{"id":221589,"date":"2026-03-09T10:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/macbook-airs-storage-drive-shows-impressive-speed-gain-even-beating-the-macbook-pro\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T10:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:50:09","slug":"macbook-airs-storage-drive-shows-impressive-speed-gain-even-beating-the-macbook-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/macbook-airs-storage-drive-shows-impressive-speed-gain-even-beating-the-macbook-pro\/","title":{"rendered":"Macbook Air’s storage drive shows impressive speed gain, even beating the MacBook Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Macbook Air’s storage drive shows impressive speed gain, even beating the MacBook Pro<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/computing\/m5-macbook-airs-storage-gets-an-impressive-speed-bump-and-it-actually-beats-the-macbook-pro\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-09 10:24:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.digitaltrends.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The MacBook Air has always been the sensible choice \u2014 great battery, light enough to forget it\u2019s in your bag. What it\u2019s never been is the one that makes MacBook Pro owners feel slightly embarrassed. Until now, apparently.<\/p>\n

When Apple switched the M5 MacBook Air to PCIe 4.0 NAND flash, it didn\u2019t just make it faster than its predecessor \u2014 it made it faster than some M4 Pro MacBook Pro models too. <\/p>\n

\t\tDigital Trends<\/span><\/p>\n

Benchmark numbers that raise eyebrows<\/h2>\n

NotebookCheck\u2019s hands-on review of the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air, using the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, puts the numbers on the table:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Model<\/th>\nRead (5GB)<\/th>\nWrite (5GB)<\/th>\nvs. M5 Air (Read)<\/th>\nvs. M5 Air (Write)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
MacBook Pro 14 M5<\/td>\n6,752.1 MB\/s<\/td>\n6,194.2 MB\/s<\/td>\n+4.31% faster<\/td>\n\u22125.57% slower<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MacBook Air 13 M5<\/strong><\/td>\n6,473.4 MB\/s<\/strong><\/td>\n6,558.6 MB\/s<\/strong><\/td>\n\u2014<\/td>\n\u2014<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro<\/td>\n5,401.3 MB\/s<\/td>\n6,713.2 MB\/s<\/td>\n\u221219.85% slower<\/td>\n+2.30% faster<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MacBook Air 15 M4<\/td>\n2,904.0 MB\/s<\/td>\n3,023.9 MB\/s<\/td>\n\u2212122.91% slower<\/td>\n\u2212116.89% slower<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

On reads, the M5 Air clears the M4 Pro MacBook Pro 16 by nearly 20%. On writes, the M4 Pro edges back by just 2.3% \u2014 a gap so small it wouldn\u2019t show up in any real-world task you threw at it.<\/p>\n

\"Someone<\/p>\n

\t\tChris Hagan \/ Digital Trends<\/span><\/p>\n

The quiet upgrade Apple didn\u2019t talk about much<\/h2>\n

The jump over the M4 MacBook Air is where things get a little hard to believe. Over 122% faster on reads, nearly 117% faster on writes. That\u2019s not a spec sheet footnote \u2014 two drives this far apart don\u2019t feel like the same product category.<\/p>\n

Day-to-day, it adds up faster than you\u2019d expect. That big RAW wedding shoot that used to grind away on import? Done before you\u2019ve poured your coffee. ProRes footage off the internal drive no longer feels like a gamble. <\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re running local AI models, the difference between waiting and not waiting is exactly this kind of storage speed. For a laptop that starts at $1,099, none of this was supposed to be part of the conversation. Apple barely mentioned it at launch,…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Macbook Air’s storage drive shows impressive speed gain, even beating the MacBook Pro https:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/computing\/m5-macbook-airs-storage-gets-an-impressive-speed-bump-and-it-actually-beats-the-macbook-pro\/ Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/tachyon\/2026\/03\/macbook-air-2.jpeg?resize=1200%2C630","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[50,51],"class_list":["post-221589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-macintosh","tag-macbook-air","tag-macbook-pro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221591,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221589\/revisions\/221591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}