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From what I understand other manufacturers who provide single 256 GB SSD configurations report similar speeds. Are there benchmarks for WinTel 8/(single)256 machines to compare SSD speeds and overall performance? That would be the real test. Isn't there an 8/256 Surface Pro? Perhaps we can see the SSD speeds for that?

Dell XPS which is in the price range of the M2 MBA are doing 7000MB/s, just like the M1 Max.

Comes with an OLED display too and the 12th-gen Intel CPU is no slouch.
 
Ever think they couldn’t get their hands on enough 128GB chips? There is a global chip shortage going on. And since two chips are generally cheaper than one, I seriously doubt this is cutting their costs. It probably costs them more to put the single 256GB chip in than two 128GB chips. Anyone who has done any serious purchasing of RAM or flash would know this to be the case. Rather than pushing their MBA/MBP release back months in order to get enough chips, they used what they could get.

Yes, they are hurting. Cook said their last quarter would have been $8 billion higher if not for the shortages. They weren’t lacking demand. They couldn’t make enough devices due to shortages. While $8 billion may not seem as much to a $2 trillion company, that’s serious cash for most companies. Their stock has crashed along with the rest of the market, losing a ton of its value due to inflation and shortages.
That is a possibility. The worldwide shortage is extremely bad right now. It doesn't help that 85% of our chips are fabricated in Taiwan.



To be pedantic, although the overall capacity is the same, it’s not the same spec hardware. One is 2 x 128gb and the other is 1 x 256gb. The only ’solution’ to this is to continue to use 2 x 128gb or make the base storage 2 x 256gb.
It's not pedantic. That's definitely something to take into consideration.



Maybe that should be in Apple's next TV commercial.
Or instead of It Just Works, they could change it to It Might Work.
 
Very strange. I had a 2020 Intel 13” MBP up until about a month ago and mine was fine.
If it was a 256GB SSD, then it was a dual NAND SSD. Apple appears to have downgraded to a single NAND SSD, which means the SSD cannot be accessed and respond nearly as fast.

Not a huge deal if you're a casual user. More of an issue with large media files and multiple open web tabs, as the SSD is slower when used as virtual memory vs. a dual NAND SSD.
 
Apple is not slowing your computer down. Windows feels snappier because its animations simpler and easier to render (simpler is not an insult).
The CPU and GPU are not taxed in any way when I resize a Window in Mac OS (it shouldn’t either). The hardware is complete overkill for this type of stuff. It is software, not a hardware issue.

Watch Apple making the M1 Max feel not smooth anymore in a couple of years with software updates.
 
iPhone 11 has a 3100 mAh battery and is a much bigger and heavier phone compared to iPhone 12. And the display technology and body was upgraded on the 12.

No such justification is found for going with the 50% slower SSD on the new M2 Air. None.

Also, iPhone 12 didn't get punished for its many upgraded specs with a 1550 mAh battery. It's still 2815 mAh so about 90% of the 11's mAh. That's a 10% less on a key spec.

We're talking 50% slower SSD speeds- You're not going to find another Apple product that saw a 50% cut in performance on a key spec in the next generation of the same product.
But you keep moving the goalposts.
The new SSD is *not* 50% slower 100% of the time.
There’s a lot of variables that go into it, which is what people don’t seem to understand.
Sure, under certain demanding loads doing certain tasks *can* be 50% slower.
But, as plenty of other tests have shown, the majority of tasks are not going to have a 50% difference. Most everyday tasks are about the same, or closer to a 30% difference.
and again, iPhone 4 to 4S, there were plenty of people who claimed to have about 50% less battery in their new phone than in their old phone, and Apple claimed it had 1/3 less the standby time.
2/3 less is right in between 50 and 70%, the estimated difference between the old 256SSD and the new.
So yes, Apple has reduced specifications in newer more expensive products before, sometimes by close to 50%.
Is it ethical? No, of course not.
Do I wish they wouldn’t? Of course.
Would I recommend anyone purchase the 256 GB option? Absolutely not?
Do I think it’s that big of a deal? No.
Do I think it’s really going to affect anyone’s usage? no.
Do I think it makes it a worse machine than the previous? No.
Do I think angry Internet posters are going to angry Internet post because there’s something new to angry Internet post about? absolutely!
It’s antenna gate, purple gate, battery gate, beauty gate, hiss gate all over again
 
Read the technical specification for SSD for MacBook Air.

It doesn't mention anything about speed. Therefore I would make no assumption on speed between those two generations.
M2 with single NAND 256GB SSD was extensively tested.


Caveat: This video compares the M1 and M2 MBP with 256GB SSD. We don't know if the M2 MBA will also have a single NAND 256GB SSD in the base model. It may be dual NAND.
 
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If it was a 256GB SSD, then it was a dual NAND SSD. Apple appears to have downgraded to a single NAND SSD, which means the SSD cannot be accessed and respond nearly as fast.

Not a huge deal if you're a casual user. More of an issue with large media files and multiple open web tabs, as the SSD is slower when used as virtual memory vs. a dual NAND SSD.
Huge deal period. This was kept quiet by Apple and the spec/performance is not the same or the expectation. It does not matter if people will settle. It was wrong without providing notice to buyers.
 
With this, the fingerprints, chips, heat, throttling etc. it’s turning out to be a bit of a dud
Its only dud for people blowing issues out of proportions.

The MBA is not a fingerprint magnet, only the darkest color is, just like with other things.

The chips overheat and throttle when using it like a 14" MBP.

The SSD is slower when using big files you wouldn't normally use on a tiny internal drive, or when multitasking like its a MBP.
 
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If the reason for Apple sourcing a single NAND package for the new M2 systems is a supply issue, wouldn't be likely that you could see the same issue with the new M1 systems? If it is a design choice, the 256GB model will always feature a single NAND package, but if it is supply issue, we could theoretically see later runs of the new MBA having different internal configurations of NAND. This is actually common practice used by OEMs, sourcing components from multiple companies to ensure adequate supply. In some cases different sources will have parts that are faster or slower than others, which could result in fluctuating benchmark scores.

Incidentally, Valve was just caught doing an SSD swap in the Steam Deck, but in this case, it is only in the higher-end configurations. If you get a 256GB or 512GB Steam Deck, you could have a PCIe x4 or PCIe x2 SSD now. You won't know unless you check your device when you receive it. This is literally a performance delta of 2x, Valve insists that the end user won't notice, sound familiar?
 
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If it was standard then they would use one 512GB chip.
They would probably use 2 x 256gb as this change appears to be Apple moving away from using 128gb modules as the minimum size storage module for Macs. This means they can eliminate needing to source 128gb modules for these products, either as a means to stop using them or to redirect them to other products, such as the iPhone or iPad.
 
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Huge deal period. This was kept quiet by Apple and the spec/performance is not the same or the expectation. It does not matter if people will settle. It was wrong without providing notice to buyers.
Why the need for a notice? Apple did not promise any SSD performance
 
Source?
Also with unified memory 8gb needs to be shared between cpu and gpu. I never understood the claim of unified memory requiring less space.
Even if it runs faster, on moderate workloads, it will run out of space. No matter how fast it is, the space required won’t change right? And when it runs out, we always needs the swap from ssd.
Most Windows PCs around $1,000 that have Intel integrated graphics also share with system RAM.
 
Why the need for a notice? Apple did not promise any SSD performance
I think the problem is that performance across Apple devices for decades now has been consistently the same for some components and faster for others. There's never been a point where performance has dropped significantly like this, especially when it's implemented quietly. Performance has always been faster for CPUs and GPUs, and for SSDs it has consistently been either very similar or faster across all product lines. It's never gone down like this. This is an Apple first. So I think it's just shocking to people that they've done this. Maybe it doesn't affect most people because most people aren't going to be using the insane SSD speeds that Apple computers have now, but I think the issue people are having is this was done quietly by Apple and it doesn't fit what they've done with their computers in literally ever. It's very un-Apple-like.
 
of course not.

the M1 air had faster speeds and this thing is from £1,249

this is a whole new level of being cheap and ripping off customers from Apple. it's disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself for defending them.
No, they have form. Most notibly the mid 2014 21.5" iMac. I always thought of the poor grandmother buying her grandson an iMac and buying that - dual core in 2014!
 
I think the problem is that performance across Apple devices for decades now has been consistently the same for some components and faster for others. There's never been a point where performance has dropped significantly like this, especially when it's implemented quietly. Performance has always been faster for CPUs and GPUs, and for SSDs it has consistently been either very similar or faster across all product lines. It's never gone down like this. This is an Apple first. So I think it's just shocking to people that they've done this. Maybe it doesn't affect most people because most people aren't going to be using the insane SSD speeds that Apple computers have now, but I think the issue people are having is this was done quietly by Apple and it doesn't fit what they've done with their computers in literally ever. It's very un-Apple-like.
The trouble is there is absolutely no point in debating it because neither you nor I have any influence over it whatsoever other than not buying the product. And if enough people care and don’t buy the product, Apple will do something about it.
 
This is a long thread… is there any truth at all to what Apple is saying (real world performance is better)?
Yes. The SoC has a more powerful GPU, more performance cores, and fewer efficiency cores than the equivalent M1 so there is no way it couldn't be faster. In addition to that it has a lot of dedicated video processing hardware lifted from the M1-Pro/Max so with video editing tasks its even faster.

As with everything, find one or two reviewers you trust to be honest, and listen to what they say. You can even split it up, watch reviews of the M2 MBP for performance comparisons to the M1, and watch reviews of the M2 MBA to see under which conditions it throttles, if at all.
 
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