M2 MacBook Air takes performance hit with slower SSD on base model

The M2 MacBook Air reviews are in. While journalists and influencers praised it, there’s one concern about this new product. Just like the M2 MacBook Pro, Apple is offering a slower SSD on the base model configuration, which you should be aware of.

As 9to5Mac previously reported, the M2 MacBook Pro offers a slower SSD on the base model. While the M1 MacBook Pro and M1 MacBook Air have two NAND chips of 128GB each in its 256GB version, the M2 MacBook Pro – and now M2 MacBook Air – has a single 256GB NAND chip. In the first case, the M1 Macs can achieve faster speeds in parallel, while the latter fails to reach the same SSD speeds since it has only a single SSD.

As 9to5Mac‘s Filipe Espósito noted, “having a slower SSD increases the time it takes to load apps and transfer files. Of course, the SSD in the entry-level M2 MacBook Pro is still quite fast, but cutting the speed by 50% compared to the previous model seems unfair to consumers.”

Here are the results of one of the benchmark tests done by the YouTube channel Max Tech:

• M1 MacBook Pro: 2900 MB/s (read speed) and 2215 MB/s (write speed)
• M2 MacBook Pro: 1446 MB/s (read speed) and 1463 MB/s (write speed)

To The Verge, Apple spokesperson Michelle Del Rio provided the following statement on the matter:

Thanks to the performance increases of M2, the new MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Pro are incredibly fast, even compared to Mac laptops with the powerful M1 chip. These new systems use a new higher density NAND that delivers 256GB storage using a single chip. While benchmarks of the 256GB SSD may show a difference compared to the previous generation, the performance of these M2 based systems for real world activities are even faster.

With that in mind, the recommendation would be to get the $1,500 version with 512GB of storage. In the long run, upgrading the machine from 8GB of RAM to 16GB is also worth doing.

What are your thoughts on Apple changing how it handles the storage with the M2 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro? Are you okay with that? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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