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m1 mini drives me crazy
- Thread starter digitalField
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I kinda agree but also disagree.
If you know what you’re doing and what load to expect from the software you’re using, 8GB is enough. 16 would be better and allow you to do more but still.
I have an M1 MBA with 8GB and I’m perfectly fine with the memory.
However, I’m not using Chrome and I’m not running loads of software side by side.
I generally use MS Word, Notes, Safari and some chat app next to each other.
Or Affinity Photo and Safari and the chat app. Works perfectly.
My partner, on the other hand, uses Chrome and leaves loads of other stuff running on a 16GB iMac and it tends to get slow and toasty.
Yes, and this is my point. Apple is not doing what is good for the consumer, they are here to fill their bank accounts. Nothing wrong with that, they are not a charity. Nothing will change if the consumer does nothing though, and people keep gobbling everything up. I have been guilty of this at times, I am much more reserved now when it comes to buying from Apple. Used to have a new computer every 2 years, new iPads, iPhones, watch, etc. Now I am holding on much longer refusing to upgrade for a few reasons, most of them are they are not huge updates worth paying more for. Cameras have been great for a long time and I am not pro photographer so a new phone with upgraded specs are not noticeable in apps anymore. I got a phone through work so do have a 13, but I don't notice any difference in speed compared to my 11 or my XR (destroyed in a kayak, the supposed water repellent proved to be non existent on mine).
8GB is fine for the use case, should be no problem at all. I have 32GB and it's often all used as well, OSX uses all available memory if it's there. If more is needed the least important data is kicked from memory.
What's the cpu load? There are some corrupt processes around resulting in a full cpu load.
What's the cpu load? There are some corrupt processes around resulting in a full cpu load.
Frankly there isn't much more to say that using Chrome on an 8GB M1 is pretty much a non-starter.
Had the 8GB model myself as 16 gig models were impossible to purchase for months when the M1 launched here in Germany, and it's a bit better with Firefox, although not much, and a lot with Safari, but both may be not an option for various reasons.
There is not a lot one can do except take the hit, sell the 8 gig machine, and buy a 16 gig model. We reasonably can except a new Mac Mini model at WWDC or in September, so if you can hold out on your purchase for just a bit longer you might either get a discount on the 16 gig model, buy a used one for good money, or even get a new model. But if you need a fix right now there pretty much only is buying a 16 gig model or going for a Mac Studio, which should be good for 5+ years memory wise - but it's pretty damn expensive compared to the Mac Mini. Still: if you can use the extra CPU cores and memory - it's an amazing machine imho.
The really sad part about this is that Apple pulled the rug over a lot of peoples eyes claiming that their magic unified memory would somehow make the system use less ram. This is true if you compare it against a traditional machine with, let's say, 8 gig of ram and 8 gig of vram, simply because (if applications know how to address the memory properly) there is no need to have a copy in both ram and vram. So 16 gig of unified memory will get you much farther than 8 + 8 gig, but if you just compare ram to ram, a system with unified memory will use more CPU bound ram than one with both ram and vram, simply because everything the GPU requires to be in memory has to be in the same pool as your CPU's memory.
So while Apple didn't lie technically, they (and a lot of reviewers) made it appear as if your application would now magically need less ram than it did before - when the opposite is actually true. There absolutely is a valid reason for having an 8 gig configuration, as if all you do is iWork and some Safari browsing, maybe some light Apple Arcade gaming, you are perfectly fine with that. But for everything involving actual work 16 gig is required (but then again enough for most people).
Had the 8GB model myself as 16 gig models were impossible to purchase for months when the M1 launched here in Germany, and it's a bit better with Firefox, although not much, and a lot with Safari, but both may be not an option for various reasons.
There is not a lot one can do except take the hit, sell the 8 gig machine, and buy a 16 gig model. We reasonably can except a new Mac Mini model at WWDC or in September, so if you can hold out on your purchase for just a bit longer you might either get a discount on the 16 gig model, buy a used one for good money, or even get a new model. But if you need a fix right now there pretty much only is buying a 16 gig model or going for a Mac Studio, which should be good for 5+ years memory wise - but it's pretty damn expensive compared to the Mac Mini. Still: if you can use the extra CPU cores and memory - it's an amazing machine imho.
The really sad part about this is that Apple pulled the rug over a lot of peoples eyes claiming that their magic unified memory would somehow make the system use less ram. This is true if you compare it against a traditional machine with, let's say, 8 gig of ram and 8 gig of vram, simply because (if applications know how to address the memory properly) there is no need to have a copy in both ram and vram. So 16 gig of unified memory will get you much farther than 8 + 8 gig, but if you just compare ram to ram, a system with unified memory will use more CPU bound ram than one with both ram and vram, simply because everything the GPU requires to be in memory has to be in the same pool as your CPU's memory.
So while Apple didn't lie technically, they (and a lot of reviewers) made it appear as if your application would now magically need less ram than it did before - when the opposite is actually true. There absolutely is a valid reason for having an 8 gig configuration, as if all you do is iWork and some Safari browsing, maybe some light Apple Arcade gaming, you are perfectly fine with that. But for everything involving actual work 16 gig is required (but then again enough for most people).
Of course Apple is a business and by locking users out of 3rd party options and being force to use Apple's costly upgrade options is smart business, not great for users. No different then what they have done with iPhones, it's not in thier best interest to offer a SD slot so you can expand your storage. It's a tech company they can add any number of options but they choose to control user experience for benefit of money, and sell you on the idea it's in your best interest to do it that way. 🤷♂️
Yeah and the thing is they doing the same mistake with the M1 Pro where you don't have an option with 32GB. I currently have the 16GB model and it's doing pretty well but I can notice it's compressing between 7-9GB when I'm using my Local VM.
But when I ordered mine I'd had to wait almost 2 months for the customised 32GB and that was simply a no go for me, I'm just moving my VMs to the cloud or to my NAS right now.
Only using a single Linux VM in Parallels and that's it.
I can't understand your argument against 8Gb being too little.
In my Workflow, it's fine. Look. I Have Photoshop, Affinity Designer, Illustrator, Safari and Spark opened and the system is snappy as none other Mac I had was.
I'm running a 32"4K display scaled to 1440p.
In my Workflow, it's fine. Look. I Have Photoshop, Affinity Designer, Illustrator, Safari and Spark opened and the system is snappy as none other Mac I had was.
I'm running a 32"4K display scaled to 1440p.
Sure!
A complex file in Affinity Designer with 32 pages. A mockup in Photoshop and a SmartObject in Illustrator. Around 8 tabs in Safari.
lmao dude you're using 2.5GB of swap space and you're trying to tell me 8GB is enough memory
So many don't quite understand what they are looking at and how the unified memory and swapping work and what they are doing.
But in an ARM system you will be running swap anyway.
It always will be running under a swap file. Always.
The way an ARM system runs in RAM and SWAP is the beauty of it.
Why the hell you guys think using swap is some kind of sin? If the system is snappy and he gets his work done who the f cares about what the memory management is doing behind the scenes?
I'm doing web development on my M1 Air, there's an insane amount of stuff opened, including the cluster**** Microsoft Teams and it's using almost 6gb of swap and the machine is not slowing me down one bit... and since switching to Opera GX it's not writing to the ssd that much either. The only problem is Chrome awful memory management. That's why Apple don't allow other browser engines on iOS, imagine the amount of people complaining about slow iPhones because of Chrome... Apple would've to start shipping phones with 8gb of ram like on Android.
Sorry, I can't take you seriously.
Well, I would be pretty mindful about it if I had an SSD that I can't replace...
I own a late 2018 i7, it has 32GB of RAM, if I didn’t add the eGPU to it last year I would’ve upgraded to a M1 MacBook Pro 13-inch. It was getting bad after I went from 8 to 32. With zero GPU on board, it didn’t take much to bog it down. My 4GB Radeon card helped out a lot, but it’ll still remind me of its limits.
Lol it's not a candle, its a computer... You should get yourself better things worry, because the machine will be very outdated before the SSD dies, if ever. According to the SMART reading using smartmontools, Apple rated the 250gb SSD to ~1.7 Petabytes writes. If you write 1TB everyday it would be almost 5 years before it reaches that mark and it will most likely survive way beyond that. Since switching browser I'm only writing up to 200gb a day...
Listening to music and having a few browser tabs open is well within the bounds of normal basic daily tasks, you almost literally cannot get more basic than that.
The M1 mini drives me absolutely crazy. I have had it since launch and its progressively gotten slower and more sluggish.
This was earlier today. Only apps open were Spotify (not playing), Preview (3 pdfs) and Chrome (10-15 tabs). Pretty horrible experience.
OP - Try using the add on called "The Great Suspender", that will suspend tabs when they're not in use and reload them when you need them, it can greatly reduce Chrome's memory footprint. If you're using O365 a lot, those pages are normally very heavy so even suspending one or two of them will save you a ton of memory.
Having said that, your activity monitor output and this memory usage + swap doesn't add up. Something else is chewing up your memory that your user can't see. Is this a work computer, and if so is it running any sort of endpoint protection/anti-virus?
I tried a base M1 MBA and found it mostly fine for my general use. Several Rosetta2 apps (for example Arduino) used more memory than on Intel Mac beside it mainly for GPU helper. Never exceeded 60% and found the SSD so fast even a little swap was imperceptible. Sent it back with idea to get 16/512 now sort of regretting it and wondering if I needed the extra after all even despite adding a Studio as soon as I can get one. Delays in acquiring anything custom concern me at the moment.
I find running aggressive ad and other blockers really improves memory and CPU usage from browser (I use Safari with occasional Firefox such as when I have to endure Facebook). Ad blocks on local browser/system are not really effective - I block at DNS and router. I can recommend PiHole for local or NextDNS for cloud service. Both are like flicking a switch on most sites (including MacRumours) and especially in News (why do I get ads if I subscribe … Apple?). Ads just vanish. Memory use drops.
I wish macOS worked like X … I would love to have a stacked up server even in cloud and run apps there and present GUI on local device - macOS, iOS or whatever. I really miss that from X. Years ago in business we used Citrix to present apps that looked local but ran on Citrix server(s) in data centres for internal and client use. Something like that for mac would be great.
Browsers and websites are tragic these days. I look at memory footprint and am dismayed - GitHub 900MB???? How did we get to this? I think many websites (banking, ebay, facebook and so on) are better as apps that present GUI projected from server/cloud backend. Apps are often little better - VSCode that everyone raves about is shocking (I am used to seeing my VIM instance hover around 30MB). JetBrains tools (look great, shame how they are written) multiple GB.
An 8GB mini should be absolutely fine. The sheer wanton waste and assumption of “more memory, more CPU … and more money for the vendors” and how code is written today is the real culprit. Just imagine the resource impact on our local computers and the wider environment. Maybe we need a campaign to reject greedily written software.
Well … that is that off my mind! Time for coffee…
I find running aggressive ad and other blockers really improves memory and CPU usage from browser (I use Safari with occasional Firefox such as when I have to endure Facebook). Ad blocks on local browser/system are not really effective - I block at DNS and router. I can recommend PiHole for local or NextDNS for cloud service. Both are like flicking a switch on most sites (including MacRumours) and especially in News (why do I get ads if I subscribe … Apple?). Ads just vanish. Memory use drops.
I wish macOS worked like X … I would love to have a stacked up server even in cloud and run apps there and present GUI on local device - macOS, iOS or whatever. I really miss that from X. Years ago in business we used Citrix to present apps that looked local but ran on Citrix server(s) in data centres for internal and client use. Something like that for mac would be great.
Browsers and websites are tragic these days. I look at memory footprint and am dismayed - GitHub 900MB???? How did we get to this? I think many websites (banking, ebay, facebook and so on) are better as apps that present GUI projected from server/cloud backend. Apps are often little better - VSCode that everyone raves about is shocking (I am used to seeing my VIM instance hover around 30MB). JetBrains tools (look great, shame how they are written) multiple GB.
An 8GB mini should be absolutely fine. The sheer wanton waste and assumption of “more memory, more CPU … and more money for the vendors” and how code is written today is the real culprit. Just imagine the resource impact on our local computers and the wider environment. Maybe we need a campaign to reject greedily written software.
Well … that is that off my mind! Time for coffee…
Great Suspender was a staple for me until they sold (a year or two ago) and new owners injected tracking/malware into it. But just recently (last couple days) discovered that someone forked the code and rereleased it as The Marvelous Suspender and happy to reports its Marvelous and havnt had a memory issue since.
I was thinking this too because for the first year or so of ownership I never had any issues... While I do use work/Office365 apps on this computer its my home machine so no work 'it' stuff has been installed on it. Are their any good diagnostic steps/tools to help figure out whats soaking up mem? or just activitiy monitor + google?
If you have root/admin access, you could just use something like top or htop as root and see if anything shows up. You could probably do the same thing with Activity Monitor but I've never bothered to look into how to run that as root or if that's even a thing it can do.