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Downloading Too Much on rMBP does it cause any harm to the Machine ?
- Thread starter augustya
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No.
however, if you run your SSD at 100% full constantly, it can cause the filesystem to fragment and wear levelling to slow the machine down more.
Try to maintain free space, the OS will be able to more easily fit things into free space and keep files contiguous and the SSD wear levelling works better with free space.
Some will say fragmentation doesn't matter on SSD. It doesn't matter as much but it still happens, just the impact to speed is LESS.
edit:
as above, standard malware disclaimer of course applies. but that's nothing to do with running the machine too full.
Downloading too much put a hurt onto my 07 MBP, different beast but I would not recommend it for a notebook. Get a NAS and use that.
Nah.... it won't hurt a thing. I think what you are alluding to is wearing our the SSD cells with write activity, and that is a real thing. But in reality you are talking about wearing out your SSD in 15 years instead of 20 (just a made up example) perhaps. Don't sweat it.
SLC is even better, but not used much at all in consumer level products any longer. So you have SLC > MLC > TLC.
So but can too much downloading make the process of the SSD cells wearing off faster ?
Sure... downloading tons of torrents does write to the drive some and use up NAND cell write cycles, but my point is even then the SSD is likely to last much longer than you are ever going to own that computer. I would just use it how you want and not worry about it.
There was some long term testing of consumer SSD's in 2014 and even the worst ones took 700TB of writes before dying and the best 1.2 petabytes, making weaselboys 15-20 year estimate probably about right for normal use. Of course ssd's are even better in many cases 2 years later so you really are worrying about nothing. See link below for some info on testing performed.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/consumer-grade-ssds-actually-last-a-hell-of-a-long-time/
Final disclaimer, any peice of electronic equipment can just up and die at any time for no discernible reason but this is fairly rare for ssd's.
Overheated, killed a fan, machine really wasn't the same after that.. I was seriously downloading a ton of stuff
I also think this is something that would apply to any machine with an SSD and not something particular to a Macbook pro.
How did you reach to the conclusion that it happened because of downloading a lot of stuff !
Because he doesn't know anything about how computers work.
Downloading will not cause any wear on a computer more than just using the damn thing like you always do.
Well that's not exactly true. All parts inside a PC/laptop do have a useable life. They are susceptible to wear and tear just like any other component on earth. That still wouldn't stop me from using a machine the way I would otherwise...it's definitely a silly thing to worry about.
The real takeaway though is that you'll upgrade your laptop LONG before any of the components are toast (barring very few exceptions).
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All I'm saying is that the OP, the notion that downloading anything is even remotely going to accelerate the wear and tear of his machine is ridiculous. While yes in the most technical sense it is happening, but it is patently absurd in 2016 to claim that excessive downloading is going to make any noticeable difference whatsoever.
The MBP was running great, then I went and downloaded a ton of torrents over the period of about 6 months, one morning I woke up to find the MBP cooking with a broken fan.. I really don't care what anyone says or thinks, I am 99% sure that the 30+ torrents I was running at any given time were inappropriate for a notebook 24/7. It causes too much heat, pushing the cooling system till it broke.
A notebook, is fine to grab a few torrents, but I would never leave it running overnight to grab a dozen or more files. A desktop system or NAS is more appropriate for 24/7 use.
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This person clearly has the absolute knowledge on all things IT, so believe him, don't question anything, and abuse your notebook. Use it like it was desktop class hardware designed for 24/7 use. Yes, after 20+ years of being an IT professional, I "don't know how computers work" If your machine overheats, and your cooling system gets pushed to it's limits..it will cause wear and tear to your cooling system. My only point was that genius, because fans do wear out. Well, maybe yours don't because that's not possible
Downloading can't cause overheating, none of the interfaces are fast enough to generate that kind of load and therefore heat. Something else was at play.
Unlikely, fan simply failed on an old notebook that absolutely needs active cooling, would have happened even if it was idling.
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