mac ssd usage

[jdb8167]

are there any apple ssd tests?
Are you saying this based on personal experience

Where did you get such data?

I recently saw the results of one user on reddit, and they surprised me.

at 620 terabytes, the disk health percentage is 57 percent.
Samsung disks were tested, and there the memory capacity was 4000-7000 terabytes for the 250 GB version, why couldn't Apple make the same reliable disks?

There are many reports here on macrumors where people report their TBW and health. It is pretty easy to extrapolate.

Search this thread for "health" to get an idea. 1500 TBW is pretty conservative. Your example would be about 1440 TBW to 0% for a 256 GB SSD. Being at 0% health doesn't necessarily mean that your SSD stops working.

 

[gank41]

Here's the SSD SMART stats on my M1 MBP 2TB/16GB purchased in late November 2020:

Note that there was well over 120+ "Unsafe Shutdowns" dating back to the initial Big Sur beta days, and that I've been using this thing on MOST of the macOS betas all along the way. I use this for work (3 different browsers each with many tabs, Citrix, RDP) along with using it for recording with Logic Pro. I've used it for iMazing backups in the house, and even though those backups are on an external drive, the data still has to pass thru this MBP which will count against any data written on the SSD, too. I feel like I'm still in really good shape.


*You can find out how to check your drive's SMART stats via Terminal Here.

 

[Toonartist]

I've had a MacBook Pro M1 Pro 16gb Ram 1TB SSD for somewhere between 2-3 years. I use large files in photoshop and other image software for work and rarely have less than 10 apps running, couple of 28" montors, one of which is a Wacom Cintiq. Use plenty of swap, never seems to slow down. I stopped worrying about SSD usage after a couple of months.

As it stands the "Data Units Written" stands at 57TB and "SSD Lifetime Left Indicator" is 98%. Zero data and integrity errors. I don't baby it at all... I just use it.

 

[skottichan]

Here's my, exactly 11 month old, M2 Pro Mini.

looks like, with my normal usage, I'll be at 25TB/yr.

So, if an Apple SSD only lasts 150TB, then I have 6 years, give or take.

 

[Toonartist]

Here's my, exactly 11 month old, M2 Pro Mini.

looks like, with my normal usage, I'll be at 25TB/yr.

So, if an Apple SSD only lasts 150TB, then I have 6 years, give or take.

View attachment 2347700

I'd say a lot more given the 100% SSD Lifetime indicator. But even if it was 6yrs, there's a good chance you'll have upgraded by then anyway. I normally upgrade every 3-4 yrs as I can sell it at that point without having to declare the sale price as earnings.

 

[MacCheetah3]

This is an insightful post.

As a test, I've been trying for months to "kill" two Mac Mini M1s I owned before upgrading them to 2 TB.

I wrote with a script 700TB of data before their SMART "remaining life" status went to 0% which is remarkable for 256GB SSDs. This is a 700TBW "official" lifetime.

But there's more : I've continued the test and is is still not over.
At that time, my 2 mac minis both continue to accept writes at the nominal rate (3GB/s on the 1st third and 700MB/s thereafter as they're in TLC).

I'm up to 2.3PB of written data on one mac mini.
And 4.5PB on the other I started earlier (and still running).
4.5PBW... for a 256 2-chips SSD...
And both are still running day and night, just like the first day.

This does seem to coincide with the lifetime remaining indicator/estimates seen. As my own updated anecdote: my Mac minis SSD is now at 18 TBW with an indicated/estimated 1% life used, that makes a predicted 1,800 terabyte or 1.8 petabytes endurance.

 

[skottichan]

I'd say a lot more given the 100% SSD Lifetime indicator. But even if it was 6yrs, there's a good chance you'll have upgraded by then anyway. I normally upgrade every 3-4 yrs as I can sell it at that point without having to declare the sale price as earnings.

Oh yeah, that's kind of my problem, I love getting new stuff. My usual turnover is about 3-5yrs. My only exception was going from a M1 iMac, to my current Mini, and that's only because I got a Thunderbolt Display for free, and didn't have enough space for the iMac if I wanted to use the TBD.

 

[dontlan]

Here's my, exactly 11 month old, M2 Pro Mini.

looks like, with my normal usage, I'll be at 25TB/yr.

So, if an Apple SSD only lasts 150TB, then I have 6 years, give or take.

View attachment 2347700

Don't you realize that a 512gb ssd lasts twice as long as a 256gb ssd?

 

[skottichan]

Don't you realize that a 512gb ssd lasts twice as long as a 256gb ssd?

Nope, not really. It's why I hang around here and engage, so I can learn stuff.

 

[thebart]

I don't know how the drive determines health though. I know its hours in use is off by an order of magnitude

 

[MacCheetah3]

I know its hours in use is off by an order of magnitude

Ironically, you noted the key point but seem to overlook the fact SSDs typically don’t need/have a lot of active time.

I don't know how the drive determines health though.

Brief and simple​

1. We do not calculate the percentage of the drive health. The SSD itself calculates it and gives it to us. Or in other words, this data comes from the manufacturer of the drive.

2. The estimated lifetime is calculated depending on the amount of data written to the drive. If it is not calculated yet, it means that little data has been written to it. Simply wait a bit, it does not usually take more than a week (or two) after the first launch of the program.

How SSD health is calculated?

We answer one of the most common tech support questions - how SSD health is calculated?

ssd-life.com

Percentage Lifetime Remaining (Percentage Lifetime Used on PCIe)

This attribute is exactly as its name implies. It is a measure of how much of the drive’s projected lifetime is remaining at any point in time. When the SSD is brand new, Attribute 202 will report “100”, and when its specified lifetime has been reached, it will show “0,” reporting that 0 percent of the lifetime remains.

However, it’s important to realize what it means to use the projected lifetime – it does not mean that the drive is going to fail when that counter reaches zero, only that your SSD may need to be replaced soon.

The lifetime of a NAND-flash device is defined by another characteristic: data retention. Data retention is the amount of time that the device can safely store and allow successful retrieval of user data in an unpowered state. When an SSD or other NAND-flash device is brand new, its unpowered data retention will be several years. However, almost like human memory, it gets shorter as it experiences wear and tear, by writing data (data reads do not directly cause wear).

The Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) is the industry group which creates standards and specifications for semiconductor-based devices and assemblies. Micron is a leading member of JEDEC, which defines data retention in a specific way: For SSDs in client applications (like business or personal computers), data retention for an SSD shall be one year, in an unpowered state, stored at 30 °C (86 °F). This should give most computer users plenty of time to retrieve any data from an unused drive after some time on the shelf, if needed.

You might be able to tell from this description that the SSD can be expected to work quite well as the lifetime counter counts down from 100 percent. However, as time carries on, data retention will continue to degrade, down from one year to six months to three months, and so on. Eventually, long beyond the warrantied life of the drive, any new write will not be retainable at all while unpowered.

However, SSD firmware takes this into account. As the SSD continues to age, error correction code (ECC), read retries, adaptive read parameters, background data maintenance, and other adjustments in firmware can correct problems that arise because of gradually degrading data retention. As NAND data blocks degrade, they can be replaced by on-board spares, and normal operations can proceed. Of course, all these background operations take place when power is on, which is why data retention is defined in an unpowered state.

This attribute is also presented as "Percentage Lifetime Used" on certain legacy Crucial SSDs, as well as NVMe models, and works similarly to Lifetime Remaining, only in reverse. The new SSD's Attribute 202 will report “0”, and when its specified lifetime has been reached, it will show “100,” reporting that 100 percent of the lifetime has been used. On these models, the percentage can exceed 100 as more write operations are done, but the data retention concerns are the same.

SSDs and SMART data

A SMART enabled storage drive monitors itself and collects data, and this data can be read and interpreted with the help of utilities capable of reporting the SMART data to the user.

www.crucial.com

Here are some far geekier outlines and explanations:

https://www.flashmemorysummit.com/English/Collaterals/Proceedings/2011/20110810_T1B_Cox.pdf

Estimating SSD Endurance With SMART Attributes

The SMART system can help predict SSD endurance by reporting data on drive health.

insights.samsung.com

 

[Feek]

So, if an Apple SSD only lasts 150TB, then I have 6 years, give or take.

Where does this magical number come from?

The 1Tb SSD in my iMac has used 8% of its life with 1.7PB read and 215Tb written. This SSD is six years old, technology has come on since then and I'd expect the lifespan to be significantly longer now.

There is literally nothing to be concerned about regarding SSD lifespan.

 

[skottichan]

Where does this magical number come from?

The 1Tb SSD in my iMac has used 8% of its life with 1.7PB read and 215Tb written. This SSD is six years old, technology has come on since then and I'd expect the lifespan to be significantly longer now.

There is literally nothing to be concerned about regarding SSD lifespan.

I've seen it bandied about in previous arguments, and in a couple tech articles. Like this one states Samsung SSDs “built to handle 150 terabytes written (TBW), which equates to a 40 GB daily read/write workload over a ten-year period.”

SSD Lifespan: How Long do SSDs Really Last?

Ontrack discusses SSDs, physical faults, malfunctioning controller and storage chips, and hazards of recovering data with data recovery software.

www.ontrack.com

 

[Spindel]

This thread is kind of interesting, in the first big topic about SSD writes I made this post, on February 17 2021:

ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

M1 Mini 16 GB had it since around 20 november, working on it every day. EDIT:// the on time reported is questionable.

forums.macrumors.com

You can compare it to what DriveDx gives me today almost exactly 3 years later (same computer M1 mini 16 GB and 512 GB SSD that I got 20 November 2020) with no "tweaks" done to memory/swap management what so ever.

And some more detailed data from DriveDx below

I have no worries at all for the life time of the drive and this I have stated in other threads (including the one linked in the beginning of this post).

And further, as I stated later in the thread (linked to in the beginning of this post) I actually highly doubt the values that tools like DriveDX gives out. I just can't see that it reads the data from the drive(s) correctly. Just a thing like reported power on time seems very off to me, temp readings are weird etc.

Stop worrying and just use your computers people.

 

[Feek]

Stop worrying and just use your computers people.

Hear hear!

Exactly what I do. No monitoring, no poring over stats or performance figures. I felt I needed to do that when I ran Windows but I switched away fully in August 2008 and haven't cared in the slightest about anything like that since.

 

[jdb8167]

I actually highly doubt the values that tools like DriveDX gives out

The values come directly from macOS APIs written by Apple. They are as correct as Apple wants them to be. There is no reason to doubt them.

I wrote my own version to read and report the information just to verify this when it was controversial a few years ago.