Apple M1 SSD Lifespan - Should we worry about the SWAPPING?

How to recover data from SSD: bit.ly/3qGtwfl
Lots of folks are concerned about the amount of memory swapping Apple's M1 computers are doing. Will it shorten the life expectancy of the internal SSD?
In this video, I take a look at some numbers and try to answer that question.
#AppleM1 #AppleSilicon #SSD
Sponsored by Wondershare Recoverit: bit.ly/3qGtwfl
Our NEW podcast channel: / theconstantgeekerypodcast
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M1 Mac Mini: amzn.to/3aAxwal ( UK: amzn.to/3oRbXHP )
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M1 MacBook Pro: amzn.to/36Gwt7N ( UK: amzn.to/3axIRrM )

[@EvgeniyBerlin]

Can we get out of the loop a little bit, and appreciate this guy's perfect verbal skills and nice pink shirt?

[@derickito]

Well he is British so it’s a bit unfair, but yeah why not 👏👏 (They’re so much better than us Americans 🤣)

[@petethegeek2332]

It is a very nice shirt.

[@NicVandEmZ]

@@petethegeek2332 older Mac used swap Also

[@petethegeek2332]

@@NicVandEmZ yes, it’s been around as a legitimate technique since the 80s, but it seems the M1 makes more prolific use of the method, which has raised concerns. Hence the video 😊

[@JTM1809]

@@petethegeek2332 It seems to me, that the main concern of swapping has shifted with this paradigm. Previously, it used to be the ridiculous speed penalty due to the hdd access. Now it’s more of a power penalty, as the RAM is integrated within M1’s SoC, whereas the SSD still has to go through the two sets of i/o and the PCB. Potentially it’s also the SSD lifespan for applications like intensive HDR video editing, where there’s both need for a lot of RAM (thus swapping gets triggered), and the data throughput could be voluminous as well.

[@kevinsturges6957]

This channel is how I imagined the future would be when I was a kid. It’s such a refreshing change from the rest of the noise on KZbin. I wish I lived in a PBS world. 😊

[@zt9233]

U nailed it!

[@Mastakilla91]

The calmness is indeed a fresh alternative to usual attention seeking videos.

[@awoowie_nate]

Yeah...

[@georged822]

Why is there no EDM blasting and why are you not shouting and why are there no meme references every 2 seconds and why didn't you stretch the content out an extra few minutes to fit more ads?!?!? Subbed!!!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Must try harder 😁 thank you!

[@jackwilson5542]

Comment of a day... Hate the obnoxious overedited shouting videos.

[@Zombie101]

Ok boomer

[@Exhalted1]

Because he has a job, so this is a hobby like youtube should be

[@rohansully584]

exactly what I was thinking. So much more relaxing and informative

[@bryans8656]

Congratulations on reaching 10K! You deserve it, you put out consistently high quality, formative videos.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@zzz565]

My M1 MBA is a year old, used constantly for video and animation and the SSD is 99% = practically as new. It only has 8GB of ram so the SSD is in constant use. It's not a problem

[@Jay_A52]

An excellent, thoughtful video. So refreshing to have someone who makes KZbin videos on M1 Macs that don't involve hype, yelling, or constant sarcasm. Thank you.

[@masterphoenixpraha]

I bought my MBP Retina 2012 - the first retina generation with 512 SSD... Use it every day, just normal user, not heavy. Sometimes dealing with big files... There we are in 2021 and still running with no issues. But anyways regularly do my Time Machine backup, just in case...

[@ArifMahmud]

Really like the way you explain everything !! thanks :D

[@kevintrumbull5620]

I'm watching your video on a 2012 MacBook Pro. 5 years of life is what I expect out of cheap OEMs, not Apple. Notably, I have replaced both the RAM and the drive in this machine, however the lack of ability to do this with the newer hardware is a reason that I will be taking a rather wait and see approach. Furthermore, this lack of ability to replace parts which fail is a reason that I can't imagine I will buy anything as high end as what I'm using from Apple again. If I'm going to pay top end prices, I expect to get top end lifespans. Suggesting that "normal" users don't even use their computers every day is not a convincing argument to me as that could not apply to me less... Maybe they're release something in their Mac Pro that's no so completely disposable.

[@SaborIntenso]

It's a pleasure watching your videos.

[@eplazai]

this comment was enought to get subscribed.

[@williamshaneblyth]

Simple answer if you use data is plug an external drive in and keep your document video or whatever large data files you have on it. It's alot easier to replace

[@colindoyle9876]

Samsung X5 T3 as boot drive on m1 mini :)

[@akshayvijapur]

You are the real example to show how to explain the technical things. So called Tech KZbinrs don't have one percent of knowledge what you are sharing with us. Kindly keep up.

[@atvarsgr]

I have M1 Mac mini 16Gb/512Gb. Using it as a web bot 24/7 (Python+Selenium via Firefox). During 24h, it opens 21 parallel FirefoxCp's sessions (Intel architecture) 17 times, then around 1Gb is swapped out from RAM each time, means if Apple SSD 512Gb has the same 300TBW rating as Samsung ones, my M1 should last around 48 years. Think I will fade-out first rather than Apple SSD :D

[@MrSzwarz]

I will Not last any longer than older Intel Mac Minis. I have fourth generation Mac Minis all working fine, M1 will NOT outlast them ; ) For sure.

[@nabilahani3482]

I need an opinion. I would like to buy the new M1 MBA, for studies in veterinary field, however due to this SSD Issue, shall I just grab the intel version MBA of early 2020? I also wish to use it for 5 years and above. tq 🥺🙏🏻

[@atvarsgr]

@@nabilahani3482 I solved this “SSD issue” by transferring my workflow to M1 optimised Python version. And keep in mind, I’m “industrial” user, pushing M1 to limits by automatised processes. As a student if you even will use not optimised software, you won’t have any issue whatsoever. And forget about Intel, they are good as heaters only from now on until they come out with something comparable to M1

[@nabilahani3482]

@@atvarsgr I see. There is person advised me that if I want the M1, i shall go for the 16gb and the largest drive I could afford. However, im just a students and concerned about the budget too. Do you think it is okay for me to have 8GB RAM 256GB SSD? Or should I upgrade either one (RAM OR SSD) But I would really appreciate if my M1 could used for more than 5 years.

[@atvarsgr]

@@nabilahani3482 with regular users’ workloads (web, documents etc.) even 8Gb/256Gb M1 will last ages

[@shantanuSkulkarni]

This was extremely informative. Thanks for sharing this. I was worried and was frequently checking swap usages on my M1.

[@jad6342]

I just ordered a MacBook Pro m1 256gb , I still can return it , should I or the ssd doesn’t have issues on the long term

[@shantanuSkulkarni]

@@jad6342 Currently it’s difficult to know actually as many there is no any official confirmation from Apple. But its also true that swap usages are higher on M1 macs compared to intel one. Don’t cancel your order and enjoy your laptop... Even if there the issue, we are covered under warranty.

[@VolkerHett]

In summer 2013 I put a OCZ Vertex 4 into my 2009 Macbook Pro 15", the Macbook and SSD are still going on strong. And I used to use it heavily with VMware Fusion.

[@galaeron]

The sheer politeness and articulateness of the request for subscription had me subscribing and looking for a second thumbs up button.

[@galaeron]

the content itself was brilliant, mind

[@lasarith2]

I’m fairly certain if you ask Louis Rossmann he would be able to tell you what SSD Apple is using.

[@johnh8268]

No, he won't, the SSD chips are literally built on to the CPU die.

[@fallinginthed33p]

@@davidkorcak The M1 chip can fully saturate its memory bus and the SSDs are easily twice as fast as other mobile parts. Apple did a great job with IO design on the M1 laptops.

[@iamkailong]

@@davidkorcak Apple haven’t been using mlc for years. Not like that would be a problem, 3d tlc with good controller is every bit as good if not better. The problem is m1 seems to much rely on swapping memory than before. According to report it can have up to 2-20tbw for just 2 months of typical usage.

[@gabebarber5813]

I have an old ThinkPad T420S with a 160GB SSD. I bought it used like 4 years ago and it's perfectly fine even today, the SSD is still kicking. My M1 MacBook Pro is on its way, beacuse I want to do some heavier tasks, but its still nice to know I shouldn't be worried, because it's really expensive where I live, about 2260 dollars for the 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM version.

[@bilogao]

My 8/256 M1 mac mini has already 10.3 TBW in maybe...2/3 months? Only watch youtube and some chrome/google suite apps. If the total lifespan is 150TBW. It seems only 2years to go....

[@colindoyle9876]

All the you tubers talking and no-one has a word for it. They all copy each other. Constant Geekery is good. They admit they don't know

[@kudivani]

For a lot of users it could be a problem, as many reported already. For example: My Macbook already written more than 60TB, in 2 months!!! And I am having at least 2% lifespan usage. So far I have these observations: If my swap is around 300-500MB (or maybe under 1GB) everything is ok and the kernel_task is writing normal amount of data, but if swap is more than 0.5-1GB kernel_task is writing few GBs per minute (approx. 2TB in day). And it is doing with all apps (Lightroom, Chrome, Photoshop, or even with emptying Trash can, etc.). I can run Lightroom with no issues in those "green" levels of swap memory, but the GPU acceleration must be off. Doing Photoshop work is heavy and swap memory is in usage and kernel_task is writing like crazy. The worst is that after swap memory once jumps above those 0.5-1GB and you quit those Apps that turned swap up the problem continues (swap is in high numbers and kernel is crazy). Now I am looking for option to clear my swap with some magic trick (command "sudo purge" in Terminal is not working so far for me). Let me know if you figured something or you have similar observations as mine. (MB Pro M1 16GB ram and 1TB disk)

[@axe863]

Why on Earth would you buy a laptop with a soldered on SSD? This is like a 40 dollar fix 4 years down the line in a PC laptop.

[@lesdudis2912]

How is the laptop doing now? Would you have got more RAM or storage if you were buying now? I'm trying to figure out whether to go 16 or 32 RAM / 1 or 2TB storage

[@drhibas]

The very best channel of tech stuff. On the point and no obsessive repeating of facts to extend the video play time. ❤️

[@GregBrecker]

Thank you for your unbiased insight in layman’s terms.

[@old-wise-one4473]

One data point which is important is the fuller the drive the less available free space there is for wear leveling. So a drive which is very full will wear out much quicker! Best to leave at a minimum of 1/4 of the drive free for OS and app use for swapfile/page file, caching & app scratch space. Very well done otherwise!

[@АлександрСорокин-о5м]

The problem is that my M1 MacBook writes more than 3 TB a day, so it looks like it won't last even two years.

[@jaypalmer3806]

300gb total in 7 weeks with Mon-Fri 8-6 usage

[@myday6074]

This video lacks actual calculations based on use cases.

[@SourDonut99]

@@myday6074 people forget they would use their SSD normally as well. If you do photography or videography where video and raw files can be extremely large. Buying a mac with a soldered on SSD is probably not good value.

[@kudivani]

Similar here. Already more than 60TB written in less than 2 months. Obviously it is an issue for some users. What programs/apps are you running? I figured out some solutions for my swapping situation so maybe I can help you...

[@sidma5661]

Maybe write it on an external drive whenever you can. Not the greatest solution, but it's a solution.

[@r.s9556]

M1 Mac with 16 gb ram shows zero swap usage even when playing multiple games on it and even if an app is left open for couple of days in the background it handles it really well left it on standby it has amazing battery life. Always have latest updates installed on your device and any bugs will be fixed automatically and go for the 16 gb variant if you’re using it for heavy tasks.

[@voltecrules624]

I have a Mac Mini 16 gig. I surf the net. Email, and watch KZbin videos mostly. I am always using about 8 gig of ram or more. I would highly recommend 16 gig of ram. It’s worth the money.

[@MrDeestar101]

i just got an M1, this did put me at ease, thanks!

[@clevelandharrison8298]

Thank you, sir. I'm looking at an M1 for music production. I'm using an iMac now, and it's working fine. But, it's now 5 years old, so I'm thinking ahead. So, your info was quite helpful. Congrats on the subs, you deserve them. Here's to many more!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you :-)

[@Seanthedogboy]

M1 mini is awesome in logic. Way way more snappy than an intel

[@kevinsturges6957]

I’m looking at the same thing and I have the same concerns about the computers lifespan.

[@AlejandroLZuvic]

Wait until the Pro machines start appearing. The current ones are the cheapest of the bunch, there’s going to be a replacement for your iMac this year.

[@marlls1989]

I do worry about that, especially because I am daily heavy user... I will probably invest in the 16GB Air or wait for their newer pro models without the touchbar and with the good keyboard back.

[@mohamednizam5298]

Great explanation on the SSD swapping issue. One question - does larger RAM say from 8GB to 16GB cut down or eliminate swapping?

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thanks 😊 You’ll see less swap usage going from 8 to 16GB. With the GPU sharing the RAM, 8 to 16 makes quite a difference.

[@kaisinelmusic]

Man, I really like you calm vibe in explaining these topic. Very knowledgeable!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@CompatibleCreative]

Great information to have in mind. I'm already using M1 Mac mini with basic config 8Gb 256 SSD and I'm a heavyweight user too. While in music production process I normally max out on most plugins in DAW and this machine just takes it on with bare sweat. Simply unbelievable performance. Just ordered 2TB SSD drive from Netac to put this in combination and take some weight of internals SSD processes so as soon as case from Orico arrives I will shift some stuff over. In comparison I was using very specked out Hackintosh I9 9900k overclocked to 5ghz with 970Evo plus 1TB from Samsung and this M1 just doing as good. So I'm really happy and can't wait to see what next generation of M's will offer :)

[@spcs999]

Exactly the thing me and my colleague were discussing 10 mins ago, and this video pops up. :)

[@mattemge31]

“Algorithm”

[@spcs999]

Getting really scary..., is Google listening to google-meet conversations as well ? I swear this was the first video that popped up in my feed after conversation with my colleague.

[@xavierazad]

I'm glad youtube recommended me your videos. Your voice is very calming.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you!

[@paulgooderham]

Thanks for running the numbers. Truth.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Sponsored by Wondershare Recoverit How to recover data from SSD: bit.ly/3qGtwfl BEFORE YOU COMMENT: Please remember that this video was recorded prior to the current tech media attention on high data writes. For this video, some folks (including us) had noted that the M1 Macs use swap more than Intel Macs, particularly the 8GB version. There are obvious reasons for that. Naturally, we then question what impact this will have on SSD life, and THAT normal use case is the focus of this video. The separate high data writes issue is a different matter which affects an unknown percentage of M1 Macs (not ours), and also some Intel Macs. I’m preparing another video to address that separate issue and to start some data collection that may help us to identify the source of the fault. So, I’m not “dodging an issue” or presenting “out-of-date” information. I stand by the conclusions in this video for anyone who has an M1 Mac that isn’t exhibiting this separate fault. If you are seeing high usage and you are using your M1 Mac normally (i.e. you’re not trying to use an entry-level Mac with 8GB for heavy workloads like 4K video editing etc.), please share as much data as you can. Thanks everyone 😊

[@aaronmurgatroyd5810]

I have had my 1tb 16gb MacBook Air for nearly 2 years now and smartctl is still saying that my Percentage Used is 0%, according to this I have only written 3.65 TB of data in that time. One of the main reasons I got the 16 GB model is reduce wear and tear on the SSD, given this, this laptops ssd should last 100 years or more! :) Im a happy Chappy…

[@francisyuweh706]

This is some concern I have in mind, thank you for reviewing it^^ keep it up sirs!

[@richardbriscoe8563]

There should be operating level load leveling so that one sector of the SSD doesn’t get pounded all the time. There is also a practice among a limited number of SSD manufacturers (OWC is one) that, in addition to load leveling reserves a portion of the SSD as spares to take over when or if some give out. I have no idea if Apple have included this in the M1. They should.

[@henriksundt7148]

Does it not matter whether the same address range on the SSD is re-written or not? I imagine the official figure for life span is an average measure for the entire disk, but if you rewrite a smaller section many times, it will wear out faster. This could be the case particularly for swap space.

[@paulstubbs7678]

The drive internally will always try and write your data to a different location, for wear levelling purposes, however to you, it will apear to be in the same location. SSD's use a lookup table of the adress they are told to use, vs the address the SSD actually used.

[@enzoadrian-reyes6964]

You are assuming equal level wear, the problem is worse because unless you reserve capacity which samsung recommends. Let's say you have a 1tb drive the lifespan is based on the free capacity/reserve space not total capacity of the drive

[@millionmilerclub]

Congrats for the 10k, I do use my machine everyday and edit videos at.least 3 times a week, I do think I should be fine. But at the same time I am Hoarder of my old mac's and it would suck when the ssd dies

[@OlaInTheClouds]

My 2012 15' retina MBP sais hello everybody. the battery knackered, keyboard worn out, scratched and dented. Oh it's been a hot ride, playing a lot of world of warcraft, developing in java and c++ with JetBrains IDEs hitting the SSD for years. Still works? Like a charm! Don't worry!

[@sosumee]

i’ve been watching some of your videos lately, and really been enjoying them, you earned a sub man, also why not try adding more graphic content, like images or other videos, it might make it easier for some to understand what your saying, really nice job : )

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you. 😊 I’d like to add more B-Roll to all my videos, but it vastly increases the time required. I have to find a balance to make sure I have time for the day job, family and other things... but I’ll keep trying to improve.

[@bondnikunj]

Well explained.I really doubt lifespan is at all a concern.I have filled 500 gb just once in owning laptop for 6 months.that mean at this rate would need 30 yrs to deplete it.more concern is around batteries though which are bound to fail in 1000 charge cycles or less

[@asdbef3667]

lol...says who now ? xD

[@bondnikunj]

@@asdbef3667 lithium ion chemistry dude it will degrade after 1000 cycles

[@royzderich]

Hey great video!, I'm using MAC mini M1 machines and notebooks. Very efficient architecture. What i do in my case (music production, and video editing some times) My working drive is an external SSD and also my cold storage is external. So i use internal ssd just for OS and apps and memory swap, all caching from my apps are located in the external drives. Running in the smaller config Apple offers for the M1 generation is a very good experience, for the specifications I did not expect such a great performance. No idea how much time the drives will last but i did notice some optimizations made by Apple over the time using OS UPdates. Memory consumption become very predictable. If you are going to manage huge projects i recommend going for more memory. Apple Mini M1 was in a point the most efficient and powerful computer per watt i ever had on my desk and that's very impressive. As i work in the Datacenter and Cloud industry for 25 years i did try everything in terms of hardware, in storage i test many brands and tech, i don't spect the ssd's to last so much , we will see. Just backup your data on daily basis :D Thank you for sharing! best regards from Santiago Chile!.

[@S-I-R-E]

this would never have been a problem had Apple decided to use a swappable SSD. they already charge a thieving amount for their storage and storage upgrades which puts them right up with enterprise grade SLC drives if not more expensive. And it is more of a problem for an average consumer since they generally want to buy a product and keep it for as long as possible while a professional user knows about this stuff (most likely) and their work would warrant and allow for a repeated expense.

[@lastatarist]

That was informative, I do not regret to have buy the MacBook air 512G model. Well done

[@jfjoubertquebec]

It would be nice though to have some warning when they start to fail! Great video!

[@xsikurix]

So when the lifespan does run out... the M1 has to go to landfill? Because we can’t replace the drive... so it can’t be used after that point. With a traditional laptop, I’d pass it on, or donate it. Can’t do that if the SSD is dead

[@CassandraCarter]

I'm glad to hear someone else owned a Psion. I sometimes feel like I was the only one, even though I had a Series 5, and there obviously had to be previous models that did well enough to justify a Series 5...

[@ConstantGeekery]

The Series 3 was excellent... I've found myself looking at them on eBay. Dangerous thing to do! 😁

[@hkr1147]

Perfect explanation! Thank you.

[@Mark-kt5mh]

If you can always read the cell without causing wear, why can't the PE cycle be written such that the contents of the cell (group/block) is read first then compared to the incoming write data as to only change cells that need to be changed. It would trade-off write speed for drive longevity.

[@howardlam6181]

I set my windows paging to 16mb. Used to set it to none but I can't any more on my system drive. I also put all my profile data in an external hard disk. And link all the log files to it.

[@daveadams6421]

Long story short - more RAM will assist the longevity of your SSD drive 👍

[@jamesr.9239]

Simple and concise explanation of a complex topic. Also , no need to worry about the life span of my M1 Mini.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 🙏

[@TheFluffyDuck]

Soldering on an ssd is like welding in spark plugs for your car

[@greographer]

Always solid advice!

[@StefanJovanovicSJ]

great explanation! just what I was looking for after stumbling on some very worrying Twitter threads but your video and explanation gave me peace of mind

[@ConstantGeekery]

There are some worrying posts for sure. Many of them are from folks pushing an 8GB computer way beyond what's reasonable for an entry-level Mac with that much RAM... but I have also seen a few people using them normally who seem to be experiencing massive data writes. My M1 Mac Mini is on 1.2TBW after 4 months, which is about what I'd expect, and completely in line with my other Macs and PCs.

[@karlgunterwunsch1950]

What you fail to mention is that the current crop of fast SSD (and the Apple ones are close to the top of the crop in terms of speed) comes with a sophisticated controller which buffers the data written in a quite large SDRAM buffer - which could substantially increase longevity of the SSD...

[@ConstantGeekery]

Very good point - sorry I missed it.

[@rowellc]

Very well explained! And your voice is soothing but not boring lol. Keep it up :)

[@NWO]

macbook 2012 8gb until today fpcx pr and etc.

[@Kaixfikwind]

It'd be nice if this was revisited though, everyone made their videos on it a year ago and now everyone's onto the new macs. :/

[@ConstantGeekery]

The odd behaviour is mostly resolved. Much of the problem seem to be caused by an issue in Rosetta, which has been fixed. It is still the case that an 8GB M1 will swap quite a bit more than 16GB, so go for the extra RAM if you are doing more professional workflows. We also know that Apple has its own SSD controller and they are no doubt using a combination of techniques to ensure that the lifespan of the SSD is not compromised by normal swap behaviour.

[@pgdh]

Thanks. I've been wondering about this lately. Perhaps one of those "phone in a blender" or destructive teardown people could run some tests before destroying an M1 Mac? I'm not too bothered, because I've thrashed my Intel MBP for years without an issue, and because my M1 MacMini seems to be able to drive Samsung's T7 drives pretty fast, so booting from an external drive is an option if the internal drive becomes toast. I've taken to buying smaller internal SSD configs (because of Apple's ridiculous pricing), and using external drives for bulk data processing. But I always bite the bullet and get as much RAM as I can afford. Perhaps it is sometimes worth buying a larger drive and then under provisioning?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I think there’s wisdom in buying the largest SSD you can afford, but I’m with you on Apple’s pricing! I do most of my work on external drives too.

[@Olivia-W]

overprovisioning?

[@MJHiteshew]

Nice analysis - good to see some objectivism on this controversial subject.

[@yodabolt1247]

Smart info shows 26 hours of use on my SSD even though it's been on for 13 days straight and used 5-8 hours a day. Not sure how much I trust the info at this point.

[@JTM1809]

Psion Pocket Computer! My dad used to have one of those!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Now I feel old.

[@JTM1809]

@@ConstantGeekery Now consider, that I’m 40yo, and my dad had the Psion, not me 🤣. He used it when attending conferences. Back then I thought the thing was a technological marvel.

[@MJ-om6cy]

Long story short, no you don't need to worry about swap memory shortening your SSD lifespan.

[@michaelkeudel8770]

Wrong.

[@MJ-om6cy]

Looking at actual studies done, not just opinion pieces or YT tech reviews. SSD are showing incredibly long lifespans, TBW generally are beyond what manufactures promise as they air on the side of caution and warranty reasons. Take Samsung 850 pro has shown to write 60 times its promised TBW. Even lower end SSD are showing 2-5 times their promised TBW. Again the Samsung 850 pro 256GB is promised 150 TBW. Lets say someone was able to write a massive 50GB everyday for a year they'd only write 18.25 TBW even after 7 years they still wouldn't meet Samsungs promised TBW let alone what studies are actually showing SSDs are capable of. TBW = terabytes written. SSDs have their faults especially around data recovery. But swap memory isn't something people should be concerned about.

[@michaelkeudel8770]

@@MJ-om6cy nope, 50gb is absolutely nothing when your doing video or audio processing, and all that processing will hit your swap partition. Windows 10 was killing ssd's early by defragmenting the hard drive on every boot until they finally patched that out. Your M1 cpu houses the CPU, the gpu, and your main memory, to allocate any ram it needs it will send the data out to swap to free up space, and since it's a single soc with no dedicated ram for any part of it, that's a boatload of reading and writing happening constantly. Smaller ssd capacities will wear faster since they have fewer overprivisioning cells as a back up buffer. You can't add ram to a M1 device, you have to buy the next model up if you need more. Want more drive space, well your option is a dongle, since none of the M1 devices are upgradeable in any way. Enjoy buying a new machine every time something normally replaceable/upgradeable dies.

[@fallinginthed33p]

@@michaelkeudel8770 At least some Windows laptops are offering removable SSDs including some Microsoft Surface laptops and tablets. It's not just SSD lifespan, it's also good being able to recover data off a damaged or broken laptop by just pulling out the drive.

[@HaMBuRgErtech]

My m1 mac can write up to 1TB in a week only by swap... (With all the web development tools always running and Xcode with simulator) But still... i have the 8gb version with 256gb storage, it is my first mac so i bought the cheapest one for the first time use. If i calculate it it is 4TB/Month 48TB/Year 150/48 = 3 Years

[@timbald]

Your usual straight forward, useful geekery. Thanks

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@carloisidoresalcedo6325]

Very useful info as always.

[@cish960]

I would pay more if they used 3D Xpoint

[@cadriver2570]

The biggest problem I have with this is, why can't we replace the SSD? The enclosure of the M1 Mini has more space than ever. Despite the greenwashing, they are not environmentally friendly at all.

[@colindoyle9876]

I deleted my previous comments. Still stand by them as there is an issue with kernel_task writing constantly to ssd on m1-16gb. We can use words like swap and wear level but the question is why is all this data is being written. Yes we should worry ! ! - Using X5 Samsung T3 as boot drive. NOW, no need to worry !

[@Truesk8er1]

Agreed I'm worried about getting one for this very reason.

[@dokh22]

Love this channel. And the podcasts too!

[@jinraigami3349]

That is why: 1. Always perform heavy task on external SSD. 2. Always backup regularly.

[@peteblazar5515]

Even intensive reading allegedly has impact on flash cells durability. Values of flash cells must be in time restored (write cycle).

[@TazzSmk]

one interesting thing about TBW is, no matter how big is the drive, same % of its capacity can be rewritten daily, I mean, as you calculated for ex. 84GB of 250GB vs 336GB of 1TB drive it's still about 33%

[@ZRyuKageZ]

Thanks for the content. This was a main concern for me as I intend to do some software development work. Wish I could have found this earlier but I went with the base model with ram upgrade in the end

[@chromaticvisuelle]

you can change a setting to reduce the amount

[@themoonman-4]

Exactly the info I needed ty!

[@wikkidselekta]

Good question. subscribed. Keep up the analysis and relevant content！

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@battman505]

Good to know with my 512gb ssd I can write 164gb everyday for 5 years which I won’t come anywhere close to.

[@Kaoson73]

Why I am the only one to ask why you cannot change the SSD inside an Apple M1 computer ?

[@ben_silver]

Happy 10K !!!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you!!

[@nobodynemoq]

I hope that smartctl is giving some wrong data... I'm using my M1 Air since January 2021, and what I get is: Data Units Written: 134 293 990 [68,7 TB] and I'm not using it for video editing or anything like this - rather console + chrome...

[@TheGradjagan]

Great explanation! I learn a lot by watching this vídeo!

[@VT990]

Do iPhones do the same thing? If so how has it worked out there?

[@chidorirasenganz]

Of course, it’s even less of a concern given how iOS uses RAM

[@Bthesaxhat]

Very nice video, thank you! As of the lifespan of the flash drives. There are reports that a standard ssd/nvme drive from the known brands lasts about 10x to 100x longer than the TBW-classification from the manufacturers. I believe it was conducted by Heise. On the other hand Louis Rossmann showed an M1 where within 2-3 month 150TBW were reached. In the end I’m not considering buying let’s say M1-Technology until there are 1 to 1 1/2 year reviews out. Lastly because of the great video rendering power of the chip I believe the M1 appeals a lot to semi professionals and professionals in video editing. That’s going to pump up TBW by Terabytes rather than Gigabytes per day.

[@icecantgaming944]

I just bought a second hand MacBook air with already 250 TB of byte written is it safe to use?

[@RohitKumar-cw1yb]

Thanks man

[@thomasipad7719]

Thanks for this!

[@KevinMillard68]

Big Sur is seeming to be a large problem with swap being used all the time even when you have left over ram wether you have 8 or 16 gigs but Monterey does things different and I have yet to ever see swap being used at all on my 8 gig air or 16 gig mini m1 systems so I would recommend everyone doing these videos start with installing a fresh copy of Monterey as Big Sur on m1s seem to have a problem where as on the intel Mac systems Big Sur is fine just as Monterey is fine on both intel and m1 Mac systems

[@meetankush]

1 minute into the video, you got a subscriber.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@meetankush]

@@ConstantGeekery Thank you, to you, too sir. Some really well crafted video. It’s an art, not everyone can do it.

[@RobertPennproduction]

I would like to point out that the chart provided at 5:00 is misleading. The commentator suggests that performance improves with larger SSD capacity with respect to the SSD failure rate. The ratio of TBW to SSD GB capacity is constant regardless of the SSD size. Case in point: 150,000,000/250,000 = 600. The same is true of 1,200,000,000/2,000,000 or 1,200 divided by 2 = 600.

[@ConstantGeekery]

My thought was more to do with the effect of swap data, which doesn’t grow in proportion to the size of the drive.

[@thezar86]

Great video. Infos, elegance and no trash...

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@John-do9ei]

Interesting way to put the numbers together. I had been thinking about this recently from a technical perspective since switching most everything to SSD, including an important photographic archive. I'm not so worried about having put a Western Digital blue drive in my 2011, 13" MacBook Pro. I know this machine could potentially be rendered useless with the next Zoom update. However, the fact that this old machine is still getting significant use after 10 years makes me more concerned for the long-term utility of my 2017 MBP. For my photographic work, I write and rewrite constantly as new sets come in and old ones go to archive. I will have upgraded that machine before this will become a real professional issue, but this does make me think about some best practices for long-term drive health strategies, like I might offload a portion of that work to external drives when convenient.

[@jamdagasuan]

simple, straight forward, easy to understand explainations. Thanks sir! the world needs a lot of brilliant people like you. keep it up! 😎🤘👏👍👌💯

[@rroossyyiidd]

thanks a lot..

[@SidelinePlugs]

I do KZbin and got the MacBook Pro 16gb Ram/512gb so hopefully mine lasts around 5 years 😅. But i don't edit videos every day.

[@velociraptor5962]

I was just considering this very question today. 😁

[@themusesquad8554]

Apple ALWAYS had a thing about decreasing their product life spent. From nerfing older devices with newer OS updates. Or preventing repairs on their device by pairing them into their wearable or breakable parts like batteries and screens So a common repair wont work or wont work properly. And when u take them to Apples repair service they ask u for an expansive repair that would make no logic to pay and make buying a new product more reasonable. If u repair / replace every part in your device with apple repair service the cost of the device would be 5 to 10 times its original price. And they don't do some very basic repairs like replacing charge ports. Its their way of getting u to buy new when u dont need to

[@martymuerte]

Thank you. Much more understandably informative to the casual user or me I guess ha