M2 Mac mini Base Model Gets An Early Teardown, Showing A Single NAND Flash Chip, Resulting In Slower Read, Write Speeds

As improved as Apple’s latest Mac mini is, at least according to many reviewers, the company has taken some shortcuts, likely to bring its price down to $599. While sticking to an older design is probably one of them, the M2 Mac mini also suffers from slower SSD read and write speeds compared to the older M1 Mac mini, as we found out through an early teardown.

M2 Mac mini’s read and write speeds are slower than what can be obtained on the previous M1 Mac mini

The M2 Mac mini was given a teardown treatment by YouTuber Brandon Geekabit. The clip that was spotted by MacRumors posted below reveals that the latest machine continues to feature a single NAND flash chip, whereas the M1 Mac mini featured two 128GB storage chips. For those that do not know, having multiple NAND flash memory chips in a single enclosure helps with increased read and write speeds, along with an improved lifespan of those chips.

This is because not all the data is written to a single chip, as the load is distributed between the two flash memory chips. Unfortunately, with the M2 Mac mini, this is not the case, as the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test app reveals that the 256GB SSD can only obtain data transfer speeds of 1,500MB/s, making the device between 30 percent to 50 percent slower compared to the M1 Mac mini. While the benchmarking app shows these results, keep in mind that the numbers will vary depending on what you are doing.

Customers who intend on purchasing the M2 Mac mini would likely add a few bucks to increase the storage to 512GB minimum since 256GB is barely enough to run the operating system and add a few applications. Apple started following this hardware choice last year when it introduced the M2 MacBook Air and M2 MacBook Pro, with both portable Macs housing a single NAND flash chip.

Whether it is for conserving space, or costs, it can have an adverse impact on the M2 Mac mini in the long run, so this is just a little something that consumers should look out for before making a purchase. Sure, that $599 pricing is certainly attractive, but not at the expense of reduced performance.

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