Apple 2016 MacBook: SSD Performance

Get Apple 2016 MacBook at B&H Photo. MPG recommends MacBook models with 512GB SSD and ideally, MacBook models with 512GB SSD and 1.3 GHz CPU.

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2016 Apple MacBook

How fast is the SSD in the Apple 2016 MacBook compared to the 2015 MacBook? Quite a bit faster on writes than the SSD in the 2015 MacBook, and marginally faster on reads.

But that comes with a caveat: performance improvements are modest until very large transfers occur, and such transfers are not common. The left 1/2 of the graph is what matters for nearly all real-world use (X axis up to ~4MB). So the 2016 model is assuredly better, particularly for writes, but perhaps not much better in real world tasks.

The 2016 MacBook SSD is a far slower performer than the SSD in the 2015 MacBook Pro Retina (the red and green lines at top).

Below, the 2016 MacBook uses the lines with heavier darker green (reads) and thick orange (writes), both with squares for data points.
The 2015 MacBook lines use circles for data points.

2016 MacBook 1.3 GHz 512GB SSD vs 2015 MacBook 1.3 GHz 512GB SSD and 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 2.8 GHz 1TB SSD

SSD/Flash Drive Sequential transfer speed
Apple 2016 MacBook • Apple 2015 MacBook • Apple 2015 MacBook Pro