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ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written
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I meant that the tools use Apple’s IOKit APIs. I thought that was obvious but I guess not.
If you can read C++ take a look at the smartmontools and how they retrieve the info. Just reading the info isn’t as straightforward as you imply. The vendor specific data is just a big block of bytes and different drives have different offsets into the byte array.
I’m well aware of what SMART is.
Edit: @killerovsky posted a reference to the NVMe spec page and I’m wrong, the byte block is definitively specified and the code comments in the smartmontools code is out of date (the code matches the spec, just the comments implying ambiguity are out of date). The spec is referenced here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-mac-users-report-excessive-ssd-wear.2285892/post-29640500
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I'm seeing 0 bytes swap today. Normally it has been between 0.5 - 2 GB... Could be a coincidence, though.
No difference for my 8GB MBA, it still writes more than 3 TB a day, even with spotlight turned off.
Yes, I have to use Chrome for my work, so it is running almost all day long.
That would confirm what others have said. It could be an underlying issue with Big Sur that causes certain apps like Chrome to produce excessive writes.
@flopticalcube @featherlessbird Chrome is unlikely to be the cause. I am using Chrome as well for a couple of weeks now and haven't observed any change in TBW. Everything is like before (I am not affected by the high TBW issue) when I was using Safari.
Same. Using Chrome exclusively and lifetime writes is still ~500GB on MBA M1 16GB/256GB.
Could be an extension of Chrome. Still early days and everything here is anecdotal though.
is there a non-amazon advertising or non mac-cleaner software site or anything that explains this problem or overreaction in detail?
and
will apple ever design a MacBook with a screw and slot to upgrade or replace a ssd for their notebooks again?
and
will apple ever design a MacBook with a screw and slot to upgrade or replace a ssd for their notebooks again?
I have a 16/256 M1 Mini I got in early January, and it's already at 3% SSD used. In Activity Monitor, I can see that bird (the iCloud Drive daemon process) is writing to disk constantly, up to 50GB / hour, which I think explains the problem. I suspect it's tied to having some stuck files that refuse to upload even after weeks and multiple reboots, so maybe bird is doing something like continuously spamming an error log to the SSD. Does anyone else with high usage see anything similar?
I'm also suspicious about some kind of cloud services that constantly doing something in the background.
My MBA M1 16/256 lately has been using over 10GB SWAP. Which is totally insane for my usage.
It was very hard to maxed-out my previous Ryzen laptop on Windows with 16GB. I know that OSX works differently, but is it that much different? At the same time, when I had 10+ GB swap, RAM usage was around 11GB out of 16GB.
I ordered 2 M1 MacBooks 1 Air and 1 Pro. Where I live there is absolutely no where for me to test out either. My plan was buy the configurations I would want, then see which is more likely to my needs. I am a photographer graphic designer film maker and architect. I do cad work on my PC and everything visual on my Macs and all housekeeping. My Late 2013 15inch MacBook Pro 2.0ghz 8gb 512gb was no longer capable of running photoshop and safari and mail at the same time. I was considering a 16 inch MacBook Pro when they came out but I really wasn't about to drop 2400 on the specs that were avail. I built a PC instead then Covid happened so I was able to use my pc at my desk for about 5 month until I was able to return to work.
The M1 MBP I ordered is the computer I really have wanted for years the 13 inch form factor is so much lighter but the previous versions were kinda weak power wise same for the airs (laughable).
M1 MBP 16gb 1tb refurbished was 1609 ~1725 after tax Silver
M1 MBA 16gb 512gb Refurbished was 1229 ~1310 after tax Space Grey
I updated both to 11.2.2 I installed all my software and iCloud 35,000 photos on the MBP. I just turned on and updated the Air.
I downloaded DriveDX
The MBP had a last charge date of 2/2/2021 to 90% with 1.7 TB read and 1.9TB written
The MBA had a last charge date of 2/4/2021 to 88% with 7.1 TB read and 6.7 TB written
now they are refurbished but you would think that the pro with all the iCloud 750gb of iCloud files and 35000 photos even with it being used would have blown out that 7.1 number and 6.7 number?
The mic on the MBP is significantly better. The MBA sounds like the mic is behind the keyboard. The Speakers on the MBA are a tad louder but not nearly as quality and dynamic as the MBP. The Touch Bar is something brand new to me and personally I really like it maybe most Touch Bar haters are those that didn't have the escape key variant. I do wonder if it were to break would the $500 repair be worth it. The screen on the MBP is significantly brighter when its sunny out which is a plus. The battery's are insanely good on both computers. I noticed that the pro charges a bit faster thanks to the included $59 61W charger than the pro.
The $160 dollar of additional 512gb on the MBP is a bit outrageous and literally the Apple Tax but with the pro I plan on doing editing on this bad boy in premier and final cut so having that extra peace of mind on the machine is worth it to me. Rather than Always having a drive rather than sometimes having a drive. As far as ports. If you are plugging in more than 2 cables into your computer you my friend might consider a desktop.
Now for absence of Touch Bar on MacBook Air. I sold hundreds of thousands of dollars at apple in Macs when I worked there. Have been using Macs since I was 5. I’m 29.
The keys on the MBA have literally a spotlight (CMD SPACE). DND (should have this automated if you’re an adult. Expose(3 or 4 fingers up) Dictation (double tap FN yes I knew this WHEN IT CAME OUT! NOT FROM TICKTOK lol 😝 & apparently its changed in Big Sur or maybe these m1s). I don’t think those keys permanately at the top make any sense on the MBA.
I love the slight angle to the keyboard on the MBA very ergonomic. I find the space grey more attractive to the eye because its new but if I’m working I lose the keys due to the absesne of contrast from the large black keys and the darker body.
All in all. I think they will comet with a powerful ass machine in the fall like they do and it will have some extra ports but if you need a machine get one it will last you many years. I learned this year and 2020 life can end in an instant and if you are always waiting for the perfect thing or timing you might miss all the great moments that lead up to that point. If you buy of of these MacBooks push yourself to make some money and get yourself the new one you want so bad or to a point you realize new stuff isn’t always that much better and maybe that money you make you can buy a gift for someone you love.
Thanks for reading my review I will keep you all updated.
The M1 MBP I ordered is the computer I really have wanted for years the 13 inch form factor is so much lighter but the previous versions were kinda weak power wise same for the airs (laughable).
M1 MBP 16gb 1tb refurbished was 1609 ~1725 after tax Silver
M1 MBA 16gb 512gb Refurbished was 1229 ~1310 after tax Space Grey
I updated both to 11.2.2 I installed all my software and iCloud 35,000 photos on the MBP. I just turned on and updated the Air.
I downloaded DriveDX
The MBP had a last charge date of 2/2/2021 to 90% with 1.7 TB read and 1.9TB written
The MBA had a last charge date of 2/4/2021 to 88% with 7.1 TB read and 6.7 TB written
now they are refurbished but you would think that the pro with all the iCloud 750gb of iCloud files and 35000 photos even with it being used would have blown out that 7.1 number and 6.7 number?
The mic on the MBP is significantly better. The MBA sounds like the mic is behind the keyboard. The Speakers on the MBA are a tad louder but not nearly as quality and dynamic as the MBP. The Touch Bar is something brand new to me and personally I really like it maybe most Touch Bar haters are those that didn't have the escape key variant. I do wonder if it were to break would the $500 repair be worth it. The screen on the MBP is significantly brighter when its sunny out which is a plus. The battery's are insanely good on both computers. I noticed that the pro charges a bit faster thanks to the included $59 61W charger than the pro.
The $160 dollar of additional 512gb on the MBP is a bit outrageous and literally the Apple Tax but with the pro I plan on doing editing on this bad boy in premier and final cut so having that extra peace of mind on the machine is worth it to me. Rather than Always having a drive rather than sometimes having a drive. As far as ports. If you are plugging in more than 2 cables into your computer you my friend might consider a desktop.
Now for absence of Touch Bar on MacBook Air. I sold hundreds of thousands of dollars at apple in Macs when I worked there. Have been using Macs since I was 5. I’m 29.
The keys on the MBA have literally a spotlight (CMD SPACE). DND (should have this automated if you’re an adult. Expose(3 or 4 fingers up) Dictation (double tap FN yes I knew this WHEN IT CAME OUT! NOT FROM TICKTOK lol 😝 & apparently its changed in Big Sur or maybe these m1s). I don’t think those keys permanately at the top make any sense on the MBA.
I love the slight angle to the keyboard on the MBA very ergonomic. I find the space grey more attractive to the eye because its new but if I’m working I lose the keys due to the absesne of contrast from the large black keys and the darker body.
All in all. I think they will comet with a powerful ass machine in the fall like they do and it will have some extra ports but if you need a machine get one it will last you many years. I learned this year and 2020 life can end in an instant and if you are always waiting for the perfect thing or timing you might miss all the great moments that lead up to that point. If you buy of of these MacBooks push yourself to make some money and get yourself the new one you want so bad or to a point you realize new stuff isn’t always that much better and maybe that money you make you can buy a gift for someone you love.
Thanks for reading my review I will keep you all updated.
Here is my result after a little bit more than two month of ownership. Don't know if this is good or bad. 512GB and 16GB of ram.
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 35 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 13,091,259 [6,70 TB]
Data Units Written: 13,242,501 [6,78 TB]
Host Read Commands: 147,169,167
Host Write Commands: 166,950,920
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 173
Power On Hours: 91
Unsafe Shutdowns: 4
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 35 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 13,091,259 [6,70 TB]
Data Units Written: 13,242,501 [6,78 TB]
Host Read Commands: 147,169,167
Host Write Commands: 166,950,920
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 173
Power On Hours: 91
Unsafe Shutdowns: 4
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
I am junior developper and use it for my studies so I would say I lean more toward the heavier user side than not.
Almost identical to my M1 MBA which I've been using since Nov 17, 2020 (about 100 days).
Code:
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 28 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 16,982,922 [8.69 TB]
Data Units Written: 13,516,879 [6.92 TB]
Host Read Commands: 249,487,005
Host Write Commands: 158,473,367
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 366
Power On Hours: 131
Unsafe Shutdowns: 41
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0Data Units Written and Percentage Used. DriveDX gets the same information but displays it slightly differently. Since DriveDX isn't open source I can't review the code like I can smartmontools but everything I've seen shows that both display exactly the same info. I'm very convinced that smartmontools is working correctly after looking at the NVMe spec and reviewing the code.
I did not expect MacOS to be this resource heavy. I’ve been using a Windows 10 laptop for work for 3 years now and my data units written is at 18.85TB. I use it mainly to code web apps though not as heavy compare to others who use their laptop for graphics/media heavy stuff.
