M3 Macbook Pro SSD Writes seems unusual?

[Sitron]

Hello Mac Fellows,



I recently switched from Windows to a brand new m3 MacBook Pro 8gb ram, 512 GB SSD (Been 6 days). Performance-wise, I'm over satisfied, it's super fast and everything works flawlessly. Even with yellow memory pressure, didn't see any performance drops.



I'm a graphic designer so I mostly use a browser Adobe Illustrator, and a bit of Photoshop for specific purposes like mockups.



The main issue about mac is the SSD that's not replaceable, I want to keep this Mac for 5 years at least. Because of that, I started to monitor the activity monitor very closely, especially, the swap used.



I noticed that mac is handling my current workflow perfectly, it stays mostly green, it uses swap like max 1gb, only when I open many tabs, that's when it becomes yellow. I first was using safari but maybe because of this update, it's a huge memory hog, this is why, I switched to edge which works super efficiently.



Now, long story short, I thought that I'm writing less to SSD since I'm only occasionally or using very little swap but when I started monitoring Disk tab on the activity monitor, I saw a crazy thing, at least, I think that it must be crazy, upon opening laptop, I see disk writes go to 500-800mb sometimes, within maybe 4-5 hours, I wrote 30gb or more. I believe, I'm writing 50gb-60gb per day, is that normal? Will this type of writing kill my SSD sooner like in 2-3 years?



Just checked the drivedx, and it says that I wrote 500 GB to SSD, it seems too much for 4 days, but I guess when I was using Safari, it jumped too high like 70 GB within a short time, this can be the cause.



Is this some kind of bug with sonoma? Is this behaviour of SSD norma? Should I use low power mode or something to make mac write less?



Would appreciate your help.



Thanks to all!

 

[Bigwaff]

Normal. Many threads on this topic and lots of misinformation. Under normal use (your use described here), SSD components will last a decade or more unless there are manufacturing defects.

 

[Fishrrman]

Well, the core of the problem is that you bought an m-series Mac with only 8gb of RAM.

As you're discovering, 8gb is "no longer enough".
With the m-series, 16gb of RAM is "the new 8".

Are you still within the free "return window"?
If so, I advise you to exchange it for one with 16gb of installed RAM.

 

[Bigwaff]

Well, the core of the problem is that you bought an m-series Mac with only 8gb of RAM.

As you're discovering, 8gb is "no longer enough".
With the m-series, 16gb of RAM is "the new 8".

Are you still within the free "return window"?
If so, I advise you to exchange it for one with 16gb of installed RAM.

I find this to be melodramatic. OP says his current usage and workflow with 8GB Ram to be sufficient. The SSD NAND chips will last decade or more with normal swap usage.

 

[MRxROBOT]

I find this to be melodramatic. OP says his current usage and workflow with 8GB Ram to be sufficient. The SSD NAND chips will last decade or more with normal swap usage.

500GB every 4 days is 45 TB a year, 450TB over 10 years. Higher end consumer SSDs with only a 500GB capacity typically have a 300TBW lifecycle. With this trajectory we're looking at about 6 and half years until the drive reaches its expected lifespan and we all know drives can fail long before their expected lifespan. I would grab a MacBook with more RAM or a 1TB SSD, which should have a 600TBW Lifespan. I'd personally grab a system with more RAM.

 

[smirking]

How long have you had it? Gauging the amount of writes you've done over a short period of time, especially if it's when you first get your machine is going to be very unreliable as all sorts of things happen to get the system properly setup for everyday use.

Agreeing with @Bigwaff. Your numbers aren't extraordinary. Heaver than the average user, but within normal.

Don't stress out about swap happening or not. Concerns about swap are grossly exaggerated. The chance of you exhausting your SSD due to normal wear and tear is small. The lifetime rating is just a warranty number. Defects happen, but you're unlikely to just wear it out. They're not like tires and modern day SSDs have been shown in testing to far surpass their write ratings anyway.

If you must obsess about your SSD writes, then at least wait until you have 2-3 months worth of data so that your usage averages out.

 

[MRxROBOT]

How long have you had it? Gauging the amount of writes you've done over a short period of time, especially if it's when you first get your machine is going to be very unreliable as all sorts of things happen to get the system properly setup for everyday use.

Agreeing with @Bigwaff. Your numbers aren't extraordinary. Heaver than the average user, but within normal.

Don't stress out about swap happening or not. Concerns about swap are grossly exaggerated. The chance of you exhausting your SSD due to normal wear and tear is small. The lifetime rating is just a warranty number. Defects happen, but you're unlikely to just wear it out. They're not like tires and modern day SSDs have been shown in testing to far surpass their write ratings anyway.

If you must obsess about your SSD writes, then at least wait until you have 2-3 months worth of data so that your usage averages out.

TBW is an endurance spec. Warranties often align with this because most users will long pass their warranty time frame before hitting the drives TBW. Ignoring these specs is careless at best.

"In pure form, a TBW rating tells you roughly how much data you can write to an SSD before it runs out of extra NAND to replace worn-out blocks (Cells are grouped into pages and blocks). Yes, NAND cells have a write lifespan and SSDs have spares to take over from those that are end of life (EOL). Depending on the type of NAND in use, the generation, and the quality, end of cell life can be anywhere from a couple thousand to hundreds of thousands of write cycles" - PCW

 

[smirking]

"In pure form, a TBW rating tells you roughly how much data you can write to an SSD before it runs out of extra NAND to replace worn-out blocks (Cells are grouped into pages and blocks). Yes, NAND cells have a write lifespan and SSDs have spares to take over from those that are end of life (EOL). Depending on the type of NAND in use, the generation, and the quality, end of cell life can be anywhere from a couple thousand to hundreds of thousands of write cycles" - PCW

Google and University of Toronto did a multi-year study on SSDs used in Google's data centers and found no change in the failure rate of their SSDs when they hit their rated lifespan (3000 PE Cycles in the chart). While the lifespan consumed number didn't predict rate of failure, the older a drive was regardless of how much it was used was correlated with a significantly higher failure rate. Bear in mind, the total failure rate in this study was 1-2% so even with that significantly higher failure rate, we're still talking about small numbers.

This study was published in 2016. SSDs have only gotten more reliable since then.

https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast16/technical-sessions/presentation/schroeder

 

[ChrisA]

This is yet another case of someone needing to use a microscope to detect a problem. If you need instrumentation to notice the problem, it is not a problem.

The storage in the computer will almost certainly last longer than you will want to own the computer. At some point, Apple will release a version of MacOS that does not run on your computer and then Adobe will require a MacOS version that you can't run. This will force you to buy a new computer. This is will happen before the SSD becomes unusable.

But will you keep this computer that long? Likely you will need a new computer because you want to do more with your computer. Who knows what? Perhaps artists will be working with AI assistants? In any case, in 2033 few people will want a 2023 vintage Mac. The SSD only has to last past this point.

 

[MRxROBOT]

Google and University of Toronto did a multi-year study on SSDs used in Google's data centers and found no change in the failure rate of their SSDs when they hit their rated lifespan (3000 PE Cycles in the chart). While the lifespan consumed number didn't predict rate of failure, the older a drive was regardless of how much it was used was correlated with a significantly higher failure rate. Bear in mind, the total failure rate in this study was 1-2% so even with that significantly higher failure rate, we're still talking about small numbers.

This study was published in 2016. SSDs have only gotten more reliable since then.

https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast16/technical-sessions/presentation/schroeder
View attachment 2327114

Your chart is missing a lot of information and all DRIVES DID NOT HAVE A PE RATING OF 3,000.

Most notably, 40% of the drive models in this study had a PE Cycle rating of 100,000 and 20% had a rating of 10,000. So extrapolating your conclusion from the 4,000 PE Cycle chart is misleading at best. The chart you posted does however show that the age of an SSD does have an effect beyond just PE Cycles and that's exactly what the chart was used to demonstrate in the study.

 

[IG88]

Is this some kind of bug with sonoma? Is this behaviour of SSD norma? Should I use low power mode or something to make mac write less?

8GB of RAM is the issue unfortunately. Your machine is apparently doing a lot of swapping to the SSD.

Not much you can do about it.

If you're inside the holiday return window, return it and get one with at least 16GB of RAM.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Hello Mac Fellows,



I recently switched from Windows to a brand new m3 MacBook Pro 8gb ram, 512 GB SSD (Been 6 days). Performance-wise, I'm over satisfied, it's super fast and everything works flawlessly. Even with yellow memory pressure, didn't see any performance drops.



I'm a graphic designer so I mostly use a browser Adobe Illustrator, and a bit of Photoshop for specific purposes like mockups.



The main issue about mac is the SSD that's not replaceable, I want to keep this Mac for 5 years at least. Because of that, I started to monitor the activity monitor very closely, especially, the swap used.



I noticed that mac is handling my current workflow perfectly, it stays mostly green, it uses swap like max 1gb, only when I open many tabs, that's when it becomes yellow. I first was using safari but maybe because of this update, it's a huge memory hog, this is why, I switched to edge which works super efficiently.



Now, long story short, I thought that I'm writing less to SSD since I'm only occasionally or using very little swap but when I started monitoring Disk tab on the activity monitor, I saw a crazy thing, at least, I think that it must be crazy, upon opening laptop, I see disk writes go to 500-800mb sometimes, within maybe 4-5 hours, I wrote 30gb or more. I believe, I'm writing 50gb-60gb per day, is that normal? Will this type of writing kill my SSD sooner like in 2-3 years?



Just checked the drivedx, and it says that I wrote 500 GB to SSD, it seems too much for 4 days, but I guess when I was using Safari, it jumped too high like 70 GB within a short time, this can be the cause.



Is this some kind of bug with sonoma? Is this behaviour of SSD norma? Should I use low power mode or something to make mac write less?



Would appreciate your help.



Thanks to all!

Return that box. "m3 MacBook Pro 8gb ram, 512 GB SSD" is a terrible choice for anyone dealing with graphics work or images. You should have much more RAM for sure and maybe a 1 TB SDD as well (boot SSD should be about half the expected use capacity during the life of the box). Adobe-type apps like lots of RAM. I say like because it is all about how apps/OS optimize, and Mac OS with Adobe-type apps optimize using lots of RAM.

You do not need M3 so you can save some money going M2, but IMO you should consider 64 GB the minimum RAM you should get, which also pushes you up to a stronger Max chip I believe. Unless you are doing certain 3D or shader apps like Maya or Blender, an M2 Max is much, much stronger than an M3 base level. My apps are not that different from yours and I sit at 40-50GB RAM usage today, M2 MBP with 96 GB RAM.

Edit: RAM usage always increases over time, and any box bought today should be configured to reasonably plan on staying viable until ~2030.

Edit2: Apple overcharges for SSD capacity. You should evaluate how you can use (inexpensive) external SSDs to supplement the boot SSD capacity rather than trying to buy a huge boot SSD from Apple unless you have lots of money. I find 1 TB about right for boot SSD and use the Cloud a lot.

 

[Rychiar]

Hello Mac Fellows,



I recently switched from Windows to a brand new m3 MacBook Pro 8gb ram, 512 GB SSD (Been 6 days). Performance-wise, I'm over satisfied, it's super fast and everything works flawlessly. Even with yellow memory pressure, didn't see any performance drops.



I'm a graphic designer so I mostly use a browser Adobe Illustrator, and a bit of Photoshop for specific purposes like mockups.



The main issue about mac is the SSD that's not replaceable, I want to keep this Mac for 5 years at least. Because of that, I started to monitor the activity monitor very closely, especially, the swap used.



I noticed that mac is handling my current workflow perfectly, it stays mostly green, it uses swap like max 1gb, only when I open many tabs, that's when it becomes yellow. I first was using safari but maybe because of this update, it's a huge memory hog, this is why, I switched to edge which works super efficiently.



Now, long story short, I thought that I'm writing less to SSD since I'm only occasionally or using very little swap but when I started monitoring Disk tab on the activity monitor, I saw a crazy thing, at least, I think that it must be crazy, upon opening laptop, I see disk writes go to 500-800mb sometimes, within maybe 4-5 hours, I wrote 30gb or more. I believe, I'm writing 50gb-60gb per day, is that normal? Will this type of writing kill my SSD sooner like in 2-3 years?



Just checked the drivedx, and it says that I wrote 500 GB to SSD, it seems too much for 4 days, but I guess when I was using Safari, it jumped too high like 70 GB within a short time, this can be the cause.



Is this some kind of bug with sonoma? Is this behaviour of SSD norma? Should I use low power mode or something to make mac write less?



Would appreciate your help.



Thanks to all!

I’m impressed that you’re working that efficiently as a designer. I’m currently using a Mac mini M2 base as a stop gap machine til i get a studio and i frequently have over 50 gigs writing to swap cus 8gb of ram is almost useless.

 

[Flash1420]

I would be more concerned about the RAM size. 8GB is simply not enough these days, because applications are getting more powerful and using more resources than a few years ago. Sure in 2015, it would have been fine, but it is almost 2024 and we still have 8GB. Memory prices have decreased significantly since then so there should be no excuse for Apple to at least include 12GB for the base.

 

[Sitron]

Well, the core of the problem is that you bought an m-series Mac with only 8gb of RAM.

As you're discovering, 8gb is "no longer enough".
With the m-series, 16gb of RAM is "the new 8".

Are you still within the free "return window"?
If so, I advise you to exchange it for one with 16gb of installed RAM.

I'm actually rarely seeing any limitations of 8gb, if it was limiting, I would have mentioned this as swap issue.

The problem are ssd writes without swap that normally go up to 40-60gb per day currently.

 

[Sitron]

How long have you had it? Gauging the amount of writes you've done over a short period of time, especially if it's when you first get your machine is going to be very unreliable as all sorts of things happen to get the system properly setup for everyday use.

Agreeing with @Bigwaff. Your numbers aren't extraordinary. Heaver than the average user, but within normal.

Don't stress out about swap happening or not. Concerns about swap are grossly exaggerated. The chance of you exhausting your SSD due to normal wear and tear is small. The lifetime rating is just a warranty number. Defects happen, but you're unlikely to just wear it out. They're not like tires and modern day SSDs have been shown in testing to far surpass their write ratings anyway.

If you must obsess about your SSD writes, then at least wait until you have 2-3 months worth of data so that your usage averages out.

Thanks for the advice.

My brother has a macbook air 8gb version woth 256gb and his total wrotes are 3tb for 2.5 years, this is why, I panicked a bit.

But I liked youe suggestion, I maybe overeacting, it seems that system writes to ssd even without swap.

 

[Sitron]

This is yet another case of someone needing to use a microscope to detect a problem. If you need instrumentation to notice the problem, it is not a problem.

The storage in the computer will almost certainly last longer than you will want to own the computer. At some point, Apple will release a version of MacOS that does not run on your computer and then Adobe will require a MacOS version that you can't run. This will force you to buy a new computer. This is will happen before the SSD becomes unusable.

But will you keep this computer that long? Likely you will need a new computer because you want to do more with your computer. Who knows what? Perhaps artists will be working with AI assistants? In any case, in 2033 few people will want a 2023 vintage Mac. The SSD only has to last past this point.

You're right, probably I'm overeacting.

 

[Sitron]

8GB of RAM is the issue unfortunately. Your machine is apparently doing a lot of swapping to the SSD.

Not much you can do about it.

If you're inside the holiday return window, return it and get one with at least 16GB of RAM

Swap is almost always 0 but macos still writes to ssd,.

 

[Sitron]

Return that box. "m3 MacBook Pro 8gb ram, 512 GB SSD" is a terrible choice for anyone dealing with graphics work or images. You should have much more RAM for sure and maybe a 1 TB SDD as well (boot SSD should be about half the expected use capacity during the life of the box). Adobe-type apps like lots of RAM. I say like because it is all about how apps/OS optimize, and Mac OS with Adobe-type apps optimize using lots of RAM.

You do not need M3 so you can save some money going M2, but IMO you should consider 64 GB the minimum RAM you should get, which also pushes you up to a stronger Max chip I believe. Unless you are doing certain 3D or shader apps like Maya or Blender, an M2 Max is much, much stronger than an M3 base level. My apps are not that different from yours and I sit at 40-50GB RAM usage today, M2 MBP with 96 GB RAM.

Edit: RAM usage always increases over time, and any box bought today should be configured to reasonably plan on staying viable until ~2030.

Edit2: Apple overcharges for SSD capacity. You should evaluate how you can use (inexpensive) external SSDs to supplement the boot SSD capacity rather than trying to buy a huge boot SSD from Apple unless you have lots of money. I find 1 TB about right for boot SSD and use the Cloud a lot.

Maybe you're focuses on a mpre heavy graphic work, mine exceels with that machine. The only problem, I didn't understand was macos writing gb's to ssd even in cases where only the browser and maybe 1 program was avtive.

 

[Sitron]

I would be more concerned about the RAM size. 8GB is simply not enough these days, because applications are getting more powerful and using more resources than a few years ago. Sure in 2015, it would have been fine, but it is almost 2024 and we still have 8GB. Memory prices have decreased significantly since then so there should be no excuse for Apple to at least include 12GB for the base.

Yeah I agree. More ram would always been better, but I'm heavy illustrator user and cpu power is more important for me which is one of the reasons, I chose this model.

 

[IG88]

Swap is almost always 0 but macos still writes to ssd

That's very odd. Are you using something like iStat Menus to monitor swap?

My previous base M1 MB Air with 8GB of RAM, the swap file was never 0 and I never used RAM intensive apps like Illustrator or Photoshop. I have serious doubts that your swap file is almost always 0.

 

[Sitron]

That's very odd. Are you using something like iStat Menus to monitor swap?

My previous base M1 MB Air with 8GB of RAM, the swap file was never 0 and I never used RAM intensive apps like Illustrator or Photoshop. I have serious doubts that your swap file is almost always 0.

Safari was using more than 3gb at some pages, I guess that could be on your case.

Illustrator is not very ram intensive, photoshop is but I try to keep everything minimal while running it so system stays at green and swaps used: 0, when I start to open 10÷ tabs on edge or something it increases but not drastically like 500mb of swap or max 1gb.

 

[Sitron]

At some forum, icloud syncing was mentioned, I guess that could be the problem or spotlight indexing.

 

[IG88]

Safari was using more than 3gb at some pages, I guess that could be on your case.

Illustrator is not very ram intensive, photoshop is but I try to keep everything minimal while running it so system stays at green and swaps used: 0, when I start to open 10÷ tabs on edge or something it increases but not drastically like 500mb of swap or max 1gb.

When the M1 was still relatively new, there were memory leaks in some Rosetta apps (Intel) that were causing some people huge SSD writes. But as far as I recall, that showed up in RAM usage / swap as well.

M1 Mac Users Report Excessive SSD Wear

Over the past week, some M1 Mac users have been reporting alarming SSD health readings, suggesting that these devices are writing extraordinary...

www.macrumors.com

 

[saudor]

You do not need M3 so you can save some money going M2, but IMO you should consider 64 GB the minimum RAM you should get, which also pushes you up to a stronger Max chip I believe.

This is insane overkill. I do heavy graphics work in photoshop with 100+ layers/multiple huge files open and I never break 32gb RAM. Only exception is once i start dumping stuff into premiere pro, it'll get close.