The new MacBook Air’s SSD controversy: Apple mistake? Or no big deal?

Apple’s new M2-powered laptops have been the source of a bit of controversy. Let’s bring some clarity.

I say “MacBook Air,” but this issue actually first came to light with the new M2-powered 13-inch MacBook Pro. Both new Mac models come equipped with a 256 GB SSD in their base models. ($1199 for the M2 MacBook Air, $1299 for the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro.) Unlike the previous M1-equipped models of these laptops, the new M2 versions use a single NAND storage chip instead of two 128 GB chips. That means that the read/write speeds for these new SSDs are actually slower than the storage in the M1 variants from 2020. This has led to a seemingly endless stream of click-bait videos on YouTube in which people are implying or outright stating that the new M2 Macs are “slower” than the M1 versions. But are they?

We have to keep in mind that there are several things that contribute to the speed of the computer. The processor, the GPU, the size and amount of RAM, the wifi hardware, etc. One of things that many people don’t think of is the hard drive. We’re not that many years distant from a time when most computers came with a spinning platter hard drive. Those were mechanical components that looked and functioned somewhat like a record player with a read/write arm and a spinning disk. When SSD hard drives became available and affordable, one of the easiest ways to make an existing computer noticeably faster was by upgrading to an SSD. How quickly your Mac is able to access and create data locally is definitely one component of how fast your computer feels.

That means that the fact that the new M2 laptops have an entry level SSD that’s slower than the one from two years ago isn’t nothing. There are some specific computer tasks that actually will be faster on a MacBook Air from 2020 than on a MacBook Air from 2022. This would probably be most noticeable when loading a large file or exporting large photo editing or video editing files. And that’s assuming it would be noticeable at all. Unless you had both models performing the same task in parallel there’s probably no way this would be observable.

But it wouldn’t be fair to state or imply that the 2022 MacBook Air (or 13-inch MacBook Pro) are slower than their M1 counterparts. Again, there are many things that contribute to how fast a computer feels/is. And in every other one of those areas, the new Macs are faster. Not orders of magnitude faster, but notably faster. Faster in the way that a model-to-model system-on-a-chip upgrade should be.

Because this controversy has acquired some purchase amongst the online tech press/YouTube communities and their readers/viewers, Apple actually released a statement about the issue:

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 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 are even faster.

They were certainly careful to say “may show a difference compared to” instead of “will be slower than,” but I think this is actually a very reasonable way to think about how these Macs stack up against the previous models.

Would it have been better for Apple to have shipped these models with entry storage that was faster than (or at least no different than) the prior models? Absolutely. They mostly likely made this change either to cut costs in this economy, or perhaps because the single NAND chip was all they could get from suppliers.

But is this a big deal? Not really. Keep in mind that most users won’t notice the slowness in the specific areas of general computing in which it will come into play, and the machines will feel faster in overall usage. These units are also not being purchased by people who are looking to maximize performance from every single component. These are the entry level models in their respective lineups.

You can avoid the slowdown altogether by spending $200 to upgrade either Mac to a 512 GB SSD. You can customize several components in these new Macs, but Apple also offers each Mac in two main configurations: “good” and “better.” (My words, not Apple’s.) So if you can afford the $1499 variants of either M2 Mac laptop, you’re definitely going to get the best bang for your buck.

It’s good to make a purchase with clear eyes, but too much of this recent controversy has been a tempest in a teapot stirred up for clicks by eager independent media members. Stay savvy.