High data written with basic usage (Catalina)

[Andrea Filippini]

In one session (about 10 hours on) of basic usage (Chrome, WhatsApp desktop, Spotify) my activity monitor reports over 10 GB of data written.
Is it a common thing between Catalina users?
My storage is a Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB (20% used).

 

[chabig]

Yes, it's normal. I'm at 32GB written.

 

[Andrea Filippini]

Yes, it's normal. I'm at 32GB written.

Thank you.
Anyway, it's a massive amount of data.

 

[chabig]

It is massive. But the details of my machine aren’t something I watch. I don’t go looking for problems. I just use it.

 

[Andrea Filippini]

It is massive. But the details of my machine aren’t something I watch. I don’t go looking for problems. I just use it.

Yeah the same.
I have no concern about it, the storage has 600 TBW and in extrema ratio I can replace it for a cheap price.
However a soldered storage especially less than 512 GB size is going to have some nasty troubles in the next couple of years with this rhythm of data written by the OS (and Big Sur seems particularly more avid).

EDIT: I have surpassed the 15 GB of data written in one session of basic usage (basically only Web browsing)

 

[saudor]

yeah it's normal. macOS writes a crap ton of data. In windows, id use maybe 5gb a day. When I had iCloud enabled, i'd use 80GB per day (only had about 2gb or so in there but it'd sync over and over again non stop)

Your 1TB 860 should be fine though as long as you're not swapping excessively. Even a 2011 160GB INTEL SSD could do 700 TB + when it was only rated for 15 TB. a 840 256gb pro could do 2PB before it crapped out.

Just watch for that swap. A friend burnt out her SSD in two years because of excess swap

 

[Andrea Filippini]

yeah it's normal. macOS writes a crap ton of data. In windows, id use maybe 5gb a day. When I had iCloud enabled, i'd use 80GB per day (only had about 2gb or so in there but it'd sync over and over again non stop)

Your 1TB 860 should be fine though as long as you're not swapping excessively. Even a 2011 160GB INTEL SSD could do 700 TB + when it was only rated for 15 TB. a 840 256gb pro could do 2PB before it crapped out.

Just watch for that swap. A friend burnt out her SSD in two years because of excess swap

Is there a specific reason why macOS writes a crap ton of data?
Fortunately, I have no swap usage in activity monitor.

 

[saudor]

Is there a specific reason why macOS writes a crap ton of data?
Fortunately, I have no swap usage in activity monitor.

It's really hard to tell. A lot of things tend to get lumped under Kernel task. In my experience, a lot of the writes were from iCloud Drive going rogue. Even after all these years, they havent figured out how to properly do delta syncs and periodically likes to download the entire file instead

 

[Andrea Filippini]

Things seem go better on macOS High Sierra (same basic usage).
Storage is Maxtor Z1 SSD 960 GB (71% used).