The 256GB configuration of the new M6 and M5 Pro Mac mini features storage that's around half the speed of that in other models, although it's still faster than the previous generation.
The greater disappointment with the New Mac mini is that it no longer has a slotted SSD, meaning it's not even theoretically possible to upgrade the storage as it was before. But now new benchmark testing by Japanese technology site AAPL Ch has revealed that Apple's SSD is slower in some configurations than others, as it has historically been.
It comes down to how the storage is physically configured within the Mac mini. On those models sold with 256GB storage, there is a single SSD chip, while all others get two.
Mac mini SSD read speeds megabytes per second - data credit: APPL Ch.
Having more than one SSD module gives a speed boost from parallelization. So, using a single module is inevitably slower, and in this case, reportedly only around half as fast as other models.
It was the same with the previous M4 Mac mini, and for the same reasons. However, the new versions are faster at both reading from and writing to the 256GB SSD module versus that M4 version.
Mac mini SSD write speeds, megabytes per second - data credit: APPL Ch.
Specifically, the M6 256GB version writes at 3,000.2 MB/s, compared to the 2,014.5 MB/s of the previous M4 model. That's a 48.9% improvement.
There is also an improvement to how fast the new models read data, but it's only 15.9%. The M6 256GB model read at 3,216.8 MB/s instead of the M4 version's 2,792.5 MB/s.
The M6 Mac mini with 256GB storage starts at $899, while the 512GB version is $1,099 with the same RAM configuration. These prices are notably higher than for the previous generation, but otherwise the new Mac mini represents a significant improvement across the board.
