ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

[Machspeed007]

Which is why I'm still on the fence. And "make right" how? It's soldered in.

And if this wasn't soldered in? With the security checks apple implemented, the ssd replacement wouldn't be an option for the end-user.

At this point, I like to think of the Silicon macs as SSDs with a M1 chip attached to it. You choose the ssd capacity and RAM and get also a M1 chip soldered on. When a SSD needs replacing, you replace the M1 as well.
I don't think that the M1 chip in itself adds too much cost over the SSD.

 

[qap]

I'm doing pretty much the same things, I use a lot less the M1 MBA than my iMac (I use the MBA for reading and write news, nothing else), these are the stats from the 11.2.2 update

iMac (2019-i9-Vega48-512Gb-64GB of RAM)

MBA M1 (base-256Gb-8GB RAM)

Sorry but if you're worried about the write i/O of your SSD and you use a tool like istat makes no sense to me, it uses a lot the battery/cpu plus it writes on the disk all the datas (not much but more than zero).

I use it on the iMac BTW if you need some UI stats

 

[pistonpilot]

I have seen people updating to the latest Big Sur and the problem going away. Looking good, hopefully more people update to the latest to see if it does fix the problem or not

EDIT: If I only use my MBA for basic and simple stuff like web browsing, MS word, MS excel, should I be concerned about this? My understanding is that this is an issue only for those who use heavy programs/professional users

The 11.2.2 update DOES NOT fix the problem. Turning off Spotlight seems to stop the excessive writing.

 

[pistonpilot]

And for all of you who have not figured this out yet, it is not only SSD. My spinning drive has had 36TB written to it.

 

[wirtandi]

The 11.2.2 update DOES NOT fix the problem. Turning off Spotlight seems to stop the excessive writing.

Lets wait for that one guy who posted earlier. According to him, 11.2.2 does fix it

 

[pistonpilot]

Lets wait for that one guy who posted earlier. According to him, 11.2.2 does fix it

Sure, let's ignore the fact that I updated to 11.2.2 and it fixed nothing. Yeah, seems like a good plan to ignore the evidence that is showing on my two machines.

I'll ignore it and wait for "the guy" to tell me what the reality is.

 

[Dockland]

The 11.2.2 update DOES NOT fix the problem. Turning off Spotlight seems to stop the excessive writing.

Can you turn off Spotlight completley or is it just to uncheck all the search options?

 

[pistonpilot]

Can you turn off Spotlight completley or is it just to uncheck all the search options?

You can uncheck all the options, and on the other tab, block Spotlight from the entire drive.

 

[prwnr]

I believe that "the guy" wrote that 11.2.2 "fixed" excessive swap usage lowering it for him at least.

but i think that at this point we all know that swap usage is not the direct cause, because a lot of people with 16GB RAM are affected. excessive swap usage just exposes the problem more (that's how I see this)

 

[pistonpilot]

I believe that "the guy" wrote that 11.2.2 "fixed" excessive swap usage lowering it for him at least.

but i think that at this point we all know that swap usage is not the direct cause, because a lot of people with 16GB RAM are affected. excessive swap usage just exposes the problem more (that's how I see this)

I am having excessive writes to both SSD on my Mac Mini M1 and Intel iMac. My Mac Mini M1 has 16GB of Ram and a 256GB SSD. My iMac has 24gb of ram and a 2TB Fusion Drive.

DriveDX shows that my 2TB drive has 38TB written and the SSD portion 1.8TB.

Both drives are now below 100 percent.

My SSD was replaced on the iMac 2 weeks ago.

It's already degraded.

But I'm still waiting to hear from THE GUY to validate my findings. I'll wait for THE GUY.

Don't listen to THIS WOMAN.

 

[Makkoo]

Which tool is this? Want also check my M1 Pro after the update.

Istat Pro

 

[Never mind]

View this youtuber video regarding M1 SSD’s and a Intel computer SSD swap files are Similar

32.8 minutes in.....

 

[Dockland]

Is it possible to ditch swap on macos completely? Coming from Gentoo Linux I haven't bothered setting up swap since 2011 when partitioning. Is it doable on mac?

 

[alien3dx]

Is it possible to ditch swap on macos completely? Coming from Gentoo Linux I haven't bothered setting up swap since 2011 when partitioning. Is it doable on mac?

not sure , on linux and windows last time i disabled swap . The only simple english is paid more . Even in intel i used egpu to prevent possible swap but in macbook air m1 cannot.

 

[pistonpilot]

What metric are you guys looking at exactly? Is it the "Data Units Read" and "Data Units Written"?

Also, can i just use Drive Dx to get this info? Dont really want to use all that command line stuff.

What is the command line to get this info. I am tired of the chumps at Apple Support telling me they don't support DriveDX.

 

[pistonpilot]

not sure , on linux and windows last time i disabled swap . The only simple english is paid more . Even in intel i used egpu to prevent possible swap but in macbook air m1 cannot.

If you disable swap and run into the end of memory bad things will happen.

Maybe "The Guy" will tell me if I am correct.

 

[pistonpilot]

Almost identical to my M1 MBA which I've been using since Nov 17, 2020 (about 100 days).

=== 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:        0

What is the command line code to get this information?

 

[pistonpilot]

I wonder/hope about AppLe finding a solution to this real and serious problem, or giving all the purchasers a credit towards a replacement.

Credit? They should just replace the units or fix them free. I will be going for a replacement, which would be my 5th iMac replacement.

 

[alien3dx]

If you disable swap and run into the end of memory bad things will happen.

Maybe "The Guy" will tell me if I am correct.

not sure who is "the guy" but im using computer since 1990 and been all sort of intel and amd (laptop,pc,server) .

 

[Dockland]

If you disable swap and run into the end of memory bad things will happen.

Maybe "The Guy" will tell me if I am correct

If you disable swap and run into the end of memory bad things will happen.

Maybe "The Guy" will tell me if I am correct.

The strange thing in this particular case is that even though my memory allocating approx 3-5 GB (of 16) my swap is active with around 1 GB (half of the partition) so it seems like swap works in mysterious ways

 

[flopticalcube]

The 11.2.2 update DOES NOT fix the problem. Turning off Spotlight seems to stop the excessive writing.

That is concerning. It conflicts with the previous poster who claimed it worked without turning off Spotlight. Perhaps there is more than one issue here.

 

[Mc0]

Perhaps because Big Sur is not the only issue. Many apps are still not optimize for M1. Devs have yet to uncover other issues and may take awhile to refine them. I do hope that it’s just a software issue because it would be a easier fix. You know easier on our wallet 😂. Imagine needing to replace your machine in less than 2 years.

 

[flopticalcube]

Perhaps because Big Sur is not the only issue. Many apps are still not optimize for M1. Devs have yet to uncover other issues and may take awhile to refine them. I do hope that it’s just a software issue because it would be a easier fix. You know easier on our wallet 😂. Imagine needing to replace your machine in less than 2 years.

I would agree except for reports of the issue appearing on Intel Macs and on systems running only default Apple software.

 

[Dockland]

I would agree except for reports of the issue appearing on Intel Macs and on systems running only default Apple software.

I agree. This is certainly a strange issue. I don't know if I'm affected yet. Fired up my Mac mini M1 Friday afternoon, immediately did a upgrade to 11.2.2 just after my first login.
Installed xcode and brew and checked smart yesterday evening.
Approx 400 GB written to disc in about 24h (give or take a couple of hours) and I thought it was a bit on the low end, given that I installed a bunch of applications and updated the OS.
It's going to be my main computer and I will post updates regarding this continuesly. It's going to stay on 24/7/365 btw.

 

[Maximara]

Which is why I'm still on the fence. And "make right" how? It's soldered in.

You can boot from an external SSD. So Apple does have (the unlikely) option of giving out external SSD of the size purchased for the Mac.