Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Ah! Have you ever heard the term Thrashing?...
This doesn't have anything to do with the Anandtech article or SSD's. Thrashing is something you're likely to experience when you don't have enough RAM and you're using a HDD. The avoidance of thrashing is one of SSD's key benefits.

I will certainly admit that you've gotta be using your computer in a fairly unusual manner to cause it to thrash heavily. However, let me note a few things:

- The technique the writers of that article used to force-feed data to those SSDs involved writing files to a nearly empty drive (only 10GB of "static data"), erasing them, and rewriting them. This is going to be quite favorable to the SSD's wear-leveling algorithm. I would think a normal user will have a lot more data stored in their SSD, and I doubt OSX's swapfile mechanism will be quite as convenient for wear-leveling; it is possible that a smaller section of the SSD will get hit harder by paging activity.
- Moreover, the test they used wrote data sequentially. I'm not privy to the technique OSX is currently using, but paging mechanisms will normally need to store and retrieve pages in a more random access manner; again, this can encourage more uneven wear on the SSD...
The point of the Anandtech article is that SSDs will last a really long time and that typical users have nothing to worry about.

SSD wear-leveling works both statically and dynamically. Dynamically, data will always be written to empty pages. Statically, stored data will be moved around so that the same "free" space on the SSD isn't written to over and over again. This transpires at the SSD's firmware level - it is invisible to OS X. The data written to the swap file is just like any other data - there's nothing special about it as far as the SSD is concerned.

The only difference is on a HDD, the OS attempts to keep the swap file contiguous since it improves read/write performance (the HDD's mechanical read/write heads don't have to move around as much). On a SSD, those rules don't apply - the swap file is scattered across the SSD (non-contigous data doesn't affect performance). Again, the OS has no idea where the data is being stored on the SSD.

Most of us would agree that if you're normally using several gigabytes or more of swap at a time, that a memory upgrade is in order (which may require the purchase of a new Mac these days). But you have to really be at the extreme end of usage to prematurely wear out an SSD.

One tip that is good for both SSD performance and longevity is to keep some free space on the SSD. There are various rules of thumb on how much - 10% being pretty typical for 250-500GB SSDs, maybe more with smaller drives, maybe less with really large drives, but it depends on usage. Also, most SSD's also have limited "reserved blocks" space to substitute out bad blocks with good ones, as well as to cache data for wear-leveling.

Here's a Samsung white paper that offers some pretty easy to understand explanations of how this all works.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Weaselboy
...but that's not going to speed up general overall performance by much (boot times, app launching, etc).

I have to admit, I don't consider boot times or app launching part of general overall performance. :) (I only reboot once every couple of months, and only relaunch apps when I absolutely have to...) But yeah, I admit the SSD totally rules over magnetic media whenever you're talking about drive-I/O-related performance. :)
 
Thrashing is something you're likely to experience when you don't have enough RAM and you're using a HDD. The avoidance of thrashing is one of SSD's key benefits.

Um, no, not really. Adding an SSD to your system has absolutely nothing to do with avoidance of thrashing. Here's the Wiki definition:

In computer science, thrashing occurs when a computer's virtual memory subsystem is in a constant state of paging, rapidly exchanging data in memory for data on disk, to the exclusion of most application-level processing.

So, in short, thrashing happens when you run out of RAM, regardless of what kind of permanent storage drives you have in your machine.

The point of the Anandtech article is that SSDs will last a really long time and that typical users have nothing to worry about.

Actually, that wasn't an Anandtech article -- Anandtech has a superb (if now slightly dated) summary of everything you need to know about SSDs, and yes, it does note that under normal usage, a user will never wear out an SSD.

All I'm saying is that heavy swapping (to the point of thrashing) is not the same as normal usage. The "Endurance Test" article (written by "The Tech Report") started their experiment on August 20, 2013, and reached the 200 Terabyte mark (and the first permanent bad blocks) by October 28, 2013. In other words, it took them less than three months of constant I/O to the drive to reach the point where they started seeing problems.

The main difference between thrashing and normal disk I/O is that thrashing is continuous. All the tricks in the world won't help if you're constantly forcing that poor drive to commit writes. In short, it is always best to avoid heavy swapping, even when you're swapping to an SSD.
 
Um, no, not really. Adding an SSD to your system has absolutely nothing to do with avoidance of thrashing. Here's the Wiki definition:

So, in short, thrashing happens when you run out of RAM, regardless of what kind of permanent storage drives you have in your machine.
You're misunderstanding the definition. The key words are the last part of the definition you offered "to the exclusion of most application-level processing." That doesn't occur with an SSD, so thrashing doesn't occur (well, it might be technically possible, but it would take extraordinary circumstances).

The main difference between thrashing and normal disk I/O is that thrashing is continuous. All the tricks in the world won't help if you're constantly forcing that poor drive to commit writes.
No, continuous disk I/O doesn't equal "thrashing". And you are taking the wrong conclusions from the article. E.g. the time period of "three months" is completely irrelevant.

Really, forget about the thrashing as it relates to an SSD - it's not relevant.

I would suggest that rather than trying to debate us and defend your misunderstandings, you do a little more research and ask questions if you don't understand what you're reading.
 
You're misunderstanding the definition.

Can I just stop the debate for a minute and just recognize how amazing your avatar is? I am a huge advocate of using picture books to develop visual literacy in the classroom and it's nice to see Max here on MacRumors :) Carry on . . .
 
  • Like
Reactions: Suzatlarge
Can I just stop the debate for a minute and just recognize how amazing your avatar is? I am a huge advocate of using picture books to develop visual literacy in the classroom and it's nice to see Max here on MacRumors :) Carry on . . .
Hey thanks. I'm middle-aged now, but it was a favorite of mine as a child (I also happened to resemble Max at the time). A few years ago, I borrowed the book from a friend, and scanned the pages with the idea of making avatars. Interesting about visual literacy... it seems like it would be fascinating to study how generations differ in the internet age (i.e. Millennials vs. Gen X vs. BB's vs. Traditionals). Cheers!
 
  • Like
Reactions: myrtlebee
The performance benefit you will see is entirely dependent on how much RAM you consume with your usage.

This guy has the best advice in the thread. To add to it:

If you are not exceeding your memory, adding more will have absolutely no noticeable, real-life performance benefit. (You might get a higher score in some synthetic benchmarks.) In that case, an SSD would be a much better upgrade.

However, if you are exceeding your memory, then adding more is very important, as swapping out memory to that HDD is very slow. As already noted by the people arguing in this thread, an SSD upgrade instead could help mask that somewhat.

Of course if you can afford both, I'd do that and as a side benefit you only have to crack the case open once.
 
Problem is the hdd.

Yep. To follow up, I did some research a watched some videos (this one in particular) and determined I'd be way better off with an external SSD (since I'm not really into adding an internal one honestly). Trying to find a good one for under $100....

I wasn't really thinking about an SSD at the time of making this thread...not really sure why
 
Yep. To follow up, I did some research a watched some videos (this one in particular) and determined I'd be way better off with an external SSD (since I'm not really into adding an internal one honestly). Trying to find a good one for under $100....

I wasn't really thinking about an SSD at the time of making this thread...not really sure why

Keep an eye on slickdeals. 250gb SSD are frequently on sale for under $100 like this one. Then get a USB 3.0 enclosure with UASP support for about $10 or so on Amazon or newegg or something.

I keep all my media and files on the HDD and keep just the system and apps installed on the SSD, so 250gb is more than enough.
 
Ok, so I purchased a 120gb Samsung 850 Evo and a USB 3.0 enclosure. Received it today from Amazon and it's all set up. Everything is working really well and it's definitely much faster (still with 4GB of RAM too). I saved everything I needed to a USB flash drive before I used the SSD and then I did a clean install of Yosemite on the SSD as well as did a wipe of the internal HDD.

Should I keep the HDD wiped with no OS X on it or does it not matter? I plan to use the SSD for the main stuff and then the internal HDD for downloads and other misc. files but I'm guessing it doesn't matter if OS X is on there or not.

Also, I'm assuming if I'm just using my Mac Mini for casual browsing and app usage that wearing it out is something I don't have to worry about? Does usage of the Mac per day have any effect like if I used the computer for 2 hours a day as opposed to 10? Finally, what constitutes as a write? Is it only if I download a file to the SSD? Sorry if these are dumb questions...I've never had an SSD before and I read about all of this wear stuff before I actually bought it, lol
 
Last edited:
Should I keep the HDD wiped with no OS X on it or does it not matter? I plan to use the SSD for the main stuff and then the internal HDD for downloads and other misc. files but I'm guessing it doesn't matter if OS X is on there or not.

Yup, it's fine to dedicate the entire drive solely for data. :)

Also, I'm assuming if I'm just using my Mac Mini for casual browsing and app usage that wearing it out is something I don't have to worry about?

No, for all the arguing over SSD wear in the posts above, you shouldn't need to worry about wearing out the SSD. You'd need to pound that thing in a very particular way for a very long time to wear it out. (But yeah, heavy swap usage is potentially one such particular situation...)

Does usage of the Mac per day have any effect like if I used the computer for 2 hours a day as opposed to 10?

Actually, just having the machine on doesn't wear out the drive at all. You need to be actively writing data to the SSD (and a whole lot of data, for a _very_ long time) to have a chance of wearing it out.

Finally, what constitutes as a write? Is it only if I download a file to the SSD?

Downloading a file to the SSD does indeed constitute a write. :) However, it is only going to be a single write to a series of blocks, so each block is only touched once. You really need to write to the same block tens of thousands of times before it will wear out, and the "wear leveling" scheme used by the SSD should make it hard to hit the same block twice in a row even if you tried to write to the same spot over and over again.

My argument above was that, if you put the computer into a situation where it runs completely out of RAM and has to start swapping data to the SSD, you could potentially cause some wear to the drive. (Because really heavy swapping will do a lot of writing to the SSD, and will do it constantly.) But as long as you're not swapping, you don't need to worry about it. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: batting1000
Also, I'm assuming if I'm just using my Mac Mini for casual browsing and app usage that wearing it out is something I don't have to worry about? Does usage of the Mac per day have any effect like if I used the computer for 2 hours a day as opposed to 10? Finally, what constitutes as a write? Is it only if I download a file to the SSD? Sorry if these are dumb questions...I've never had an SSD before and I read about all of this wear stuff before I actually bought it, lol
Frankly, this is why I get a little frustrated when other users bring this up because it unnecessarily confuses and concerns users when they have absolutely nothing to worry about.

You could literally use the SSD the way you are 24/7/365 and the SSD should last twenty years. The electronics in it are far more likely to wear out before the actual flash memory ever does.

Enjoy the SSD!
 
  • Like
Reactions: batting1000
Yup, it's fine to dedicate the entire drive solely for data. :)



No, for all the arguing over SSD wear in the posts above, you shouldn't need to worry about wearing out the SSD. You'd need to pound that thing in a very particular way for a very long time to wear it out. (But yeah, heavy swap usage is potentially one such particular situation...)



Actually, just having the machine on doesn't wear out the drive at all. You need to be actively writing data to the SSD (and a whole lot of data, for a _very_ long time) to have a chance of wearing it out.



Downloading a file to the SSD does indeed constitute a write. :) However, it is only going to be a single write to a series of blocks, so each block is only touched once. You really need to write to the same block tens of thousands of times before it will wear out, and the "wear leveling" scheme used by the SSD should make it hard to hit the same block twice in a row even if you tried to write to the same spot over and over again.

My argument above was that, if you put the computer into a situation where it runs completely out of RAM and has to start swapping data to the SSD, you could potentially cause some wear to the drive. (Because really heavy swapping will do a lot of writing to the SSD, and will do it constantly.) But as long as you're not swapping, you don't need to worry about it. :)

Frankly, this is why I get a little frustrated when other users bring this up because it unnecessarily confuses and concerns users when they have absolutely nothing to worry about.

You could literally use the SSD the way you are 24/7/365 and the SSD should last twenty years. The electronics in it are far more likely to wear out before the actual flash memory ever does.

Enjoy the SSD!

Thanks for the help guys :)
 
OP wrote:
"Should I keep the HDD wiped with no OS X on it or does it not matter? I plan to use the SSD for the main stuff and then the internal HDD for downloads and other misc. files but I'm guessing it doesn't matter if OS X is on there or not."

My suggestion will be different from all the others.

I think you SHOULD keep a cloned copy of the SSD on the internal HDD.
Here's why.

When a platter-based HDD fails, you usually "get some warning" in advance. Things start to "slow down", etc. But often, you can still harvest at least -some- of your data from a hard drive that's exhibiting symptoms of failure.

Not so with SSD's. They will often just "fail" -- totally and completely without warning. Not saying it's going to happen to you, but sometimes it does happen.
And I've heard that file recovery from a failed SSD can be quite problematical.

If you were to partition your internal HDD into two partitions, and make the first partition 120gb, you could use a cloning app such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to maintain a backup of your external boot SSD on the internal drive. Very VERY easy to do.

Now, if you ever get into an "I can't boot!!!!" moment, you still have an instantly-bootable copy of your stuff, right on the internal drive.
And you'll still have plenty of "storage space" on the second partition.

I've been booting and running my own late-2012 Mini from a USB-based SSD since January 2013, and I maintain a cloned copy of the SSD on the internal drive, as described above.
I update the backup once or more weekly.
I don't often have a reason to actually boot from the backup -- it's just "there".
But if my SSD fails, or a software installation goes bad on me, I can "switch boot" back to a working copy of my OS and files in about 75 seconds...
 
OP wrote:
"Should I keep the HDD wiped with no OS X on it or does it not matter? I plan to use the SSD for the main stuff and then the internal HDD for downloads and other misc. files but I'm guessing it doesn't matter if OS X is on there or not."

My suggestion will be different from all the others.

I think you SHOULD keep a cloned copy of the SSD on the internal HDD.
Here's why.

When a platter-based HDD fails, you usually "get some warning" in advance. Things start to "slow down", etc. But often, you can still harvest at least -some- of your data from a hard drive that's exhibiting symptoms of failure.

Not so with SSD's. They will often just "fail" -- totally and completely without warning. Not saying it's going to happen to you, but sometimes it does happen.
And I've heard that file recovery from a failed SSD can be quite problematical.

If you were to partition your internal HDD into two partitions, and make the first partition 120gb, you could use a cloning app such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to maintain a backup of your external boot SSD on the internal drive. Very VERY easy to do.

Now, if you ever get into an "I can't boot!!!!" moment, you still have an instantly-bootable copy of your stuff, right on the internal drive.
And you'll still have plenty of "storage space" on the second partition.

I've been booting and running my own late-2012 Mini from a USB-based SSD since January 2013, and I maintain a cloned copy of the SSD on the internal drive, as described above.
I update the backup once or more weekly.
I don't often have a reason to actually boot from the backup -- it's just "there".
But if my SSD fails, or a software installation goes bad on me, I can "switch boot" back to a working copy of my OS and files in about 75 seconds...
I'd just add a couple things to what you said...

First, while HDDs sometimes exhibit symptoms leading to failure, I would stop short of saying "usually". And many typical users probably wouldn't correlate the symptoms before it was too late anyway. So no matter whether you're using a HDD or SSD, you should ALWAYS have a regular backup. And as part of that backup, it can include the OS (i.e. a bootable backup of the SSD).

Second, I agree it's not a bad idea at all to keep the original OS partition on the HDD. But one thing to look out for is that if both OS partitions are mounted, Spotlight (and similar) will automatically index both of them and you could end up launching (outdated) apps off the original HDD-based OS X. So if you are going to keep the original HDD-based OS partition, a tip is to make sure that partition doesn't mount when you log in.
 
So currently I have the base model late 2012 Mac Mini with 4GB of RAM + 500GB storage + 2.5 GHz i5 and I'm wondering if going from 4GB of RAM to 8 is worth it. Currently, the machine runs fine and it's undoubtedly usable, but a lot of times, many actions can take anywhere from 10 or 15 seconds to a minute to open things like System Preferences, Preview, Mail, Chrome, etc. and there's some lag when doing things like clicking the Apple menu in the top left...I can click it and move my mouse away and then menu will pop up a few seconds after....I often see the beach ball....Safari feels like a death sentence.

I'll see friends on their MacBook Airs and they look to easily outperform my Mac mini. Now that I think about it, that's probably because they have SSDs, something I don't have in my budget to upgrade to.

What's it like going from 4GB to 8GB of RAM and is it worth the money?

Probably not. I have the same machine, and under general use I rarely exceed half of the 4GB of RAM. What did make a big difference in performance was adding an SSD. In my case I bought an SSD and a Thunderbolt adapter and set up an external boot drive. The internal HDD is now just a data drive. The SSD is much more responsive compared to operating from the mechanical drive.
 
Last edited:
Probably not. I have the same machine, and under general use I rarely exceed half of the 4GB of RAM. What did make a big difference in performance was adding an SSD. In my case I bought an SSD and a Thunderbolt adapter and set up an external boot drive. The internal HDD is now just a data drive. The SSD is much more responsive compared to operating from the mechanical drive.

Yep, figured that out already lol. Got an SSD a couple weeks ago. Thanks for the help!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.