Mac Mini M1 8 gig vs 16 gig SSD Longevity

[gloryofgreece]

Is there a concern with only 8 gig of RAM, M1 mac could use more swap memory than that of 16 gig ram, thus causing wear and tear on the SSD over time leading to premature demise?

I am a computer science student, but not a power user. i dont really use any photography or video editing tools.

 

[rui no onna]

There's discussion on this on the 8GB vs 16GB RAM thread as well as here:

Smartmontool Reporting abnormally high SSD write activities?

Hi all, I have been using the lowest end Mac mini (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) for two weeks now, and I am pretty happy with it. My workflow doesn't seem to stress the CPU that much, and memory pressure stays in the green zone 95% of the time. When I start coding and running emulators in Xcode, it...

forums.macrumors.com

DriveDX reports attributes for Available Spare, Life Percentage Used and Host Writes (albeit, the accuracy of Host Writes is in question).

@thinkingBanana has reported host writes of 6.1/6.7 TiB/TB but even with those relatively high numbers, Life Percentage Used still hasn't moved at all.

At this point, we're just at wait and see.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Is there a concern with only 8 gig of RAM, M1 mac could use more swap memory than that of 16 gig ram, thus causing wear and tear on the SSD over time leading to premature demise?

I am a computer science student, but not a power user. i dont really use any photography or video editing tools.

We're talking about a $200 difference for a component that you'll likely want to upgrade down the road anyway, but won't be able to since you can't upgrade the RAM on an M1 Mac. I'd just spec for 16GB of RAM and call it a day. If you're a student, then it becomes a $180 upgrade.

 

[moldy lunchbox]

I don't think it is an issue, as Apple's stock M1 MBP/Air configurations that ship out to retail Apple Stores, Best Buy, Target, etc. are only 8GB RAM models. The 16GB M1 has to be custom-ordered from the Apple site...meaning that MAJORITY of M1 owners will only have 8GB RAM. Apple believes that is fine for most customers, who all will expect the long-lasting reputation of Mac computers.

But if after hearing that you're still worried, or still gonna think about swap than just buy the 16 GB RAM model and move on.

 

[russell_314]

This is what happens with some Youtubers make up crap for views. If less ram killed MacBooks every older MacBook with 4 GB of RAM would be dead now ?

 

[Yebubbleman]

I don't think it is an issue, as Apple's stock M1 MBP/Air configurations that ship out to retail Apple Stores, Best Buy, Target, etc. are only 8GB RAM models. The 16GB M1 has to be custom-ordered from the Apple site...meaning that MAJORITY of M1 owners will only have 8GB RAM. Apple believes that is fine for most customers, who all will expect the long-lasting reputation of Mac computers.

But if after hearing that you're still worried, or still gonna think about swap than just buy the 16 GB RAM model and move on.

I might just distill it down to the text in bold.