Anyone bothered by MacBook Pro SSD Total bytes written (TBW)?

Brandon birder · Feb 20, 2023

In trying to decide what to do after my MacBook Pro 2018 failed and was fixed by Apple, I have been exploring what factors to consider if I purchased a new M2 MacBook and also what to do to reduce the swap file size of my existing MacBook as it runs with a 3GB swap much of the time. This will increase my TBW rate and bring on failure earlier rather than late , or so I'm told on youtube.

In planning what specs I need for my M2 upgrade after some discussion with Tom on this site came to settle on a M@ 10 core 16GB 4TB SSD.

But I'm now told that one way to reduce SSD failure rate is to reduce TBW, by having a larger SSD (4TB seem large enough) or having more RAM to reduce swaps to 0.

So I feel I need at least 32GB RAM to reduce the swap file size with what I do, or do I need 64GB RAM to reduce it to 0 with what I do (Mainly Lightroom, some photoshop and many Safari Tab groups with many Youtube tabs).

What do you think about TBW if anything, and if so what have you done to reduce this?

I do not do much videos on the MAC unless streaming youtube counts?

Thanks.

PerTulip · Feb 20, 2023

Out of curiosity, I checked my SSD.

I bought my M1 2,5 years ago.

"Wear level" is shown as 6%. TPW is absolutely not an issue.

No worries there.

Greybeard2017 · Feb 20, 2023

Brandon birder said:
In trying to decide what to do after my MacBook Pro 2018 failed and was fixed by Apple, I have been exploring what factors to consider if I purchased a new M2 MacBook and also what to do to reduce the swap file size of my existing MacBook as it runs with a 3GB swap much of the time. This will increase my TBW rate and bring on failure earlier rather than late , or so I'm told on youtube.

In planning what specs I need for my M2 upgrade after some discussion with Tom on this site came to settle on a M@ 10 core 16GB 4TB SSD.

But I'm now told that one way to reduce SSD failure rate is to reduce TBW, by having a larger SSD (4TB seem large enough) or having more RAM to reduce swaps to 0.

So I feel I need at least 32GB RAM to reduce the swap file size with what I do, or do I need 64GB RAM to reduce it to 0 with what I do (Mainly Lightroom, some photoshop and many Safari Tab groups with many Youtube tabs).

What do you think about TBW if anything, and if so what have you done to reduce this?

I do not do much videos on the MAC unless streaming youtube counts?

Thanks.

I'm not sure I'm bothered.

Does Apple publish expected TBW lifetime for internal SSD?

My Mac Mini M1 with 512GB SSDand 16GB RAM has been heavilly used. Many hours daily for over two years for photo processing and xcode development.

I just checked and its at 21.1TB - there is likely plenty of life left.

wilberforce_1 · Feb 20, 2023

I think if I had 8GB RAM I might be concerned, otherwise not.

The M1 with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD has been out for over 2 years, and I am not aware of reports of actual SSD failures, and you can be sure that there are some people that have been using their 8GB M1 machines intensively with huge swaps for these two years. If this was a serious issue, it would have surfaced by now on these 8GB machines, and there would be angry rants about "SSD-gate." I am not aware of such complaints.

SSD isn't the only thing that can fail, so not sure how much you want to spend to "protect" this particular thing. For example, my HDMI port on my M1 machine already failed, requiring complete replacement of the whole logic board (including SSD).

Mike Boreham · Feb 20, 2023

This recent thread morphed into a discussion of the same subject.

lightandaprayer · Feb 20, 2023

Member said:
Greybeard2017 wrote:I'm not sure I'm bothered.

Does Apple publish expected TBW lifetime for internal SSD?

Not a peep. . . Apple even obfuscates the manufacturer info of its NVMe SSDs. If you look under System Information/NVMExpress it will state something like Apple SSD AP0512M. (FYI, Apple does not make SSDs. . .)

The alphanumerical code indicates the size of the SSD; in this case 512GB. The example is from my Mac Mini, so perhaps the M refers to the Mac model.

Member said:
My Mac Mini M1 with 512GB SSDand 16GB RAM has been heavilly used. Many hours daily for over two years for photo processing and xcode development.

I just checked and its at 21.1TB - there is likely plenty of life left.

Howard Oakley wrote a short article about using an alternative parameter for estimating a Mac's internal SSD remaining lifespan:

Estimating the remaining life of a Mac’s internal SSD

Here are Howard's conclusions:

"When assessing the remaining life of a Mac’s internal SSD, if it’s NVMe, use SMART indicator 05 as the percentage of the life used." Apple Silicon Macs have NVMe SSDs.

"If indicator 05 isn’t available or in doubt, calculate data written from SMART indicator 07, multiplying the raw value by 512 and dividing by 1,000,000,000 to get the result in TB."

DriveDx shows the 05 Life Percentage Used indicator. For example, my 2018 Intel Mac Mini 8/512 has used 1% of its SSD. My wife's M1 MacBook Air 8/256 has used 6%. I've been using my Mac for around 6 months longer than she has had her MBA. . .

lightandaprayer · Feb 20, 2023

I can't keep myself from wondering whether Apple financially benefiting from its customers proactively upgrading their internal storage and RAM has anything to do with the company's utter silence surrounding this topic. . .

But Apple has never ignored a widespread hardware issue in the past before ultimately being forced to come clean, has it? ;-)

bakubo · Feb 20, 2023

Read this thread:

16gb vs. 32gb

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/66851250

32gb vs. 64gb

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/66873370

To be a bit safer you may want to look at the M1 Ultra with 128gb RAM and 8tb SSD.

Jeff Wahaus · Feb 20, 2023

I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's not just swap but these days OS's are constantly writing to the SSD. Log files and web browser caches are constantly being generated. The devices are made to be written to. Some will fail before others but most last at least several years.

JPAlbert · Feb 20, 2023

I have a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" (m1pro).
16gb RAM, base model.

I have DISABLED VM disk swapping using the terminal.
There's no "memory swap writing to disk".... at all.

If I open terminal and enter:
sysctl vm.swapusage

The OS returns:
vm.swapusage: total = 0.00M used = 0.00M free = 0.00M

Still runs just fine.
No crashes.
Works for me.

Brandon birder · Feb 21, 2023

It has been really helpful getting these responses. Which are mainly don’t worry, but if you are use something like drivedx or switch off drive swaps completely.

I like to have all my images on one computer. I am an amateur wildlife photographer and belong to a local photo club and often use images from different years. I don’t like Woking from an external drive and reckon 4TB should last me the next 5 years re storage needs-.

Currently I have a 2TB 2018 MacBook Pro and this got into trouble recently.

So my takeaway is

to get drive DX and check out my current computer.

Switch off the swap disk if needed. Thanks for that tip.

When I upgrade, get an M2 4TB 16-32 ram depending on what I discover of my usage with my current MacBook.

Wont worry un necessarily about TBW.

thanks to all.

Brandon

Cheers, Brandon.
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Mike Boreham · Feb 21, 2023

Brandon birder said:
It has been really helpful getting these responses. Which are mainly don’t worry, but if you are use something like drivedx or switch off drive swaps completely.

I like to have all my images on one computer. I am an amateur wildlife photographer and belong to a local photo club and often use images from different years. I don’t like Woking from an external drive and reckon 4TB should last me the next 5 years re storage needs-.

Currently I have a 2TB 2018 MacBook Pro and this got into trouble recently.

So my takeaway is

to get drive DX and check out my current computer.

Switch off the swap disk if needed. Thanks for that tip.

Personally I would not switch off SWAP. The issue is a long way from being just about SWAP.

The 143 page thread on MR 1 has discussions about turning off SWAP with consensus being against.

Large internal SSD have more SSD TBW life than small so with a 4TB internal I would be very surprised if this was ever an issue for you, though it may be for a small number people who are reporting extremely high TBW on small drives.

Brandon birder · Feb 21, 2023

Mike Boreham said:
Brandon birder said:

It has been really helpful getting these responses. Which are mainly don’t worry, but if you are use something like drivedx or switch off drive swaps completely.

I like to have all my images on one computer. I am an amateur wildlife photographer and belong to a local photo club and often use images from different years. I don’t like Woking from an external drive and reckon 4TB should last me the next 5 years re storage needs-.

Currently I have a 2TB 2018 MacBook Pro and this got into trouble recently.

So my takeaway is

to get drive DX and check out my current computer.

Switch off the swap disk if needed. Thanks for that tip.

Click to expand...

Personally I would not switch off SWAP. The issue is a long way from being just about SWAP.

The 143 page thread on MR 1 has discussions about turning off SWAP with consensus being against.

Large internal SSD have more SSD TBW life than small so with a 4TB internal I would be very surprised if this was ever an issue for you, though it may be for a small number people who are reporting extremely high TBW on small drives.

Thanks Mike.

A big read. I’ve read the first and last 3 pages to get the gist of it. Seems to me that the M1 and M2 ssd's have lives much longer than originally thought. Is that right?

If so I’ll stop worrying and use the software I enjoy.

Thanks,

Brandon

Mike Boreham · Feb 21, 2023

Brandon birder said:
Mike Boreham said:

Brandon birder said:

It has been really helpful getting these responses. Which are mainly don’t worry, but if you are use something like drivedx or switch off drive swaps completely.

I like to have all my images on one computer. I am an amateur wildlife photographer and belong to a local photo club and often use images from different years. I don’t like Woking from an external drive and reckon 4TB should last me the next 5 years re storage needs-.

Currently I have a 2TB 2018 MacBook Pro and this got into trouble recently.

So my takeaway is

to get drive DX and check out my current computer.

Switch off the swap disk if needed. Thanks for that tip.

Click to expand...

Personally I would not switch off SWAP. The issue is a long way from being just about SWAP.

The 143 page thread on MR 1 has discussions about turning off SWAP with consensus being against.

Large internal SSD have more SSD TBW life than small so with a 4TB internal I would be very surprised if this was ever an issue for you, though it may be for a small number people who are reporting extremely high TBW on small drives.

Click to expand...

Thanks Mike.

A big read. I’ve read the first and last 3 pages to get the gist of it. Seems to me that the M1 and M2 ssd's have lives much longer than originally thought. Is that right?

The whole issue is characterised by variability. The reasons for the variability are not understood. For probably the vast majority of people what you say is correct. For a small number it may not be.

bakubo · Feb 22, 2023

This is a recent video that goes through the list of supposed 4 big problems (including SSD failure from swap) with the 2020 M1 Macbooks and then gives an update on them.

It has been 27 month since the M1 Macs first came out and it seems like we would know by now if, in fact, these were real problems.

rpjallan · Feb 23, 2023

It is useful to get a fast Thunderbolt SSD to use as Photoshop scratch disk.

lightandaprayer · Feb 23, 2023

bakubo said:
This is a recent video that goes through the list of supposed 4 big problems (including SSD failure from swap) with the 2020 M1 Macbooks and then gives an update on them.

It has been 27 month since the M1 Macs first came out and it seems like we would know by now if, in fact, these were real problems.

Just another in a series of YouTube videos that are not pertinent to average Mac users who are experiencing excessive swap issues.

All of the reasonable complaints that I have read are from people who are doing everyday basic personal computing tasks. 8GB RAM should be plenty for such users.

Videos about computing processes that obviously require more RAM such as editing 4k vids and ridiculous multitasking "stress tests" at 16GB vs 32GB RAM M1 Pro MacBook - Multitasking RAM TEST! add nothing to the discussion.

CAcreeks · Feb 23, 2023

JPAlbert said:
I have a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" (m1pro).
16gb RAM, base model.

I have DISABLED VM disk swapping using the terminal.
There's no "memory swap writing to disk".... at all.

If I open terminal and enter:
sysctl vm.swapusage

The OS returns:
vm.swapusage: total = 0.00M used = 0.00M free = 0.00M

Still runs just fine.
No crashes.
Works for me.

What Linux does when it runs out of swap space, or if no swap is configured and it runs out of memory, is to pick the process hogging the most memory, and kill it. There might be some additional consideration of LRU (least recently used) but I'm not certain.

You could write a C/C++ program that allocates memory in an infinite loop, and see what happens. My feeling is that you've been lucky to have well-behaved applications.

while (1) {
malloc((size_t) 1024);
}

Greybeard2017 · Feb 23, 2023

CAcreeks said:
JPAlbert said:

I have a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" (m1pro).
16gb RAM, base model.

I have DISABLED VM disk swapping using the terminal.
There's no "memory swap writing to disk".... at all.

If I open terminal and enter:
sysctl vm.swapusage

The OS returns:
vm.swapusage: total = 0.00M used = 0.00M free = 0.00M

Still runs just fine.
No crashes.
Works for me.

Click to expand...

What Linux does when it runs out of swap space, or if no swap is configured and it runs out of memory, is to pick the process hogging the most memory, and kill it. There might be some additional consideration of LRU (least recently used) but I'm not certain.

You could write a C/C++ program that allocates memory in an infinite loop, and see what happens. My feeling is that you've been lucky to have well-behaved applications.

while (1) {
malloc((size_t) 1024);
}

That was my thoughts - iOS warns the process that’s using too much memory and if it ignores the warning it’s killed

bakubo · Feb 23, 2023

lightandaprayer said:
bakubo said:

This is a recent video that goes through the list of supposed 4 big problems (including SSD failure from swap) with the 2020 M1 Macbooks and then gives an update on them.

It has been 27 month since the M1 Macs first came out and it seems like we would know by now if, in fact, these were real problems.

Click to expand...

Just another in a series of YouTube videos that are not pertinent to average Mac users who are experiencing excessive swap issues.

I am not sure how that is relevant to cracked screens or USB-C hub related problems. I do not recall all the angst and brouhaha about those things having anything to do with multitasking. Do you remember differently? Possibly my memory is faulty about this.

lightandaprayer said:
All of the reasonable complaints that I have read are from people who are doing everyday basic personal computing tasks. 8GB RAM should be plenty for such users.

Videos about computing processes that obviously require more RAM such as editing 4k vids and ridiculous multitasking "stress tests" at 16GB vs 32GB RAM M1 Pro MacBook - Multitasking RAM TEST! add nothing to the discussion.

Anyone bothered by MacBook Pro SSD Total bytes written (TBW)?

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