Entry-level MacBook Air M2 throttles SSD speed

The MacBook Air M2 was -for my taste- the most remarkable novelty that Apple presented at the last WWDC 2022 conference. With a redesign from scratch, an attractive look, a good screen, enormous autonomy, the usual outstanding finishes in Apple and the new M2 chip as the main engine, is destined to become a reference in the ultraportable segment.

Coinciding with its launch date, which, as we anticipated, takes place today, July 15, some media have published analyzes of this model and in general with good reviews. Except in one of its sections: the internal storage of the base version. It is something that has already happened in the new MacBook Pro 13 and that the reviews of the Air confirm.

The results in data transfers of the 256 Gbyte SSD installed in the MacBook Air M2 (1,450 Mbytes per second) it is half of that offered by the superior configuration that mounts a 512 GB SSD. The reason seems to be that the base version only uses one NAND chip for the two of the upper units.

An Apple spokesperson told TheVerge in a statement, that “These new PCs use a new, higher density NAND that offers 256GB of storage on 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.”.

Okay. That’s what Apple says. Performance tests say otherwise… And in any case, It’s not unusual for a new generation to slow down of a component such as SSD whose performance has not stopped growing in recent years. It is true that, as we have told you on several occasions, synthetic tests do not tell everything about the real performance of a computer.

Also, the performance hit would only be noticeable for operation-intensive workloads like compiling software or working on 4K video projects, and this type of user will still need higher storage capacities with the faster chips.

Just in case, the recommendation here is obvious to any user. The MacBook Air M2 looks great and will surely be a best seller, but if I had to buy it I would definitely go for the 512 Gbyte version, which in addition to greater speed and capacity, adds a couple of additional GPU cores that always come in handy. This configuration is priced in Spain at 1,869 euros and is now available in four different color finishes. More information and purchase | Manzana.