Are larger SSDs in Macbook Pros faster?

Question

Are larger SSDs in Macbook Pros faster?

I want to upgrade my MBP with a M1 Max CPU, 32 GB RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. I don't need a huge SSD, my current model uses less than half of the storage I have. But I do want the fastest SSD that I can get. From some research it appears that the fastest SSDs can transfer data at 6000 MBs, but depending on the chip, a smaller SSD might be faster than a larger one. There seems to be no rhyme or reason about what speed the SSD has.

Does anyone know why the speed seems so random?

Bryan Schmiedeler

Thank you!

[Edited by Moderator]

Posted on Jun 12, 2024 6:00 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

142,273 points

Jun 13, 2024 8:59 AM in response to Bryan Schmiedeler

<< Are larger SSDs in Macbook Pros faster? >>

A: Not necessarily. But smaller ones, over a large sampling, are slower.

Apple reserves the right to substitute components used during production, so there is no way to predict with certainty that your unit will have the absolute fastest speed of any group of similar-specs units. Apple strives to provide drive speeds that are comparable in similar-specs units.

What is well known is that the very smallest SSDs (such as 128 GB for student computers) will Trend slower over a large sampling of Macs. This is because they use only one SSD array device instead of multiple array devices.

Once more than one array is present, the Mac takes advance of all possible 'tricks' to overlap the devices to minimize access delays.

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Answer 2

AlWeir

Level 5

5,103 points

Jun 12, 2024 6:12 PM in response to Bryan Schmiedeler

Buy as much Unified Memory as possible in a new Mac with all the new things happening with the new AI coming to the Apple ecosystem.

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Are larger SSDs in Macbook Pros faster?

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