Apple’s new M5 MacBook Air isn’t just getting the usual chipset refresh. It’s also seeing a surprisingly large jump in SSD performance, and that upgrade could end up being the bigger day-to-day win for most people. Faster storage means quicker app launches, snappier multitasking, and smoother handling of large files—exactly the kind of improvements you feel constantly, even when you’re not doing heavy creative work.
What makes this generation especially interesting is how the M5 MacBook Air’s SSD speeds compare across Apple’s lineup. In recent Blackmagic Disk Speed Test results (using a 5GB file), the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air posts read speeds of 6473.4 MB/s. That’s extremely close to the 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro, which comes in at 6752.1 MB/s. Even more eye-catching: the M5 MacBook Air’s read performance is faster than a 16-inch M4 Pro MacBook Pro, which records 5401.3 MB/s—meaning the Air is about 19.85 percent quicker in reads in this test.
Against last generation’s MacBook Air models, the gap is huge. The 15-inch M4 MacBook Air reaches 2904 MB/s reads, while the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air lands at 2833.3 MB/s. Put next to the M5 MacBook Air’s 6473.4 MB/s, that translates to roughly 122.91 percent faster than the 15-inch M4 Air and 128.48 percent faster than the 13-inch M4 Air. Even the 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro at 3028 MB/s reads falls far behind, with the M5 MacBook Air delivering about 113.78 percent higher read throughput.
Write speeds are just as impressive, and in one case even more dramatic. The 13-inch M5 MacBook Air hits 6558.6 MB/s writes. The 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro records 6194.2 MB/s, so the Air actually comes out ahead in this particular write test. Compared to the 16-inch M4 Pro MacBook Pro at 6713.2 MB/s writes, the M5 MacBook Air is only about 2.30 percent slower—essentially in the same performance neighborhood.
The biggest story is how far the M5 MacBook Air pulls away from the M4 MacBook Air lineup in writes. The 15-inch M4 MacBook Air scores 3023.9 MB/s, while the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air drops to 1987.7 MB/s. That means the M5 MacBook Air is about 116.89 percent faster than the 15-inch M4 Air and a massive 229.96 percent faster than the 13-inch M4 Air in write speeds. The 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro, at 3426 MB/s writes, is also well behind, with the M5 MacBook Air delivering around 91.44 percent faster write performance.
These results suggest Apple may have made a meaningful storage hardware change in the M5 MacBook Air. One likely explanation is support for faster PCIe NVMe Gen 4 performance, along with a storage configuration that helps maximize throughput—potentially by using multiple NAND flash chips to increase parallelism. While raw CPU and GPU upgrades always draw attention, storage is often the hidden bottleneck that decides whether a laptop feels instantly responsive or occasionally sluggish.
For anyone considering an upgrade, the takeaway is simple: the M5 MacBook Air looks positioned to feel noticeably faster in everyday use than the M4 MacBook Air models, thanks largely to its SSD gains. Pricing for the M5 MacBook Air line starts at $1,099, with configurations including a 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory, and a 512GB SSD for the base model.
