High SSD Data Writing in Activity Monitor

[PineapplePredator]

Hi, just replaced my 2015 MacBook Pro for a new MacBook Pro 16 inch M4 Pro with 48GB RAM and 512GB SSD and believe I have something "wrong" with my MacBook. It’s really starting to stop me from enjoying and loving my new purchase. Because of this issue i have even stopped using it as much. Hoping someone can put my mind at ease and allow me to use my machine however it just feels completely not right. Main concern is the SSD dying after 5 years of use.

After setting up my Mac, probably just me but I like to make sure everything is running correctly so I went into activity monitor and checked CPU and Memory which all looks ok. However then looking at Disk, I found there was a huge amount of Data Written. Did not think anything much of it first as it was a new Mac and prob had a lot of AI bits and analysing photos from Icloud etc, however it just never stopped climbing. I then became concerned and opened a support ticket. Pretty much just got shrugged off as its fine but honestly the guy did not sound bothered or interested in helping me.
It got to the point where in 20 mins it had written an additional 60GB. The day after I checked again and it was just as bad if not worse - it was around 90GB in the same amount of time... It doesn't seem to stop. Today it's done 201GB in around 2 hours of being used.

The total runtime since purchase of this machine is 11 hours with now 1.4TB total write on my SSD - relatively low usage of the Mac as I have been searching around for a solution to what what I think is an issue with the device. More importantly if this is causing harm to my Mac. Battery cycle round has just hit 3.

I live some way from an Apple Store but have spoken to Apple Support on two occasions about this and have said essentially they don't know what is deemed normal and have no way of knowing if this is negatively impacting my device. They are also unable to comment to what the IMD Persistence Agent actually is

On the flip side my friend also has a MacBook Pro M4 16 inch and his had his since release, he has 56 hours of total use time and only 1.7 TBW compared to my 1.4 TBW with 11 hours total use. His also not shut down his computer for a good week and the activity monitor is showing 50gb data written where as mine hits that number in around 20 mins sometimes. Its worse when my Mac is below 80% and plugged in charging.

I’m now concerned I have unneeded stress on the SSD as it’s been abused constantly in the short amount of time, but more importantly iv shortened lifespan of my MacBook Pro, would take me forever to usually load and unload 1TB worth of content on my Mac.

I will attach a photo of the Activity Monitor showing the tasks writing the most data, i am going to stop imessage syncing now to see if that helps as iv read this IMDPersistanceAgent can be related to imessage. Theres not much online about this issue at all and even less for more modern M chip Macs.

Quite disheartened about this happening and about Apples general care for someone who's not only been on the ecosystem for more than 10 years with all sorts of apple products but generally since Apple tech is not cheap.

 

[PineapplePredator]

one screenshot is from 16:10 on the 2nd of Jan the other is 16:32

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

First guess: Spotlight is doing an initial index of your new Mac. When it finishes, activity will probably drop to normal. There's a lot other index the first time.

A Google search says IMDPersistantAgent is a background process involved with Messages, Contact, FaceTime and Handoff. It handles synching messages, address book, video call data, etc. I'll guess you have an iPhone and you probably don't close your text messages when you are done with a chat, so it may have LOTS of texts, messages, videos, etc to sync??? I bet if you pulled out your phone and closed your text messages, that process would "finish" much sooner and things would drop down to normal. If it turns out to be this, consider adopting the same approach used in phone calls to texting: when the conversation is done, close the text message. When you want to text with them again, start a new "call." This will keep flushing out big data attachments we stick into our text messages instead of letting them pile up & up & up some more. Particularly, all those funny videos people tend to to mix into text conversations are big data hogs. Close the text chat and they are flushed away.

If you have lots of iCloud data to sync with the new Mac, that might end up doing a lot of writing and synching too with a brand new device. If you have lots of files in iCloud Drive, it's going to sync to your new Mac too.

The good news: if it's not something like that, you are within the return window and if it is defective, Apple will switch it out.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote (in a wall of text):
"It got to the point where in 20 mins it had written an additional 60GB. The day after I checked again and it was just as bad if not worse - it was around 90GB in the same amount of time... It doesn't seem to stop. Today it's done 201GB in around 2 hours of being used."

Welcome to the world of Apple Silicon.

This is the way the new Macs and Mac OS works -- by creating enormous VM files and writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I have the solution, and I'm [perhaps] THE ONLY member of this forum who advocates doing this:

DISABLE VM disk swapping, so that the OS CAN'T create VM files, and run your Mac that way.

It's downright easy.
And... "reversible" if you find it isn't working out for you.

I've been running my Macs like this for a long time now... years... both Intel-based and Apple Silicon.

This has gotten the OS "under control" insofar as swapping and over-writing is concerned.

Works for me.

I predict that if you give it a try it will work for you as well.

 

[Apathist]

I live some way from an Apple Store but have spoken to Apple Support on two occasions about this and have said essentially they don't know what is deemed normal and have no way of knowing if this is negatively impacting my device.

I think Activity Monitor reports all data written by the system, regardless of its location -- not just to the internal disk, but also, for instance, to attached storage devices. If it also includes data written to iCloud as part of the syncing described by HobeSoundDarryl, AM would be giving you an exaggerated sense of your SSD's usage.

Maybe try taking periodic readings of the actual "Data Units Written" with DriveDx or smartctl for a couple of days to get a clearer idea of what's being written to the SSD alone.

Also, the TBW wasn't anything like 0 out of the box, and you doubtless wrote a lot of data during the initial set up, so 1.4 TBW at this point wouldn't in itself necessarily seem excessive or abnormal to me.

 

[MacCheetah3]

I think, (regarding IMDPersistanceAgent) @HobeSoundDarryl has good advice: do some messages clean up.

View photos, videos, and audio in Messages on Mac

In Messages on your Mac, view items in a conversation, including photos, videos, and audio messages you sent or received.

support.apple.com

Delete messages and conversations in Messages on Mac

In Messages on your Mac, conversations are automatically saved, so you can delete conversations or messages you choose.

support.apple.com

I have mine set to automatically delete after (i.e., keep messages for) one year.

Another best practice is to clean up your email inbox(es). That is, delete any messages/conversations you no longer expect to continue (i.e., not reply or forward). You can always save information (e.g., receipts).

Save emails as files or PDFs in Mail on Mac

In Mail on your Mac, save emails as PDFs or as files to share or import into another email app.

support.apple.com

In other words, don’t use the inbox as an archive.

 

[raythompsontn]

I have the solution, and I'm [perhaps] THE ONLY member of this forum who advocates doing this:

DISABLE VM disk swapping, so that the OS CAN'T create VM files, and run your Mac that way.

I have never disabled VM disk swapping and my MacBook is NOT doing thousands of writes to the SSD every minute, or every hour. I watched the disk activity monitor for almost a minute and there were almost no writes to the disk.

 

[PineapplePredator]

First guess: Spotlight is doing an initial index of your new Mac. When it finishes, activity will probably drop to normal. There's a lot other index the first time.

A Google search says IMDPersistantAgent is a background process involved with Messages, Contact, FaceTime and Handoff. It handles synching messages, address book, video call data, etc. I'll guess you have an iPhone and you probably don't close your text messages when you are done with a chat, so it may have LOTS of texts, messages, videos, etc to sync??? I bet if you pulled out your phone and closed your text messages, that process would "finish" much sooner and things would drop down to normal. If it turns out to be this, consider adopting the same approach used in phone calls to texting: when the conversation is done, close the text message. When you want to text with them again, start a new "call." This will keep flushing out big data attachments we stick into our text messages instead of letting them pile up & up & up some more. Particularly, all those funny videos people tend to to mix into text conversations are big data hogs. Close the text chat and they are flushed away.

If you have lots of iCloud data to sync with the new Mac, that might end up doing a lot of writing and synching too with a brand new device. If you have lots of files in iCloud Drive, it's going to sync to your new Mac too.

The good news: if it's not something like that, you are within the return window and if it is defective, Apple will switch it out.

Hi, thanks for the reply
I have added some extra screenshots which might be useful - my repones to your points are below

1. how long does the spotlight usually take? from personal experience are you able to provide your experience with SSD write data, both from the use of Activity Monitor when plugged into AC as well as complete SSD write history?

2. I also found IMDPersistanceAgent to be related to Messages/iCloud when googling, so I turned iMessage off but haven't really been on the Mac since as I wanted to explore and understand other options before I use it and find its still going wild with the writing. I DO have lots of messages, not really something I want to delete, think its just me but id rather hold onto them but not bothered about having them on my Mac personally. (SIDE NOTE, I wonder if this impacts iPhone in the same way and could save battery if they were deleted, anyway not part of this thread).
However with it being said that I do indeed have a lot of messages, why would this equate to 1TB + data written?

3. The only other main thing on my iCloud is Photos, everything else is off, I use Outlook for emails etc and its not synced anyway.

Just to be clear since turning off iMessage syncing on my Mac I have not really used it much so cant tell if this has worked.

 

[PineapplePredator]

I think Activity Monitor reports all data written by the system, regardless of its location -- not just to the internal disk, but also, for instance, to attached storage devices. If it also includes data written to iCloud as part of the syncing described by HobeSoundDarryl, AM would be giving you an exaggerated sense of your SSD's usage.

Maybe try taking periodic readings of the actual "Data Units Written" with DriveDx or smartctl for a couple of days to get a clearer idea of what's being written to the SSD alone.

Also, the TBW wasn't anything like 0 out of the box, and you doubtless wrote a lot of data during the initial set up, so 1.4 TBW at this point wouldn't in itself necessarily seem excessive or abnormal to me.

Hi, many thanks for the response - I have been taking screenshots of this issue but only had recently downloaded the DriveDX which can be seen in the total written data screenshot. I will take move over the next few uses whilst I monitor my Mac.

Any idea what the Mac does come with out of the box? Would be good to find out other peoples experience's with initial data write (TBW) over the first month for example.

 

[PineapplePredator]

I have never disabled VM disk swapping and my MacBook is NOT doing thousands of writes to the SSD every minute, or every hour. I watched the disk activity monitor for almost a minute and there were almost no writes to the disk.

Hi, are you able to provide an example of what your TBW is using DriveDx? Also how long have you had the Mac for?

Thanks for your time.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

1. how long does the spotlight usually take? from personal experience are you able to provide your experience with SSD write data, both from the use of Activity Monitor when plugged into AC as well as complete SSD write history?

I don't know. Yours is apparently a brand new Mac, apparently synching with lots of messages and photos and whatever else you have in iCloud. Spotlight indexes data on the Mac. As new stuff syncs, there's new indexing to be done. Conceptually, that could take a good while as phone and anything else data is synched to the new machine. But that is just a guess tied to "new computer."

2. I also found IMDPersistanceAgent to be related to Messages/iCloud when googling, so I turned iMessage off but haven't really been on the Mac since as I wanted to explore and understand other options before I use it and find its still going wild with the writing. I DO have lots of messages, not really something I want to delete, think its just me but id rather hold onto them but not bothered about having them on my Mac personally. (SIDE NOTE, I wonder if this impacts iPhone in the same way and could save battery if they were deleted, anyway not part of this thread).
However with it being said that I do indeed have a lot of messages, why would this equate to 1TB + data written?

I think you think that stuff stored in iCloud is kept in iCloud and accessed on demand. However, if you turn off iCloud or airplane mode, you'll find that much iCloud stuff is also locally stored. For example, throw the switch on Messages and then see if messages are still there. They are. How can they if your connection to iCloud is off. Because they are local (too). Think about this more like IMAP email where there is both a central copy and a local copy so you don't need a connection to the email server to work with your email already on board.

Another guess, but I would bet lots of iCloud stuff is being synched to the new Mac, so that it too can be disconnected from iCloud but still have access to select stuff. And that might explain lots of write activity. Again, just a guess based on your description.

The impact to never deleting text messages is demand for ever-more storage to hold a history of text messages... and eventually, having to pay for the next tier of iCloud "rent" to buy a bigger tier(s). So much of text message data hogs like video clips are one-time impact things... like a funny video to make a joke. You had the laugh back when you first saw it and now it just eats up a bunch of space. Pile up a lot of that and that's a LOT of space eaten up on both your phone and new Mac. Close your messages when the conversation is done and dump all that data-hogging clutter... just like hanging up the phone call when it is over.

If the text exchanges themselves are crucial to retain, you can print threads to PDF files to store on Mac and then delete them from Messages. Then, you'll have a record of all of the texts in any thread(s) without having to hog up the space in Messages, in iCloud and on various devices tied into iCloud.

IMO: very best approach to Messages is replicating phone calls- connect, communicate, then hang up... as in, begin text conversation, have the exchanges, close the conversation. This option help you keep what will otherwise become a huge data hog under control across all devices.

3. The only other main thing on my iCloud is Photos, everything else is off, I use Outlook for emails etc and its not synced anyway.

Just to be clear since turning off iMessage syncing on my Mac I have not really used it much so cant tell if this has worked.

Unless you need access to every photo you have at all times anywhere you go, you can always pull your photos from storage in iCloud to storage on Mac, then synching only maybe a "best of" subset(s) of photos to iCloud (or direct to your iDevice(s) to always have with you. This too will be a tremendous space saver, likely cut the rent for iCloud and also cut the writes as various devices attempt to stay synched.


Again, I'm just guessing at what might be causing what you are experiencing. New Mac is probably trying to index all. You apparently has LOTS of stuff to index in iCloud. Messages is loaded up with ongoing threads so IMDPersistanceAgent has a lot to manage. Etc.

How long should you see an abundance of writes? That's likely tied to how much stuff you have to sync to the new Mac. That could be a LOT of data and thus take a lot of time.

Guess is that it will eventually complete and then writes will settle down. Else, you may have a defective new Mac and/or some other app on the Mac that is writing out of control. Within the return/exchange window, I'd just let it run and see if it eventually settles down. If it hasn't by day 12 or so, I take it to Apple, explain what's happening and potentially/probably replace it unless Apple can fix it on the spot.

 

[MacCheetah3]

The impact to never deleting text messages is demand for ever-more storage to hold a history of text messages... and eventually, having to pay for the next tier of iCloud "rent" to buy a bigger tier(s). So much of text message data hogs like video clips are one-time impact things... like a funny video to make a joke. You had the laugh back when you first saw it and now it just eats up a bunch of space. Pile up a lot of that and that's a LOT of space eaten up on both your phone and new Mac. Close your messages when the conversation is done and dump all that data-hogging clutter... just like hanging up the phone call when it is over.

If the text exchanges themselves are crucial to retain, you can print threads to PDF files to store on Mac and then delete them from Messages. Then, you'll have a record of all of the texts in any thread(s) without having to hog up the space in Messages, in iCloud and on various devices tied into iCloud.

IMO: very best approach to Messages is replicating phone calls- connect, communicate, then hang up... as in, begin text conversation, have the exchanges, close the conversation. This option help you keep what will otherwise become a huge data hog under control across all devices.

To reiterate and expand on this topic...

Save photos or videos in the conversation: Click

next to the photo, photo stack, or video to save it in your photo library.

The first link I provided earlier.

But in addition:

Can You archive text messages iPhone? - GB Times

Can You Archive Text Messages on iPhone? With the constant influx of messages on our iPhones, it’s natural to wonder […]

gbtimes.com

Export iPhone Messages (SMS, RCS, iMessage) to your computer in PDF, Excel, CSV, and RSMF formats

imazing.com

Stepping back to photos/videos for a moment, a reminder:

Back up your photo library on Mac

In Photos on your Mac, back up your photo library in case image files become corrupted or are unintentionally deleted.

support.apple.com

Again, the point being proper archiving to keep things tidy (and effectively safe).

P.S. I feel a need to say err remind, this also goes for the poor practice of simply leaving Web browser tabs open rather than utilizing bookmarks. I’m guilty of doing it in the past but now it’s a peeve of mine.

 

[Apathist]

Hi, many thanks for the response - I have been taking screenshots of this issue but only had recently downloaded the DriveDX which can be seen in the total written data screenshot. I will take move over the next few uses whilst I monitor my Mac.

Any idea what the Mac does come with out of the box? Would be good to find out other peoples experience's with initial data write (TBW) over the first month for example.

Good question, but no -- I don't have any sense of this.

I can only tell you anecdotally that when I had my MacBook M1's SSD replaced under warranty, along with the logic board, the "new" drive had approximately 4TB of data already written to it, which seems like a significant amount (roughly what I write to my SSD over the course of an entire year). Presumably it wasn't actually new but what Apple considers like new or good enough. Thus not very meaningful to this discussion.

I notice your machine came with something like 160 power cycles, which I don't think is atypical. A reasonable inference might be that the SSD has undergone a comparable amount of writing as well. It certainly came with data written on it, anyway.

I really wouldn't worry about this going forward unless DriveDx reveals that the Data Units Written day-over-day is excessive (however you define that).

 

[PineapplePredator]

I don't know. Yours is apparently a brand new Mac, apparently synching with lots of messages and photos and whatever else you have in iCloud. Spotlight indexes data on the Mac. As new stuff syncs, there's new indexing to be done. Conceptually, that could take a good while as phone and anything else data is synched to the new machine. But that is just a guess tied to "new computer."

How long should you see an abundance of writes? That's likely tied to how much stuff you have to sync to the new Mac. That could be a LOT of data and thus take a lot of time.

Guess is that it will eventually complete and then writes will settle down. Else, you may have a defective new Mac and/or some other app on the Mac that is writing out of control. Within the return/exchange window, I'd just let it run and see if it eventually settles down. If it hasn't by day 12 or so, I take it to Apple, explain what's happening and potentially/probably replace it unless Apple can fix it on the spot.

First guess: Spotlight is doing an initial index of your new Mac. When it finishes, activity will probably drop to normal. There's a lot other index the first time.

The good news: if it's not something like that, you are within the return window and if it is defective, Apple will switch it out.

Again, I'm just guessing at what might be causing what you are experiencing. New Mac is probably trying to index all. You apparently has LOTS of stuff to index in iCloud. Messages is loaded up with ongoing threads so IMDPersistanceAgent has a lot to manage. Etc.

How long should you see an abundance of writes? That's likely tied to how much stuff you have to sync to the new Mac. That could be a LOT of data and thus take a lot of time.

Guess is that it will eventually complete and then writes will settle down. Else, you may have a defective new Mac and/or some other app on the Mac that is writing out of control. Within the return/exchange window, I'd just let it run and see if it eventually settles down. If it hasn't by day 12 or so, I take it to Apple, explain what's happening and potentially/probably replace it unless Apple can fix it on the spot.

my main thing here is that I have never had more than 700gb of Data on my iCloud overall, and its a shared iCloud with my wife - so not sure how its achieved 1.4TB.

the second thing to add to this story is my Mac was purchased brand new sealed from eBay, took the seals of the box myself and it was brand new. it still had time on the apple care period and I purchased it as I have 2 kids that are quite young still. Guessing it was purchased from Apple as it was activated already and they do this when the product is purchased? It was purchased late one night and I collected it the same night, also had a hefty discount over RRP.

What grounds do i have here to do anything through Apple?

 

[PineapplePredator]

Good question, but no -- I don't have any sense of this.

I can only tell you anecdotally that when I had my MacBook M1's SSD replaced under warranty, along with the logic board, the "new" drive had approximately 4TB of data already written to it, which seems like a significant amount (roughly what I write to my SSD over the course of an entire year). Presumably it wasn't actually new but what Apple considers like new or good enough. Thus not very meaningful to this discussion.

I notice your machine came with something like 160 power cycles, which I don't think is atypical. A reasonable inference might be that the SSD has undergone a comparable amount of writing as well. It certainly came with data written on it, anyway.

I really wouldn't worry about this going forward unless DriveDx reveals that the Data Units Written day-over-day is excessive (however you define that).

I do find it weird how it had 160 power cycles after just a few days use now looking at it... my friend who has the same Mac and had it 3 months longer than me is showing 166 now after all this time...

Why did you get the Macbook M1 SSD replaced? what was wrong with it

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

You can visit Apple, explain what is happening and see if they can remedy it. They will likely try to at least figure it out to the limits of in-store knowledge.

However, with this new information, I’d be quite tempted to wipe it, reinstall macOS and set it up from complete scratch. The “second hand” (maybe) new from EBay introduces all kinds of new variables. Ebay has no special deal with Apple to sell truly brand new sealed at a steep discount. Else, everyone would get their brand new sealed Macs from EBay.

That new information introduces all kinds of possibilities from security risks, to used damage repackaged as new, to refurbished packaged as new, etc.

 

[PineapplePredator]

You can visit Apple, explain what is happening and see if they can remedy it. They will likely try to at least figure it out to the limits of in-store knowledge.

However, with this new information, I’d be quite tempted to wipe it, reinstall macOS and set it up from complete scratch. The “second hand” (maybe) new from EBay introduces all kinds of new variables. Ebay has no special deal with Apple to sell truly brand new sealed at a steep discount. Else, everyone would get their brand new sealed Macs from EBay.

That new information introduces all kinds of possibilities from security risks, to used damage repackaged as new, to refurbished packaged as new, etc.

just for info the seller was what id say legit, had feedback on account, sold other items and been a member for multiple years. the pull cords on the Macbook i removed myself, and the battery count was 2 fresh out the box which is probably the best your going to get and this stat is something that cannot just be "reset".

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Again, I’d take it to Apple seeking in-store help and/or wipe it and start from scratch.

 

[Apathist]

Why did you get the Macbook M1 SSD replaced? what was wrong with it

The logic board needed replacement, not the soldered-on SSD, which was fine.