ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

[wirtandi]

So its looking more and more likely that 11.3 may have fixed this issue? Has anyone else updated to 11.3?

 

[majormike]

IMHO you are panicking regarding what is happening to a small percentage of M1 users.


External SSD; Problem solved. And where're you getting this 3 years from?

Lonehorn shows 1% in about 2 months - that is 200 months (16.6 years) for 100%.

Dan Moren's numbers are even better as 1% in 3 months is 300 months or 25 years.
His 2017 iMac's 14% in 42 months (3.5 years) produces the same life span - 300 months (42*100/14).

People seems to be looking at just the raw TBW and not the percentage. If we can trust the TB numbers then why can't we trust the percentages these very same tools produce?

How is an external SSD going to solve the issue? That's just mitigating the issue of not being able to replace the SSD in the first place by protecting the part that is not swappable becuase of wear.

Would you wear shoes over your shoes to protect them?

Do you know how many times I had to replace my RAM inside my Mac Pro 2008 8-Core over the years because it was just operating at a very hot level? 4 times. Imagine if I had sent this machine to Apple for repair, I would've paid thousands to get it fixed just because my Ram failed.

I obviously had planned to get an external SSD for that same very reason but people seem to have that issue without actually doing anything and my 3 years estimate was based on the guy on twitter who said that somebody's M1 failed after half a year of usage entirely.

To be perfectly honest, I swallowed already the pill to use an external SSD for that very reason but would obviously prefer to write on my laptops SSD without restriction and swap it any time I want with a new one and don't worry about an external SSD and pay hundreds of dollars for a good enclosure ontop of the SSD...

 

[darngooddesign]

Do you know how many times I had to replace my RAM inside my Mac Pro 2008 8-Core over the years because it was just operating at a very hot level? 4 times. Imagine if I had sent this machine to Apple for repair, I would've paid thousands to get it fixed just because my Ram failed.

And yet the unreplaceable RAM in my 2014 MBP has been fine and the computer is still going strong as my daily driver after seven years.

 

[majormike]

And yet the unreplaceable RAM in my 2014 MBP has been fine and the computer is still going strong as my daily driver after seven years.

It's lottery, some people are fine, others aren't.

 

[darngooddesign]

It's lottery, some people are fine, others aren't.

Except there really hasn't been a rash of the RAM failing on 2014 era MBPs. In fact, they are well loved for their long life.

 

[majormike]

Except there really hasn't been a rash of the RAM failing on 2014 era MBPs. In fact, they are well loved for their long life.

Ram was just an example, SSDs are a lot more prone to wear than Ram.

 

[osplo]

At this point I think that all this thing is turning out to be a non-issue. And I am confident that Apple will soon create a fix for that remaining 0,001% of users affected by this "bug".

 

[thadoggfather]

At this point I think that all this thing is turning out to be a non-issue. And I am confident that Apple will soon create a fix for that remaining 0,001% of users affected by this "bug".

not gonna lie if my machine was writing terabytes a day to the drive I’d be a little miffed

even if it gets resolved soon just churning through writes like doing donuts on your brand new tires without your input

 

[TheSynchronizer]

eAt this point I think that all this thing is turning out to be a non-issue. And I am confident that Apple will soon create a fix for that remaining 0,001% of users affected by this "bug".

well my m1 did 20.6 TB in first 3 months of ownership.

now after some fixes, but generally not changing too much, it is writing substantially less, seemingly by itself.

this is, or more likely was a real issue. I believe apple has fixed some of it already with 11.2.3, and might just fix it completely with the next update as some are reporting even more positive change

 

[majormike]

Let's save 400 on a bigger SSD and get an external enclosure: 180 for a good TB3 enclosure + 320 for 970 Evo Plus 😂

Well I guess I've just realized what Apple bases their SSD upgrade prices on; not the actual storage price but how much a fast enclosure + SSD would cost you 😎

 

[Fomalhaut]

At this point I think that all this thing is turning out to be a non-issue. And I am confident that Apple will soon create a fix for that remaining 0,001% of users affected by this "bug".

Well, I wouldn't say it was a "non-issue", because we all want to know what is going on if our machines are writing hundreds of GB to our SSDs without a reasonable explanation based on usage.

I had a few days at >800GB/day, but this has greatly reduced since I started a policy of more aggressively closing Safari tabs to reduce swap usage (on a 16GB Mini). I've also turned off automatic TimeMachine backups.

So I had to change the way I use the machine to avoid excessive SSD writes - in other words, the machine is dictating to me how I must work, rather than vice versa, which is not how technology should work.

It's also possible that Apple has applied some fixes in the last updates since this question appeared on numerous forums and YouTube channels, or if they saw a significant number of returns or order cancellations.

 

[pistonpilot]

Screw Apple. I just installed Catalina on my Extreme SSD and migrated all my data and settings.

My printer works. My scanner works. I don't have to worry about excessive writes.

My cases sent to the "Engineers" resulted in the Engineers not worried about the excessive writing. Apple told me to go F off.

 

[Marty_Macfly]

Hi All,


Great you tube video on this. Summary: Rosetta 2 and need update macOS.

Hope that helps! 😀


Regards
Martin

 

[Never mind]

Hi All,


Great you tube video on this. Summary: Rosetta 2 and need update macOS.

Hope that helps! 😀


Regards
Martin

Yes, good video but has already been shown post 1368

 

[Maximara]

How is an external SSD going to solve the issue? That's just mitigating the issue of not being able to replace the SSD in the first place by protecting the part that is not swappable becuase of wear.

You don't get it. Swapping the SSD is effectively the same as using an external.

Would you wear shoes over your shoes to protect them?

Non Sequitur comparison as your complaint is basically 'how do I replace the soles of my shoes rather then getting another pair of shoes'? Also you dodged the question of where are the 3 years coming from?

Do you know how many times I had to replace my RAM inside my Mac Pro 2008 8-Core over the years because it was just operating at a very hot level? 4 times.

I would ask what were you doing to have it run hot enough to fry your RAM like a egg? My 2008 iMac has the same memory it had as does the 2013 one I am typing this on. Never mind the whole reason you get a Mac Pro is for the upgradability.

 

[Maximara]

And yet the unreplaceable RAM in my 2014 MBP has been fine and the computer is still going strong as my daily driver after seven years.

I can do better. I haven't had to replace the RAM in my 2007 iMac. Sure there is the option but an option unused might as well not be there. Also if a computer is frying its RAM like eggs on a skillet 4 times in a row indicates something seriously wrong. Let up the ante and ask how many people replace their CPUs as that option is also available on some PCs.

 

[Maximara]

Ram was just an example, SSDs are a lot more prone to wear than Ram.

And platter HDs are more prone to wear than SSDs. Your point?

 

[ambient_light]

So its looking more and more likely that 11.3 may have fixed this issue? Has anyone else updated to 11.3?

I'm on 11.3b4 - this is where improvements are finally visible. I wouldn't say that it's fixed completely though, rather looks like swapping algorithm was tweaked a bit to lower the impact. On my workflow it's down from 1Tb+ writes per day to 100-200Gb, provided that I also keep an eye on swap size and reboot it once in a while.

 

[Maximara]

not gonna lie if my machine was writing terabytes a day to the drive I’d be a little miffed

Only if the percentage showed this was actually an issue.

even if it gets resolved soon just churning through writes like doing donuts on your brand new tires without your input

The issue may be akin to getting new tires that are improperly inflated (it wears them out faster).

This mess is likely due to a host of issues given not everyone is seeing large percentages of the SSD being used - trying to use a 8 GB Mac as if it was an 16 GB one, running Chrome (or another other browser that eats RAM like candy), running unoptimized/poorly optimized software, running software that uses the kernel to write to the HD because the programmer took shortcuts or didn't double check their code.

 

[chouseworth]

Screw Apple. I just installed Catalina on my Extreme SSD and migrated all my data and settings.

My printer works. My scanner works. I don't have to worry about excessive writes.

My cases sent to the "Engineers" resulted in the Engineers not worried about the excessive writing. Apple told me to go F off.

We could do without the salty language. Let’s keep this forum on point and respectful.

 

[Marty_Macfly]

Yes, good video but has already been shown post 1368

Hi N,

I must have missed that post!

😀

 

[thadoggfather]

running unoptimized/poorly optimized software, running software that uses the kernel to write to the HD because the programmer took shortcuts or didn't double check their code.

It seems odd to me to retroactively blame 'bad programming' on apps that were previously never an ostensible issue, prior to M1 and/or Big Sur.

It also seems odd to hold out hope they'll update their legacy apps that don't run AS native, to find the needle in the haystack triggering excess swap with Rosetta v2, if that is even the culprit

That is an idiosyncratic Apple consumer mentality. Must be anyone or anything BUT apple, including but not limited to end user's mistake + the creator.

 

[TheSynchronizer]

Interesting observation on my M1 Macbook Pro today;

I noticed it write around 6-7GB on bootup which ofcourse is unusual and way too high. So i safe booted, checked in safe boot and the write was ~400Mb. I then proceeded to only leave apps i really need in Login Items - but there were some unknown apps I never remember installing, such as ‘SmartDaemon’ which the Mac itself identified as unknown.

I’m not sure what was writing. Regardless, I now write 400MB on boot with the startup apps (that i recognise) that I had before in place. I recommend people try safe booting, and then Disk Utility first aiding all the partitions as in my case this definitely fixed something.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I figure more data can't hurt? If not, I apologize.


Big Sur - 2020 MBP 13' Intel i7. Parallels with Windows 10 (suspending at end of day) - 12GB of Ram given to Windows.

I'm seeing about 1.5TB of writes used a month right now using the same workflow I've always used. My 2017 MBP 13' i5 (16GB ram) had (if I remember right), around 23TB written after nearly 3 years.

From my own perspectives, Big Sur definitely is harder on SSDs than Catalina was.

I have 32GB of ram and barely hitting above half usage even with VM running.

Below is after 3 days uptime (lighter than usual usage):

 

[darngooddesign]

I can do better. I haven't had to replace the RAM in my 2007 iMac. Sure there is the option but an option unused might as well not be there. Also if a computer is frying its RAM like eggs on a skillet 4 times in a row indicates something seriously wrong. Let up the ante and ask how many people replace their CPUs as that option is also available on some PCs.

Even better, I have never had RAM fail in any of my Macs since 1990ish.