Well, it's possible that the SSD used in apple m1 computers have ~~600 TBW limit per each 256gb (1200 for 512 and so on).
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ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written
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Well, it's possible that the SSD used in apple m1 computers have ~~600 TBW limit per each 256gb (1200 for 512 and so on).
For comparison
my partner using 2017 Macbook Pro 15inch, 512GB, 16GB, and it's about 95% left, and 80TB write / 90TB written, we both are designers and use it daily, so there's definitely fishy happening in there
Hm... seems like with RAM intesive workflow SWAP usage rumps up.
Another 24h and another 0.8TB data written added.
So with that usage (which was typical for me since MBP 13 2014 8/256) it's almost 24TB/month = 288 TB in a year.
Did Big Sur 11.2.2 fixed it? Definitely no.
I'm sad.
Another 24h and another 0.8TB data written added.
So with that usage (which was typical for me since MBP 13 2014 8/256) it's almost 24TB/month = 288 TB in a year.
Did Big Sur 11.2.2 fixed it? Definitely no.
I'm sad.
I've completely wiped my MacBook and did a clean install. The problem seemed to be solved for a couple of days, but returned immediately after the first reboot, it once again writes over 3 TB a day. I think it's definitely a bug.
Perhaps i should state my installed SW that i use? Due to that i'm not affected and my Mac mini is brand new.
(Safari - Don't have any other browser installed)
Adobe Lightroom (native M1-version)
World of Warcraft (native M1-version)
Adobe Photoshop Beta/Preview (native M1-version)
Xcode (native M1-version)
Homebrew ("macOS Homebrew running natively on M1/Apple Silicon/ARM has partial functionality. We recommend installing into /opt/homebrew and forbid installing into /usr/local (to avoid clashing with the macOS Intel install and allow their usage side-by-side). We currently recommend running Homebrew using Intel emulation with Rosetta 2."
brew.sh
)
Smartmontools
No other SW installed (except the pre-installed stuff) but i will buy and install Final Cut Pro later this evening.
(Safari - Don't have any other browser installed)
Adobe Lightroom (native M1-version)
World of Warcraft (native M1-version)
Adobe Photoshop Beta/Preview (native M1-version)
Xcode (native M1-version)
Homebrew ("macOS Homebrew running natively on M1/Apple Silicon/ARM has partial functionality. We recommend installing into /opt/homebrew and forbid installing into /usr/local (to avoid clashing with the macOS Intel install and allow their usage side-by-side). We currently recommend running Homebrew using Intel emulation with Rosetta 2."
2.6.0
Today I’d like to announce Homebrew 2.6.0. The most significant changes since 2.5.0 are macOS Big Sur support on Intel, brew commands replacing all brew cask commands, the beginnings of macOS M1/Apple Silicon/ARM support and API deprecations.
Smartmontools
No other SW installed (except the pre-installed stuff) but i will buy and install Final Cut Pro later this evening.
Just another guy overstating the issue. No one's SSD is losing half its useful life in three months. This forum is for calm, reasoned discussion. Yes, the TBW issue is real. No, it's not the end of the world. None of us have an M1 that does not have at least eight and half months left on the original warranty, thirty two and a half months if they have AppleCare. Apple has the message. Calm down.
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Hm... seems like with RAM intesive workflow SWAP usage rumps up.
Another 24h and another 0.8TB data written added.
So with that usage (which was typical for me since MBP 13 2014 8/256) it's almost 24TB/month = 288 TB in a year.
Did Big Sur 11.2.2 fixed it? Definitely no.
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When is the last time you restarted? That kernel_task bytes written looks insane. For comparison - office work (MS Office apps), meetings, teams, slack, email and Rider (C sharp IDE) I have 7.5 GB kernel_task writes on a Mac Pro after 3 days. Open terminal and run uptime to check.
Man, I am really not winning the paying attention whilst reading game today. Thanks. That is insane for under 4 days
I bought Applecare because it is the first M1 product. I expect a Mac Mini to last years, just like the Intel Mini's that are still working after 8 years.
I expect more than just 2 years.
Exactly as you said. 4 days of normal use as I did in many years. Just closing using sleep mode.
And now in another 3h another 0.3TB written.
It's might look like a bug. When RAM usage is too high it uses a lots of SWAP on SSD. But it doesn't stop. Just like it's bugged or smth.
Right now after clean restart. No SWAP and disk usage (with kernel_task) is as it should be.
On screenshots from my previous post SWAP was over 13GB. Maybe during peak usage, it was in the background over 16GB (so more than RAM) and that's what bugged it. Instead of RAM it started using SSD?
The system didn't feel sluggish.
Is it possible?
300GB in 3h seems insane.
Apps I use during my normal work day in last 24h:
Chrome (3 profiles = 3 clients, each approximately 3-10 tabs like: FB Ads, Google Ads, Pipedrive)
Safari (10-30 tabs)
Edge (2-7 tabs)
Affinity Designer (designing FB ads banners 1200x1200px with photos from unsplash.com)
OneNote
Apple Notes
Apple Reminder
Messages
Slack
Spotify
BBEdit (very light HTML editing)
Minecraft (for 1h)
GF Now (no games, just in the background)
Terminal (to check uptime for screenshots)
1Password
iCloud (default settings)
Spotlight (default settings)
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Nothing in the apps listed / your usage could justify 300 GB so it's clearly an operating system task going haywire.
Could you run vm_stat in terminal to see the total pageouts? (it's not the same as the number shown in swap used (pamiec wymiany) in activity monitor just for the sake of completeness.
I will do this in next 24h and post it here.
Right now:
Code:
jarek@MacBook-Air-Jarosaw ~ % vm_stat
Mach Virtual Memory Statistics: (page size of 16384 bytes)
Pages free: 10952.
Pages active: 389223.
Pages inactive: 386640.
Pages speculative: 1690.
Pages throttled: 0.
Pages wired down: 85006.
Pages purgeable: 12638.
"Translation faults": 7368649.
Pages copy-on-write: 266716.
Pages zero filled: 3832722.
Pages reactivated: 686680.
Pages purged: 74946.
File-backed pages: 270374.
Anonymous pages: 507179.
Pages stored in compressor: 314851.
Pages occupied by compressor: 133207.
Decompressions: 243326.
Compressions: 706150.
Pageins: 697936.
Pageouts: 8572.
Swapins: 43855.
Swapouts: 54720.
jarek@MacBook-Air-Jarosaw ~ %
Code:
jarek@MacBook-Air-Jarosaw ~ % uptime
20:01 up 1:59, 2 users, load averages: 2,49 1,70 2,64
jarek@MacBook-Air-Jarosaw ~ % last reboot
reboot ~ Tue Mar 2 18:02
reboot ~ Fri Feb 26 19:42
wtmp begins Fri Feb 26 19:42
jarek@MacBook-Air-Jarosaw ~ %So it will be easier to compare.
This is pretty much exactly the same scenario I'm in on my 5K iMac late 2017 model, in regards to the SWAP being used despite not having enough RAM. My stats are insane since I use AE, PS, AI, C4D etc. all the while on 256GB which was a mistake and 40GB RAM now 64GB after today.
70GB written between friday and today.
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 26 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 13,509,014 [6,91 TB]
Data Units Written: 13,383,268 [6,85 TB]
Host Read Commands: 154,968,031
Host Write Commands: 169,177,650
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 173
Power On Hours: 93
Unsafe Shutdowns: 4
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
That would equal to approximately 2TB per month. I have had 7TB written in 2 month and a half, so not too far off considering the amount written when installing the computer (apps, documents, os updates and all the indexing...).
What do you think ? The issue does not seems to affect everyone.
However I do have a high amount of data written by kernel :
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 26 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 13,509,014 [6,91 TB]
Data Units Written: 13,383,268 [6,85 TB]
Host Read Commands: 154,968,031
Host Write Commands: 169,177,650
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 173
Power On Hours: 93
Unsafe Shutdowns: 4
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
That would equal to approximately 2TB per month. I have had 7TB written in 2 month and a half, so not too far off considering the amount written when installing the computer (apps, documents, os updates and all the indexing...).
What do you think ? The issue does not seems to affect everyone.
However I do have a high amount of data written by kernel :
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Seems turning spotlight off had 0 effect for me. In 3 power on hours it's written 600gb - a faster rate than when I had spotlight turned on...
The reason this issue concerns me is a) I have the 8gb model and b) I am the kind of person that looks after my laptops and expect them to keep running for years. My mum still happily uses my 2012 Macbook Air daily with 0 issues, even after a coffee spill a few years ago.
The reason this issue concerns me is a) I have the 8gb model and b) I am the kind of person that looks after my laptops and expect them to keep running for years. My mum still happily uses my 2012 Macbook Air daily with 0 issues, even after a coffee spill a few years ago.
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I busted out my 2015 MBPr 15in 16GB that I've replaced the SSD with an Aura Pro X2 2TB via OWC sometime around 3 years ago or so (12,272 Power On Hours). I'm seeing 120 TBW and 16 Unsafe Shutdowns. Now on my M1 MBP 16GB/2TB, that I received end of November, I'm seeing 24.1 TBW and 27 Unsafe Shutdowns. I did NOT restore from Time Machine when I set up my M1, either. But I am running almost everything the same as I was, application & workflow-wise. I installed everything as if it was a new setup. I'd assume the Local Time Machine snapshots and Swap are doing a bunch, but I'm still thinking 24+TBW in 3 months is a lot. Relatively speaking.
Since SSD hard drives hit the scene, people have been moaning that they're time bombs, that they're going to fail at any given moment, etc, etc....and all these years later, the majority of SSD hard drives are still going as strong as ever. Just use the laptop. It's a tool, not a ming dynasty vase that belongs in a museum.
This is true, but having the numbers of TBW that people are reporting after a few months is unheard of. The old OCZ SSD in the 2012 Mac mini that I gave to my dad is still working perfectly fine. The SSD in my 2012 rMBP is still working perfectly fine. That's not the point of this thread. The point is that there is something clearly not right with Big Sur and M1 Macs and potentially with Intel Macs too.
This isn't a typical MR thread where people are concerned about losing 3% of their battery capacity, or obsessed about whether they got the panel or SSD made by manufacturer X or Y.
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I agree.
That's not the case.
I purchased my Macbook Air M1 16/256 (7+8 core) on 5th of February. So it's 26 days old and 11,4 TB written.
That's very worrying. My Macbook Air 2013 with 128GB and constantly around 80% had 0 issues. Sadly I sold it last year ;( With that stats I can't even dream M1 Macbook lasting for that long.
If that interests you go ahead. What works for me is to neuter spotlight indexing until Apple fixes this stopper bug.
People are not dumb when it comes to their hardware. They can easily look at the write cycles of an Intel Mini running for years and compare it to their 2 month old M1 Mini that has written more in 10x less time. You don't need to be a mathematics professor to spot a problem. Maybe those who don't see a problem aren't very good at maths. I don't know.
Sorry to rain in your parade but Alfred DOES NEED spotlight to work. From Alfred's web:
Can Alfred work without Spotlight enabled?
Alfred relies on the same macOS metadata index as Spotlight. As such, it's important for you to let Spotlight run on your Mac to maintain an index of the files on it. Turning off Spotlight indexing will still allow you to use Alfred as a web launcher but you'll no longer be able to find files on your Mac.In any case, I see your point. We all want Apple to fix this thing. Moreover, several people have tried turning Spotlight indexing off and the problem still persists.