By now you've probably heard about
the controversy surrounding the slow SSDs
in the M2 Max.
So in this video, I'm going to break it down
and explain the issue
and give you some advice on
if this is actually going to impact you
and if you should consider upgrading the SSD or the RAM.
First of all, what is all this controversy about?
Well, in a nutshell
the base model SSD on any apple silicone Mac
with an M2 chip is noticeably slower
than the previous M1 version
and even the older Intel versions
this includes the 256 gigabyte SSD
on the M2 Mac Mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
and the 512 gigabyte SSD
on the M2 PRO and M2 Max chips.
How significant is this speed difference?
Well, here's a disk speed test
showing the difference between an M1
and M2 256 gigabyte SSD.
The M2s write speeds are much slower
and for read speeds,
the M2 sees a whopping 50% decrease in performance.
If I put this data into a graph
you can see the massive difference
between the two represented visually
and for comparison, here's a 2016 MacBook Pro
which is seven years older than the M2 Mac
I'm comparing it against.
So why are the base model SSDs
on the M2 chips much slower than the M1?
Well, let's take a closer look
using the 256 gigabyte SSD as an example,
on the M1, there are two 128 gigabyte NAND chips
for a total of 256 gigabytes.
But on the M2,
there's just a single 256 gigabyte NAND chip.
Now having two different NAND chips
instead of one big one is the major difference here
because having two allows each chip
to connect to the M1 or M2 controller separately
and fill two data buses in parallel.
Buses in the communication system that transfers data
between components in a computer,
it's kind of like a highway for data
and having two lanes on a highway
allows for more traffic
or data to be transmitted compared to just one.
The 512 gigabyte SSD
on the M2 PRO and Max chips is a similar situation.
They use less individual SSD NAND chips
resulting in a slower speed.
So now that we've established the M2 base model SSDs
are significantly slower than previous versions,
is it actually going to impact your performance
and your everyday usage
and should you even care?
Well, if you're just doing everyday tasks,
like browsing the internet, sending emails,
or using Word documents
or even some more intensive things
like editing photos and videos
as long as it's nothing too crazy
and there's not a lot of background apps open,
I seriously doubt most people will notice or care.
However, in some slightly more demanding situations,
it does have a negative impact,
like reading or writing a large amount of data to the SSD
or particularly once you start to multitask
and use programs that require a decent amount of RAM,
which results in your Mac
using something called swap memory.
Quick crash course on swap memory,
it essentially allows your computer to run faster
and multitask a bit better.
And it achieves this by moving processes
and apps that aren't currently being used
out of physical memory,
which is your RAM,
and onto virtual memory,
which is essentially just temporarily writing
and then reading this data from your SSD.
As you might expect,
a slower SSD will have an impact on this process
and in some situations,
some not all, it depends what exactly you're doing,
the previous M1 chip will actually outperform the newer
and more powerful M2 chip,
all because of the SSD speeds
which just should not be happening.
So what is the solution to this problem?
The only thing you can do is pay extra
to upgrade the SSD or the RAM.
And if you upgrade the 256 gigabyte SSD
to the 512 gigabyte version,
that means the Mac will ship
with two 256 gigabyte NAND chips,
which resolves the slow speed issue.
Alternatively, by upgrading the M2 PRO and Max chips
to one terabyte SSDs,
this will give you similar speeds
to the 512 gigabyte M1 Pro and Max.
Or by upgrading the RAM,
the absent processes on your Mac
don't need to use as much slower swap memory
so performance will be better.
And this is much more noticeable
on the standard M2 chip
going from eight gigabytes of RAM
to 16 gigabytes of RAM.
For example, exporting some photos
while multitasking with several apps open in the background
versus no apps open in the background,
you can see a significant decrease in performance
with the eight gigabyte RAM M2 Mac,
but the 16 and 24 gigabyte versions
see almost no difference when multi-tasking
simply because they have more RAM available
for the Mac to take advantage of.
And if you only have the money for one upgrade
I recommend upgrading the RAM.
Sure, by upgrading the SSD,
you'll get slightly faster read and write speeds,
and obviously more storage space on your Mac.
But simply having more available RAM
is usually the best option.
And don't forget, you cannot add more RAM later,
but you can use an external drive if the SSD is too small.
Now all of this begs the question,
why did Apple do this?
It makes no sense to use an inferior storage solution
when releasing a new and improved version
of an existing product.
The short answer is
Apple is never going to tell us
but we can speculate.
It's very likely that Apple is simply cutting costs
and improving their profit margins,
and it wouldn't be the first time either.
I mean, these are base model products
and most users likely wouldn't have even noticed.
It's also a great way to force customers
to purchase upgrades,
to squeeze more money out of them.
It could also be due to some of the supply chain
and component shortages out there,
like when Apple's main SSD supplier
lost 6.5 billion gigabytes
worth of their NAND Flash storage last year
due to contaminated materials.
But what do you think is the reason?
Pure agreed from Apple?
Do most people even care about the slower SSD speeds?
Well, I'll leave that up to you to decide
but let me know what you think
in the comments section down below.