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. 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. 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.

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. 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.