Teardown Confirms M2 MacBook Air Contains Slower SSD

The M2 MacBook Air looks to suffer from the same slower SSD problem as the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro.

As MacRumors reports(Opens in a new window), a teardown of the M2 MacBook Air by Max Tech(Opens in a new window) reveals Apple opted to use a single NAND chip for the 256GB SSD. That's great in terms of space and cost savings for Apple, but it has a significant and detrimental impact on the performance of the SSD compared to the last-generation of M-chip MacBooks.

In the case of the M2 MacBook Pro compared to the M1 MacBook Pro, read speeds are 50% slower (1,446MB/s compared to 2,900MB/s) and write speeds are 30% slower (1,463MB/s compared to 2,215MB/s). Although performance benchmarks are still to be carried out for the new Air, it seems likely they'll produce similar results.

The easiest way to avoid the slower SSD is also an expensive one. When buying the $1,199 base model(Opens in a new window) M2 MacBook Air you can opt to upgrade the storage to 512GB for $200. That ensures two NAND chips are used and should bump the read and write speeds back up to M1 model levels. Alternatively, the $1,499 model(Opens in a new window) includes a 512GB SSD by default, but also gets you a 10-core GPU instead of the 8-core included in the base model. As Apple solders the chips to the logic board, future upgrade is all but impossible so choose wisely before deciding to hit the buy button.