Base 2023 MacBook Pros and Mac minis have slower SSDs than previous generations

After the release of the MacBook Air and Pro on the M2 in 2022, it became known that Apple equipped the base 256 GB models with a single NAND flash memory chip, although the M1 versions had 2 x 128 GB chips. The innovation affected the speed of reading and writing the disk, and now it has migrated to new Macbook Pro And Mac mini.

If a MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro processor and 512 GB of memory received 4 chips of 128 GB each, then inside the new versions with M2 Pro - two 256 GB chips, which is why the read and write speed in the new model is lower than in old. Same fate befell and the new Mac mini with the M2. The 256 and 512 GB models also use 256 GB chips, while the 256 GB M1 version came with two 128 GB chips. There was no 512 GB version in the previous generation, so there is nothing to compare with.

Youtuber Max Tech compared the read and write speeds of basic Mac minis on the M2 and M2 using the Blackmagic Disk Speed ​​Test benchmark, and the result was not in favor of the new model:

For the MacBook Pro, there is a comparison thanks to 9to5Mac. The author took two 512 GB laptops: last year with the M1 Pro and the new one with the M2 Pro. Both were run through the same Blackmagic benchmark as in the previous comparison.

As you can see in the screenshots above, the write speed has decreased by about 800 MB / s, and read - by 1900 MB / s.

While this change is unlikely to be noticed by regular Mac users who surf the web, owners with more advanced tasks will be unpleasantly surprised. Keep this in mind if you want to upgrade your computer after new Apple announcements.