New 256GB Mac Mini and 512GB MacBook Pro Have Slower SSD Speeds Than Previous Models

[foo2]

If I wanted a good, cheap Mac now, I've seen M1 Mac Minis, even 512GB models, selling for about $499 on Ebay now. Base M1 256 models, with the good nand chips, I've seen sell as low as $439.

I see $450 in BIN: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=m1+mini&_sacat=0&RAM%20Size=8%20GB&SSD%20Capacity=256%20GB&_dcat=111418&LH_BIN=1&_sop=15

For that difference in price, I'm happy to get new, warranty, from Apple, assurance of no issues or funny business, 5 minute pickup (and return) if required, and 2 more years of OS support. With the typical architectural improvements in M1 -> M2. PLUS going from 7 GPU cores to 10 GPU cores, plus that they're faster. The GPU bump, IMHO, is the best part, as the CPU was already pretty fast.

 

[mectojic]

I see $450 in BIN: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=m1+mini&_sacat=0&RAM%20Size=8%20GB&SSD%20Capacity=256%20GB&_dcat=111418&LH_BIN=1&_sop=15

For that difference in price, I'm happy to get new, warranty, from Apple, assurance of no issues or funny business, 5 minute pickup (and return) if required, and 2 more years of OS support. With the typical architectural improvements in M1 -> M2. PLUS going from 7 GPU cores to 10 GPU cores, plus that they're faster. The GPU bump, IMHO, is the best part, as the CPU was already pretty fast.

No problem. It's just my recommendation.
Your choice depends on the price you think is right. If OS support matters to you, buy what's new. If it doesn't, and actually enjoy the experience of buying from real people (like I do), then buy second-hand.

 

[Abazigal]

Apple's refurbs are always a smart deal. I've bought a couple in the past and the quality is great. If having the latest and greatest isn't important to the buyer, something like a Mac Mini M1 refurb would give you more for your money. That's $639. The equivalent RAM/storage M2 Mini is $799.

I get an educator's discount of about 16% on the new M2 Mac Mini, so refurbs look a lot less attractive to me, price-wise. 😛

 

[Mystere2417]

For what it’s worth, after much consideration, I pulled the trigger on a new M2 Mac Mini 16GB/512GB for $879 through the Apple Education Store. I used Apple Gift Cards purchased with my credit card points when they were on sale last year. So I ended up saving $120 with the education discount (-$100 for the computer and -$20 for the RAM upgrade) and -$100 on the $1,000 value of the points. I will be using my iMac wired keyboard with numeric keypad and it’s Apple Magic Mouse with this system, so further cost savings there.

With the two upgrades, I feel like I’m buying the sweet spot configuration, the one Apple should be selling for this model. The RAM upgrade was a given. I realize I could’ve gotten more bang for the buck with third party external storage, but I don’t really need more than 512GB and I wanted to circumvent the speed issues with the 256GB SSD for all computing tasks while still doubling the available storage.

We have two outdated iMacs in our home so this will replace one of the two, and I will wait for the M3 generation of the iMac or MacBook Air or Mac Mini for the other next year. Thanks to everyone who posted about the NAND issue.

By the way, Apple indicates the computer will be delivered as follows:

Ships: 1–2 weeks
Delivers: Feb 14 - Feb 21 by Standard Delivery

P.S. I know the most common question people ask of Mac Mini buyers is what monitor to buy for it. I have zero interest in a high end, high cost Apple display, as gorgeous as they are. I don’t need anything that big or that fancy, just functional and acceptable. I decided I wanted a 24” display since I’m coming off of the old 21.5” iMac. I wanted built in speakers and a built in webcam, so I went with this one, fingers crossed:

Dell S2422HZ 24-inch FHD 1920 x 1080 75Hz Video Conferencing Monitor, Pop-up Camera, Noise-Cancelling Dual Microphones, Dual 5W Speakers, USB-C connectivity, 16.7 Million Colors, Silver (Latest Model)

1

www.amazon.com

 

[mrmacuser69]

Well well well, looks like my 16” M1 Pro is the better machine after all 😎

 

[adamw]

For what it’s worth, after much consideration, I pulled the trigger on a new M2 Mac Mini 16GB/512GB for $879 through the Apple Education Store. I used Apple Gift Cards purchased with my credit card points when they were on sale last year. So I ended up saving $120 with the education discount (-$100 for the computer and -$20 for the RAM upgrade) and -$100 on the $1,000 value of the points. I will be using my iMac wired keyboard with numeric keypad and it’s Apple Magic Mouse with this system, so further cost savings there.

With the two upgrades, I feel like I’m buying the sweet spot configuration, the one Apple should be selling for this model. The RAM upgrade was a given. I realize I could’ve gotten more bang for the buck with third party external storage, but I don’t really need more than 512GB and I wanted to circumvent the speed issues with the 256GB SSD for all computing tasks while still doubling the available storage.

Sounds like you made a good selection for your needs, which is all it is really about. Everyone's needs and requirements are different. I appreciate all who posted on this forum thread about the nand SSD speed issue. I have learned so much, and can now make a better informed choice when buying new Macs going forward. Thanks to everyone who commented, especially those who suggested we look at all SSD speeds stats, such an Random Access speeds, in addition to the Sequential SSD speeds.

While I understand more now why Apple chose to go with single or double 256GB SSD nand chips in all their M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Max Macs, now we as consumers can better choose the SSD nand speed maximum that we want for current and future use of the particular Mac that we buy.

We can choose a $499 educational priced Mac Mini ($599 non-education) if we are on a very tight budget, and settle for an M2 with 8GB of Unified Memory, 256GB SSD drive with maximum 1,500 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or for an extra $200 each bump up either the RAM to 16GB, or increase the SSD to 512GB, with maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or do both. Above 512GB on the Mac Mini M2 (Non Pro version) if you increase the SSD to 1TB or 2TB you still get 3000 MB/s maximum read/write Sequential speeds.

If we instead choose the $1,199 education priced Mac Mini Pro base model ($1,299 non-education), then we get a M2 Pro chip with 16GB Unified Memory and a 512GB SSD drive, with maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or we can spend $200 more to get 1TB SSD storage, with maximum 6,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds. The 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB model of the Mac Mini M2 Pro will also benefit from the higher SSD speeds. Of course, we can upgrade the CPU to 12 cores for $300, upgrade the RAM to 32GB for $400 more, upgrade the Gigabit Ethernet port to 10Gbps for $100 more, etc. I recommend if we want to get a maxed out Mac Mini M2 Pro model, that we either get a Mac Studio M1 Max model which is now on clearance, or as a refurb, or wait and get a new Mac Studio M2 Max when they are released, as they will see significant GPU benefits, as we have now seen on the MacBook Pro M2 Max models.

We can also choose a MacBook Pro 14" or 16" M2 Pro or M2 Max model now, with a 512GB SSD drive having maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or upgrade to a 1TB or larger SSD model, with maximum 6,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or we can get a clearance, refurb, or used MacBook Pro M1 Pro or M1 Max model with all models having faster SSD drives in them, without the 3,000 MB/s limitation.

I hope this helps everyone with a summary of where we are, to help us make the best buying decision for our needs.

 

[nnoob]

Sounds like you made a good selection for your needs, which is all it is really about. Everyone's needs and requirements are different. I appreciate all who posted on this forum thread about the nand SSD speed issue. I have learned so much, and can now make a better informed choice when buying new Macs going forward. Thanks to everyone who commented, especially those who suggested we look at all SSD speeds stats, such an Random Access speeds, in addition to the Sequential SSD speeds.

While I understand more now why Apple chose to go with single or double 256GB SSD nand chips in all their M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Max Macs, now we as consumers can better choose the SSD nand speed maximum that we want for current and future use of the particular Mac that we buy.

We can choose a $499 educational priced Mac Mini ($599 non-education) if we are on a very tight budget, and settle for an M2 with 8GB of Unified Memory, 256GB SSD drive with maximum 1,500 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or for an extra $200 each bump up either the RAM to 16GB, or increase the SSD to 512GB, with maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or do both. Above 512GB on the Mac Mini M2 (Non Pro version) if you increase the SSD to 1TB or 2TB you still get 3000 MB/s maximum read/write Sequential speeds.

If we instead choose the $1,199 education priced Mac Mini Pro base model ($1,299 non-education), then we get a M2 Pro chip with 16GB Unified Memory and a 512GB SSD drive, with maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or we can spend $200 more to get 1TB SSD storage, with maximum 6,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds. The 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB model of the Mac Mini M2 Pro will also benefit from the higher SSD speeds. Of course, we can upgrade the CPU to 12 cores for $300, upgrade the RAM to 32GB for $400 more, upgrade the Gigabit Ethernet port to 10Gbps for $100 more, etc. I recommend if we want to get a maxed out Mac Mini M2 Pro model, that we either get a Mac Studio M1 Max model which is now on clearance, or as a refurb, or wait and get a new Mac Studio M2 Max when they are released, as they will see significant GPU benefits, as we have now seen on the MacBook Pro M2 Max models.

We can also choose a MacBook Pro 14" or 16" M2 Pro or M2 Max model now, with a 512GB SSD drive having maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or upgrade to a 1TB or larger SSD model, with maximum 6,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or we can get a clearance, refurb, or used MacBook Pro M1 Pro or M1 Max model with all models having faster SSD drives in them, without the 3,000 MB/s limitation.

I hope this helps everyone with a summary of where we are, to help us make the best buying decision for our needs.

No, don't base your decision based on SSD Sequential speed, why are you honing on the issue on read/write speed that you will never use or see. i can confirm that 1024 gb and 512 gb have the same speed for read and write in random i/o task.

 

[Yebubbleman]

And right on time, we have more of the nonsensical "It will be fine for consumers" defense!

You do realize most people aren't reading these forms. We're a bunch of tech nerds with opinions about the Apple brand and how many nand chips they need to use. Most people go to the Apple Store, see how the device works, like how the device works, then buy the device. People who buy online know they have 14 days if they dislike it.

I have friends that have a MacBook Air and one that's about to buy one. None of those people have ever heard anything about the number of nand chips on the MacBook Air. None of them know where a nand chip is. They buy it because it works well for what they do.

Correction: They buy it because they THINK it works well for what they do. If you told them (in laymen's terms mind you) this product is slower than the last two versions of this product, they might not feel so good about it. That's not a techie thing. That's a consumer thing. Furthermore, that's not a good look for Apple, no matter how you slice it.

OK, but the question is what makes it a lousy product? Unless you're buying the top end of every Mac, you are getting a lesser something. If you're not buying the M2 Max, you're getting a cut down GPU. If you're buying the MacBook Air, you're getting an inferior screen if you're buying the regular iPhone you're getting a whole lot of inferior components compared to the Pro. It has a camera lens straight up missing from the phone.

It's all about meeting a price point and will that product do what the customer wants. If Apple only sold the best, every Mac would cost $50,000+ and every iPhone would cost $2000+. The 512 GB SSD in my MacBook Air is slower than a 2 TB one. I don't care. I didn't want to spend that much money. The customer has the choice. If you want to buy the faster SSD it's available, maybe I don't need this and I want the cheapest. I'm going to buy the base M2 mini and SSD speed is not a consideration for me. It's going to be for browsing the web, and back ups, which will be done on an even slower external drive.

I own several M1 Macs that have the base/binned 7 GPU Core variant of M1 and have a 256GB SSD. If I buy ANY M2 Mac that has a 256GB SSD, I will be getting a SLOWER and WORSE performing product. The fact that it works for the market segment it was intended for (good luck spinning that one for the people buying an M2 Pro/Max 16-inch MacBook Pro with a 512GB SSD) is utterly irrelevant. Apple released a successor product inferior to the product it was intended to replace and are not discounting cost accordingly. That's not cool no matter how you slice it. Stop apologizing for Apple.

 

[Sagnet]

The fact that it works for the market segment it was intended for (good luck spinning that one for the people buying an M2 Pro/Max 16-inch MacBook Pro with a 512GB SSD) is utterly irrelevant.

I just bought a 14" MBP M2 Pro with 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It is a computer for work, and my budget allowed for an upgrade of RAM or SSD, but not both. I chose more RAM. I don't believe I will have any problems with the SSD speed.

 

[nnoob]

ok, tell me a usecase where the speed hit 7 gb/s. .. thunderbolt have a max data transfer rate o 40 gbps, reality you will use some of it will be used for overhead. so you wiil be using 30 gbps or less realistically 25 gbps or 3gb/s...

 

[Yebubbleman]

I just bought a 14" MBP M2 Pro with 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It is a computer for work, and my budget allowed for an upgrade of RAM or SSD, but not both. I chose more RAM. I don't believe I will have any problems with the SSD speed.

I hope you are right. But, based on what has been written about these SSDs, it sounds like you will be getting performance worse than that of a T2 Intel Mac's SSD.

 

[compwiz1202]

Which for me would mean a free trip to America at no extra cost, to visit Cupertino maybe and see what I could steal back?

Make sure to buy the Apple Products in Oregon then, 0% sales tax.

 

[adamw]

Make sure to buy the Apple Products in Oregon then, 0% sales tax.

Or get a Payboo Credit Card and order from B&H Photo, to get your Sales Tax taken instantly off on your order in any state that you may live in. Saves me hundreds in sales tax on large purchases. B&H sells most of Apple's Mac lineup as well as camera gear. Plus they ship fast and usually free. Also they have a great return policy and outstanding customer service. You can buy used (open box) Macs and cameras to save even more money, which I have done often.

 

[foo2]

No, don't base your decision based on SSD Sequential speed, why are you honing on the issue on read/write speed that you will never use or see. i can confirm that 1024 gb and 512 gb have the same speed for read and write in random i/o task.

Bingo! Everyone needs to reread this. Samsung marketing is having a field day with the amount of attention the burst / max speed rates get around here, when random io is vastly more critical for typical OS use.

I hope you are right. But, based on what has been written about these SSDs, it sounds like you will be getting performance worse than that of a T2 Intel Mac's SSDs

At blackmagic speed tests, max transfer rate only; why should we care ? Frame this around the apps that would be slower; what’s the actual impact ? Would you suggest more ram (rather than 8gb) or more ssd, assuming paging is an issue ? Why?

 

[adamw]

Here is Max Tech's latest SSD disk test of 16" MacBook Pro M2 Max vs 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max (both with 1 TB SSD), so we can see the Sequential and the Random read and write tests between these machines. Interesting that both Random Read and Write tests have improved on the M2 Max model with 1 TB SSD:

Here is the full Max Tech video just released containing these SSD speed results:

 

[foo2]

Adam, this is a much better and more complete report, rather than just looking at the top number, and immediately walking away with a conclusion. We can see that for most io, the newer machines will be faster, at least for that configuration, while doing random disk io related things, which is how it will be used by essentially everyone using the OS and not doing bulk copies of ISO files all day every day.

We should not generalize that as ‘faster’ except for within the benchmark.

 

[nnoob]

Here is Max Tech's latest SSD disk test of 16" MacBook Pro M2 Max vs 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max (both with 1 TB SSD), so we can see the Sequential and the Random read and write tests between these machines. Interesting that both Random Read and Write tests have improved on the M2 Max model with 1 TB SSD:

View attachment 2150679

Here is the full Max Tech video just released containing these SSD speed results:

Max tech and most of youtube is a joke, morons running the show, the only tech reviewer who give consistent good and reliable info is Linus media group, makers of linus tech tiips.

 

[foo2]

Max tech and most of youtube is a joke, morons running the show, the only tech reviewer who give consistent good and reliable info is Linus media group, makers of linus tech tiips.

To me the more basic question is why anyone would want to sit through 20 minutes of posturing in a video “review” when one could just read an Anandtech or Toms Hardware article and get the facts in seconds.

 

[icemantx]

To me the more basic question is why anyone would want to sit through 20 minutes of posturing in a video “review” when one could just read an Anandtech or Toms Hardware article and get the facts in seconds.

Entertainment

 

[gorbag42]

Here is Max Tech's latest SSD disk test of 16" MacBook Pro M2 Max vs 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max (both with 1 TB SSD), so we can see the Sequential and the Random read and write tests between these machines. Interesting that both Random Read and Write tests have improved on the M2 Max model with 1 TB SSD:

View attachment 2150679

Here is the full Max Tech video just released containing these SSD speed results:

If write speed > read speed, I don't think they're actually measuring a write.

 

[escargot3]

I own several M1 Macs that have the base/binned 7 GPU Core variant of M1 and have a 256GB SSD. If I buy ANY M2 Mac that has a 256GB SSD, I will be getting a SLOWER and WORSE performing product.

You are drawing far too broad a conclusion from such a narrow scope of data. The product will not be slower nor worse performing. It will be faster and better performing. One metric where it has lower benchmark results hardly negates the performance gains in almost every other area, especially because there are such narrow use cases where large sequential transfer is all that important, especially beyond a certain threshold.

Here is Max Tech's latest SSD disk test of 16" MacBook Pro M2 Max vs 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max (both with 1 TB SSD), so we can see the Sequential and the Random read and write tests between these machines. Interesting that both Random Read and Write tests have improved on the M2 Max model with 1 TB SSD:

It should be noted as well that there is a lot of variation across specific units. Even exactly the same config of system will often get different results across different units, or even on the same exact system across multiple runs. For example other M2 Max computers with that configuration have been getting 6700 and 7700. Random r/w are especially affected by small background operations that can be occurring, often invisible to the user.

These numbers are definitely important, but people are beginning to place an outsized importance on them, especially with regard to small variations. And this is all being further exacerbated by thirsty YouTubers who exaggerate importance in order to drive the outrage machine and therefore clicks/views/algorithmic placement.

 

[escargot3]

If write speed > read speed, I don't think they're actually measuring a write.

The data it's writing is loaded into RAM which is far faster than any SSD ever.

 

[Yebubbleman]

You are drawing far too broad a conclusion from such a narrow scope of data. The product will not be slower nor worse performing. It will be faster and better performing. One metric where it has lower benchmark results hardly negates the performance gains in almost every other area, especially because there are such narrow use cases where large sequential transfer is all that important, especially beyond a certain threshold.

First off, there's been real-world tests and demonstrations that prove your third sentence completely wrong. Secondly, you underestimate just how much of a bottleneck a slow drive can be on a system. Furthermore, every test run (and mind you it's not just Max Tech; it's pretty much every news outlet) shows that this drive results in an overall worse performing Mac than 256GB SSD equipped M1 equivalents.

 

[foo2]

First off, there's been real-world tests and demonstrations that prove your third sentence completely wrong. Secondly, you underestimate just how much of a bottleneck a slow drive can be on a system. Furthermore, every test run (and mind you it's not just Max Tech; it's pretty much every news outlet) shows that this drive results in an overall worse performing Mac than 256GB SSD equipped M1 equivalents.

I look forward to better testing that shows random io, which is far more representative of normal OS and application usage.

As far as apps with real world differences, I'm aware of two - a large 44gb disk copy and an unscientific test of exporting while clicking tabs. Are there any others ?

He's correct in what he wrote - items in which a maximum disk speed of 1500MB/s or less is required will be faster on the newer machines. Items like copying big .ISO files, for the once a year times you might do that, may be faster on those SSDs with more chips.

If it sounds like I am minimizing disk differences, it's because I am. Compared to the entire holistic system, it only plays one part. When you talk of faster and slower I'd encourage you to look at more than just disk benchmarks, and worse, only one at that.

 

[escargot3]

First off, there's been real-world tests and demonstrations that prove your third sentence completely wrong. Secondly, you underestimate just how much of a bottleneck a slow drive can be on a system. Furthermore, every test run (and mind you it's not just Max Tech; it's pretty much every news outlet) shows that this drive results in an overall worse performing Mac than 256GB SSD equipped M1 equivalents.

You are so far off base here. I can't believe those were the conclusions you drew. MaxTech's tests found that the M2 machines were faster in pretty much every test they did. There was only one single test performed, out of literally dozens (both benchmarks and real world use case tests) where the base models performed worse, and even then they had to twist themselves into pretzels to get that result.

It was a test exporting lots of images from Lightroom, and even that test on its own was still faster on the "slower" M2 base models. They had to open up dozens of tabs in Chrome to fill up all the RAM, then also run the huge export in Lightroom, and then finally they were able to create a scenario where it was slower. It was clear form how they presented it and surreptitiously tried to justify such a bizarre testing scenario that they had likely performed tons of other tests where the new machines were faster yet again, until they finally found a contrived scenario to feed their sensationalism and "gotcha" journalism. They have been shamelessly milking and overblowing that story for views like nobody's business and you have clearly fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

A slow hard drive is a bottleneck on a system, such as the rotating 5400 RPM HDs that were used until not too long ago on the entry 21.5 iMacs. These are not slow drives. They are incredibly fast drives, that are less fast than the even more blazingly fast drives in the other systems. The vast majority of tasks are unaffected because these "slow" SSDs easily meet the threshold necessary; the tasks are bound by other components of the system.

As for "every test" run from "pretty much every news outlet" I have no idea what you are referring to. No reviews whatsoever have found that the base models are slower overall because of the slower drives. In fact, they have said just the opposite: that, while the lower sequential speeds of the base models is disappointing, despite this the base model new machines are faster overall than the previous gen. The fact that you misunderstood one single performance metric being slower to indicate that the entire system was slower than the previous gen overall just goes to show how overblown this issue has gotten and how sensationalized much of the coverage has been.