ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

[IceStormNG]

So? Apple already charges a ridiculous premium for RAM upgrades (200$ for additional 8GB off-the-shelf LPDDR4X).
So if we shell out the money, they should just let us finally use it and not swap to disk for no reason. While 11.4 has fixed the extreme swapping, it still swaps for no reason. Even on Intel machines. Especially noticeable after letting the mac sleep over night. It swaps out as much as possible before going to sleep, then goes to sleep. After wakeup though, it doesn't load the swapped out memory back into RAM. This causes several performance issues when using Apps with swapped out memory until macOS finally swapped their stuff back in.


It can't be so hard to just keep stuff in memory until memory is actually low. And not like.. "oh, no. 20% RAM is used. Let's start swapping".

 

[pshufd]

So? Apple already charges a ridiculous premium for RAM upgrades (200$ for additional 8GB off-the-shelf LPDDR4X).
So if we shell out the money, they should just let us finally use it and not swap to disk for no reason. While 11.4 has fixed the extreme swapping, it still swaps for no reason. Even on Intel machines. Especially noticeable after letting the mac sleep over night. It swaps out as much as possible before going to sleep, then goes to sleep. After wakeup though, it doesn't load the swapped out memory back into RAM. This causes several performance issues when using Apps with swapped out memory until macOS finally swapped their stuff back in.

It can't be so hard to just keep stuff in memory until memory is actually low. And not like.. "oh, no. 20% RAM is used. Let's start swapping".

Is this a Big Sur issue? I'm running Mojave and don't see any swap at all on my systems.

 

[IceStormNG]

Is this a Big Sur issue? I'm running Mojave and don't see any swap at all on my systems.

Big Sur and also Catalina to some degree. I also cannot remember having that issue on Mojave or older.

 

[Spindel]

a source at Apple unofficially told AppleInsider that there were no problems with the SSD itself or its firmware (which in the case of Apple's latest PCs is a combination of a controller inside the M1, a couple of 3D NAND memory stacks, and custom firmware), but there was 'a data reporting error' within the SMART Monitoring Tools program used to discover SSD wear.

Emphasis on the bolded part by me.

Apple's New MacOS Update Reportedly Fixes SSD Wear Issue on M1 Macs

Apple reportedly fixes a problem that only a handful of people ran into

www.tomshardware.com

Told you so!
Just go back to the beginning of the thread at see my posts regarding this issue that has been circle jerked for more than 2800 posts by now.

 

[IceStormNG]

Sorry, but that sounds like a lame excuse to me. If Activity monitor also reported the writes, then they're correct as it doesn't rely on SMART.
The issue also existed on non-M1 Laptops after Big Sur install.

 

[Spindel]

Sorry, but that sounds like a lame excuse to me. If Activity monitor also reported the writes, then they're correct as it doesn't rely on SMART.
The issue also existed on non-M1 Laptops after Big Sur install.

Yes because it was a big sur problem.

Because instead of panicking I noted and pointed out that aside from the power on hours and temperatures these tools reported (that where off) the tools reported the same writes as activity monitor over a day.

The kicker is that activity monitor reports ALL writes to ALL drives connected to the computer. And if you have network drives or external drives connected it becomes really strange that the SMART reporting report the same number to the internal SSD as the number activity monitor reports that includes writes to external drives and network drives.

Again

Told you so!

 

[Mike Boreham]

The kicker is that activity monitor reports ALL writes to ALL drives connected to the computer. And if you have network drives or external drives connected it becomes really strange that the SMART reporting report the same number to the internal SSD as the number activity monitor reports that includes writes to external drives and network drives.

If it was all this simple there would not be a 2800 post thread. DriveDx, SmartMonTools and SmartTBW do not include external and network drive writes, which as you say Activity Monitor does. This sounds like an oversimplistic convenient explanation someone has latched onto.

Not disagreeing that the problem has been overblown with hindsight, but don't believe this was the explanation.

 

[iHorseHead]

So now it's fixed?

 

[pshufd]

I will try Big Sur again when it's confirmed fixed. I tried Big Sur in 2020 and performance was too poor on older equipment so I reverted to Mojave and I just try Big Sur every two or three months. This might not be the only problem with Big Sur though. The main issue I have with Big Sur is how long it takes to restore or shrink windows.

One thing about long threads like this - they often lead to bugs discovered and fixed though it can take a while.

 

[IceStormNG]

I will try Big Sur again when it's confirmed fixed. I tried Big Sur in 2020 and performance was too poor on older equipment so I reverted to Mojave and I just try Big Sur every two or three months. This might not be the only problem with Big Sur though. The main issue I have with Big Sur is how long it takes to restore or shrink windows.

One thing about long threads like this - they often lead to bugs discovered and fixed though it can take a while.

This is not an issue from the memory. This is just Apple's generally heavy UI rendering combined with often subpar GPUs in their machines.

Big Sur is apparently designed with M1 in mind. So it might not run anywhere near as good on an Intel Machine. Especially an older one.

 

[pshufd]

This is not an issue from the memory. This is just Apple's generally heavy UI rendering combined with often subpar GPUs in their machines.

Big Sur is apparently designed with M1 in mind. So it might not run anywhere near as good on an Intel Machine. Especially an older one.

It may very well be that I stay on Mojave for my older equipment. Or sell it. I am not averse to getting an iMac or Mini and a MacBook Pro with M1X this year if they are available. My iMac is Late 2009 and my MacBook Pros are 2014 and 2015 so I certainly have had my money's worth from this old hardware. There is nothing wrong with the laptops either. They both do what I need them to do. I actually don't need all the power of the M1 in a notebook but would really love the battery life. I would likely find more things to do with the additional power too.

 

[iHorseHead]

Asking again, hoping someone will reply to me,
is the issue fixed or not?

 

[thadoggfather]

Asking again, hoping someone will reply to me,
is the issue fixed or not?

As of 11.4, it is

 

[featherlessbird]

Asking again, hoping someone will reply to me,
is the issue fixed or not?

Partially.

 

[TheSynchronizer]

Asking again, hoping someone will reply to me,
is the issue fixed or not?

I don’t think anyone here can answer on behalf of everyone who was affected- use cases vary way too much.

Personally I stopped having an issue since 11.2.3 due to fixes I implemented myself, and it’s only gotten better now with 11.4 and I do not experience excessive writes anymore.

 

[jdb8167]

Emphasis on the bolded part by me.

Apple's New MacOS Update Reportedly Fixes SSD Wear Issue on M1 Macs

Apple reportedly fixes a problem that only a handful of people ran into

www.tomshardware.com

Told you so!
Just go back to the beginning of the thread at see my posts regarding this issue that has been circle jerked for more than 2800 posts by now.

AppleInsider is full of it. There has been no noticeable change in SMART reporting. My M1 MBA is reporting the same 9-10 TBW before and after 11.4. The only thing I can’t verify is unchanged is the percentage used since I’m still at 0%. I’m hoping that some of the people with high writes will confirm that their percentage used hasn’t changed with 11.4. So far I haven’t seen such confirmation.

 

[osplo]

I don’t think anyone here can answer on behalf of everyone who was affected- use cases vary way too much.

Personally I stopped having an issue since 11.2.3 due to fixes I implemented myself, and it’s only gotten better now with 11.4 and I do not experience excessive writes anymore.

Exactly.

In my case, I never have had any issues to begin with. And many others haven't, either.

 

[Thistle41]

OK so I'm on 11.4 and keeping a log of the 'Data Units Written'. I use the app provided here to report and the formula of DUW*512/1000,000,000 to get TBW. No TM switched on no external drives 8/256 M1 stock standard MBA. Using Firefox with Auto tab discard, nothing heavy running tho I did have Chrome active (not all sites work with FF!).

The update was installed on 25 May and over 14 days the TBW is 2.34. Average/day = 167gb.
As an experiment, I left it on sleep mode (lid closure) after taking a reading then immediately taking another reading this morning. The result was:

9 June 22:14	10 June 08:19	TBW
51,213,476	54,363,508	1.612816384

So I'm back to this astonishing 1.6TBW overnight.

I did set some tweaks up as suggested by @TheSynchronizer but maybe these have been reset by the update?

The % used is still at 1% but I expect this will flip over soon.

I'm wondering a) if this matters, b) will the next 11.5 updates get this sorted, or c) need to power down overnight?

Thanks for any insights

 

[leman]

Okay so divide it by 512 even if my MacBook has 256GB of memory. Thanks for clarifying.

I should add that this is 0.58TB in 23 days, MacBook Pro M1 256GB. Admittedly, I have not used my MacBook to its full extent yet (I will be video editing/music making soon) and will check again on the SSD situation but as of now, with my light usage of web browsing and email this usage doesn’t seem too bad.
That being said , I do have 20-30GB of writes each day if checked via activity monitor, which are still high compared to previous MacBooks.
Oh and I haven’t updated to macOS 11.4 yet, I want to wait a bit before jumping to it, as I’m still hearing some stuff about increased RAM consumption.
Current macOS 11.2.3 (the one it came with).

With 1TB writes per month, you can reasonably expect the SSD to last over 30 years. You really have nothing to worry about.

 

[Kung gu]

OK so I'm on 11.4 and keeping a log of the 'Data Units Written'. I use the app provided here to report and the formula of DUW*512/1000,000,000 to get TBW. No TM switched on no external drives 8/256 M1 stock standard MBA. Using Firefox with Auto tab discard, nothing heavy running tho I did have Chrome active (not all sites work with FF!).

The update was installed on 25 May and over 14 days the TBW is 2.34. Average/day = 167gb.
As an experiment, I left it on sleep mode (lid closure) after taking a reading then immediately taking another reading this morning. The result was:

9 June 22:14	10 June 08:19	TBW
51,213,476	54,363,508	1.612816384

So I'm back to this astonishing 1.6TBW overnight.

I did set some tweaks up as suggested by @TheSynchronizer but maybe these have been reset by the update?

The % used is still at 1% but I expect this will flip over soon.

I'm wondering a) if this matters, b) will the next 11.5 updates get this sorted, or c) need to power down overnight?

Thanks for any insights

Shut it down over night. writes should be a LOT better.

So when the computer is ON the writes are normal but when you set the computer to sleep its writes a lot.

So Apple has yet to fix the sleep write problem then.

 

[fwilers]

Shut it down over night. writes should be a LOT better.

So when the computer is ON the writes are normal but when you set the computer to sleep its writes a lot.

So Apple has yet to fix the sleep write problem then.

Amazing that an OS has to write so much for no logical reason. Makes you wonder if Apple even knows what it's own OS is doing. If this was a mechanical hard drive, then you would really notice how much this slows down your system.

Imagine writing 1TB+ every day to a 500GB hard drive.

 

[bojan233]

Setting powernap to zero stops the sleep writing, my experience at least.

sudo pmset -a powernap 0

 

[Kung gu]

Amazing that an OS has to write so much for no logical reason. Makes you wonder if Apple even knows what it's own OS is doing. If this was a mechanical hard drive, then you would really notice how much this slows down your system.

Imagine writing 1TB+ every day to a 500GB hard drive.

turning off power nap and disabling swap when the computer sleeps is good, like the above poster mentioned.

sudo pmset -a powernap 0

 

[TheSynchronizer]

OK so I'm on 11.4 and keeping a log of the 'Data Units Written'. I use the app provided here to report and the formula of DUW*512/1000,000,000 to get TBW. No TM switched on no external drives 8/256 M1 stock standard MBA. Using Firefox with Auto tab discard, nothing heavy running tho I did have Chrome active (not all sites work with FF!).

The update was installed on 25 May and over 14 days the TBW is 2.34. Average/day = 167gb.
As an experiment, I left it on sleep mode (lid closure) after taking a reading then immediately taking another reading this morning. The result was:

9 June 22:14	10 June 08:19	TBW
51,213,476	54,363,508	1.612816384

So I'm back to this astonishing 1.6TBW overnight.

I did set some tweaks up as suggested by @TheSynchronizer but maybe these have been reset by the update?

The % used is still at 1% but I expect this will flip over soon.

I'm wondering a) if this matters, b) will the next 11.5 updates get this sorted, or c) need to power down overnight?

Thanks for any insights

As the others above have mentioned, check your pmset settings. I found mine got reset when I updated to 11.4 due to the hibernation mode pmset setting being added. I have powernap on 0 like the others here suggest also.

My pmset settings are as follows:

System-wide power settings:


Currently in use:
standby 0
Sleep On Power Button 1
SleepServices 0
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap 0
networkoversleep 0
disksleep 10
sleep 1
hibernatemode 0
ttyskeepawake 0
displaysleep 10
tcpkeepalive 1
womp 0

 

[Fomalhaut]

So? Apple already charges a ridiculous premium for RAM upgrades (200$ for additional 8GB off-the-shelf LPDDR4X).
So if we shell out the money, they should just let us finally use it and not swap to disk for no reason. While 11.4 has fixed the extreme swapping, it still swaps for no reason. Even on Intel machines. Especially noticeable after letting the mac sleep over night. It swaps out as much as possible before going to sleep, then goes to sleep. After wakeup though, it doesn't load the swapped out memory back into RAM. This causes several performance issues when using Apps with swapped out memory until macOS finally swapped their stuff back in.


It can't be so hard to just keep stuff in memory until memory is actually low. And not like.. "oh, no. 20% RAM is used. Let's start swapping".

This hasn't been my experience with 11.4. It gets to 12-13GB used before swapping significantly (more than a few 100MB).