ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

[ManicMarc]

Let us see.

Average home page size nowadays 30-35 mb. That a thousand times is 30-35 GB.

No, one should not expect to ”not have any problems” with that.

Page size is not related to how much RAM a page uses. 4 lines of JavaScript code could loop round and create millions of DOM elements that will use up RAM. This transcript from Security Now (podcast) explains that many pages are around the 500MB mark.

 

[Spindel]

Page size is not related to how much RAM a page uses. 4 lines of JavaScript code could loop round and create millions of DOM elements that will use up RAM. This transcript from Security Now (podcast) explains that many pages are around the 500MB mark.


View attachment 1749512

As I stated in a previous post quoting this post, I was "kind" to the calculation and it still shows how absurd the statement is that one should "expect" a computer to be able to handle a 1000 tabs open "with no problems".

Work in what ever way that floats your boat.
But a tip to a lot of people is to start to use bookmarks for stuff "you might need" instad of keeping dozens of tabs open at the same time. Most work flows don't need to have more than 1-5 tabs open at the same time the rest mig as well be relegated to bookmarks without a time penalty to your workflow.

 

[leons]

To prevent edge from writing YouTube videos to disk, go to ~/Library/Caches/Microsoft Edge/Default/ , select the 'Cache' folder and click Get Info, and under 'Sharing & Permissions' set your admin/user account to Read only, so that it says 'You can only read'.

I'm attaching a screenshot of some of the extensions I have in Edge, most importantly Tab Discarder. You set this extension to discard your background open tabs when you're not using them - this unloads the websites completely and completely frees memory, but keeps them open as a tab. Therefore you could have 100 tabs open like I do right now, but only have 5 tabs loaded in memory at all times - no caching and no excessive swap writes.

You can customise the settings of the extension to your choosing. I'm attaching the way I've set my settings which work best for me, but you may want different settings e.g. to have more tabs open at once before discarding.

Lastly in edge, type edge://flags in the search bar, and where it says 'Search flags' search:
Partial swap - Disable
AppCache web API - Disable
Heavy Ad Intervention - Enable
Back-forward Cache - Disable

You can look through the flags and enable any other features which might interest you, e.g. I've enabled parallel downloading for faster downloads, and Tab Hover Cards for tab previews when I mouse over their tab names.

That's essentially all I've done in terms of optimising Edge, you could also try the built in Sleeping Tabs in settings with a timer of your choice, however this will not discard tabs so the memory reduction will only be slight. In contrast my method is best if you want very minimal SSD writes even with 500 tabs 'open'. And if you're going to use Tab Discarder I recommend completely turning off sleeping tabs.

Right now I'm at 21.61GB written at 23:45 hours of uptime, or 0.9GB written per hour.

@TheSynchronizer

You're not using BOTH Adblock and Ublock (are you)?

 

[afdkj]

Hi guys, I have my Macbook M1 (basic version) for ~3 weeks and I have 4.12TB Data Units Read and 2.69TB Data Units Written. Is that a lot? I struggle to find what the normal usage should be.

 

[CMMChris]

That's perfectly fine.

 

[IceStormNG]

That's still 128GB per day (on average). It depends on what you do. If you only surf the web and check your mails, it's quite high for my likings. If you do more write intensive stuff, then it's fine.

 

[CMMChris]

It's a non issue if it doesn't keep increasing that fast. Setting the machine up puts quite a bit of initial load on the SSD. 2.69TB is absolutely nothing to worry about. Now if he sees that doubled after 3 more weeks he can start to worry in case he is not doing any write intensive work on the SSD.

 

[leons]

Hi guys, I have my Macbook M1 (basic version) for ~3 weeks and I have 4.12TB Data Units Read and 2.69TB Data Units Written. Is that a lot? I struggle to find what the normal usage should be.

Even if it stays the same, you're good for 21years+. I'll buy it from you then! ;-)

 

[k-hawinkler]

My M1 Mac mini used to average 80 - 90 GB writing per day over 2 months.
Now keeping an eye on it, it averages about 20 - 30 GB writing per day.
I don’t consider that a problem at all.
‘Hopefully improvements in Big Sur, Safari, and Capture One Pro going native by this summer will improve it even further.

 

[leons]

My M1 Mac mini used to average 80 - 90 GB writing per day over 2 months.
Now keeping an eye on it, it averages about 20 - 30 GB writing per day.
I don’t consider that a problem at all.
‘Hopefully improvements in Big Sur, Safari, and Capture One Pro going native by this summer will improve it even further.

you are well within warranty spec

 

[kubilaydem]

I have m1 MBA - 8 GB - 256 SSD

Disabled Spotlight and using native apps %95 of the time. Also using onedrive as cloud and Safari as browser.

Now i have approx 1.5 GB write per hour on regular light usage. Browsing + youtube + office apps + e-mail. 12 Tabs open.

Is it ok, good?

 

[leons]

I have m1 MBA - 8 GB - 256 SSD

Disabled Spotlight and using native apps %95 of the time. Also using onedrive as cloud and Safari as browser.

Now i have approx 1.5 GB write per hour on regular light usage. Browsing + youtube + office apps + e-mail. 12 Tabs open.

Is it ok, good?

Yes, below warranty spec. The laptop will be in the landfill before SSD fails (if nothing abnormal occurs)!

 

[kubilaydem]

Yes, below warranty spec. The laptop will be in the landfill before SSD fails (if nothing abnormal occurs)!

Thank you !

Should i do anything?

Onyx?
Switching Browser?
Time machine exclude?

 

[leons]

Thank you !

Should i do anything?

Onyx?
Switching Browser?
Time machine exclude?

No, with TWICE that usage, 24x7, if there is no outlying factors that cause failure, the SSD could even outlast YOU, but will DEFINITELY outlast the computer. Just enjoy your amazing machine! (But feel free to ask any other questions that come up).

 

[TheSynchronizer]

I have m1 MBA - 8 GB - 256 SSD

Disabled Spotlight and using native apps %95 of the time. Also using onedrive as cloud and Safari as browser.

Now i have approx 1.5 GB write per hour on regular light usage. Browsing + youtube + office apps + e-mail. 12 Tabs open.

Is it ok, good?

Honestly I’d say anything below 5GB write per hour is perfectly fine and on track for 14+ years of life, or most likely a lot more.

You’re more than okay at those writes. enjoy your mac

 

[TheSynchronizer]

@TheSynchronizer

You're not using BOTH Adblock and Ublock (are you)?

Usually, no. In that screenshot I was just testing whether having them both enabled would be beneficial - turns out it’s not. So im going to keep just Ublock enabled

 

[kubilaydem]

Thank you so much !

It's a great machine, i love it.

I will try icloud as cloud storage. Onedrive is not native, so half of the write is onedrive.

 

[leons]

Delete

 

[zpafis]

For the information of others reading this thread: I have now verified that Coconut Battery (a very small and respected App) gives accurate information on disk wear (I checked it side-by-side with the smartctl tool). For those that wish a simpler method of checking their disk, without having to use terminal commands, I recommend it highly. (It is also one of the few good battery monitoring tools out there).

Purchased March 1st with a lot of use office365, Teams, and browsing with safari.
I think its ok.

 

[ambient_light]

Purchased March 1st with a lot of use office365, Teams, and browsing with safari.
I think its ok.

Nothing to worry - got that much or more in a day.

 

[nquinn]

Trying to catch up but there are 67 pages of threads here. Has Apple released any initial patches for this at all?

 

[jdb8167]

Trying to catch up but there are 67 pages of threads here. Has Apple released any initial patches for this at all?

Nothing from Apple yet. There are reports that the next release improves things but Apple hasn't said anything.

 

[Thistle41]

Trying to catch up but there are 67 pages of threads here. Has Apple released any initial patches for this at all?

I too had this problem, both the excessive SSD writes and a long thread. I picked up at page 65 as it was near the end but far back enough to get a handle on the discussions. So far it has proven an excellent source of ideas to try.

My suggestion is to try the technique 'TheSynchronizer' has put up here. Use Edge, turn off cache add ins that deal with many tabs and in my case, I turned off *ALL* Spotlight activity. I think it has resolved my problems, I will wait overnight (yes, overnight even in sleep mode it still churns away adding SSD writes!). There is some suggestion about using the next beta release of Big Sur but for now, I think it is fixed.

Thanks to all contributors for your ideas and the hard work, I've been following a few YouTube channels but they seem to be a bit lost as well last time I checked.

 

[wirtandi]

Trying to catch up but there are 67 pages of threads here. Has Apple released any initial patches for this at all?

Sounds like 11.3.5 fixes it finally but Apple is incredibly annoying - they have not said anything at all in relation to this

 

[leons]

Purchased March 1st with a lot of use office365, Teams, and browsing with safari.
I think its ok.

More than OK. The SSD will outlive your machine.