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There was never a viable reason why the M1 would use substantially less RAM than Intel
Not specific between ARM and Intel, but there actually is which you do mention. Since it is unified memory, the GPU has the ability to access ANY of the 8GB or 16GB. Therefore, you do not need to "copy" data for integrated Intel graphics like before. Thus resulting in less RAM usage in this scenario. So instead of taking up 2x the memory for the graphics tasks, its only 1x.
 
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Still, this is why SSDs should never, ever be soldered in to any remotely "pro" machine
How do you define "Pro". The true "Pro" machine that people just LOVE to throw out the Pro term needing MAX $50,000 levels of performance is the Mac Pro. I would seriously doubt it the Apple Silicon Mac Pro Tower would be soldered storage. At least expandable storage would still be offered.
 
Does Apple Care cover the drive becoming unusable?
Yes. If these numbers are actually accurate, I think it’d be safe to assume enough people would have a large enough issue that it’d be worthy of some kind of replacement program or repair program. It’d be very un-Apple to not have a contingency plan for this. They’ve probably been using the Apple SoC in their hardware for a few years before it was even introduced, so it’s possible some employees could even see this as an issue, too. I’m glad I paid for AppleCare thru late Nov 2023...
 
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Sorry I have to disagree. I think the advice for RAM hasn't changed since the 80's. Don't get the bare minimum unless you have to. Bump it up 1) for future proofing 2) Yes to prevent swap (because it a) hurts performance, less so today, and b) wear, more of a problem today).

Obviously the caveat would be if you know your specific use and it isn't going to change in your projected ownership, then get the spec you determined you need. For most users, bump it up if you can afford it.
This is seriously bad. Future proofing is NOT just RAM. Newer CPUs, DDR or other memory enhancements, PCIe version upgrades, newer faster SSDs, and much more. I was trying to future proof my 2010 Mac Pro for 9 years until I finally just gave up. Felt more of a hack to get some things working like USB 3, and I did notice a slight difference since it was still PCIe 2 vs my PCIe 3 Windows system with the same GPU and Windows 10.

And BTW, I have gotten advice like "MAX the RAM" or "Get as much as you can afford". Even though I just do 1080p video editing. 8GB on my 2010 Mac Pro and 8GB on my 2019 i9 iMac is the same. However, due to the advice, I spent $500+ on getting 128GB of RAM on my iMac. I never had that much RAM before so that is why I asked for advice to begin with. It was a $500 waste. I could afford it, but it was still a waste.
 
And my mom is running a 2006 Thinkpad, those are the gold standard of PC longevity. How does that counter what I wrote about the vast majority of PC’s? Unfortunately it comes down to chassis build quality most of the time.
Then you should not have made the point comparing Macs vs PCs but rather comparing cheap computers vs more expensive ones.
 
Not specific between ARM and Intel, but there actually is which you do mention. Since it is unified memory, the GPU has the ability to access ANY of the 8GB or 16GB. Therefore, you do not need to "copy" data for integrated Intel graphics like before. Thus resulting in less RAM usage in this scenario. So instead of taking up 2x the memory for the graphics tasks, its only 1x.

This is another false misinformation that's been parakeeted. Intel iGPU does do zero copy buffer.

https://software.intel.com/content/...uffer-copies-on-intel-processor-graphics.html
 
This is another false misinformation that's been parakeeted. Intel iGPU does do zero copy buffer.

https://software.intel.com/content/...uffer-copies-on-intel-processor-graphics.html
This document provides guidance to OpenCL™ developers who want to optimize applications running on Intel® processor graphics. Specifically, this document shows you how to minimize the memory footprint of applications and reduce the amount of copying on buffers in the shared physical memory system of an Intel® System on Chip (SoC) solution. It also provides working source code to demonstrate these principles.

Sounds like you need to program specifically for it. Also, it says reduce not eliminate

SSDs are designed to fail...eventually. So are spinning hard drives.

Even my LG Gram's SSD might fail. But the SSD in the Gram is connected via a slot and may be replaced easily and inexpensively. I can even upgrade it to a larger size.

Here's where you can solder your SSD, Tim.
And I have had spinning HDDs fail 2 months after purchase. 1.5 years after purchase. If you care about your data, back it up. ANYTHING can and will fail at some point.

Seriously, people that are experiencing this issue need to get together and compare what apps they have installed. Its not affecting everyone, so its probably an App running poorly in rosetta that is causing this issue. We can speculate all day, but if you have this issue, post what apps you have. Lets cross check others that do the same and we can find a common app that might be the cause.

What you wrote is still false. PCs as old or even older are still supported by latest Windows 10 while Macs are abandoned and no longer supported by latest MacOS Big Sur.
Not true. I have old computers that supported initial Windows 10 but stopped on 1803. Even tried to install fresh 1809+ didn't work well.
 
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Are any of you still happy with the M1 Macs even with the excessive SSD wear?

I'm now really considering to add AppleCare to my MBA M1 that I received last week, because of this SSD wear issue.
 
Seriously, people that are experiencing this issue need to get together and compare what apps they have installed. Its not affecting everyone, so its probably an App running poorly in rosetta that is causing this issue. We can speculate all day, but if you have this issue, post what apps you have. Lets cross check others that do the same and we can find a common app that might be the cause.
That is a very good idea. It might be best to create a separate thread. This one can't seem to find the main subject using Apple Maps.
 
Open Console.app and stream the logs. You'll see the DISASTER that is Big Sur.
I can hear my old Mac Mini's HDD going crazy all the time while it's "idle". Grinding away with warnings and errors from mDNSresponder, searchpartyuseragent, NewsToday2 (WTF? I haven't even opened News and never intend to on that machine). It's ridiculous. Get yer UNIX right, APPLE!
If only we could just send all logs to /dev/null most of the time......
 
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MBA M1 - Big Sur (running 16 days) vs MBA 2013 - 10.9.5 (running 21 days)

Activity Monitor, Disk section

Screen Shot 2021-02-24 at 12.28.52 AM.png
Screen Shot 2021-02-24 at 12.29.08 AM.png


Notice the obvious GB vs MB movements...
There must be a measurement bug of some kind on the Big Sur version. It's not conceivable that so much data is being read and written, for a machine's that I'm still transitioning to and is mostly emtpy and idle most of the day.
 
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It's not a change of heart. The M1 mini lost half of its TB ports. The same will be happening to the MacBook Pro. Something has to fill in the gap.
Is this due to a limitation on M1? Not something I was aware of. I would argue the fact that they’re rumoured to be adding HDMI and SD slot given the steadfast adherence to USB C for the last 6 years would be, however with the additional insight you provided, I’ll have to go out a-digging again lol
 
Is this due to a limitation on M1? Not something I was aware of. I would argue the fact that they’re rumoured to be adding HDMI and SD slot given the steadfast adherence to USB C for the last 6 years would be, however with the additional insight you provided, I’ll have to go out a-digging again lol
I don't think anyone outside of Apple knows the reason for this limitation, but it certainly appears to be one.
 
Oh, so you do want to play that game. Unless you mean in the same sense that a basic microwave is also a computer.

Why do you even want to be on this thread? Go enjoy your "computer" and let us Mac users enjoy our computers.
??? A microwave is not a computer. A microwave cooks food and is controlled by a microcontroller, not a general-purpose CPU. The A14 SoC is based on the same cores as the M1, Firestorm and Icestorm.
 
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Here's the SMART status info from the Mac mini I use at work. So looks like REALLY high writes to SSD (I have been pushing it really hard memory-wise with open tabs and programs).

In use since about July. Original RAM was 8GB and replaced to 16GB (in use for the last 3 out of the total 8 months).

Intel Mac mini i7
8GB RAM original, upgraded to 16GB
512GB SSD
macOS Catalina

I've seen this problem before on some older Intel SSDs in Windows computers, which was called "write amplification." For example: https://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=118114

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)

Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 37 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 17%
Data Units Read: 598,052,249 [306 TB]
Data Units Written: 564,687,025 [289 TB]
Host Read Commands: 2,879,012,723
Host Write Commands: 1,276,002,971
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 58
Power On Hours: 742
Unsafe Shutdowns: 21
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
 
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Not true. I have old computers that supported initial Windows 10 but stopped on 1803. Even tried to install fresh 1809+ didn't work well.

You don't mention how old, what make and model to verify if it's another one of your misinformation.

2008 era PC is the oldest that can run latest Windows 10 20H2 well since performance is usable and chipset supports 8GB DRAM. 2007 era is also supported but limited to 4GB DRAM and performance is just below acceptable threshold. In comparison, Big Sur dropped support for 2012 Macs and earlier so PCs last ~5 years longer.
 
You don't mention how old, what make and model to verify if it's another one of your misinformation.

2008 era PC is the oldest that can run latest Windows 10 20H2 well since performance is usable and chipset supports 8GB DRAM. 2007 era is also supported but limited to 4GB DRAM and performance is just below acceptable threshold. In comparison, Big Sur dropped support for 2012 Macs and earlier so PCs last ~5 years longer.
It was when I was working in managed services provider until early 2019. It was an HP laptop but I don't have the actual model number anymore. All of our techs took a look and spent a total of 100 working hours trying to get it working with no success. It was a 2014 HP Laptop that is all I remember.
 
So.. people are trusting a homebrew app designed for traditional storage controllers. Keeping in mind any T2 based mac / M1 Mac use a proprietary controller unique to Apple.

Hmm. Smells like a nothing burger to me. Anyone else?
Well if it’s unreasonable to automatically assume it’s an issue than it should also be unreasonable to automatically assume it isn’t one, no? Definitely would appreciate a statement from apple on this
 
Wouldn't it have to wear out after exactly a year? Otherwise apple would lose a ton of money having to replace complete boards under warranty.
But Apple can choose to screw those customers and blame them from not using the machine correctly. They won’t lose money for that. They only ever set up repair program after enough media backlash.
It’s not like Apple is hurt from losing customers.
 
Prediction : even if true, those doing the loudest complaining will be those who DID NOT purchase AppleCare, and expect Apple to pay for their short-sided decision.

Bonus Points : They WILL NOT have any backups.
 
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Well if it’s unreasonable to automatically assume it’s an issue than it should also be unreasonable to automatically assume it isn’t one, no? Definitely would appreciate a statement from apple on this
For what exactly? As I have stated and my own mac mini shows its not happening for all devices and I do video editing, software development, Adobe/Affinity work and more on this thing. So how is Apple supposed to know if some weird Open Source application is causing the issue or not? Again, people experiencing the issue need to get together and go over the apps they have installed. Its not an Apple issue or an M1 issue. It is some App that is either logging non stop and results in iCloud Drive constantly running for example, or its doing something bad under Rosetta.

Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 31 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 1,937,792 [992 GB]
Data Units Written: 1,724,536 [882 GB]
Host Read Commands: 39,648,600
Host Write Commands: 22,349,535
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 91
Power On Hours: 15
Unsafe Shutdowns: 5
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
 
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