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pshufd

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2013
10,146
14,573
New Hampshire
Mine sits at 8-10GB a day usually but it's normal since my workloads usually require 16.. I got the base model as a temporary replacement until the new Pros would come out as I still need 2 display hooked up via thunderbolt dock...

I keep thinking about buying another one or two M1 Mac minis so that I can replace my Windows desktop. 48 GB, 12 Performance cores and 12 Graphics cores would power 4 4K monitors nicely. Or I could just wait for the M1X mini. But no clue when that will be out.
 

Queen6

macrumors G4
I keep thinking about buying another one or two M1 Mac minis so that I can replace my Windows desktop. 48 GB, 12 Performance cores and 12 Graphics cores would power 4 4K monitors nicely. Or I could just wait for the M1X mini. But no clue when that will be out.
Sooner rather than later methinks. For you likely comes down to the financials. I would hazard a guess that holding off a month or two wouldn't be an issue. That said multiple systems offer far more redundancy...

Q-6
 

EuroChilli

macrumors 6502a
Apr 11, 2021
530
542
Belgium
I keep thinking about buying another one or two M1 Mac minis so that I can replace my Windows desktop. 48 GB, 12 Performance cores and 12 Graphics cores would power 4 4K monitors nicely. Or I could just wait for the M1X mini. But no clue when that will be out.

You could also wait for the second coming…
 

pshufd

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2013
10,146
14,573
New Hampshire
Sooner rather than later methinks. For you likely comes down to the financials. I would hazard a guess that holding off a month or two wouldn't be an issue. That said multiple systems offer far more redundancy...

Q-6

There's no downside on extra M1/16 minis.

I've been holding off since WWDC and finally bought the first when M1X didn't show up. There are several leaker rumors that the M1X mini is 2022. Nobody really knows except Apple and maybe even they still don't know because of labor and parts constraints. The biggest advantage would be that my basement would be cooler.
 

Queen6

macrumors G4
There's no downside on extra M1/16 minis.

I've been holding off since WWDC and finally bought the first when M1X didn't show up. There are several leaker rumors that the M1X mini is 2022. Nobody really knows except Apple and maybe even they still don't know because of labor and parts constraints. The biggest advantage would be that my basement would be cooler.
Tend to buy as and when, more towards the end of the cycle. Base M1 MBP has exceeded expectations if need more I'll look at M1X or whatever follows :)

Q-6
 

pshufd

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2013
10,146
14,573
New Hampshire
Tend to buy as and when, more towards the end of the cycle. Base M1 MBP has exceeded expectations if need more I'll look at M1X or whatever follows :)

Q-6

My wife could use an upgrade so I can always give her an M1. It will be a big upgrade from her base 2018. What I'd like right now is an M1X + M1. Or 2xM1X. But moreso for the additional RAM than the CPU/GPU.
 
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jdb8167

macrumors 601
Nov 17, 2008
4,859
4,599
Interestingly, I stopped monitoring this issue in mid-July after seeing total writes of about 1TBW from early May.

From July to today, that figure spiked from 1.39TBW to 23.5 😬

Hard to know exactly what the culprit is. No intensive usage, mainly just a browsing PC with some light work in Affinity's creative programs. Rarely shut off, so maybe something in sleep, or possibly some behind-the-scenes autoplay in some browser tab or something. I hadn't done anything special with regard to managing writes, so anything that's happened has been a part of "default" behaviour of the system.

EDIT: The only reason I checked is because I had to hard power-down my system. Monitor had been turned off and something had been knocked on top of the keyboard, so the login screen had about a million characters in the password entry and would beachball when I tried to hit enter or cancel. Ha, who knows, maybe that's the culprit! But figured a fresh restart was a perfect time to check.

Unfortunate, because I probably could have seen more information from Activity Monitor if I didn't have to end that session
If that figure is about 80 days then you are using about 0.28 TB/day (~100 TB/yr). That should last you for at least 10 years. Nothing to worry about.
 
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JamSandwich

macrumors regular
May 19, 2006
127
3
If that figure is about 80 days then you are using about 0.28 GB/day (~100 TB/yr). That should last you for at least 10 years. Nothing to worry about.
I was wondering what math you were using but then I realized you'd just accidentally typed GB instead of TB :)

That said, I'm not sure I agree that it's nothing to worry about... I mean, I don't think it's going to crap out anywhere near that 150TBW figure that often gets thrown around for smaller SSDs ... but I do think the unusually high write rate (up about 22x from the first two month of ownership, without any considerable changes in my use -- essentially 280GB of writes for ...reasons?) is a slight cause for concern... hopefully we can count on a petabyte worth of writes for these drives.

That said, I'll chalk it up to some sort of OS/software issue that went unchecked for a while because the system hadn't been powered down. Whatever it was that went wrong seems to have resolved -- no appreciable rise in the past couple days -- but I'll be tracking closer for the next little while
 

jdb8167

macrumors 601
Nov 17, 2008
4,859
4,599
I was wondering what math you were using but then I realized you'd just accidentally typed GB instead of TB :)

That said, I'm not sure I agree that it's nothing to worry about... I mean, I don't think it's going to crap out anywhere near that 150TBW figure that often gets thrown around for smaller SSDs ... but I do think the unusually high write rate (up about 22x from the first two month of ownership, without any considerable changes in my use -- essentially 280GB of writes for ...reasons?) is a slight cause for concern... hopefully we can count on a petabyte worth of writes for these drives.

That said, I'll chalk it up to some sort of OS/software issue that went unchecked for a while because the system hadn't been powered down. Whatever it was that went wrong seems to have resolved -- no appreciable rise in the past couple days -- but I'll be tracking closer for the next little while
You are correct, I'll fix the typo.
 

jdb8167

macrumors 601
Nov 17, 2008
4,859
4,599
I was wondering what math you were using but then I realized you'd just accidentally typed GB instead of TB :)

That said, I'm not sure I agree that it's nothing to worry about... I mean, I don't think it's going to crap out anywhere near that 150TBW figure that often gets thrown around for smaller SSDs ... but I do think the unusually high write rate (up about 22x from the first two month of ownership, without any considerable changes in my use -- essentially 280GB of writes for ...reasons?) is a slight cause for concern... hopefully we can count on a petabyte worth of writes for these drives.

That said, I'll chalk it up to some sort of OS/software issue that went unchecked for a while because the system hadn't been powered down. Whatever it was that went wrong seems to have resolved -- no appreciable rise in the past couple days -- but I'll be tracking closer for the next little while
You can figure out that the TBW is nowhere near 150 TB because your system is going to report between 0% to 2% used. If it was 150 TBW it would be at 15% used.
 
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Maximara

macrumors 68000
Jun 16, 2008
1,707
908
You can figure out that the TBW is nowhere near 150 TB because your system is going to report between 0% to 2% used. If it was 150 TBW it would be at 15% used.
Exactly. As I have been saying from nearly the beginning you have to look at all the data: percentage used as well as what had been written to the SSD.

In an early video, (Apple M1 SSDs: Do We Have a PROBLEM?), they have actual equations (10:12 and and 10:38) which are ... linear equations.

For those who, for some silly reason, want to point to wikipedia read Wikipedia is not a reliable source: "Because it can be edited by anyone at any time, any information it contains at a particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or just plain wrong. (...) Wikipedia is a volunteer-run project, it cannot constantly monitor every contribution. There are many errors that remain unnoticed for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years. Therefore, Wikipedia should not be considered a definitive source in and of itself"

That is why I have avoided using wikipedia and instead used the 2014 test, which since it was published in a recognized reliable source would overrule wikipedia per their Reliable sources guidelines - yes the youtube would not qualify but they don't use wikepdia either because... Wikipedia is not a reliable source.

In fact, Apple M1 SSDs: Do We Have a PROBLEM? specifically refers back to that test clearly using the linear results of that test for their formulas - Introducing the SSD Endurance Experiment and related pages.

The back of an envelope equation I came up with was TB*100/percentage = TBW and here is the work to get to that overly simple equation:

Base formula: TB/TBWx100 = percentage.
TB = percentage/100 * TBW
TB/(percentage/100) = TBW

Assume the 23.5 TB has 2% that would result in a nice healthy ~1,175 (23.5*100/2) for the warranted lifespan.
 
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brimpy

macrumors newbie
Oct 16, 2021
10
89
I couldn't find any information on this topic here, or anywhere else..

How do I uninstall or delete smartmontools / smartctl?

I downloaded and installed the .dmg from smartmontools.org, didn't have to install anything else. It works properly, I run this command: sudo /usr/local/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/disk0 .. and it returns understandable information.

I want to use another tool to monitor drive health, so I'm trying to delete all traces of smartmontools.

I can see four smart* files sitting in /usr/local/sbin, but if I search "This Mac" for 'smart' none of those files are found. I don't understand this, are files in the /usr/ folder hidden from searches?

If I open Terminal and go to /usr/local/sbin and run: sudo smart-pkg-uninstall, it asks for my password, and then returns: "sudo: smart-pkg-uninstall: command not found"

So, can I just go into Finder and delete the four smart* files? are there any other smartmontools files lurking in dark corners on my Mac? I don't like hidden remnants of unused or deleted programs.

Thanks very much, Sorry I'm a bit of a Mac newb,



** edit, figured it out.

go to /usr/local/sbin and run: sudo ./smart-pkg-uninstall
and enter your password, and it'll uninstall everything.
 
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TheSynchronizer

macrumors 6502
Dec 2, 2014
443
729
I couldn't find any information on this topic here, or anywhere else..

How do I uninstall or delete smartmontools / smartctl?

I downloaded and installed the .dmg from smartmontools.org, didn't have to install anything else. It works properly, I run this command: sudo /usr/local/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/disk0 .. and it returns understandable information.

I want to use another tool to monitor drive health, so I'm trying to delete all traces of smartmontools.

I can see four smart* files sitting in /usr/local/sbin, but if I search "This Mac" for 'smart' none of those files are found. I don't understand this, are files in the /usr/ folder hidden from searches?

If I open Terminal and go to /usr/local/sbin and run: sudo smart-pkg-uninstall, it asks for my password, and then returns: "sudo: smart-pkg-uninstall: command not found"

So, can I just go into Finder and delete the four smart* files? are there any other smartmontools files lurking in dark corners on my Mac? I don't like hidden remnants of unused or deleted programs.

Thanks very much, Sorry I'm a bit of a Mac newb,
A great free app that I use for uninstalling apps is AppCleaner. It scans the system and finds all files related to the app and prompts you to delete the files along with the app when you drag it to trash.

I highly recommend it:)
 

Maximara

macrumors 68000
Jun 16, 2008
1,707
908
A great free app that I use for uninstalling apps is AppCleaner. It scans the system and finds all files related to the app and prompts you to delete the files along with the app when you drag it to trash.

I highly recommend it:)
I use AppCleaner all the time as too many programs are like a little puppy - leaves little things all over the place. :p
 

stigman

macrumors regular
Dec 2, 2014
181
67
Europe
Hi guys,

Finally I got my MacBook Pro 16/256. I'm on Monterey.As you can see, there is now swap, but...kernel_task does writes to disk even when I'm not active, but average daily writes are approximately 10-12 GB which is pretty low compared to all these horrible number people experienced in the past so It makes me calm. It gives also hope for long lifespan, but...I wonder what may cause these writes by kernel_task when I don't do anything on MacBook? I'm considering to turn off swap - would it make significant changes?
 

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featherlessbird

macrumors newbie
Feb 16, 2021
29
24
Hi guys,

Finally I got my MacBook Pro 16/256. I'm on Monterey.As you can see, there is now swap, but...kernel_task does writes to disk even when I'm not active, but average daily writes are approximately 10-12 GB which is pretty low compared to all these horrible number people experienced in the past so It makes me calm. It gives also hope for long lifespan, but...I wonder what may cause these writes by kernel_task when I don't do anything on MacBook? I'm considering to turn off swap - would it make significant changes?
I don't think you have anything to worry about. You'll have an extremely long lifespan with such writes.
I have about 250GB of daily writes on my 16/512 MBP 14, which is 4 times lower than on 8GB M1 model with the same usage.
 

pshufd

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2013
10,146
14,573
New Hampshire
Hi guys,

Finally I got my MacBook Pro 16/256. I'm on Monterey.As you can see, there is now swap, but...kernel_task does writes to disk even when I'm not active, but average daily writes are approximately 10-12 GB which is pretty low compared to all these horrible number people experienced in the past so It makes me calm. It gives also hope for long lifespan, but...I wonder what may cause these writes by kernel_task when I don't do anything on MacBook? I'm considering to turn off swap - would it make significant changes?

One of the teardowns on the 2021 MacBook Pros showed sockets for SSD so I expect some investigation down the road to see if it will be possible to fix/replace/install SSD in these machines in the future.
 

altaic

macrumors 6502a
Jan 26, 2004
711
484
One of the teardowns on the 2021 MacBook Pros showed sockets for SSD so I expect some investigation down the road to see if it will be possible to fix/replace/install SSD in these machines in the future.
Link? All of the 2021 MBP teardowns I've seen have NAND soldered to the logic board with nary a socket to be seen.
 

pshufd

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2013
10,146
14,573
New Hampshire
Link? All of the 2021 MBP teardowns I've seen have NAND soldered to the logic board with nary a socket to be seen.

I actually saw this in another teardown video but I can't recall where I saw it. The guy speculated that the things on the left and right are sockets for the SSD. You can see that they are filled on the right but empty on the left.



Screen Shot 2021-11-03 at 1.02.55 PM.png


 

CMMChris

macrumors 6502a
Oct 28, 2019
850
794
Germany (Bavaria)
Those are additional solder pads for more NAND chips on models with a larger SSD. Theoretically it's possible to solder additional NAND chips yourself but that requires special equipment and of course compatible NAND chips the controller is expecting. It likely is impossible to get them and even if you do, the whole thing probably doesn't save you any money.
 
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altaic

macrumors 6502a
Jan 26, 2004
711
484
I actually saw this in another teardown video but I can't recall where I saw it. The guy speculated that the things on the left and right are sockets for the SSD. You can see that they are filled on the right but empty on the left.



View attachment 1901590

Those are soldered NAND ICs on the right and the ball grid array pads (where ICs could be placed and soldered) on the left. No sockets.
 
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altaic

macrumors 6502a
Jan 26, 2004
711
484
Those are additional solder pads for more NAND chips on models with a larger SSD. Theoretically it's possible to solder additional NAND chips yourself but that requires special equipment and of course compatible NAND chips the controller is expecting. It likely is impossible to get them and even if you do, the whole thing probably doesn't save you any money.
Ah, you beat me to it.
 
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