Apple has solved the issue related to the speed of SSD drives in the base model of the previous generation MacBook Air. This week, Apple introduced the new MacBook Air M3, which boasts enhanced performance, support for Wi-Fi 6E, and dual external displays. Additionally, Apple has addressed the problem that affected the speed of SSD drives in the base model of the previous generation MacBook Air.
The base model of the M2 MacBook Air with a storage capacity of 256GB performed slower compared to higher-end models. This was due to the use of a single 256GB flash chip instead of two 128GB chips. This represented a step backward compared to the base model of the M1 MacBook Air, which featured two 128GB memory chips.
Gregory McFadden first noted on Twitter that the SSD drive speed in the new M3 MacBook Air is significantly higher than its predecessor, the M2. A teardown conducted by Max Tech on YouTube confirmed that this improvement is attributed to Apple's decision to use two 128GB memory chips in the base model of the MacBook Air instead of a single 256GB module. Consequently, the two 128GB NAND chips in the M3 MacBook Air can process tasks simultaneously, leading to a significant increase in data transfer speed.
Max Tech's tests revealed that the M3 MacBook Air can achieve a write speed of 2108 MB/s, higher than the base M2 MacBook Air's 1584 MB/s. As for read speed, the M2 MacBook Air reached 1576 MB/s, while the M3 MacBook Air reached 2880 MB/s. These results indicate that the SSD write speed of the M3 MacBook Air is approximately 33% higher, and the read speed is 82% higher compared to the M2 model. These speeds are comparable to, and sometimes exceed, the performance of the M1 MacBook Air.