Even if you lose 20 GB in 5 years, you just go on to use then next 20 GB. They are starting out at 256 GB, not 128 like my wife's Mini.
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I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM
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Even if you lose 20 GB in 5 years, you just go on to use then next 20 GB. They are starting out at 256 GB, not 128 like my wife's Mini.
Reading this thread makes me chuckle. Working in the technology space I know so many people that have this ingrained idea that they NEED a tonne of RAM in their computer to do basically anything. And they get emotionally defensive about it, it's like a paranoia. I assume it it is a form of PTSD that comes from decades of experience with Windows systems that gobbled RAM like candy.
I even had one co-worker that we upgraded to 16GB on Win 10 and then noted that the system never used more than 8GB or RAM during their daily routine usage.
In any case the test results on the 8GB model are extremely impressive. MacOS combined with the M1 does an incredible job of managing the resources.
In my opinion it comes down to this, unless you are currently a MBP or Mac Pro user with 32GB or more of ram in your system, you will most likely be just fine with the 8GB model. However, if the thought of that bothers you, by all means spend the extra $200 for the piece of mind that will bring you.
I'm kind of wired the opposite way, I hate buying or having something that I'm not getting use out of.
I even had one co-worker that we upgraded to 16GB on Win 10 and then noted that the system never used more than 8GB or RAM during their daily routine usage.
In any case the test results on the 8GB model are extremely impressive. MacOS combined with the M1 does an incredible job of managing the resources.
In my opinion it comes down to this, unless you are currently a MBP or Mac Pro user with 32GB or more of ram in your system, you will most likely be just fine with the 8GB model. However, if the thought of that bothers you, by all means spend the extra $200 for the piece of mind that will bring you.
I'm kind of wired the opposite way, I hate buying or having something that I'm not getting use out of.
There is something known as write amplification. It is usually 2x or 3x in TLC drives. The effective TBW is half or even less than half depending on the ssd.
256gb TLC drives usually only are rated about 150-300 TBW NAND writes on the higher end. With write amplification, you will reach 150-300 TBW with only 50-100TB host writes. Keep in mind the rated figures are conservative estimates and they may last a lot longer.
The highest end 250gb SSD Samsung 980 pro is only rated for 150 TBW NAND writes
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After flip flopping for the past few days, this statement along with many others make me feel better about my decision to get the 8GB. It wasn't money that held me back from buying the 16GB, it's just that I needed a computer sooner rather than later, and the 16GB models were a month out from delivering to my house.
After stressing this computer with my regular workload and then much more, my pressure remained in the green, and if we're going by Apples website, that's a good thing.
Why do I get the impression that most people could get by with a cheap netbook?
With modern drives doing proper wear leveling, you shouldn't lose any amount of storage until the very end of its life. Also, most higher performing SSDs have more space than advertised for such purpose, and for moving stuff around.
That is still 84GB written to the drive EVERY SINGLE DAY for 5 years before it reaches 150 TBW. If you take weekends off, or time off for vacation, your system will be fine even for 5 years. And like I said, higher drives have higher TBW. The Samsung 980 Pro 1TB has 600 TBW.
Also here is an old article that the 850 was able to survive for petabytes.
Not a blunder. The chip is designed to replace the base models, which for the laptops never offered more than 16GB. For the Mini, it's a new cheaper base (which still outperforms the older machine with more RAM in most ways).
A manufacturing design limit of what are likely prototype machines are and decisions made a year ago for a 1.0 m1. A good read:
eshop.macsales.com
Why Are The Memory Options So Limited on Apple's New M1 Macs?
The title of this post raises an interesting question. There has been some chatter from people complaining that the new M1 Macs from Apple have lower memory options available than their Intel counterparts. But I have also seen folks say that perhaps memory works differently or is more efficient...
eshop.macsales.com
Not wrong in the way it was actually approached in the tests that showed the 8GB/16GB models performing as well as or better than the Intel 16GB/32GB models in some ways previously constrained by RAM. Processor speed, swap speed, RAM access speed, etc, can make up for a smaller amount of RAM to some extent in some important ways.
Yeah, the advent of the SSD really changed the equation in terms of RAM vs Swap, at least for mostly user-interactive style applications (aka stuff that required the user to do something to make something happen). Different ball-game if your machine requires gobs of RAM to process large automated job(s).
The M1's amazing efficiency just pushes that needle further down the spectrum for most users where RAM vs Swap becomes an almost academic exercise. I'm sure the day is not far off where Apple won't even publish the amount of RAM in the systems, it will be just, Great, Greater, Greatest in terms of overall system performance (ala iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro).
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Ha, didn't know that's how it was with the iPhone! I think the computers are more like cars, and they'll still have to publish numbers so people can compare their engines ...
I am willing to bet that 99.9% of the people concerned about 8gb vs 16gb will be 100% satisfied with 8gb for years to come...if you know you need more than 8gb, you know already because you already push your machine to extremes.
with that being said, if you upgrade to 16gb, $200 is about $5.50/month for 3 years...
with that being said, if you upgrade to 16gb, $200 is about $5.50/month for 3 years...
My story:
I bought the base model Air thinking everything would be fine. My concern was having many apps open at once. I was. bit surprised that the base Air slowed down, I got the spinning wheel a few times, and the Activity Monitor showed Red RAM usage - very surprised. Though, with lesser (i.e., normal) apps open, the base model runs just fine.
Since I tend to not close apps during the work day, and sometimes work with too many apps open, I'm going to return the base model and get 16GB of RAM.
I bought the base model Air thinking everything would be fine. My concern was having many apps open at once. I was. bit surprised that the base Air slowed down, I got the spinning wheel a few times, and the Activity Monitor showed Red RAM usage - very surprised. Though, with lesser (i.e., normal) apps open, the base model runs just fine.
Since I tend to not close apps during the work day, and sometimes work with too many apps open, I'm going to return the base model and get 16GB of RAM.
Same here. After reading all these threads I think I am going to 8GB. A lot of my reasons to go with 16GB were made on experiences with Windows and my older Mac. What pushed me over the line is that the savings are much more than $200 - close to $400 in my case since there are a lot of good deals on 8GB configurations.
Totally agree - I tested the 256gb version of the MacBook air and it takes over 11TB of host writes to drop 1% of lifetime endurance. The Air should be capable of over a petabyte of host writes.
Well that's just it, the engines are so different that a lot of the traditional metrics will lose their meaning. It's like comparing an EV to a fossil-fuel car. You can measure range and horsepower/torque, but comparing the volume of your engine block (6.6L) becomes meaningless. We'll see but I can totally see Apple Marketing heading this direction with the next-gen Macs.
Your wife will be thrilled with a base MBA. Don’t worry about the RAM. it will be just fine.
Pretty much the same here. My work requires me to keep 2-3 browsers with quite a lot of tabs open and often quite a few other apps (Apple Mail, Outlook, Teams, VS Code, Local Flywheel, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and more).
I can see the swap being used every now and then. All in all it’s pretty much like my 2020 MBP (10th gen i5) with 16 GB, which is damn impressive already.
I could probably get away with the 8GB model but to be honest, closing applications continuously throughout the day is a hassle if work needs to get done.
Looking forward to the 16GB MBA and think I’ll be keeping that beast of a machine for a few years to come. ?
To be fair, I had an array of 3 videos on my screen (all-22 football footage). 2 in Quicktime and 1 in Iina.
No one also seems to mention writing constantly with the drive almost full is very detrimental for SSDs. If your drive is almost full all the time and you're swapping to it constantly, you're not going to get the petabytes that these testers are getting who are basically filling the drive, erasing and filling up again. You're going to get maximal life out of that. But if Joe Six Pack has his 8gb/256gb MBA filled 99% with data and the swap file is heavily used due to the 40 tabs of chrome, you're not going to get good life out of that SSD.
Check some of the older threads with the lifespan of modern SSDs and the number read/write cycles. Bottom line you can beat up on an 8GB machine for over 5 years (all 365 days) and still be short of the degradation period for a modern SSD.
Modern SSDs have very advanced wear levelling algorithms and significant spare area provisioned to deal with these issues compared to even 5 years ago. Sure you won't get quite as much endurance vs an empty drive but if you are using your laptop for any purpose other than as a 24*7 server or some kind of crazy edge case you will never even use a small percentage of available writes.
At 38 years old I'm about 45% through my available lifetime writes, even if this is the last SSD I ever own it's likely to outlast me!
