M1 Mac Users Report Excessive SSD Wear

[09872738]

But they shouldn’t be. That’s one of the things Linux does correctly. Use RAM as much as possible and never touch the swap file until you absolutely must.

Not necessarily correct. E.g. if you keep swap synchronized as far as possible with RAM the system can react much faster since swap is already in sync, meaning RAM could be freed right away should the need arise.

Note I am not claiming its the better strategy. I don‘t know if anyone is using anything like it. Just saying

 

[pdoherty]

All I can say is I’ve used Linux at home and work off and on since the 1990s, and my general impression of using it (and having looked at swap file usage from time to time) is that it rarely uses it. Almost all the time I ever looked the amount in use was literally 0. Which, IMO, is as it should be. A system not yet tapped of actual RAM has zero business swapping anything to disk (SSD or not).

 

[09872738]

I am aware. There are a lot of strategies when it comes to RAM and swap. Linux seem to be more coservative.
From what I observe Big Sur uses a very different strategy. More aggressive on RAM usage, what may be the reason for a respective swap strategy.
But this is just deduced from merely simple observation, I did not really do any thorough research; but if you think of it, it makes a lot of sense considering modern SSD speeds and write cycles. Is also in line with user experience on modern Macs (M1s, in particular)

 

[Toutou]

A system not yet tapped of actual RAM has zero business swapping anything to disk (SSD or not).

I think that it's a valid strategy to evict some pages preemptively to save time later, when the machine is actually memory starved, if you KNOW that the processes owning the pages will probably not be using them anytime soon. There are processes on my machine that use 5 MB of memory, but they've run for a cumulative tenth of a second in the last two days. Do I need those 5 megabytes in RAM? Absolutely not.

Linux is very conservative in this regard, but that doesn't mean we can't do better, especially since Linux usually drops the ball completely when it runs out of memory.

 

[wirtandi]

I have seen people updating to the latest Big Sur and the problem going away. Looking good, hopefully more people update to the latest to see if it does fix the problem or not

EDIT: If I only use my MBA for basic and simple stuff like web browsing, MS word, MS excel, should I be concerned about this? My understanding is that this is an issue only for those who use heavy programs/professional users

 

[wirtandi]

Could someone confirm if this issue only happens if the laptop is used for heavy tasks? If it is just basic tasks like web browsing and microsoft office, will it cause the same issue?

 

[xyz2610]

Could someone confirm if this issue only happens if the laptop is used for heavy tasks? If it is just basic tasks like web browsing and microsoft office, will it cause the same issue?

Nobody can confirm this at this point since we don’t know why so much data is written to the SSD.

 

[wirtandi]

Honestly, the longer this remains a mystery, the worse it will look for Apple's new M1 chip. They need to respond to this fast

 

[flopticalcube]

Honestly, the longer this remains a mystery, the worse it will look for Apple's new M1 chip. They need to respond to this fast

The same issue is appearing on Intel Macs. It appears to be a Big Sur issue.

 

[Roxy.music]

And the scary thing is you can not replace those SSDs.

Yes, that is the madness. It must limit the life of the M1 Macs. I will wait a while before I think of buying an M1.
I don,t need all that super speed you get on one anyway. I just do basic stuff on my iMac anyway.

 

[Jouls]

It's unnecessary to go through the trouble of installing Homebrew to get smartmontools installed. Just download the installer package from here: https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/Download#InstalltheOSXDarwinpackage

Can someone help, please? I did just that and installed it, I can view the manpages of smartctl but the command itself cannot be found. Do I need Xcode? Hope not...

 

[chrfr]

Can someone help, please? I did just that and installed it, I can view the manpages of smartctl but the command itself cannot be found. Do I need Xcode? Hope not...

what command did you try? The below should work but if terminal was already open when you installed, then the updated path won't work unless you call the full path as below.

/usr/local/sbin/smartctl --all /dev/disk0

 

[Yokon54]

Tell me why I should worry about 1% use in 2 months? Sounds like that means 200 months of usable life?

16+ years not enough?

 

[Jouls]

what command did you try? The below should work but if terminal was already open when you installed, then the updated path won't work unless you call the full path as below.

/usr/local/sbin/smartctl --all /dev/disk0

That did it. Thanks a lot. However .... SMART support is available but disabled. How come? Can I enable it? It is a refurbished MBP 15” 2015.

 

[Malus120]

The same issue is appearing on Intel Macs. It appears to be a Big Sur issue.

This has probably already been brought up by someone earlier, but I don't think this is (exclusively) a Big Sur issue. My old 2018 13" MBP (16GB RAM/256GB SSD) used to write what seemed like absolutely insane amounts of data to the SSD, and that was on Mojave... That said, the combination of Big Sur and the M1 does appear to have exacerbated the issue to the point that people are actually talking about it instead of ignoring it.

 

[Jouls]

I'd almost extend that to not buy until 4th generation model.

iPhone 4
Apple Watch Series 4
iPad 4

iPhone 4 was a complete redesign and thus a generation 1 product. And it had antenna-gate.

 

[Jouls]

That did it. Thanks a lot. However .... SMART support is available but disabled. How come? Can I enable it? It is a refurbished MBP 15” 2015.

Found it: -s on.

 

[Risingsolaris]

Obviously if the soldered SSDs start going pop early, it changes the value proposition, but it's a bit early to claim it to be a widespread problem, and is also likely to be patchable.

 

[wirtandi]

This has probably already been brought up by someone earlier, but I don't think this is (exclusively) a Big Sur issue. My old 2018 13" MBP (16GB RAM/256GB SSD) used to write what seemed like absolutely insane amounts of data to the SSD, and that was on Mojave... That said, the combination of Big Sur and the M1 does appear to have exacerbated the issue to the point that people are actually talking about it instead of ignoring it.

Ok, now we have someone who had this issue on Mojave.

This is all so very confusing now. Yet Apple remains silent...

 

[Chicane-UK]

Having just installed the necessary tools to check, my poverty-spec M1 Pro claims that the SSD is in good health with 0% wear… that said I have only had it a month and really don’t use it heavily.

 

[wirtandi]

Having just installed the necessary tools to check, my poverty-spec M1 Pro claims that the SSD is in good health with 0% wear… that said I have only had it a month and really don’t use it heavily.

Good to hear. So you are a casual user then.

So your percentage used is 0%. Would you be able to show us what your data written and data read is?

 

[Chicane-UK]

Good to hear. So you are a casual user then.

So your percentage used is 0%. Would you be able to show us what your data written and data read is?

I guess in hindsight I do run a reasonable load of applications on it and certainly load up the RAM but mostly only office / productivity... it's been used fairly solidly 9-5 for the last month since acquiring it. But anyway, please see the screenshot attached. I have just upgraded it to 11.2.2 (mostly for the pass through charging issue!) but the potential fix for excessive SSD writes is certainly an added bonus.

 

[Grey Area]

Linux Performance: Why You Should Almost Always Add Swap Space indiaces this may not exactly be true:

"It is normal and can be a good thing for Linux systems to use some swap, even if there is still available RAM."

I'm not convinced. They talk about servers, and their arguments are a) swap space does not hurt when it is not used, b) swap space can be used to stow away rarely used code, freeing up valuable RAM for more immediate needs (or possible emergencies), c) systems with swap will slow down rather than just stop when out of memory, giving admins time to act.

a) is true, but kinda trivial, and in itself not a reason to activate it.

b) gets iffy. Rarely used code from RAM will still outperform rarely used code from swap, so if I do have the RAM to store both the rarely used code and be prepared for what may come, then I don't see what I have to gain from using the swap instead, quite the opposite. Things may be different if I cannot add enough RAM and/or the workloads can increase drastically at unsuitable times outside my control, such as on some web server with other users, like in the article. But on my personal machine right in front of me? I'd rather save my SSD and handle OOM situations myself if they happen, which they haven't for me in over a decade.

c) is similar to b). I suppose it can make sense on a server, although I have also seen servers grind down so badly during swapping that they became barely responsive, and on my computers I'd rather have a clean collapse.

 

[wirtandi]

I guess in hindsight I do run a reasonable load of applications on it and certainly load up the RAM but mostly only office / productivity... it's been used fairly solidly 9-5 for the last month since acquiring it. But anyway, please see the screenshot attached. I have just upgraded it to 11.2.2 (mostly for the pass through charging issue!) but the potential fix for excessive SSD writes is certainly an added bonus.

Your data written/read is very very low compared to many that we have seen here. Could it be the 11.2.2?

 

[Roxy.music]

Surely it is time for Apple to ditech soldiered in SSD,s If they don't in a couple of years time the the second hand market will be over run with M1 Mac,s. In equipment with no upgradeable parts that is built-in obsolescence. I understand you cant use an external drive to run the OS on a M1 Mac..