ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

[gank41]

Here's the results from an M1 MBP (2TB/16GB) purchased New in November 2020-

I use this thing a LOT. I use it for work (Mostly Citrix and Web Stuff) and also to record our band in Logic Pro. I used iMazing for a few years with it (passes all that read/write data on thru to an External Drive). I've even wiped this MBP a few times and reinstalled macOS. I've got an Asahi Fedora linux partition setup.. I'd put Windows on here right away if it was possible lol

This thing is great.

 

[thebart]

there really is no downside to swapping. One of the OS' jobs is to manage what is in RAM. It wants to keep only the date theat is liley to be accessed and to not keept data that will not be.



But there is more to it them that. Access time only matters if the user is waiting. When the user is not waiting the OS can work in the background to move stuff and even compress stuff. The idea is to minimize wait times.

.

There's no downside to swapping? Well gosh, why does anybody need RAM then. Let's all get 8gb and swap to our heart's content.

Moving data and compressing. Move where? Are you talking about defragmenting? Not needed on SSD and actually detrimental. As for compression, I don't see any option in MacOS for disk compression. If it's doing that without my say so, I'd like to turn that off pronto

 

[NT1440]

There's no downside to swapping? Well gosh, why does anybody need RAM then. Let's all get 8gb and swap to our heart's content.

Moving data and compressing. Move where? Are you talking about defragmenting? Not needed on SSD and actually detrimental. As for compression, I don't see any option in MacOS for disk compression. If it's doing that without my say so, I'd like to turn that off pronto

RAM compression…

 

[fzJNotIBOxgnbqejSeVCvJScL]

I think "TB" in "Data Units Written" means terabits and not terabytes.


This (dividing by 8) leads to a more realistic usage profile and also to a comparable durability between Apple SSDs (maximum TBW) and other SSD manufacturers (maximum TBW according to their data sheets).

 

[fzJNotIBOxgnbqejSeVCvJScL]

Does the problem with increased SSD wear actually exist with M3-based devices too?

 

[pshufd]

Does the problem with increased SSD wear actually exist with M3-based devices too?

It will technically exist on any SSD device, regardless of the CPU. If you do enough read/write on them, then they will eventually wear out. But that may take 50, 100, 300 years depending on your use. I know of only one case of this happening and it was the use of a base M1 mini running a Postgres server for a bank. They could have avoided the problem using an external boot drive and getting 16 GB of RAM.

 

[ChrisA]

I think "TB" in "Data Units Written" means terabits and not terabytes.


This (dividing by 8) leads to a more realistic usage profile and also to a comparable durability between Apple SSDs (maximum TBW) and other SSD manufacturers (maximum TBW according to their data sheets).

Yes it is "bits" but how wide is the interface in the chips? And In any case worrying about thois is silly because no one is going to keep their Mac for even 20 years, let alone 60 or 80 years.

IN any case, Any competent electronics tecj can replace the chip. Yes, I kmnow Apple dfoes not hire such people and can't do the repair but there is many skilled techs who can do this. The problem will be that by the time you need the repair the needed chips wil be antiques and the technitians will have retired.

 

[ChrisA]

Does the problem with increased SSD wear actually exist with M3-based devices too?

Ithappens on every computer. The problem was worse before they started using SSD. Machanicaly wear on the old spinning disks. But the disk was easier to replace and very little skill involved. Replacing an SSD is not somethimng an end user can do at home. But

 

[topcat001]

smartctl nvme "Data Units Written" is in units of 512kB, and total read/written is in units of metric TeraBYTES (not bits), i.e., powers of 10. The capacity is also reported in the same units.

 

[osplo]

Does the problem with increased SSD wear actually exist with M3-based devices too?

There is no "problem" with SSD wear in any Apple Silicon chip family. Period.

Unless you are going to use your Mac daily for about 50+ years and no other component dies first.

 

[jdb8167]

There is no "problem" with SSD wear in any Apple Silicon chip family. Period.

Unless you are going to use your Mac daily for about 50+ years and no other component dies first.

Well it would certainly be possible to drive the SSD to death if that was your goal. It wouldn’t even take very long (maybe 6 months to a year). But you are correct for any normal workload. Even a workload with high number of disk writes.

 

[Queen6]

Well it would certainly be possible to drive the SSD to death if that was your goal. It wouldn’t even take very long (maybe 6 months to a year). But you are correct for any normal workload. Even a workload with high number of disk writes.

Waiting for that to happen, although I rather suspect the M1 MBP will be redundant way before that happens with normal usage. This thread is a just a bunch of nonsense driven by worry wardens.

I've a 2014 MBP that's been at 90% capacity since day one, my 2015 rMB is the same SSD health is still good. both have been hammered, used as professional tools abused way beyond what any casual user would remotely ever come close to. M1 I treat the same, just maybe Apple's engineers know a touch more than the speculators...

A decade of abuse driven by professional need and people are saying that surfing the web will prematurely kill your base model Mac LOL. I've seen my M1 MBP with up to 9GB of Swap, do I care? not remotely as it's designed to deal with such workloads...

Q-6

 

[BENCHPRESS]

I've switched from Chrome to Firefox and have been using FF for the past 2 months and I can say that my disk write has been reduced by about 30%. Not sure what Chrome was doing but I've been happy with the switch.

 

[Queen6]

I've switched from Chrome to Firefox and have been using FF for the past 2 months and I can say that my disk write has been reduced by about 30%. Not sure what Chrome was doing but I've been happy with the switch.

I wouldn't use Chrome if Google paid me. I view it as basically malware, it spy's & reports on your every action. Colour me surprised that replacing Chrome with Firefox vastly reduced disk writes. Maybe one is just serving up the web and one is serving up you and all your personal data...

Q-6

 

[smirking]

I wouldn't use Chrome if Google paid me. I view it as basically malware...

Regardless of the privacy implications, I have never understood the appeal of Chrome. I've hated it from day one. I instantly took a dislike to it because they made it so hard to move a window around, only giving you about 4 pixels of browser that would respond to a click and drag on the window.

They've resolved some of the worst UI sins, but it still feels like an adversarial experience when I use it. I often inspect links before clicking them and Chrome only shows you the first 80 characters or so. If you hover for a 2 seconds, it'll eventually expand, but it's so annoying to have to wait for info that should be easy to see.

 

[topcat001]

I don't install Chrome on non-Linux OSs which use Google's installer. On Linux (specifically Arch for my case) the Chrome package is neutered and a lot of the spyware daemons are deleted. During a normal install, even on mac, it writes random things all over the filesystem, and is a chore to completely wipe.

Also, it is much more write happy (endlessly overwriting junk databases) compared to Safari and FF.

 

[mr_roboto]

I wouldn't use Chrome if Google paid me. I view it as basically malware, it spy's & reports on your every action. Colour me surprised that replacing Chrome with Firefox vastly reduced disk writes. Maybe one is just serving up the web and one is serving up you and all your personal data...

There's no need to attribute it to malice when a simple lack of care explains it perfectly well. Many pages / years ago, in this very thread, I relayed that Chrome had been observed to do stupid things like "cache" entire Youtube videos to disk, meaning that simply watching a couple hours of Youtube per day would cause a ton of absolutely pointless disk writes.

I don't know if Chrome still has that behavior, one hopes they would have fixed it between then and now, but I know Chrome still hasn't ditched its reputation as chewing through a lot more memory than Safari. And that's another reason why it's associated with lots of disk writes: it's easier to drive your computer into swapping if you use Chrome and have a lot of tabs open.

 

[DCIFRTHS]

During a normal install, even on mac, it writes random things all over the filesystem, and is a chore to completely wipe.

What is the best way to uninstall Chrome on Sonoma? My searching just reveals the normal uninstall process.

 

[Queen6]

@DCIFRTHS Try AppCleaner and Find Any File. Chrome may prove difficult to remove all aspects and another reason to avoid the browser. There's likely other solutions and guides on the web. Best bet is to use a guide to identify what needs to be removed then follow up with the tools.

Q-6

 

[Queen6]

There's no need to attribute it to malice when a simple lack of care explains it perfectly well. Many pages / years ago, in this very thread, I relayed that Chrome had been observed to do stupid things like "cache" entire Youtube videos to disk, meaning that simply watching a couple hours of Youtube per day would cause a ton of absolutely pointless disk writes.

I don't know if Chrome still has that behavior, one hopes they would have fixed it between then and now, but I know Chrome still hasn't ditched its reputation as chewing through a lot more memory than Safari. And that's another reason why it's associated with lots of disk writes: it's easier to drive your computer into swapping if you use Chrome and have a lot of tabs open.

It's entirely a personal choice...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/5-billion-google-lawsuit-over-incognito-mode-tracking-moves-closer-to-trial.2398061/

I see no reason to feed Google/ABC any more information than I need to, nor install a suboptimal browser. If people are ok with giving up their data, being tracked and significantly increasing disk writes doesn't bother me... Google's actions have been common knowledge for years and will only get worse...

Q-6

 

[Chuckeee]

It's entirely a personal choice...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/5-billion-google-lawsuit-over-incognito-mode-tracking-moves-closer-to-trial.2398061/

I see no reason to feed Google/ABC any more information than I need to, nor install a suboptimal browser. If people are ok with giving up their data, being tracked and significantly increasing disk writes doesn't bother me... Google's actions have been common knowledge for years and will only get worse...

Q-6

Part of the problem is that there are websites that With big banners on top that say they strongly recommend users use chrome to access their site. While this is Not really required it can still be very intimidating to many users

In addition, there are some commerce sites (e.g., the site, in the city where I live, that is used to pay my water bill online) That explicitly do not work with Safari.

So you can avoid using Chrome But it often requires that you keep at least a couple browsers available for your use, And that’s too inconvenient for many casual users

FYI. I use Firefox and I keep Brave around as a back up

 

[jdb8167]

In addition, there are some commerce sites (e.g., the site, in the city where I live, that is used to pay me water bill online) That explicitly do not work with Safari.

That’s pathetic. With modern tools there is no reason in the world to not support every modern browser. Sometimes you can change the browser user-agent with the extended developer menu and get a broken website to work.

 

[fibercut]

I've switched from Chrome to Firefox and have been using FF for the past 2 months and I can say that my disk write has been reduced by about 30%. Not sure what Chrome was doing but I've been happy with the switch.

I'm a firm believer in the chromium silicone build of Brave browser!

 

[mr_roboto]

It's entirely a personal choice...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/5-billion-google-lawsuit-over-incognito-mode-tracking-moves-closer-to-trial.2398061/

I see no reason to feed Google/ABC any more information than I need to, nor install a suboptimal browser. If people are ok with giving up their data, being tracked and significantly increasing disk writes doesn't bother me... Google's actions have been common knowledge for years and will only get worse...

Oh sure, I agree. I don't use Chrome as anything other than an alternate in case a site refuses to work with Safari. Point being, it's not always some nefarious thing, Google Chrome's also bad because they just don't seem to care about using excessive amounts of your computer's resources. In so many ways, I feel that Chrome is the new Internet Explorer, and this is one of them.

 

[Biscotti]

Came back here after 3 years to look for all the mass failures that were supposed to happen with these M1/Apple silicone ssds.

So much outrage…and then nothing happened.