to be a yes for some and no for others depending on your 'everyday use'. If your workflows end up requiring a lot of swap , or loading and saving files , I reckon you'll notice.
It’s not slow until you run out of RAM and need to swap.
68 GB/sec down to 1.4 GB/sec
100, even — the M2 has higher memory bandwidth than the M1 did.
Meanwhile, every iPhone and iPad Pro in the lineup offers a 128GB option with next day delivery, including iPhone SE. Don’t forget 64GB.
Do you seriously think all the flash suppliers said, “We know Apple uses 128GB chips in virtually all their products. Let’s play and joke and kill our revenue by cutting production of those chips.”
We haven't seen reviews of the MBA yet (obviously) but it would seem odd if the 256GB MBA ships with two 128GB NANDs while the 13" Pro does not. So expect the same findings when the MBA is launched, I reckon.
Sure, people were also saying how fast the A12X/Z iPad Pros, until Apple themselves decided that they are not fast enough for their "satisfaction." Just wait for macOS15 or 16, and start seeing some features being held back on these models and Apple claimed it's due to the SSD performance not up to their "satisfaction." Apple got away with it already, so they will use the same excuse again.
Yup. I remember when they cut the SSD portion of their 1TB Fusion drive into some paltry tiny size.
Apple should put a disclaimer on 256GB models that their storage performance is slower. If not, it's quite dishonest as consumers will think that size is the only factor, not speed.
This is a really silly scenario.
Say you got the 256GB model with the intent of editing material that is heavy enough where you start caring about internal disk I/O.
That would imply heavy multi-camera editing with each stream at least 4K 30fps 884Mbit/s ProResHQ 422 (that is 110MB/s, btw) which would limit you to only having about 13 streams available for simultaneous real-time playback. Never mind that even the M2 would likely croak from the workload regardless.
One hour of such footage would be 396GB, never mind having 12 of those files. Hencefourth you're not sitting on a 256GB M2 Macbook Pro editing on the internal disk regardless.
But I don't want to come off as trying to defend Apple here. This was a CHEAP move. They could have easily started off on 512GB base storage, offered full bandwidth and still made bank on the laptop. Objevtively speaking, it is a downgrade, and I suspect the casual users will notice this more than the pros, what with wake from sleep and disk swapping (8GB macbook's favourite thing to do) now having less bandwidth available.
Does this apply for the MacBook Air M1 as well? Being the 512Gb version is faster than the 256?
A very smart planned obsolesce. Intentionally equip the base pre-configured model (traditionally the best selling model) with 8GB RAM and now with slower storage, and watch consumers feeling the slowdowns in a few years when the swapping keeps occurring.
No wonder Apple is making so much money.
Nasty business by Apple. Have they done this to a non-Pro machine, they could kinda justify it... but doing it on a PRO machine (with an elevated price) is a really bad move.
This excuse has been debunked multiple times. Besides, Apple buy their components in advance. This is intentional as a cost cutting measure.
MaxTech do incredibly in-depth technical reviews, analysis & comparisons. Stuff a potential buyer needs to know anyway.
Rene Richie is not a good reviewer. He's gone more "click bait" over the last year or so anyway with some really poor content. He needs to go back to quality over quantity. If I wanted to watch a good honest review I wouldn't watch the likes of him & iJustine licking & fawning all over the hardware.
In this case, the benchmarks reveal Apple has gimped the brand new MacBook Pro 13 with vastly inferior storage. That's definitely news and something Apple needs to be held accountable for.
Right. The market segment for the 13-inch Pro is slim enough as it is; people who need ProRes probably won't use it.