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MagyarMacBook Air with Apple M3: Base model gets major SSD upgrade, but remains slower than the competition
In our detailed test of the MacBook Air with Apple M2 and 256 GB of storage, we had to criticize the SSD, among other things, because it is not only comparatively small with a capacity of 256 GB but was also only able to achieve data rates of up to ~1.73 GB/s - about half of models with a 512 GB or even larger SSD.
In contrast, the model with Apple M3 and 512 GB SSD was able to achieve data rates of up to ~3.67 GB/s, similar to the previous model with a correspondingly large SSD. As new benchmark results from YouTuber Max Tech show, the MacBook Air with Apple M3 and 256 GB SSD (approx. ~€1100 on Amazon) now achieve around 2.88 GB/s, which is close enough to the 512 GB model that users no longer have to pay for the €230 upgrade just because of the speed.
In the last third of the video, Max Tech takes a look inside the MacBook Air, which quickly explains why the new SSD is so much faster. The MacBook Air with Apple M3 does not rely on a single 256 GB NAND memory chip like its predecessor, but on two 128 GB chips - this costs a little more in production, but also leads to a higher data rate.
Although Apple has thus rectified one of the most significant weaknesses of its direct predecessor, the results are still modest compared to the competition. While the SSD in the MacBook Air is still connected via PCIe 3.0, the HP Omen Transcend 14, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon G12, or the MSI Prestige 13 AI Evo rely on more modern PCIe 4.0 SSDs and thus achieve data rates of up to ~7 GB/s.
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