A number of reviewers previously reported that Apple’s entry-level M2 MacBook Pro SSD was significantly slower than that of the M1 MacBook Pro due to the configuration of the storage models in the computer. Apple confirmed to The Verge that the base M2 MacBook Air has the same storage configuration as the Pro, so naturally we wondered if it would suffer from the same problem. Well, we finally got our hands on a base model (including 256GB of storage and 8GB of storage) and the answer is: yes, there is.
According to the results we see in Blackmagic’s Disk Speed Test app, the base model M2 MacBook Air has write speeds that are typically 15 to 30 percent slower than those of the 512GB model that Apple sent The Verge about review – and read speeds that can be 40 to 50 percent slower.
This is not an unexpected result, as the base Air includes only one NAND chip, while the M1 and 512GB (and up) M2 models have two, which can allow for almost twice the speeds.
512GB M2 MacBook Air 1GB test. 256GB M2 MacBook Air 1GB test. 512GB M2 MacBook Air 5GB test. 256GB M2 MacBook Air 5GB test.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the speeds we’re seeing from this base MacBook Air are bad, they are (especially when it comes to reading data) the kind of speeds you can easily achieve on laptops. which are a little more, well, meh. For example, the base model is only slightly faster than my 2019 Intel MacBook Pro when it comes to write speeds, and its read speeds are significantly worse. To pick a Windows machine out of the hat, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go 2 (which starts at $600) also loses to the base Air on writes, but destroys it on reads. (Read speeds are usually more important for general use, measuring how quickly your device can access files on its system.)
We didn’t have the 256GB M1 Air to test, but the 512GB model we have on hand is also faster than the base M2 in both reads and writes, as you can see in the results below.
512GB M1 MacBook Air 5GB test. 256GB Intel MacBook Pro 5GB test.
As Verge editor Dan Seifert explains in his review of the M2 Air, slower storage speeds can affect a number of tasks, including file transfers, and can also slow down overall performance because Macs use SSD space as temporary storage ( swap memory) when the built-in RAM is used up.
However, will these particular differences affect you? People buying the Air probably won’t see a life-changing contrast between the 256GB and 512GB models when it comes to day-to-day performance. I played two 4K YouTube videos over 25 open Chrome tabs for 30 minutes on both machines without either having to dip into swap memory. Boot times were also pretty identical – I flipped the two devices side by side a few times. And I didn’t see much of a difference when it came to opening any of the apps I normally use, including Chrome, Safari, Messages, Photos, Activity Monitor, Slack, Music, etc.
For the MacBook Pro’s target audience, however, a limitation like this could be a problem. If you’re a heavy-duty person (who might very well notice a difference), we’d generally recommend buying a MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro or Max chip instead of an Air.
Activity Monitor on the base MacBook Air after 30 minutes of playing two 4K videos on 20 other tabs.
However, these results will certainly matter to some people. If you’re in that camp, you’ll have to pay $200 to upgrade from 256GB to 512GB, which raises the price of the octa-core M2 MacBook Air from $1,199 to $1,399. If that seems like a lot, you can also get 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM in the still-excellent M1 MacBook Air for $1,199 (the same price as the base M2 Air). My real-world comparisons found that the M2 machines were noticeably better for graphics-heavy use cases (such as running games), but that their performance differences didn’t have much of an impact on other tasks (photo and audio editing, work on the Internet, etc.) that the casual user can do.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on these particular results and have yet to hear back. When we asked the company about the different storage configurations for our review of the device, spokesperson Michelle Del Rio provided the following statement:
Thanks to M2’s increased performance, the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro are incredibly fast, even compared to Mac laptops with the powerful M1 chip. These new systems use new, higher-density NAND that provides 256GB of storage using a single chip. While the 256GB SSD benchmarks may show a difference compared to the previous generation, the performance of these M2-based systems for real-world activities is even faster.
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