How long do SSD's last?

[BigBoy2018]

Is this even necessary for my usage? I do not do any video of graphics editing. Use iWorks mostly with some use of Office.

No. Not necessary at all. Just know thats an option.
That said if you ever do start doing things that call for more ram, you may want to look into buying a new computer at that point (though do avoid the 2016-2018 macbooks/macbook pros).
Any task you may do that calls for 16 gigs of ram at this point probably also would call for a faster processor and video card as well.
So for now I think you’re set.

 

[timidpimpin]

The 2012 MBP can use 16GB total (2 x 8GB). Mine has 16GB installed. It uses 1.5GB for video. I'm not sure how much VRAM is allocated if you have 8GB but if it uses 1GB that cuts it down to 7GB at most. MacOS likes to have 4GB minimum to run. That leaves you with 3GB for programs and anything else needed in real time. That really isn't very much RAM left. When I have several apps open at the same time I see my available free RAM drop to 4GB (12GB RAM being used). If I was running only 8GB total system RAM that would be utilizing the page swapping.

To be fair... my Macs (late 09 mini and macbook) only use 256MB for VRAM, so I would get by much better with 8GB than you would. I have 8GB in both and find it more than enough. My usage rarely goes over 5GB.

 

[BigBoy2018]

To be fair... my Macs (late 09 mini and macbook) only use 256MB for VRAM, so I would get by much better with 8GB than you would. I have 8GB in both and find it more than enough. My usage rarely goes over 5GB.

Yep. To state the obvious, ram is all dependent on how you use the computer. The average user, 8gb is totally fine. In fact, my girlfriend still uses her 13 inch 2013 macbook air with only 4gb and it's no problem for her.

But if you use something like After Effects, then it's time to up the ram some.

Personally I have 32gb in my 2017 iMac and a 4TB samsung SSD installed internally as well. For me, I find that useful.

 

[timidpimpin]

Yep. To state the obvious, ram is all dependent on how you use the computer. The average user, 8gb is totally fine. In fact, my girlfriend still uses her 13 inch 2013 macbook air with only 4gb and it's no problem for her.

But if you use something like After Effects, then it's time to up the ram some.

Personally I have 32gb in my 2017 iMac and a 4TB samsung SSD installed internally as well. For me, I find that useful.

And your post also points out another very personal thing... how much CPU/GPU power you need. I get by fine with a couple C2D systems, and it seems like you wouldn't so well. But maybe I'm wrong.

It's not a money thing for me. I can easily afford a new Mac, but if I really don't need one... then why buy one? I do very typical consumer type stuff on my personal Macs, but my Macs at work are used professionally for scientific based things, and many of the work computers are still PowerPC, because they still get the job done fine. So not all professional needs are demanding.

 

[jwolf6589]

And your post also points out another very personal thing... how much CPU/GPU power you need. I get by fine with a couple C2D systems, and it seems like you wouldn't so well. But maybe I'm wrong.

It's not a money thing for me. I can easily afford a new Mac, but if I really don't need one... then why buy one? I do very typical consumer type stuff on my personal Macs, but my Macs at work are used professionally for scientific based things, and many of the work computers are still PowerPC, because they still get the job done fine. So not all professional needs are demanding.

PPC Still? Are they still on Mac OS 9 or earlier? Or are they running OSX Tiger?

 

[timidpimpin]

PPC Still? Are they still on Mac OS 9 or earlier? Or are they running OSX Tiger?

Tiger on most, but a couple have Linux. We really only use them for minor calculations and note taking, so they're more than powerful enough. Also, they aren't connected to the internet, so security isn't an issue.

 

[jwolf6589]

Tiger on most, but a couple have Linux. We really only use them for minor calculations and note taking, so they're more than powerful enough. Also, they aren't connected to the internet, so security isn't an issue.

I have some old games that used the classic environment that I miss.

 

[SoCalReviews]

2012 mid MBP

I am using a mid 2012 MBP right now. I upgraded the RAM to 16GB soon after I bought it in 2014.

It runs fast enough to the point where I haven't felt the need to upgrade the original spinner HDD. If you have enough RAM using a slower HDD instead of an SSD seems to mostly effect the system boot up speed. I can run many Mac apps and leave them open without any issues. If they are running in the background there is no wait time to run them.

If you don't run large apps or like to have many apps open at one time on your Mac then you are probably ok with 8GB. Even if you run larger Mac apps the SSD will handle the page swapping fast enough so you shouldn't notice a negative effect with your running system performance.

I am a big advocate of maximum RAM in computers. I used to build my own PCs and I noticed that the systems with the most RAM installed tended to have less problems over time. Those systems seemed to last longer and the HDDs didn't seem to fail as often. If you leave your Mac on all the time you will notice that the amount of free memory tends to drop over time until the next time you reboot the system... It is sometimes due to inefficiencies in the OS... memory leaks, flaws in program code, etc.. Once your system starts page swapping to it's larger boot drive then it runs less efficiently... It can run hotter, use more battery power, etc.. Whether it's Windows or MacOS having more available system RAM helps alleviate those kinds of problems.

Therefore it really does depend on the user and how they use their Mac. From what you have posted about your Mac 8GB may be more than enough for your needs. If you ever get an itch to do another upgrade to your MBP then you could upgrade to 16GB (2 x 8GB) in the future.

 

[smirking]

Strange why Apple does not do this by default.

Some earlier SSDs don't support TRIM and enabling TRIM on those could result in data loss.

I ran without TRIM on an Samsung 850 EVO for a year before I realized it wasn't on. I turned it on. I didn't see a dramatic difference. I didn't benchmark anything, but in terms of my real world usage, I wouldn't be able to tell you that I noticed any improvement if you quietly enabled it for me one day while I wasn't looking.

 

[jwolf6589]

I am using a mid 2012 MBP right now. I upgraded the RAM to 16GB soon after I bought it in 2014.

It runs fast enough to the point where I haven't felt the need to upgrade the original spinner HDD. If you have enough RAM using a slower HDD instead of an SSD seems to mostly effect the system boot up speed. I can run many Mac apps and leave them open without any issues. If they are running in the background there is no wait time to run them.

If you don't run large apps or like to have many apps open at one time on your Mac then you are probably ok with 8GB. Even if you run larger Mac apps the SSD will handle the page swapping fast enough so you shouldn't notice a negative effect with your running system performance.

I am a big advocate of maximum RAM in computers. I used to build my own PCs and I noticed that the systems with the most RAM installed tended to have less problems over time. Those systems seemed to last longer and the HDDs didn't seem to fail as often. If you leave your Mac on all the time you will notice that the amount of free memory tends to drop over time until the next time you reboot the system... It is sometimes due to inefficiencies in the OS... memory leaks, flaws in program code, etc.. Once your system starts page swapping to it's larger boot drive then it runs less efficiently... It can run hotter, use more battery power, etc.. Whether it's Windows or MacOS having more available system RAM helps alleviate those kinds of problems.

Therefore it really does depend on the user and how they use their Mac. From what you have posted about your Mac 8GB may be more than enough for your needs. If you ever get an itch to do another upgrade to your MBP then you could upgrade to 16GB (2 x 8GB) in the future.

Yes I could but then again I am not running photoshop, after effects, Final Cut Pro or anything of the sort. Just general office usage using iWorks and MS Office.

I have a app that tells me the RPM and my Mac almost never goes beyond 2000 so the SSD is not getting hot with my usage.

In fact I am more worried about my Apple Watch which can run sluggish at times. It also has a SSD but series 2 must have less ram and a slower CPU than series 4.

 

[Falhófnir]

Yeah, I totally forgot about the Air, Air was the first Mac to ship with SSDs.

Someone shared SSD stress test here recently, and in that test, around petabyte of data was written on SSD before it died.

Yep, I think it helps Apple still use MLC SSDs (well, did the last I heard on the matter) certainly for smaller capacity drives (I'd imagine by the time you get up to a 1TB+ drive it's less of a factor) due to the greater number of write cycles the cells can be subjected to before they wear out. Off the top of my head I seem to remember for an MLC SSD each cell can be written up to 10,000 times(!) while for the TLC drives a lot of other manufacturers use it's more like 3,000, but can be as low as 800 under certain circumstances.

 

[BigBoy2018]

I have some old games that used the classic environment that I miss.

I bought a 2001 powermac last year (2x500 ppc processors) for $150 just as a ‘walk down memory lane’.

I got a slightly better video card from OWC for it, dual 120gb SSD’s, and installed my huge library of old programs and games on it.
Runs both classic os 9.2 and osX Tiger 10.4.11.

Its fun to play with and all ... but man, the thing is dog—— slow no matter how you slice it.

Its amazing to consider how our perceptions of computer speeds have changed in these (short to me) 18 years.

With the SSD’s this would have been the baddest ass mac on the planet back then. But it just seems like an old, slow relic now.

 

[SoCalReviews]

Yes I could but then again I am not running photoshop, after effects, Final Cut Pro or anything of the sort. Just general office usage using iWorks and MS Office.

I have a app that tells me the RPM and my Mac almost never goes beyond 2000 so the SSD is not getting hot with my usage.

In fact I am more worried about my Apple Watch which can run sluggish at times. It also has a SSD but series 2 must have less ram and a slower CPU than series 4.

If that's all you use your MBP for you should be ok with 8GB.

Interestingly... I am using Memory Clean for Mac which is supposed to show real time amount of available free memory. I don't know how accurate it is (I assume it's getting it's information directly from MacOS) but as I type this I have Word 2011 for Mac open and latest Firefox browser... nothing else open and Memory Clean is showing 8.06 GB available free memory. If the reading is accurate then my MBP system is already using about 8GB or half of the 16GB system RAM.

If I reboot my 2012 MBP and open the same applications then I usually start out with about 10-12GB available free memory. It seems that the longer the applications are open and the longer my MBP is powered on since the last reboot then more system memory is used to buffer the system and the frequently used applications. Memory Clean has a breakdown of the memory usage in real time as it changes... (currently showing 6.78GB memory used for apps, 1.46GB for wired, 3.92GB available for file cache, etc..) but I'd have to do more detailed analysis to determine exactly what is happening here.

According to the Memory Clean information I don't have much free RAM memory for my memory hungry Windows VMs before page swapping is utilized. Windows 10 likes having 8GB to run smoothly. If I could upgrade my 2012 MBP to 32GB I would do it.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Is this even necessary for my usage? I do not do any video of graphics editing. Use iWorks mostly with some use of Office.

No. Not unless you have a lot of page outs.

 

[jwolf6589]

If that's all you use your MBP for you should be ok with 8GB.

Interestingly... I am using Memory Clean for Mac which is supposed to show real time amount of available free memory. I don't know how accurate it is (I assume it's getting it's information directly from MacOS) but as I type this I have Word 2011 for Mac open and latest Firefox browser... nothing else open and Memory Clean is showing 8.06 GB available free memory. If the reading is accurate then my MBP system is already using about 8GB or half of the 16GB system RAM.

If I reboot my 2012 MBP and open the same applications then I usually start out with about 10-12GB available free memory. It seems that the longer the applications are open and the longer my MBP is powered on since the last reboot then more system memory is used to buffer the system and the frequently used applications. Memory Clean has a breakdown of the memory usage in real time as it changes... (currently showing 6.78GB memory used for apps, 1.46GB for wired, 3.92GB available for file cache, etc..) but I'd have to do more detailed analysis to determine exactly what is happening here.

According to the Memory Clean information I don't have much free RAM memory for my memory hungry Windows VMs before page swapping is utilized. Windows 10 likes having 8GB to run smoothly. If I could upgrade my 2012 MBP to 32GB I would do it.

I do not have a need for a Windows VM. I did have bootcamp installed in the past but I almost never used it.