The SSD speed of the M2 is the most hyperbolic nonsense that has people completely contradicting conventional wisdom.

Apple achieved fast speeds via Raid-0, where multiple drives are tied together as a single drive. The speed boost is achieved based on the number of drives in the raid. The downside to this is failure rate. If one drive fails they all fail. The more drives in Raid-0 the greater chance of failure. Two drives have twice the chance of failure, four drives have quadruple the chance of failure. Raid-0 has always been advised against as your primary drive due to the greater chance of failure.

So the M2 with less drives in Raid-0 will be technically slower, but also be twice as safe. The speed difference will not be noticeable in real world usage. Not at all.

The increase in performance from the M2’s extra cores WILL be noticeable in real world applications.

I’ve been a video editor working daily with 4K-8K footage (RAW, h.264, ProRes, you name it) on a 1500mbs m.2 drive and it runs flawlessly smooth. The M2 gives you 2,800mbs. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how you’d saturate that speed.