According to tests carried out by a French site, the SSD disk of the MacBook Air 2019 is slower than that of 2018
Last week, Apple presented, by surprise, the new MacBook Air 2019, update over the 2018 version that brings on the ultraportable the True Tone technology for the Retina display and a lower price (1,279 euros) and special promotions for college students. But, apparently, there are not only positive news.
The MacBook Air 2019, in fact, would have a slower SSD drive (even up to 35%) than the one mounted on the 2018 model. This was discovered by the French site Consomac, subjecting the new model to the same tests already done on all other products reviewed. When the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, which measures disk speed, showed the results for the 2019 MacBook Air came as a surprise: the SSD on the new model is quite a bit slower than the one on the old one. According to Consomac, it's not a computer configuration issue: what's more likely is that Apple changed disks to cut costs.
How slow is the MacBook Air 2019 disk
The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test shows that the 256GB SSD mounted on the 2018 MacBook Air had a read speed of 2 GB/s, which dropped to 0.9 GB/s in writes. The new disk mounted on the 2019 model, on the other hand, has read and write speeds of 1.3 GB/s and 1 GB/s. The read speed, then, drops by about 35% while the write speed is a smidge higher. The 128 GB SSD, on the other hand, has a lower write speed of almost half a gig per second. But that's true on both models.
MacBook Air 2019: is it really slow?
The official press release with which Apple announced, on July 9, the new MacBook Air 2019 reads, "MacBook Air and MacBook Pro updated for back-to-school." The new Air, then, is in Apple's plans the ultraportable computer aimed at college students, so much so that Tom Boger, Apple's Senior Director of Mac Product Marketing, said, "College students love the Mac: it's the perfect notebook to use anywhere, at home and in the classroom, and it's the preferred choice of students attending institutions of higher education." The fact that students can buy the MacBook Air at a slightly discounted price further confirms this view. If, however, the lower price is actually due to a lower performing (and therefore less expensive) SSD then the maneuver may boomerang. The 2019 MacBook Air's disk performance, while lower than that of the 2018 model, remains more than sufficient for most of the tasks that can be asked of a mere 13-inch laptop. But it's clear that Apple will have to explain why the new drive is slower than the old one: configuration issue or component cost cutting?