As much as Apple’s new Mac mini has improved, at least according to a number of critics, the company has made a few shortcuts, possibly resulting in a $599 price tag. The M2 Mac mini has slower SSD read and write speeds than the M1 Mac mini, as was discovered during an early deconstruction, but sticking with an older design is certainly one of them.
Compared to the preceding M1 Mac mini, the M2 Mac mini’s read and write speeds are slower. The M2 Mac mini was disassembled by YouTube user Brandon Geekabit. In contrast to the M1 Mac mini, which featured two 128GB storage chips, the most recent system continues to utilize a single NAND flash chip. For those unaware, the presence of many NAND flash memory chips in a single enclosure increases read and write speeds and extends the chips’ lifespan.
This is due to the fact that not all of the data is written to a single chip; instead, the load is divided across the two flash memory chips. This is regrettably not the case with the M2 Mac mini, as the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test program indicates that the 256GB SSD can only achieve data transfer speeds of 1,500MB/s, putting the device between 30% and 50% slower than the M1 Mac mini. Despite the fact that the benchmarking application displays these statistics, bear in mind that the figures will fluctuate based on the actions.
Customers who want to purchase the M2 Mac mini would certainly spend a few dollars to boost the storage to at least 512GB, as 256GB is barely sufficient to run the operating system and install a handful of programs. Apple began implementing this hardware decision with the introduction of the M2 MacBook Air and M2 MacBook Pro with a single NAND memory chip in both portable Macs a year ago.
Regardless of whether it is done to save space or money, it can have a negative influence on the M2 Mac mini in the long term, so buyers should be aware of this before making a purchase. Without a doubt, the $599 price is alluring, but not at the expense of diminished performance.
images credit:Brandon Geekabit (YouTube)