If you are planning to buy cheap versions of the MacBook Pro 2023 (including the new Mac mini), users need to understand one of its limitations.
According to Tech Unwrapped, in order to cut costs on the cheapest models in the 2023 MacBook Pro line, Apple was found to be using the SSD standard which is slower than the high-end models.
This has been noted from several Apple computer sites after the SSD test, with performance data worse than the models with larger storage space, especially the transfer speed and data access. Specifically, the change affects models with 512 GB of storage or less.
A report from the Zone of Tech Twitter account shows that to cut costs, Apple has used fewer chips for the SSD on the standard 2023 MacBook Pro models. As a result this not only leads to less bandwidth but fewer channels available, resulting in worse performance.
For comparison, the MacBook Pro 2021 with a 512 GB SSD uses 4 NAND Flash chips, each with a capacity of 128 GB. Meanwhile, the MacBook Pro 2023 version uses two 256 GB chips. So even though the storage capacity isn’t reduced, having only two chip lanes results in lower speeds in newer models. The same goes for the 256 GB SSD version.
In fact, many laptop manufacturers are also making the same move as Apple with the 2023 MacBook Pro. Instead of mentioning the number of NAND Flash memory chips, the marketing for these models is focused on the number of NAND Flash memory chips. focus on storage capacity as well as the type of PCI Express bus they use.