Apple on Monday refreshed its MacBook Air lineup, adding Broadwell chips and Intel 6000 graphics. Both models received the same processor updates, but the 13-Inch MacBook Air got an extra boost -- new PCIe-based flash storage that Apple says is "up to two times faster" than the flash storage used in the previous generation MacBook Air. The 11-inch MacBook Air did **t receive the same flash storage update.
Average write speeds for the 11-inch MacBook Air using Black Magic's Disk Speed Test were 315MB/s, while average read speeds were 668MB/s. The 13-Inch MacBook Air saw average write speeds of 629.9MB/s and average read speeds of 1285.4MB/s.
An iFixit teardown of the 13-inch MacBook Air conducted this morning suggests the **tebook is using Samsung flash memory with a Samsung controller. A teardown of the 11-inch MacBook Air, which does **t feature the faster flash storage, was equipped with SanDisk flash memory and a Marvell controller. In comparison to the Samsung flash storage used in the previous-generation 13-inch MacBook Air, iFixit said "it's definitely an update."