The New 256GB Mac Mini And 512GB MacBook Pro Have Slower SSD Speeds Than Previous Models
While the new mac mini with the m2 chip has a lower starting price, which is $599, the base model which has 256GB of storage has a slower SSD speed of both Read and Write than the previous generation model with the Apple’s very own M1 chip and 256GB of storage.
It has been revealed that apple’s new mac mini is equipped with only a single storage chip that can hold data of 256GB, which makes it slower when compared to its previous models as they had been equipped with two separate 128GB storage chips, which explain why the newer model is a little bit slower than the previous models.
If you still don’t get the full concept of “why?” The newer model is slower.
Then let’s put it as, the newer model has only a single NAND chip for storage and the previous model had multiple NAND chips, when put together they made the storage capacity of the single storage chip used in the newer model.
when we compare both, we come to know that the previous model is indeed faster than the newer model as it had two separate channels that were working together to manage the storage of the device, which makes it faster than the newer model, even though they have the same amount of storage.
Moreover, it has been confirmed through benchmarking that SSD read and write speeds for the new 256GB Mac Mini are each around 1,500 MB/s, which is somewhere between 30% to 50% slower than the Read and Write speeds of the previous Generation model.
As for the base model that is at the higher end of service with the M2 pro chip which has been generated by apple itself, the base model with 512GB of storage appears to have two fewer NAND chips than the Intel-based model that it replaced, 13 inch Mac book pro and MacBook Air models that are equipped with the M2 chip and 256GB of storage also have slower SSD speeds, which is due to a change in the quantity of NAND chips, and apple has not decided to change their course with the new model of Mac Mini that they announced.
Meanwhile, Apple has claimed that the M2-based Macs have even faster performance than their older models, for real-world activities, but it’s an unclear statement as it does not tell us much about what kind of speed they’re referring to, critics might use this statement against them, meanwhile, they could be referring to a different type of “Speed” which is what their statement suggests as well.
“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 of 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 is even faster.”
The newer model of MacBook Pro also has slower SSD speeds when it’s configured with 512GB of storage simply due to the reduction in NAND chips.