New MacBook Air

[bad company]

I’m still using a 10 year old MacBook and similar age iMac, unsurprisingly both are very s-l-o-w now and need replacing.

Thinking a MacBook Air connected to a large screen. I do need 1TB of storage and wondering whether to buy the MacBook with that extra capacity or get an external drive?

Also any advice on a screen please?

[Captain_Morgan]

Storage performance on the base level ssd Mac’s are lower due to the design/chip layout on the ssd’s used. Something to consider depending on your use case.

[NDA]

I have been reading that the M2 Airs are struggling with heat - might be worth having a Google on the subject.

I have a 14" M1 Pro which would be my choice.

[LeeM135i]

How much storage do you use in your current Mac? What do you use it for?

I have a M1 MacBook Pro and it handles office / web browsing and very light iPad style games with ease. Personally went with 512gb storage and an external drive for archiving as we have almost unlimited MS Teams storage for work so I only keep my current / last 12 months of files on the Mac and park the rest on Teams with a local drive copy for backup.

[mikef]

The M2 256GB SSDs are pretty slow, so best avoided. I’ve gone with 1TB SSDs in an Air M2 and a Mac Mini M2 Pro. The sequential disk benchmark read/write speed is twice as fast in the Mini M2 Pro, with the same model SSD. Also using a 14” M2 MacBook Pro with 512GB SSD which is somewhere in the middle in terms of disk speed. My conclusion is that I would recommend a 14” MacBook Pro M2 with 1TB, if your budget will run to that. I use external SSDs for backup, but would always want enough internal storage in a laptop

Edited by mikef on Saturday 1st April 17:26

[Alorotom]

I’ve got a base model M2 Air and for regular / basic use it’s performance is excellent - zero heat or lag issues that I have experienced personally

[bad company]

mikef said:

The M2 256GB SSDs are pretty slow, so best avoided. I’ve gone with 1TB SSDs in an Air M2 and a Mac Mini M2 Pro. The sequential disk benchmark read/write speed is twice as fast in the Mini M2 Pro, with the same model SSD. Also using a 14” M2 MacBook Pro with 512GB SSD which is somewhere in the middle in terms of disk speed. My conclusion is that I would recommend a 14” MacBook Pro M2 with 1TB, if your budget will run to that. I use external SSDs for backup, but would always want enough internal storage in a laptop

Edited by mikef on Saturday 1st April 17:26

I’m a light user, some web browsing, emails and backing up mine & Mrs BC’s iPhones. I need the storage for a lot of ripped & burned music.

Don’t understand why I’d need extra internal storage if I buy the external unit?

[mikef]

I guess because the point of a MacBook Air to me is that it’s highly portable. If it’s for desk use with storage hanging off, I prefer the form factor of a Mini. That’s just my own use case, yours may be different

[tim0409]

I have a M1 MBA and it’s superb; I either use it as a laptop or have it hooked up to a 27” 4k display in clamshell mode with Apple bluetooth keyboard and trackpad.

Quite a bit cheaper than the M2 and is plenty quick for what you need -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-MacBook-Chip-13-inc...

[ajprice]

I'm looking around at the moment for a Mac Mini and screen setup to replace my MPB 13". One thing I've seen a lot is to upgrade to 16GB RAM or more, and that on the Mac Mini, the base 256GB is slower than the upgrades to 512GB and above. I'm not sure whether the same applies to the Air with the internal drive, but the 16GB RAM is a common recommendation because you can't upgrade it if you order it with 8GB. With storage you can get an external M.2 or 2.5" SSD.

[mikef]

With the M1 Mini the 256GB SSD is fine for speed; I sold my M1 Mini because I kept running out of space and needing to clear it down. It’s just the M2 256GB that’s slow, on both the M2 Mini and M2 MacBook Air

[colin79666]

If you are always going to use it at a desk connected to an external monitor then I’d save your money and get a Mac mini instead.

[Captain_Morgan]

bad company said:

mikef said:

The M2 256GB SSDs are pretty slow, so best avoided. I’ve gone with 1TB SSDs in an Air M2 and a Mac Mini M2 Pro. The sequential disk benchmark read/write speed is twice as fast in the Mini M2 Pro, with the same model SSD. Also using a 14” M2 MacBook Pro with 512GB SSD which is somewhere in the middle in terms of disk speed. My conclusion is that I would recommend a 14” MacBook Pro M2 with 1TB, if your budget will run to that. I use external SSDs for backup, but would always want enough internal storage in a laptop

Edited by mikef on Saturday 1st April 17:26

I’m a light user, some web browsing, emails and backing up mine & Mrs BC’s iPhones. I need the storage for a lot of ripped & burned music.

Don’t understand why I’d need extra internal storage if I buy the external unit?

Because this is the first description of your use case & generally it’s good practice especially with a laptop to keep data integral to the laptop it mitigates another avenue of loss, damage, failure or theft.

It’s also advisable to consider how important your data is, is it irreplaceable, easily recreatable, time consuming to recreate & then have a backup plan that matches that & your appetite to risk.

[Alorotom]

For those commenting on the slowness of the M2 256gb SSD I was curious about this and ran BlackMagic to assess the actual speed I am seeing ... I ran several intervals this was about the average across them all:

Write: 1366mb/s
Read: 1522mb/s

Yeah it isn't blazing at 5000+mb/s but its much faster than a regular SSD that tops out around 600!

[mmm-five]

For comparison, here's the 1GB file results in BMST on my MacStudio's 512GB SSD...



So whilst the M1 chips in the MacStudio's may not perform as well in Geekbench as the M2 chips, the much faster SSD does make the whole thing 'feel' zippier...especially in Finder moves/copies/app launches

Edited by mmm-five on Sunday 2nd April 13:58

[mikef]

To fill out a few more SSD performance numbers, here are readings from my Apple Silicon machines (using Diskmark, but should be equivalent to Blackmagic):

	Apple SSD Model	Capacity	Filevault	Read	Write
M1 Mini	AP0256Q	256GB	No	3451.93	2363.17
M2 Mini Pro	AP1024Z	1TB	No	6422.48	6856.57
M2 MacBook Air	AP1024Z	1TB	No	3050.13	3103.22
M2 MacBook Pro 14"	AP0512Z	512GB	YES	3463.97	3727.10

[ajprice]

Mac Mini M2 at 256GB SSD ~ 1,500 MB/s (1 x 256GB SSD)
Mac Mini M2 at 512GB SSD ~ 3,000 MB/s (2 x 256GB SSD)
(presumably M2 Airs are similar)
Mac Mini M2 Pro at 512GB SSD ~ 3,000 MB/s (2 x 256GB SSD)
Mac Mini M2 Pro at 1TB SSD ~ 6,000 MB/s (4 x 256GB SSD)
14"|16" MacBook M2 Pro|Max with 512GB SSD ~ 3,000 MB/s (1 X 512GB SSD)
14"|16" MacBook M2 Pro|Max with 1TB SSD ~ 6,000 MB/s (2 X 512GB SSD)

From here https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4697190

So Mac Minis use multiples of 256GB SSDs, more SSDs are faster.

[Captain_Morgan]

ajprice said:

Mac Mini M2 at 256GB SSD ~ 1,500 MB/s (1 x 256GB SSD)
Mac Mini M2 at 512GB SSD ~ 3,000 MB/s (2 x 256GB SSD)
(presumably M2 Airs are similar)
Mac Mini M2 Pro at 512GB SSD ~ 3,000 MB/s (2 x 256GB SSD)
Mac Mini M2 Pro at 1TB SSD ~ 6,000 MB/s (4 x 256GB SSD)
14"|16" MacBook M2 Pro|Max with 512GB SSD ~ 3,000 MB/s (1 X 512GB SSD)
14"|16" MacBook M2 Pro|Max with 1TB SSD ~ 6,000 MB/s (2 X 512GB SSD)

From here https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4697190

So Mac Minis use multiples of 256GB SSDs, more SSDs are faster.

NAND’s not SSD’s, SSD’s are made up of NAND’s (among other things)

[mikef]

And still wouldn’t explain why the M2 256GB SSD is less than half the speed of the M1 256GB. Just plain wrong as an explanation, sorry

[Captain_Morgan]

mikef said:

And still wouldn’t explain why the M2 256GB SSD is less than half the speed of the M1 256GB. Just plain wrong as an explanation, sorry

Errr the m1 256Gb uses 2 128Gb NAND chips.
The m2 256Gb uses 1 256Gb NAND chip.

Edited by Captain_Morgan on Sunday 2nd April 15:17