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

[@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.

[@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...

[@bryans8656]

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

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@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

[@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...

[@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.

[@stevecox8979]

Interesting video and very thought provoking, thank you. My wife has been using a MacBook Air since 2011 without issue. I've even installed the latest supported Mac OS on it. My daughter has just purchased a MacBook Air with an M1 chip - largely on my recommendation and the experience her mother has had with her laptop. With over 30 years in IT the SSD lifespan has been something that has concerned me, especially now the SSD is not changeable within Apple devices. She at least followed the advise the advise I gave her and that you have stated here, in respect to getting the 16Gb version and the largest SSD she could afford for that reason. Storage wise a lot of people will recommend you rat tail it with external devices and that's a fair point and a good cost saving but she needed it to be relatively portable without the hassle of extra devices. Coupled with cloud backup. It will be interesting to see how the device performs over the coming years. Fingers crossed it will be no less reliable as my wife's.

[@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.

[@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.

[@Everyday.Maverick]

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

[@ArifMahmud]

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

[@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

[@TimothyFish]

Something to consider: the amount of data that you write to memory doesn't fully reflect the amount of writing to the SSD that occurs. The way that a SSD works is that it only writes individual ones or zeros. It initializes large areas of memory to one or the other and when it needs to write to an individual memory location, it flips the bits that are not already the correct value. Changing just one bit in memory could require resetting multiple bytes and rewriting all of it to the correct value.

[@SaborIntenso]

It's a pleasure watching your videos.

[@eplazai]

this comment was enought to get subscribed.

[@zuurbekje3125]

Thanks for the reassuring video. I intend to keep my M1 MacBook Pro for a little longer than five years, as I have with the machine it replaces, a mid-2012 MacBook Air. Looks like, with the spec I chose -16GB/512GB-, I'll be fine for a long time. Perfect.

[@TysonHorsewell]

I have an Intel MacBook Pro 2015... now 2021 I figure that it will be a year or so away before I upgrade to a new machine. I don't think Apple would cheap out on the SSD either. However, that would limit the resale and vintage computer market as when the drive is "used up" then that will be it for the whole system. That said even 80GB / day is a lot (and I would suspect it would be much more). I am surprised at the amount of data I use when I let the activity monitor do it's job I would expect much more than 5 years for the drive.

[@ConstantGeekery]

I think they will last longer. Bear in mind those TBW figures will be set way below the actual averages the manufacturer finds in testing.

[@texyrexy]

I wish there were more tech KZbin channels like this one. Sensible and we'll researched information delivered in a simple and down to earth way. Keep up the good work.

[@Flying0Dismount]

I tried an SSD as swap and temp file storage for my Photoshop workstation, and killed it in 6 months, but while it worked, it was blazing fast.... I do sports action photography, so I come back with thousands of shots and even though probably 2/3rd of them are culled, I still have hundreds of large images to process every session, so image processing is a pretty extreme use case for SSD as you will want to max out the swap and also keep more temp and intermediate files for history effects, etc, so the drive will fill up and use up write cycles quickly.. Moral of the story though is to get the very largest SSD that you can with the least dense grouping, so that you maximize both the write count as well as the ability to leverage as much wear leveling as possible to extend drive life.. Also keep a close eye on the SMART parameters of the drive as the reallocation count going up gives you pretty advanced notice that your drive is beginning to exhaust write cycles on some of its cells...

[@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.

[@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.

[@BigBrotherMotown]

Thank you once again for the informative and very thorough videos. I purchased my first Mac computer a Mac mini M1 this past December and I keep my computers on average of 8 to 10 years so it was very important to me to know that whichever device I decided to buy it would last for many years. I decided to go with the 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB hard drive mainly because ram was the primary concern to me and I honestly do believe that there are much faster external SSDs that are on the horizon. Your videos have been a tremendous resource for me..... Definitely worth a sub!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thanks for your support 😊 I’m sure the Mini will last just fine.

[@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.

[@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.

[@johnh8268]

Funny you should bring this up. I'm replacing a bunch of spinning drives in industrial PC's and I chose the Samsung 860 PRO drive. They are 2 bit MLC and they have double the TBW of the 3 bit 970 EVO that you mentioned. They are constantly writing data 24 hours a day, although not huge amounts. We shall see how long they last. The spinning drives are starting to fail after 2 years, but they were 2.5" Toshiba laptop drives and I never had much faith in them in the first place.

[@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.

[@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

[@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 :)

[@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

[@skitterlad]

With a 256gb apple drive, with trim, the less of that drive you have filled up, the longer your SSD will last. Use thunderbolt external storage for photos, apps, downloads, and basically all directories and your internal soldered down SSD chip will last a lot longer. The difference in life expectancy by keeping 20% free disk space vs 10% disk space is huge. Also its easier to upgrade to new tech with an externally mapped thunderbolt drive, the only TM backup to make is the OS and settings.

[@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

[@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!.

[@NWO]

macbook 2012 8gb until today fpcx pr and etc.

[@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.

[@harrisongould9460]

I just bought a Macbook Pro M1 with a 1TB SSD. My plan was to have the system and my business info take up half the SSD and the other half, to run my Lightroom and Final Cut Pro weekly projects. I shoot wedding stills and drone footage. Once the job is complete, off load the finished job to an external and start all over again. It this a bad idea? Should I be running the jobs externally? I use 3.5" internal drives(docking system) to archive my jobs. Thanks so much and I did subscribe.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thanks for the sub 👍🏻 When I do video editing on the M1 I run off an external SSD. It’s fast enough, and saves copying things off. I do leave caches on the internal SSD though.

[@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.

[@Piketom1]

I suspect that we are seeing the swap usage on the Apple Silicon now because the SOC is powering a computer with a desktop OS. iPad has probably been doing this for a long time which allows even the pro model to get away with just 6GB of ram. iPads last a very long time so if we assume that a Mac is using a higher quality flash storage in addition to the higher capacity, you have nothing to worry about.

[@Anishrokport]

So glad I stumbled upon your channel! Keep up the M1 Content please!

[@ConstantGeekery]

There will be plenty more 😉

[@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

[@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

[@ashwindatye8156]

well done sir. great voice modulation, great technical explanations

[@xavierazad]

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

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you!

[@leoeduardo3016]

Hi, I am Doing machine learning and I Write like 80Gb every 10min... wow I really have a concern about this... already added my Report in the Survey. thanks for sharing this info.

[@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.

[@kaisinelmusic]

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

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@mannkeithc]

Good video. I agree with your analysis. I've been using SSDs for 10 years and I have yet to see one fail. The first drive I bought was a Crucial M4 512GB in Sep 2012 for my mid-2009 Apple MacBook Pro 15. The MacBook Pro failed with a display fault in Dec 2019, but the SSD still works and is now being used as a file store. In contrast I've had several hard disk drives fail, along with couple of SD cards and USB drives. My favourite SSDs have always been Crucial, and I typically by their higher tier product with the better-quality NAND chips. They are not as fast as the higher-end Samsung drives, but they offer reliable performance Vs cost. I replaced the mid-2009 MacBook Pro with a four port 2019 MacBook Pro 13. The 2 TB SSD is extremely fast and I am sure it will still be working in 5 years+, though I suspect I will have made the switch to an Apple silicon Mac before then!

[@Reaverstyle1]

this is why on my PC i bought a simple 500GB 7200rpm sata HDD, and adjusted my cache files on Windows via mlink command to be written to the HDD instead of my nvme SSD, preserving it`s livespan to it`s optimal potential.

[@someonehere4380]

the problem isnt ssd lifespan but you not being able to replace it

[@GamersPlayerUnion]

Quick Question: Can the M1 only swap to the internal ssd or can it swap to a connect external ssd. Trying to decide if I should get the 500 ssd model of the MAC mini M1 vs the base 256 ssd model

[@razbuzaglo]

did you find the answer?

[@GamersPlayerUnion]

@@razbuzaglo Not really. I went ahead and brought the 500 ssd 16gb model

[@razbuzaglo]

@@GamersPlayerUnion I'm scared because i have 256gb 16gb

[@GamersPlayerUnion]

@@razbuzaglo yeah I originally brought the 256 8gb just to test it out and I got scared and upgraded within the 14 day window to the 500gb 16gb version. Is it too late for you to get Applecare

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@MrDeestar101]

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

[@altairbueno5637]

Just a quick note: do not use the Spotify app on macOS. That electron shit just eats your ssd lifespan by writing and deleting tons of cache

[@poopsie117]

Oh? Can you point to maybe an article or a page indicating that this is the peculiar case?

[@altairbueno5637]

@@poopsie117 you can check disk under system monitor and see it by yourself

[@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.

[@abc123fhdi]

The answer to your question can be found in early generation iPads and iPhones which uses early versions of the M1 SOC. The SSD's on these chips are different from ordinary SSD's in that they are part of the chip. I'm not aware of high failure rates of the SOC's on early iPads so I wouldn't worry too much as they all have less memory than typical PCs and do just fine. The point of failure is more likely to be the battery during the usable lifespan of the product rather than the SSD.

[@sly2792004]

iPhones and iPads kill apps when ram runs out they don’t swap them to the ssd. I’d prefer that happen on the macs too

[@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.

[@drhibas]

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

[@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 :)

[@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.

[@cmfrtblynmb02]

SSD failure is something I read about all the time but I never had SSD fail on me last 10 years I have used them. Regular spinning hard drives failed me many times but not SSDs.

[@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.

[@sonofdragon81]

Excellent breakdown with figures and logical approach. Thank you sir! I've been on the fence about buying an M1, but this video has helped a lot.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Glad it was helpful!

[@rowellc]

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

[@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

[@mydayq]

This video lacks actual calculations based on use cases.

[@SourDonut99]

@@mydayq 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.

[@azizul1975]

my 2012 Intel 60GB SSD works fine until today... been gaming on it like crazy...

[@francisyuweh706]

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

[@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.

[@ivanwill]

Brilliant breakdown. Thanks for sharing...

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thanks 😊

[@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

[@carloisidoresalcedo6325]

Very useful info as always.

[@garycarmichael8432]

We have to remember that this is a consumer product that any prospective owner will use for approximately 5-8 years. As the video says, the 16Gb M1's still SWAP, but not as much as the 8Gb. If people are using the 8Gb for web browsing/every day use which is not memory intensive then they probably won't have any issues. I'm sure that when the professional models of the M1 based Macs, whether they are M1X, M2 etc, they will have more memory (32Gb, 64Gb etc) and be less reliant upon SWAPPING. I'm sure that the SSD's will be fine.

[@jfjoubertquebec]

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

[@GregBrecker]

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

[@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.

[@romandulce999]

My m1 16/512gb MBP consumed 4.5TB in 10 days. That translates in 2 years of work. Not enough for its money. I work in Lightroom Classic and browsing KZbin only. I hope native ligthtroom classic will be out soon.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Have you noticed any improvement with macOS 11.4?

[@jiml.9026]

Is TRIM already enabled on the Macs SSD's? That would help with wear and tear on the SSD's.

[@esistdume]

good questionn

[@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

[@Argameus]

Perfect, concise explanation. I wish more channels were like this.

[@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.

[@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!

[@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 🙏

[@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!

[@klarkolofsson]

Super informative. Thank you!

[@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.

[@wikkidselekta]

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

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@rohansully584]

Great video Sir, thank you!

[@markallen4514]

Thanks for the very useful information. I am deciding whether to buy a M1 mac mini as a second, backup computer at a remote worksite and was a little concerned about this issue. I'm a lawyer, not a tech person so apologies if following the comments/questions are off-base. First, hasn't the Apple SOC been used for years in phones and iPads? Wouldn't the issues with swapping have shown up there already? Second, in other industries I'm familiar with, "failure" when applied to a product usually refers to some level above a mean (or median) failure rate around which there is a normal distribution. For government contract (which I do know about) a rated "failure" @ 10,000 operations usually means that the mean expected mean failure is a standard deviation (or more) higher--say 100k operations. The logic is that you want to have an above 90% confidence that the product will last to the rated failure. Is this also true with computer memory?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I'll do my best to answer... 1. Yes and no. The M1 is designed specifically for Macs and there are differences. iOS tackles multi-tasking in a different way to macOS, so I'm not sure we can draw comparisons. Additionally, people tend to keep an iPad or iPhone for shorter periods than a laptop. 2. I think you'd want more like an above 99% confidence. Silicon chips are tested and graded during production. Those which don't make the grade are either recycled, or "binned" as a different product. With SSDs, the best chips go into enterprise grade models with longer warranties, and the lower performers go into consumer grade SSDs. The worst probably end up in cheap off-brand products. A similar thing happens with CPUs. If you're making an 8-core and one or two of the cores are not making the grade, the chip will be sold as a 6-core etc. SSD failures are not commonplace. They are significantly more reliable than traditional spinning hard disks.

[@markallen4514]

Thanks for the very detailed response. When I said 99%, I don't think I expressed myself well. I'm well aware that that's way low for a critical component. Electrical components are typically 4 “9s” of 5 “9s” in critical applications. The point I was trying to express is that a rating of say 100k operations in civil engineering (which I know about from my contract work) means that mean failure is several standard deviations above that number. Only a small fraction of the components will actually fail at 100k operations. Most will last many times longer. Roadways, for example, are rated at 50 years or so, but most last much much longer. The thing I don't know is whether the rating for life of SSD's is similar. It the rating a mean failure rate or a lower boundary of expected performance? If the latter, comparing the data use to the rated performance may not be meaningful in the real world, right?

[@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.

[@richardbriscoe8563]

I don’t know about the actual quantity of data use of a typical Lightroom/Photoshop user, but those apps, particularly with large image file, as well as various video editing apps make extensive use of swap files. I wonder if Apple have considered including a PCIe slot close by to be used as a swap drive selected by these apps while leaving other apps alone? There would, of course be a degradation of performance although I doubt it would be noticeable. A multi-terabyte video file could be accommodated more easily (and less expensively.

[@PaulKentSkates]

My M1 mac mini is using 14 GB of swap BEFORE it uses more than 12 gb of ram. This thing uses swap so much! I only intended to use my 1tb internal SSD for OS and apps to prolong its life, but I worry that is not enough.

[@Mr.BrownsBasement]

As a collector of vintage Apples, I have working computers between 10 and 40 (!) years old. Some of these machines were well used before I acquired them and required replacement drives, etc., to restore them to working order. I worry that in the coming years, well-loved vintage Apples from the 2020s onward will be irreparable junk, victims of their disposable design. It is unconscionable but not especially surprising that a company that boasts its commitment to the environment builds machines that have a fixed lifespan (measured in TBW) and there’s nothing that can be done to extend it.

[@bjarne431]

The SSD is not the problem here. The problem is that you can’t replace it. Mechanical drives are arguably less reliable than good SSDs. Also you can boot the machines from external SSDs though, but it adds a tad of annoyance. Mechanical drives absolutely also have a limited lifespan, it’s just , maybe, less predictable

[@Mr.BrownsBasement]

@@bjarne431 I agree the problem is you can't replace the internal drive and you can't boot from an external drive. Whether mechanical drives are "arguably less reliable than good SSDs" is a good question. But stating it as fact? Evidence please!!

[@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...

[@Mernard912]

Was looking at a M1 macbook pro with 1TB ssd and 16GB RAM for music production but you given me something to think about might have to go with a older model

[@ConstantGeekery]

The 16GB model is pretty impressive in Logic. The next M chips will likely be even better, with more RAM... if you can wait that is.

[@RichardMcGeorge]

That is good content. Well produced, good quality, balanced information. Very informative and easy to digest. Keep up the good work.

[@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! 😁

[@nilofido411]

Interesting.... although general consumers won’t be really affected for the reasons explained a different story might emerge for professionals, Apple is actively targeting videographers, photographers and media sectors in general, considering that 4K is now the norm, 5GB per minute of footage circa, and 6,8,12 K are widely used by high end professionals, even the 350ish GB per day are easily exceeded on a constant basis; it’s true that pro workstations are biffed up with RAM, still my experience as a photographer, probably the less affected category, is that I have my RAM running constantly high in usage. My take on the issue is to opt for a system where the SSD’s are swappable and keep an imaged one for the main one on the side, as well as keeping one on the system dedicated as a scratch disc, a spare one on the side as a backup for the scratch and obviously at least 3 copies of all the data ones as a good redundancy practice. As for RAM as much as you can afford and is supported by the system.

[@thezar86]

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

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@TheMiloRez]

I subscribed! thanks for your video.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you too!

[@TheGradjagan]

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

[@autochannelkh1096]

Thanks sir for making this useful video and I will stick with my MBA M1 8GB. But there is one thing. I notice that in activity monitor, data keep writing on disk even the laptop put to sleep. do you know the reason? from apple website, the written data also counts that is not limited to internal SSD but for all SSD connected to mac. but even though it keep writing 3 to 5GB even the laptop is not using and without any external ssd attached. hope to see some some answer from you.

[@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%

[@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.

[@profilmwork]

I still want a psion / diamond mako 🤦🏾‍♂️