Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Pro M2 has a lot to offer, but the entry-level model comes with a pretty disappointing downgrade. The base model with 256GB of storage has significantly slower SSD performance speeds than the previous M1 generation.

You’d think getting Apple’s latest and greatest MacBook Pro with the new M2 processor would yield improvements, just as Apple touted up on stage. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case for the storage.

A report from MacRumors detailed how YouTubers Max Tech and Created Tech got their hands on Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook, tested the entry-level 256GB M2 model, and found the SSD’s read speeds are roughly 50 percent lower than the 256GB M1 MacBook Pro it replaced. Plus, write speeds came in around 30 percent slower as well.

The YouTubers physically opened up Apple’s new machine and went looking for answers. We see that the problem is with Apple’s SSD NAND flash configuration. With the newest M2 MacBook Apple went with a single 256GB SSD, but the previous model had two 128GB SSDs with vastly better performance.

However, we do have some good news. The slower SSD performance is only a problem on Apple’s most affordable 256GB MacBook Pro 13 M2 laptop. If you upgrade to 512GB or more, you can expect performance and speeds on par with previous generations.

Basically, if you’re considering the new M2 MacBook Pro, you may want to pay extra for more storage, which will yield better performance. I’ll be interested in seeing how Apple’s upcoming MacBook Air with the M2 performs when it arrives.

via MacRumors