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

[russell_314]

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.

This is just false..

 

[Yebubbleman]

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?

I don't own every kind of Mac out there. If you would like to supply me with a 256GB M2 Mac, I'll be happy to test my workflows with it and let you know how I feel about the drive from firsthand experience. However, from what I've read (which is a lot), it sounds like everything short of the most basic tasks will suffer on the drive and that performance with that drive is worse than any T2 Mac's SSD. Considering that M1 Mac SSDs were an upgrade from that, I entreat you to justify to me why I should be paying for a Mac that has a drive worse than a Mac produced five years ago.

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.

Except I do those kinds of copy operations on the regular. And you can't say that there aren't people out there regularly copying big files. You're way more likely to copy big files on and off a Mac regularly on a Mac that has a smaller drive. It's not that much of a stretch at all. Again, I don't know why you're trying to justify this obvious downgrade.

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.

Except it doesn't. Storage has been the bottleneck on computers for decades. SSDs went a long way to change that, but it's not like we completely killed that bottleneck once spinning drives went away. Disk performance isn't insignificant.

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.

They have multiple videos the entire point of which is "DON'T BUY THE BASE MODELS". Not only that, but I've watched those videos (multiple times because I kept reading people here saying that they were full of crap and I wanted to sanity check what I was watching). It's also not just Max Tech reporting on this. Macworld, Mac Life, and several other Mac publications are reporting on the weaker base model drive.

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.

I'm not the one trying to spin a downgraded SSD like it's a nothingburger. That's Apple zealotry on a whole 'nother level, pal. You want to spend $1500 on a Mac that has a weaker drive than its most recent Intel predecessor to it, be my guest. But don't sit here, tell me I am falling for crap when these people (it's not just Max Tech) are showing clear evidence that these drives are inferior to their predecessors.

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.

You really are using a 5400 RPM 2.5" laptop hard drive as the basis for your argument that these aren't slow SSDs. Wow. That's quite the spin.

They are incredibly fast drives, that are less fast than the even more blazingly fast drives in the other systems.

LESS FAST THAN THEIR IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS! That's the point you keep failing to address with anything other than "well it won't matter for the average consumer"! How about someone buying an M2 Pro MacBook Pro or Mac mini that wants to stick with a 512GB SSD? It's much easier to justify sticking with a 512GB SSD than a 256GB SSD, especially with workflows wherein project data is living on an external volume to begin with. Those users are going to be impacted by this nonsense too.

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.

Just because you aren't reading them doesn't mean that they aren't out there.

Macworld and MacLife both covered it in their reviews of the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro. MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and AppleInsider all did as well. Then there are the other YouTubers that also covered it. This crappier drive got way more coverage than just Max Tech.

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.

They said it's a hotter running chip with marginal performance gains. That's the nothingburger about the M2 if ever there was one.

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.

The fact that you are blind to discourse outside of your own echo chamber goes to show how overblown Apple apologists get when Apple releases a second generation product that cuts corners for the same price and they step up to the plate to justify it. Just stop.

 

[Yebubbleman]

This is just false..

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

 

[nnoob]

nobody can reach/write 3gb/s unless if t s dumped from RAM / to RAM, I was looking at the thunderbolt/USB4 nvme enclosure benchmarks and it is at most 3 gb/s and none of the devices can hit 4gb/s. they can only hit 3 gb/s or less when dumped from/ to ram..

real world copy test is like 1400 mb/s or less

Don't give me the swap memory crap, that depends more on Random read/write, not seqencial read write

 

[foo2]

I don't own every kind of Mac out there. If you would like to supply me with a 256GB M2 Mac, I'll be happy to test my workflows with it and let you know how I feel about the drive from firsthand experience. However, from what I've read (which is a lot), it sounds like everything short of the most basic tasks will suffer on the drive and that performance with that drive is worse than any T2 Mac's SSD. Considering that M1 Mac SSDs were an upgrade from that, I entreat you to justify to me why I should be paying for a Mac that has a drive worse than a Mac produced five years ago.

So ... this is all based on your googling and watching your YouTube echo chamber? And you've never owned or tested the machine(s) in question? Got it!

Except I do those kinds of copy operations on the regular. And you can't say that there aren't people out there regularly copying big files. You're way more likely to copy big files on and off a Mac regularly on a Mac that has a smaller drive. It's not that much of a stretch at all. Again, I don't know why you're trying to justify this obvious downgrade.

You copy 44GB files on the regular? OK, I'll bite. At what, exactly? How?

Except it doesn't. Storage has been the bottleneck on computers for decades. SSDs went a long way to change that, but it's not like we completely killed that bottleneck once spinning drives went away. Disk performance isn't insignificant.

If we were talking about the same storage as we had decades ago, this would be a great point. As it is, though, it's not a point at all, because the "only 1500MB/s" or "only 3000MB/s" doesn't impede the workflow for most.

They have multiple videos the entire point of which is "DON'T BUY THE BASE MODELS". Not only that, but I've watched those videos (multiple times because I kept reading people here saying that they were full of crap and I wanted to sanity check what I was watching). It's also not just Max Tech reporting on this. Macworld, Mac Life, and several other Mac publications are reporting on the weaker base model drive.

Photogenic entertainment. To date the differences I see are slower copy operation on a 44GB file (MaxTech talks about SLC drives, but since they're both SLC drives this doesn't make much sense to me except that the larger drive may have more SSD local cache available) and an unscientific test of two machines doing an export and clicking tabs in Chrome also. Do you have other tests to share?

I'm not the one trying to spin a downgraded SSD like it's a nothingburger. That's Apple zealotry on a whole 'nother level, pal. You want to spend $1500 on a Mac that has a weaker drive than its most recent Intel predecessor to it, be my guest. But don't sit here, tell me I am falling for crap when these people (it's not just Max Tech) are showing clear evidence that these drives are inferior to their predecessors.

If something opens .1 seconds slower, but then finishes a rendering job 20% faster, the gain is still that the overall machine is essentially 20% faster. I suspect that will be pretty typical of the M2 story for the 'slower' drives.

You really are using a 5400 RPM 2.5" laptop hard drive as the basis for your argument that these aren't slow SSDs. Wow. That's quite the spin.

[sigh]

LESS FAST THAN THEIR IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS! That's the point you keep failing to address with anything other than "well it won't matter for the average consumer"! How about someone buying an M2 Pro MacBook Pro or Mac mini that wants to stick with a 512GB SSD? It's much easier to justify sticking with a 512GB SSD than a 256GB SSD, especially with workflows wherein project data is living on an external volume to begin with. Those users are going to be impacted by this nonsense too.

If they're using TB4 disks, they're still limited to 40GB/s max theoretical speed. When I look at most TB4 disks, they say 2800MB/s or so tops read and 2200MB/s or so write. Some people are probably going to use the 2 TB4 ports for (something), so a USBC stick could easily be attached to, say, the USBC bus on the Apple Studio Display or expansion port / hub gizmo (for a 1000MB/s top speed! Gasp! Don't tell anyone!) This doesn't keep me up at night.

Just because you aren't reading them doesn't mean that they aren't out there.

Just because the YouTube echo chamber, 'anything for clicks', says this is slower doesn't mean the entire machine is slower or the productline is a failure. And reading what some people wrote, they're prioritizing 500GB SSD rather than more RAM to address the "slow swap issue" that they are afraid might happen; that's a bad idea on all fronts. A better message is to rightsize the RAM to begin with and ignore the disk speed because it's not a factor if you aren't paging to it (and if you were, random IO at QD1 is vastly more important).

Macworld and MacLife both covered it in their reviews of the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro. MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and AppleInsider all did as well. Then there are the other YouTubers that also covered it. This crappier drive got way more coverage than just Max Tech.

Yep, anyone can run a BlackMagic disk speed benchmark, you're right. But the question is why you'd prioritize that benchmark over, say, AmorphousDiskMark's random IO details, and why you'd think that a sequential transfer is more important than everything else.

They said it's a hotter running chip with marginal performance gains. That's the nothingburger about the M2 if ever there was one.

Does it run within Apple specs? Or are you now telling Apple how to build machines? Does it throttle because of that temperature? If not, what's the issue? Again this is solutioning in search of a problem. Or repeating clickbait.

The fact that you are blind to discourse outside of your own echo chamber goes to show how overblown Apple apologists get when Apple releases a second generation product that cuts corners for the same price and they step up to the plate to justify it. Just stop.

Wow. Just wow.

 

[russell_314]

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

No, what you said was false. It’s definitely not an opinion.

 

[Yebubbleman]

So ... this is all based on your googling and watching your YouTube echo chamber? And you've never owned or tested the machine(s) in question? Got it!

Why do I need to test the machine when there are people with more money doing it and thoroughly documenting their findings? I need to own every Mac out there to report on what others are already doing a better job of testing and reporting for me? Don't be silly!

You copy 44GB files on the regular? OK, I'll bite. At what, exactly? How?

I move data to and from machines all the time. How and why is none of your concern, nor do I need to prove my workloads to you to satisfy a pissing contest you insist on having with me.

If we were talking about the same storage as we had decades ago, this would be a great point. As it is, though, it's not a point at all, because the "only 1500MB/s" or "only 3000MB/s" doesn't impede the workflow for most.

I honestly don't care about the actual speeds. Nor do I give a fraction of a crap about your "doesn't impede the workflow for most" sentiment. It's a downgrade over the SSD in a Mac I could've purchased five years ago. Whether it makes a difference to you or the average layperson is of no concern to me. The fact of the matter is that this was discussed outside of Max Tech and outside of MacRumors articles and it's not a good look for Apple.

Photogenic entertainment. To date the differences I see are slower copy operation on a 44GB file (MaxTech talks about SLC drives, but since they're both SLC drives this doesn't make much sense to me except that the larger drive may have more SSD local cache available) and an unscientific test of two machines doing an export and clicking tabs in Chrome also. Do you have other tests to share?

Honestly, it sounds like it doesn't impact your workloads. GOOD FOR YOU.

Just because the YouTube echo chamber, 'anything for clicks', says this is slower doesn't mean the entire machine is slower or the productline is a failure.

I never said the product line is a failure...? Not sure anyone ever said that...?

News and Review sites/publications/streamers/channels are discouraging the purchase of ONE SSD configuration and you're claiming that people are damning the whole product line? No. Just the low-end storage config. Seems like you didn't experience any negative impact to going with that drive. GOOD FOR YOU. Not sure why you and everyone else who purchased that config has to get bent out of shape when other people don't recommend it.

I don't think anyone ever discounted the notion that one's mileage may vary. Certainly, I never did. But, it's also the case that I don't buy Macs for myself every day or even every year. I have to save up money for months to afford a Mac and even if the difference is 5kB/sec in read speed slower than the SSD of a T2 Mac produced five years ago, I'm not going to be happy. If I'm spending over a grand, I had better not get something that isn't slower than its predecessor in any respect. But hey, you do you, boo.

And reading what some people wrote, they're prioritizing 500GB SSD rather than more RAM to address the "slow swap issue" that they are afraid might happen; that's a bad idea on all fronts.

I'll agree that logic is wrong. Incidentally, my take on "more RAM or more SSD" is always to get both. But I also fail to see the logic in spending $1200 on a computer while refusing to not spend (or save to be able to spend) $200 more on an upgrade that there's zero downside to that'll extend the machine's life in one way or another.

A better message is to rightsize the RAM to begin with and ignore the disk speed because it's not a factor if you aren't paging to it (and if you were, random IO at QD1 is vastly more important).

Honestly, you couldn't sell me on an 8GB RAM 256GB SSD M2 Mac of any kind. I agree that if I have to play Sophie's Choice with those two, even with my feelings on that SSD being what they are, I'd still opt for the RAM. But that's not the kind of machine I'd ever recommend someone else get. And with an M1 having a better 256GB drive, I'd never have any reason to not just get an M1 Mac instead.

Yep, anyone can run a BlackMagic disk speed benchmark, you're right. But the question is why you'd prioritize that benchmark over, say, AmorphousDiskMark's random IO details, and why you'd think that a sequential transfer is more important than everything else.

Again, I don't care about what real-world difference there is. If the M1 has a faster SSD, why am I messing with an M2 on the low end? Why would I recommend anyone do that?

Does it run within Apple specs? Or are you now telling Apple how to build machines? Does it throttle because of that temperature? If not, what's the issue? Again this is solutioning in search of a problem. Or repeating clickbait.

Please relax and crawl out of my behind. I wasn't insinuating that the M2 isn't within Apple's specs in terms of thermals. I said that it's a hotter running chip (than the M1) - true, by the way. And that it is marginally faster than the M1 - also true. I wasn't insulting Apple, or you, or even the M2 itself. These are just computers. You don't need to get so uppity about them.

Wow. Just wow.

You ain't so bad yourself.

No, what you said was false. It’s definitely not an opinion.

You have data to back that up? It'd take me a while to do so in a presentable format (and I don't think this qualifies as being worth the expenditure in time or effort), but I at least have it to back up what I said.

 

[escargot3]

It's also not just Max Tech reporting on this. Macworld, Mac Life, and several other Mac publications are reporting on the weaker base model drive.

How is that relevant to my comments though? We aren't disputing that the drives performed slower in sequential benchmarks. We are disputing your unsubstantiated claim that this single metric results in such a catastrophic "bottleneck" that it causes the new M2 base model machines to be "worse performing" in "every test run". A claim that is patently, demonstrable false.

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

The rest of us are confused, (flabbergasted even) because we are all reading the same reviews and watching the same YouTube videos as you claim to be, and all those reviews are finding literally the opposite of what you are claiming. They are finding that the M2 machines are faster in virtually all their tests. Most reviews do not directly compare the M1 base models to the M2 base models, but the ones that do find that even with the slower sequential drive speeds, the new models are still faster in almost every test.

Is your reading and media comprehension really that bad? Are you so consumed with rage about this single benchmark result that it's impairing your cognitive abilities? Or do you perhaps have access to top secret info that no one else on the internet does? We give you the benefit of the doubt. However, when pressed, you continue to self-own by citing evidence that literally disproves what you are claiming, rather than supporting it:

They [MaxTech] have multiple videos the entire point of which is "DON'T BUY THE BASE MODELS". Not only that, but I've watched those videos (multiple times because I kept reading people here saying that they were full of crap and I wanted to sanity check what I was watching). It's also not just Max Tech reporting on this. Macworld, Mac Life, and several other Mac publications are reporting on the weaker base model drive.

First of all, I don't understand why you think "Don't buy the base models" = the base models are slower in every test run. Those are two different statements. At first I thought you must just be reading only the titles and text in the thumbnails, rather than actually watching the videos through. But you claim to have watched the videos multiple times over! This is honestly very concerning.

There is only one MaxTech video that directly compares the performance of the base models for anything other than sequential disk performance. This is it here:

Let's break it down:

• Disk Speed Sequential test: New base models slower
• Disk Speed Random test: New base models faster
• Geekbench: New base models 20% faster
• Web browsing: New base models 14% faster
• Figma web design: New base models 20% faster
• Cinebench: New base models 23% faster
• 3dmark: New base models 22% faster
• GFXBench 1440p: New base models 25% faster
• GFXBench 4K: New base models 24% faster
• Blender: New base models 45% faster
• Lightroom: New base models faster - “Even though the SSDs are slower, it was 3 seconds faster”
• 4K HEVC Encoding: No difference - “Slower” SSD did not have any performance impact
• 4K ProRes Raw: New base models faster - “What if we make it harder”. “It looks like the M2 Pro is still faster”

In their final conclusion, they find that the new base models also have faster WiFi, a faster HDMI connection, and better battery life.

So on what planet do you conclude from those results that the new base models are slower in "every test run" and that they are an "overall worse performing Mac"??? Your unfounded fears of these "slow" drives causing a catastrophic bottleneck that cripples these machines and undoes every other performance gain were not borne out in any way, shape, or form. It's absolute madness. And these are the tests that you yourself cited as proof of your claims!! It's honestly a bit laughable, I'm sorry.

Literally no publication or outlet, (let alone every one) has reported or shown tests that the sequential drive speeds result in the new machines being slower overall. It's not a question of MaxTech being "full of crap" even. It's a problem of you literally not understanding or comprehending what MaxTech is saying. Despite the (deliberately misleading, I will give you that) hardcore clickbait and shamelessly thirsty thumbnails and video titles, even MaxTech is saying that the new base models are faster than the previous gen overall. Macworld did not post any articles saying otherwise either, and as for Mac Life? The only Mac Life website I could find was an MMA fighting website. Mac Life seems to be a semi-defunct magazine that only has digital editions now, and their upcoming 2023 March edition doesn't purport to have any tests or benchmarks of the new machines.

I honestly don't care about the actual speeds. Nor do I give a fraction of a crap about your "doesn't impede the workflow for most" sentiment. It's a downgrade over the SSD in a Mac I could've purchased five years ago. Whether it makes a difference to you or the average layperson is of no concern to me.

Again, I don't care about what real-world difference there is. If the M1 has a faster SSD, why am I messing with an M2 on the low end? Why would I recommend anyone do that?

Now this is about as unhinged a take as I have ever seen. You don't care about the actual speeds, or real world differences. You only care about... synthetic benchmarks? And even then, only one specific synthetic benchmark, but not all the others, which show the new base models to be faster? Are you OK?

These are just computers. You don't need to get so uppity about them.

OK, at this point I really have to start wondering if you are being serious or if this is just a troll account. Are you seriously now accusing others of being "uppity" about "just computers"? Do you truly have that little self awareness? You are the one who is practically foaming at the mouth, screaming at us in ALL CAPS about a relatively minor issue that in the vast majority of use cases (other than bragging rights) doesn't even affect actual performance, calling us "zealots", "Apple apologists" and all sorts of other names, all while making outlandish claims that are not supported by any evidence (even the evidence you cite yourself as proof) yet are admonishing others for being "uppity"? 🤣🤣 This has to be a joke, right?

 

[rtjstevens]

Gentlemen, please slow down!

 

[rtjstevens]

So, to summarise:

1. The new M2 Minis are faster overall than their (equivalent) predecessors.
2. The SSD speeds, however, on the M2 base models, are slower than their equivalent M1 base models.
3. However, there is little or no evidence that this has a direct impact on 'real-world' tests for the average consumer (whoever that is!)
4. Some feel that Apple should have been 'more upfront' about this and feel affronted that a newer base model has a slower SSD speed (in some tests) than the equivalent M1 models.
5. Some/many reviewers are making too much of the potential bottleneck of slower SSD speeds on the base models. They are doing this for selfish reasons in that they may appear to be more knowledgeable than their followers.
6. Tests on sequential SSD speeds are not as important as other SSD speed tests which are the ones more likely to be used by (again) the 'average' user.
7. Buying extra RAM is/maybe just as important as buying a larger SSD to prevent excess 'swapping' and thus increasing the longevity of the SSD drives as well as, perhaps, giving rise to a modest speed increase.
8. If theoretical speed (increase) is important then one should buy a larger SSD (min 1tb), and, following on from the previous point, more RAM.

Me? I'm thinking of a M2 pro/16, but can't make up my mind re 500gb/1tb. I have some 'spare' external SSD drives so could use those I suppose as a repository for documents and photos.
Edit: I've found the Mac Studio down from £1999 to £1824; tempted!

Thanks for the insights gentlemen.

 

[foo2]

So, to summarise:

1. The new M2 Minis are faster overall than their (equivalent) predecessors.
2. The SSD speeds, however, on the M2 base models, are slower than their equivalent M1 base models.

No, that's not the case. ONE TEST in a stream of tests from a common benchmark showed SEQUENTIAL reads aren't as fast as the previous gen. But the benchmark we should care more about - random disk IO, is faster on the new machines (of what I've seen; for unclear reasons nobody is as crazy about posting all those numbers if you can instead post one misleading benchmark, yell about it, and slam Apple...).

1. However, there is little or no evidence that this has a direct impact on 'real-world' tests for the average consumer (whoever that is!)
2. Some feel that Apple should have been 'more upfront' about this and feel affronted that a newer base model has a slower SSD speed (in some tests) than the equivalent M1 models.
3. Some/many reviewers are making too much of the potential bottleneck of slower SSD speeds on the base models. They are doing this for selfish reasons in that they may appear to be more knowledgeable than their followers.

Well, I suspect they do it for clicks, which monetize for them.

1. Tests on sequential SSD speeds are not as important as other SSD speed tests which are the ones more likely to be used by (again) the 'average' user.

I would say "a user using MacOS" rather than an average user.

1. Buying extra RAM is/maybe just as important as buying a larger SSD to prevent excess 'swapping' and thus increasing the longevity of the SSD drives as well as, perhaps, giving rise to a modest speed increase.

Longevity doesn't figure into it. Using RAM to run applications is faster than using swap. It's that simple. There's nothing modest about it. If you need RAM, you need RAM.

1. If theoretical speed (increase) is important then one should buy a larger SSD (min 1tb), and, following on from the previous point, more RAM.

I wouldn't even write this because aside from one synthetic benchmark people have a tough time saying how a larger disk makes their work or play faster, but if you run out of RAM it's pretty clear that will lead to significant slowdown as it pages to SSD, which is hundreds to thousands of times slower than RAM, no matter which SSD you get.

Me? I'm thinking of a M2 pro/16, but can't make up my mind re 500gb/1tb. I have some 'spare' external SSD drives so could use those I suppose as a repository for documents and photos.
Edit: I've found the Mac Studio down from £1999 to £1824; tempted!

Thanks for the insights gentlemen.

 

[rtjstevens]

Thank you for your reply.

 

[mr.datsun]

>In a statement shared with The Verge last year, Apple claimed that M2-based Macs have "even faster" performance for real-world activities, but it's unclear if the statement was referring to SSD performance or overall system performance:

the clue is in the phrase 'even faster performance for real-world activities'

 

[unrigestered]

real world activities?
like jogging, doing the groceries, or preparing dinner?

 

[adamw]

A new video just dropped about the SSD speed issue. The author goes into the most detail I've seen about this issue, although he focuses just on Sequential SSD RAM issue, not mentioning Random access speeds.

 

[Queen6]

A new video just dropped about the SSD speed issue. The author goes into the most detail I've seen about this issue, although he focuses just on Sequential SSD RAM issue, not mentioning Random access speeds.

Personally to me it's just economics due to the current global climate. Apple wants and needs to maintain a specific margin. The user needs to decide if they really need the faster SSD, nor are the base models slow by any means.

Sure we'd all agree on wanting the faster SSD, equally the price of Mac's is spiralling in some regions which is likely a significant factor as the increase in pricing neither serves Apple or the customers.

Q-6

 

[watakoola]

Gentlemen, please slow down!

Gentlemen and Ladies?

 

[aintnobody]

Is it still considered an non-issue with the "slower" SSDs or has anybody found out something noteworthy in the last couple of weeks? I can't decide: getting a M1 Pro 2021 (base) for 1830 € or a M2 Pro 2023 (base) for 2160 €... 🤔

 

[foo2]

If you can get an M1 Pro (I imagine that’s a 14” laptop?) for less than the M2 Pro Mini (and it is, in fact, the 14” laptop), I’d be inclined to jump on the laptop.

European Mac prices look so high to me. The base M2 Pro mini is $1199 here, edu.

 

[aintnobody]

If you can get an M1 Pro (I imagine that’s a 14” laptop?) for less than the M2 Pro Mini (and it is, in fact, the 14” laptop), I’d be inclined to jump on the laptop.

European Mac prices look so high to me. The base M2 Pro mini is $1199 here, edu.

Oh, I'm talking about the MacBook Pros. Not interested in the Mac Mini

Yeah, the prices over here are something...

So you would get the M1 over an M2?

 

[foo2]

Oh, I'm talking about the MacBook Pros. Not interested in the Mac Mini

Yeah, the prices over here are something...

So you would get the M1 over an M2?

I’m very sorry; ignore my comments then.

I’d imagine only you can say if the 10 percent or so bump in cpu - and more substantial bump in gpu - is worthwhile. I’d probably do so, but it’s a tough choice.

 

[KennyJr]

"Your system has run out of application memory". I get this force quit message after playing Classic Freecell - every time - I've never seen that on any Mac I've owned - not until I got this new M2 MacMini (8GB unified memory, 256GB storage).

I was getting ready to trade it in for a 16GB unified memory version - until - after researching - I learned that the single chip 256GB version will cause the exact problem I've been seeing (as seen on 256GB M2 MacBook Airs - insufficient memory issues). I'm now awaiting my new 512GB dual storage chip MacMini. I'll update this in a couple of days.

 

[dotnet]

"Your system has run out of application memory". I get this force quit message after playing Classic Freecell - every time - I've never seen that on any Mac I've owned - not until I got this new M2 MacMini (8GB unified memory, 256GB storage).

There’s your problem:

Looks like a massive memory leak in that app. I don’t think a memory upgrade will solve the problem long term. Is this an Intel app running under Rosetta? Could be a Rosetta bug.

 

[George Dawes]

I've got an M1 with 16 and it's always down to 5 free with virtually nothing open

Whereas my 2015 iMac intel with 32 gig seems to have c 24 free all the time with everything open !

So much for progress

 

[foo2]

I've got an M1 with 16 and it's always down to 5 free with virtually nothing open

Whereas my 2015 iMac intel with 32 gig seems to have c 24 free all the time with everything open !

So much for progress

It could be that in the M1 Apple is better able to allocate all RAM to doing something, whether that’s disk cache or something else.

It sounds counterintuitive to some, but it’s best to have no free RAM; it’s best to use it all at (something). You bought it, might as well use it. Free RAM is wasted RAM. Etc..etc…etc..

The better indicator, the benchmark I think you really want, is MB/s page file activity. Not “4GB pagefile in use”; that’s useless. You want MB/s spent servicing the pagefile.

Other than that, I wouldn’t assume you to have a RAM issue.