Our review of Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Pro M2 found it to be a decent laptop, but we have several reasons why you should think twice before buying it. And now some youtubers have discovered another reason to specifically avoid the base model: their SSD is very slow.
Created Tech and Max Tech tested the $ 1,299 13-inch MacBook Pro with a 256GB SSD, the smallest capacity available, and their results show that the SSD’s read speeds are significantly slower than its predecessor, the 13-inch MacBook Pro based on M1. And it’s no small difference: the new M2-based laptop has 50 percent slower SSD read speeds, while write speeds have a 30 percent success rate.
Max Tech disassembled the 13-inch MacBook Pro and may have figured out why the SSD is a performance hit: Apple is using a single 256GB NAND flash storage chip. This is different from the M1 model which uses a pair of 128GB chips: two chips that perform read / write functions are faster than a single chip that does the same thing.
However, the problem with this slower performance goes beyond opening and saving files. As you probably know, the Mac has unified memory, which is different from the SSD, and is basically used when the CPU is running. When the CPU runs out of unified memory, it moves items it does not use to an SSD swap file. The CPU will swap items between the unified memory and the SSD until you no longer need it. If the SSD is slow, the CPU takes longer to swap and this affects the overall performance of the Mac.
Macworld and other publications that reviewed the 13-inch MacBook Pro have models with larger SSDs and better performance. We didn’t disassemble the laptop, but our MacBook Pro results with a 1TB SSD showed better read performance, while we found that the write performance was the same. Apple is likely to use two 512GB chips for 1TB SSD.
Apple has not made a public statement as to why it decided to use only one chip in the $ 1,299 model. There are a couple of reasons why Apple would switch to a single chip, but none of them make much sense. If it is a cost reduction measure, it certainly cannot be a significant measure. It may be due to global chip shortages, but SSDs seem to have a good supply. It is possible that Apple will quietly return to 128GB dual chips in future MacBook Pro production cycles.
In any case, this development puts another shock to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. If you’re considering the $ 1,299 model right now, it’s worth the wait and see if the next M2 MacBook Air has the same 256GB SSD implementation. And even if it does, the MacBook Air has other features that make it a better choice, such as a bigger and better screen, a better FaceTime camera, and a new design, though you’ll want to upgrade the unified memory to avoid performance. accesses.