Do Macs have a write life cycle like flash based memory cards?

[xMBPx]

I know all SSD memory has a certain read life cycle, but are Macs in the same level as other flash memory like SD or CFexpress card?

I do a lot of video editing and I'm curious if it's better practice to transfer the raw files straight from CFexpress to an external drive, or if it's fine to transfer it to the Mac while I edit, and then transfer the raw files over to an external drive for safe keeping?

Thanks

 

[PaulD-UK]

@xMBPx Yes, the failure rate has been set in context - there’s a report of an internal Mac SSD failure after about 10 PetaBytes written, which is ~10,000 TeraBytes of data - which is quite a lot of video editing.
27 years of writing a 1TB SSD full every day:

Apple Silicon Soldered SSD Upgrade Thread

Hi, Here are my results yet : Mac Mini M1 A2348 - 256GB SSD (2 samples) : 0% lifetime after 660TBW, SSD dead after 10 PBW on average (one made 9,500 TBW the other 10,200 TBW) MacBook Air M1 A2337 - 2TB SSD (1 sample) : still no sign of death at 5.1PBW, is at 10% lifetime remaining Mac Studio...

forums.macrumors.com

Also, see section 2 of this post for further testing - 100% SSD health after 4.5 PetaBytes written:

Apple Silicon Soldered SSD Upgrade Thread

just a little contribution, as for Louis Rossman not being comfortable with "donor" components there is two things to say about that : 1 - don't ask me how, but there is for years Chinese suppliers for brand new, original caps, inductors and more importantly brand new NANDs and power supply...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[!!!]

I do a lot of video editing and I'm curious if it's better practice to transfer the raw files straight from CFexpress to an external drive, or if it's fine to transfer it to the Mac while I edit, and then transfer the raw files over to an external drive for safe keeping?

I use an external drive for importing, I'd rather replace a cheap ext SSD than have my Mac bricked. Yes, bricked: Apple Silicon Macs cannot boot without their internal SSD, even if you want to boot macOS from an external SSD, the firmware requires the internal SSD to work.

If your ext drive is an HDD, it may not be fast enough for your video bitrates.

 

[leman]

All SSDs are subject to wear and tear when being written to, however, the write endurance of Apple SSDs is high enough for this not being a problem in practice, unless you are using your Mac as a production database for a very active service.

To put this into perspective — Apple charges $59.99 annually for extended warranty for the Mac Studio, which covers all kind of failures, including the SSD. Which means they are confident enough that their SSDs failure rate in 6+ years of active use will remain low. If you are worried about failures, the warranty they offer is a good deal. I mean, given the prices of fast external SSDs these days, Apple Care is a really good deal 😀