Base Model MacBook Air With M2 Chip Has Slower SSD Speeds in Benchmarks

The first reviews of the new Macbook Air with the M2 chip have been published. The $1,199 base model has a single chip, which will lead to slower speeds in benchmark testing, but real world performance may vary.

It was discovered last month that the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 chip has slower read and write speeds than the previous generation model.

The dilemma arises from the fact that Apple used a single flash storage chip instead of two in the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Faster speeds can be achieved with multiple NAND chips in configurations with more than 512 gigabytes of storage.

While the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro may show a difference compared to previous-generation models, real-world performance is even faster.

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.

It's not clear if Apple refers to real-world performance or system performance. Some tests of the base model 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 chip showed that it was slower than the real world, but results have been mixed. If the fastest speeds are important to you, we recommend configuring the new MacBook Air with at least 512GB of storage.