ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

[leons]

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.

Which places did you turn off "all" spotlight activity?

 

[kubilaydem]

Which places did you turn off "all" spotlight activity?

I exluded those;

-Developer
-Driverkit
-IOSSupport
-Library
-Users
-Onedrive
-Volumes

No more exsessive spotlight writes.

 

[k-hawinkler]

I exluded those;

-Developer
-Driverkit
-IOSSupport
-Library
-Users
-Onedrive
-Volumes

No more exsessive spotlight writes.

Where do you do that? In preferences? TIA.

 

[jeanlain]

I exluded those;

-Developer
-Driverkit
-IOSSupport
-Library
-Users
-Onedrive
-Volumes

No more exsessive spotlight writes.

So spotlight won't find anything I suppose.

 

[Thistle41]

Which places did you turn off "all" spotlight activity?

Yes 'All' are on by default.

 

[kubilaydem]

Where do you do that? In preferences? TIA.

Go to system prefences > spotlight > privacy and click + icon for exclude.

So spotlight won't find anything I suppose.

Yes, no spotlight feature when exclude. But i left applications folder inclueded so i can type "calculator" on spotlight.

 

[Maximara]

Go to system prefences > spotlight > privacy and click + icon for exclude.



Yes, no spotlight feature when exclude. But i left applications folder inclueded so i can type "calculator" on spotlight.

Does QuickSilver need Spotlight active to work? If not it would be an excellent replacement for Spotlight.

 

[ambient_light]

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

Regarding 11.3.5 - unfortunately, it doesn’t fix the problem completely. Moreover, looks like swapping behavior got a bit worse for me than with 11.3.4, as soon as swap size is more than 4gb.

One more time about the source of the problem, since I see many posters here optimizing their browsers, Rosetta, spotlight indexers, etc. Yes, applications might write a lot, e.g. tens of gigabytes a day, but it won’t translate into tens of terabytes that fast, and, most importantly not a big deal per se.

The main culprit is OS memory management, specifically swapping by kernel_task. An obvious bug indicator, is when kernel_task writes 5-10 times more than it reads, and it is all due to swapping, according to vm_stat (saw it again in 11.3.5).

 

[Kung gu]

Regarding 11.3.5 - unfortunately, it doesn’t fix the problem completely. Moreover, looks like swapping behavior got a bit worse for me than with 11.3.4, as soon as swap size is more than 4gb.

One more time about the source of the problem, since I see many posters here optimizing their browsers, Rosetta, spotlight indexers, etc. Yes, applications might write a lot, e.g. tens of gigabytes a day, but it won’t translate into tens of terabytes that fast, and, most importantly not a big deal per se.

The main culprit is OS memory management, specifically swapping by kernel_task. An obvious bug indicator, is when kernel_task writes 5-10 times more than it reads, and it is all due to swapping, according to vm_stat (saw it again in 11.3.5).

I think beta software is not a good way to judge it yet. As the beta software may be running extra processes.
I would wait for the full release of 11.3 to see if its any better.

 

[Donga120]

Now at 2.56TB, so 200GB in 5 days. Yikes for saying I use it for light browsing and thats it really. Either way still not worried but I feel it is more than it should be.

Just over 2 weeks later, now at 2.98TB with light usage. FYI, Onyx helped my issue a lot.

 

[ManuCH]

I am pretty much exactly at 250 GB written per day. What I noticed is that it starts writing more per day once I have filled up swap by using a heavy app.

For example: if the Mac Mini (M1/16GB/1TB) is freshly booted, and I only keep using light apps (like browsing and some Office apps), it will stay at 25-50 GB written per day, for days. No problem. And the swap is empty.

Then if at some point I start a "heavier" app (for example Parallels Desktop), it starts filling the swap, and it remains in use even if I quit the app and the memory is freed. From that moment on, it will write 250 GB per day.

So the problem seems to be that once memory usage goes up to a level that swap needs to be used, it will never free the swap again, and when the swap exists, it will write more than when it doesn't exist, regardless of RAM usage. A reboot fixes it.

Also I've noticed that Safari really is a memory hog. After switching to Edge I see the increased writes happening much later after reboot (days-wise).

That said, even with a constant value of 250 GB written per day, assuming 600 TBW max. for my 1 TB SSD, it would last 6.5 years, which is more than I ever plan to keep a Mac. So I'll just use it normally and not care about that really.

 

[ambient_light]

I think beta software is not a good way to judge it yet. As the beta software may be running extra processes.
I would wait for the full release of 11.3 to see if its any better.

I’m not talking here about any “extra processes“, even if those exist - only about kernel swapping activity.

 

[ambient_light]

I am pretty much exactly at 250 GB written per day. What I noticed is that it starts writing more per day once I have filled up swap by using a heavy app.

For example: if the Mac Mini (M1/16GB/1TB) is freshly booted, and I only keep using light apps (like browsing and some Office apps), it will stay at 25-50 GB written per day, for days. No problem. And the swap is empty.

Then if at some point I start a "heavier" app (for example Parallels Desktop), it starts filling the swap, and it remains in use even if I quit the app and the memory is freed. From that moment on, it will write 250 GB per day.

So the problem seems to be that once memory usage goes up to a level that swap needs to be used, it will never free the swap again, and when the swap exists, it will write more than when it doesn't exist, regardless of RAM usage. A reboot fixes it.

Also I've noticed that Safari really is a memory hog. After switching to Edge I see the increased writes happening much later after reboot (days-wise).

That said, even with a constant value of 250 GB written per day, assuming 600 TBW max. for my 1 TB SSD, it would last 6.5 years, which is more than I ever plan to keep a Mac. So I'll just use it normally and not care about that really.

Very much similar to my experience. After reaching certain watermark, VM subsystem starts continuous swapouts, even without load and with the substantial free memory (5Gb), and cannot stop, until the swap size goes down back below than 4Gb.

 

[iLog.Genius]

I am pretty much exactly at 250 GB written per day. What I noticed is that it starts writing more per day once I have filled up swap by using a heavy app.

For example: if the Mac Mini (M1/16GB/1TB) is freshly booted, and I only keep using light apps (like browsing and some Office apps), it will stay at 25-50 GB written per day, for days. No problem. And the swap is empty.

Then if at some point I start a "heavier" app (for example Parallels Desktop), it starts filling the swap, and it remains in use even if I quit the app and the memory is freed. From that moment on, it will write 250 GB per day.

So the problem seems to be that once memory usage goes up to a level that swap needs to be used, it will never free the swap again, and when the swap exists, it will write more than when it doesn't exist, regardless of RAM usage. A reboot fixes it.

Also I've noticed that Safari really is a memory hog. After switching to Edge I see the increased writes happening much later after reboot (days-wise).

That said, even with a constant value of 250 GB written per day, assuming 600 TBW max. for my 1 TB SSD, it would last 6.5 years, which is more than I ever plan to keep a Mac. So I'll just use it normally and not care about that really.

I'm noticing this as well as I was playing around with different things. If you don't open anything that may require large amounts of RAM (after a restart) and you stick with basic tasks like browsing (any browser), Apple Music, things will stay in check. Once you open or run anything that may require large amounts of RAM, the system will begin to start eating up RAM regardless of what you do.

 

[Thistle41]

Regarding 11.3.5 - unfortunately, it doesn’t fix the problem completely. Moreover, looks like swapping behavior got a bit worse for me than with 11.3.4, as soon as swap size is more than 4gb.

One more time about the source of the problem, since I see many posters here optimizing their browsers, Rosetta, spotlight indexers, etc. Yes, applications might write a lot, e.g. tens of gigabytes a day, but it won’t translate into tens of terabytes that fast, and, most importantly not a big deal per se.

The main culprit is OS memory management, specifically swapping by kernel_task. An obvious bug indicator, is when kernel_task writes 5-10 times more than it reads, and it is all due to swapping, according to vm_stat (saw it again in 11.3.5).

Ok thanks for reporting that the latest beta is no help. I also saw that strange effect of Swap building up but never going down again. I think logout/login fixes it no need for a reboot?

Anyway, over on other forums, Safari was given as the browser to use but I'm not so sure anymore. Using Edge and turning off all Spotlight searches gives me around 30GB in a shade under 2 days, a lot less than the figures you're reporting.

 

[leons]

Just over 2 weeks later, now at 2.98TB with light usage. FYI, Onyx helped my issue a lot.

Can you please give us details of what functions in Onyx you used that helped?
If anyone else used Onyx in a way that helped this issue, please comment on what you did as well.

 

[TheSynchronizer]

Ok thanks for reporting that the latest beta is no help. I also saw that strange effect of Swap building up but never going down again. I think logout/login fixes it no need for a reboot?

Anyway, over on other forums, Safari was given as the browser to use but I'm not so sure anymore. Using Edge and turning off all Spotlight searches gives me around 30GB in a shade under 2 days, a lot less than the figures you're reporting.

I've been preaching Edge over Safari for a very long time now ever since this issue began for me, and I stand by it firmly. Safari caching / memory management is simply too aggressive imo, whether it's by design to make Safari the fastest browser ever at all costs or whether Big Sur is a buggy mess, I just think using safari currently is bad for the SSD health with how much my M1 was writing.

Then again some people use Safari and really do have no issues, which is the part that doesn't ever seem to add up. Regardless, I'm part of the 'Safari is part of the reason my SSD was being chewed up' gang and I'm sticking to Edge with all it's extensions.

 

[nquinn]

I've been preaching Edge over Safari for a very long time now ever since this issue began for me, and I stand by it firmly. Safari caching / memory management is simply too aggressive imo, whether it's by design to make Safari the fastest browser ever at all costs or whether Big Sur is a buggy mess, I just think using safari currently is bad for the SSD health with how much my M1 was writing.

Then again some people use Safari and really do have no issues, which is the part that doesn't ever seem to add up. Regardless, I'm part of the 'Safari is part of the reason my SSD was being chewed up' gang and I'm sticking to Edge with all it's extensions.

Not sure if you've used Firefox in a while, but the latest versions are blazing fast. I haven't used firefox regularly in over a decade, but I'm at the point now where I think I'm switching back.

Chrome = don't trust for privacy issues

Safari = Don't love the interface, and now these issues

Firefox = super fast now, tons of extensions, new 'containers' extension for privacy. It's just damn good. It also would let you support Android in the future if you ever switched since you aren't going to see Safari on Android phones.

 

[Internaut]

Has anyone spotted issues around sleep/wake on this subject. I've noticed a few time now when I've been working:

• I've had few Apple Silicon apps running
• No Rosetta apps
• Browser in use is Edge with 8 or so tabs (including tabs of Outlook and Teams)
• Couple of Word documents, OneNote, Tw@tter, Podcasts, Apple News, Activity Monitor.

I can spend an afternoon working with this and see no swap space used. Laptop goes to sleep, I wake it up and soon after notice the best part of 1Gb of swap space is in use (and it stays that way, even if I close all apps down).

 

[TheSynchronizer]

Not sure if you've used Firefox in a while, but the latest versions are blazing fast. I haven't used firefox regularly in over a decade, but I'm at the point now where I think I'm switching back.

Chrome = don't trust for privacy issues

Safari = Don't love the interface, and now these issues

Firefox = super fast now, tons of extensions, new 'containers' extension for privacy. It's just damn good. It also would let you support Android in the future if you ever switched since you aren't going to see Safari on Android phones.

Sounds like it's worth giving a try, thanks!

Has anyone spotted issues around sleep/wake on this subject. I've noticed a few time now when I've been working:

• I've had few Apple Silicon apps running
• No Rosetta apps
• Browser in use is Edge with 8 or so tabs (including tabs of Outlook and Teams)
• Couple of Word documents, OneNote, Tw@tter, Podcasts, Apple News, Activity Monitor.

I can spend an afternoon working with this and see no swap space used. Laptop goes to sleep, I wake it up and soon after notice the best part of 1Gb of swap space is in use (and it stays that way, even if I close all apps down).

+1 to this, I've made comments in this thread before on my observations that there seems to be some sort of write loop bug during sleep that has been introduced with Big Sur.

As far as what I've done to reduce the writes on my M1 system during sleep to a minimum, is I've set ttyskeepawake to 0 and tcpkeepalive to 0 in pmset in terminal which essentially turns off networking 2 minutes into sleep instead of keeping them on as is set by default.

This is done by doing sudo pmset -a ttyskeepawake 0 ,then the same for the latter.

I've found this has not affected the functioning of my system at all, everything is syncing and updated on wake as it's always been, but it has essentially reduced my system from writing anywhere up to 8GB during sleep, to around 0.5GB.

 

[leons]

Sounds like it's worth giving a try, thanks!

+1 to this, I've made comments in this thread before on my observations that there seems to be some sort of write loop bug during sleep that has been introduced with Big Sur.

As far as what I've done to reduce the writes on my M1 system during sleep to a minimum, is I've set ttyskeepawake to 0 and tcpkeepalive to 0 in pmset in terminal which essentially turns off networking 2 minutes into sleep instead of keeping them on as is set by default.

This is done by doing sudo pmset -a ttyskeepawake 0 ,then the same for the latter.

I've found this has not affected the functioning of my system at all, everything is syncing and updated on wake as it's always been, but it has essentially reduced my system from writing anywhere up to 8GB during sleep, to around 0.5GB.

Sounds good! Looks like Find My Mac won't work with this setting?

 

[TheSynchronizer]

Sounds good! Looks like Find My Mac won't work with this setting?

It won’t work while the mac is asleep, correct. However when it’s awake it will continue to function as normal.

 

[leons]

It won’t work while the mac is asleep, correct. However when it’s awake it will continue to function as normal.

OK, Not an issue for me, but people who tend to lose things might want to remember to turn it back on after Apple fixes the issue.

 

[Tev11]

Not sure if you've used Firefox in a while, but the latest versions are blazing fast. I haven't used firefox regularly in over a decade, but I'm at the point now where I think I'm switching back.

Chrome = don't trust for privacy issues

Safari = Don't love the interface, and now these issues

Firefox = super fast now, tons of extensions, new 'containers' extension for privacy. It's just damn good. It also would let you support Android in the future if you ever switched since you aren't going to see Safari on Android phones.

I want to use Firefox, but something about the UI really bothers me (even with the new UI design coming out) ahaha! However, they make it easy to disable caching etc.

 

[Tev11]

I've been preaching Edge over Safari for a very long time now ever since this issue began for me, and I stand by it firmly. Safari caching / memory management is simply too aggressive imo, whether it's by design to make Safari the fastest browser ever at all costs or whether Big Sur is a buggy mess, I just think using safari currently is bad for the SSD health with how much my M1 was writing.

Then again some people use Safari and really do have no issues, which is the part that doesn't ever seem to add up. Regardless, I'm part of the 'Safari is part of the reason my SSD was being chewed up' gang and I'm sticking to Edge with all it's extensions.

Ah, my love/hate relationship for Safari. Wish Apple would allow iCloud for Edge on macOS as they did for Edge/Chrome users on Windows.

I do not like how each tab is sandboxed (something I just now looked into). I understand that Apple's reasoning for that as that tab as it is isolated from the system and are individual separate sessions, which theoretically prevents malware from spreading throughout your other tabs and the computer itself. But is this really an issue though? I might be wrong here, but Chromium browsers do not do this, but most users are fine.

As a result, each tab uses more RAM than necessary, especially if it is a poorly coded website for WebKit. And therefore, caches to the SSD giving you the excessive writes.

I have decided, though, to use Edge as my main browser with caches disabled and everything. I decided to use BitWarden as my cross-system password manager and use Flotato to create a Netflix "app," which is saved to the dock whenever I need to access it. I do love the DOM Distiller as my Reader Mode, which almost resembles Safari's, and it is quite simple to configure. I did turn ON the experimental feature in Edge to have immediate sleeping tabs, which is great. Internet is more than fast enough to resume the website when I have a need for it again.

Main reason I switched to Edge is because I now realize that I visit websites that do not work well with Safari, especially for school whose websites have not been updated since before Y2K (exaggeration here).