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CB98

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 6, 2018
278
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For various reasons I’ve had to restore my 2018 MBP from Time Machine three times now (excluding the first time I got it). I’ve gone to Mojave and back to HS, and then back to Mojave and finally back again to HS. Could this cause any issue with the SSD or anything else, or am I worrying about nothing?
 
Why are you going back and forth from HS to Majave? You should try to stick to one OS. If you are partaking in the beta development, it is better to stick to it and report bugs as you find them. It sounds like you have plenty of time on your hand to keep switching.

The lifespan of any SSD depends on the amount of data you write on it and you can maximize on that lifespan if you contribute to less writing per day.
 
I upgraded to Mojave the first time because I was experiencing speaker issues and some said it fixed those. Then, when I was in Mojave I was having charging issues where it was plugged in and not charging so I downgraded back to HS, realised that it wasn't Mojave so reupgraded. Finally, I went back to HS realising that if I take in a Mojave beta laptop to the Genius Bar (as I am on the weekend for the power and speaker issues), that it will not help my case as much as they can turn around and say your problems are all due to Mojave.
 
It is only bad for the SSD, more overwrites may decrease its lifespan.

And never install beta OS on your daily driver machine. Never.
A lesson learned too late! This is my first Mac, and I was just aching to try Mojave. I guess I'll wait for the proper release.
 
As StellerVixen said, never install betas on your production (daily driver) machines. You're only asking for trouble at that point. Especially since macOS bundles firmware updates alongside OS updates you are likely never going to get a "clean High Sierra" state even downgrading. Stick to the official releases...

Additionally, the additional wear on the SSD is hardly going to be noticed by you. Reinstalling the OS adds how many gigs of "wasted writes". Even if you restored the entire SSD equal of data from Time Machine I'm sure the SSD in the MBP is rated for many terabytes written (TBW).

My old Samsung 950 Pro NVMe in my desktop is able to handle 400TBW on a 512GB NVMe SSD and this was released 3 years ago. You'll likely replace the machine before you wear out the SSD from writes.
 
Could this cause any issue with the SSD or anything else, or am I worrying about nothing?

You are worrying about nothing.

It is only bad for the SSD, more overwrites may decrease its lifespan.

With modern SSDs, you could do reinstall every day and it will take years before the SSD runs into write endurance issues...

And never install beta OS on your daily driver machine. Never.

Why not? With proper backup strategy its not a problem.
 
Why not? With proper backup strategy its not a problem.
It could easily be a problem if an bug in the OS (or an application) prevents you from meeting a deadline with a client. Or the system craps the bed while you're doing a presentation for work or for class. Or the thing goes tango-uniform the night before a big paper or project is due.

Sure, if it's not a machine you depend on, you have plenty of time to work around any issues without any consequences, and/or you have other systems to cover in case something goes wrong -- then go for it.

... but that's not what most folks are talking about when referring to a "daily driver"

(Do keep a separate pre-beta set of backups though, as there's also always the possibility of an issue there too)
 
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Well now I'm having a totally weird issue...I'm back in HS trying to install supplemental update 2 and whenever it restarts to install the update it takes me to a screen to choose my boot drive....and then I log in and nothing has happened and I have to try and reinstall it all over again. Any suggestions?!
[doublepost=1535498310][/doublepost]I get this on startup now
 

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It is only bad for the SSD, more overwrites may decrease its lifespan.

And never install beta OS on your daily driver machine. Never.
I would say the amount of overwriting for installs add negligible numbers of writes to the total life expectancy of the system.

The main wear and tear is on the mind...

Given APFS the best approach is to create container and install beta OSs into that. You can then use apps on the High Sierra partition. If there are large additional installs in Application Support that are not different, you can make symbolic links so they do not replicate. Same goes for DropBox, but not iCloud files. Mail folders, Photos Library, and iTunes databases will be different between OS versions.

This gives you a gradual and riskfree way to slowly migrate.

Containers on the same partition (disk) share free space.
[doublepost=1535498889][/doublepost]
Well now I'm having a totally weird issue...I'm back in HS trying to install supplemental update 2 and whenever it restarts to install the update it takes me to a screen to choose my boot drive....and then I log in and nothing has happened and I have to try and reinstall it all over again. Any suggestions?!
[doublepost=1535498310][/doublepost]I get this on startup now
Set your boot drive to high Sierra and then do the update.

I just did it on mine and had no trouble.
[doublepost=1535499175][/doublepost]
Well now I'm having a totally weird issue...I'm back in HS trying to install supplemental update 2 and whenever it restarts to install the update it takes me to a screen to choose my boot drive....and then I log in and nothing has happened and I have to try and reinstall it all over again. Any suggestions?!
[doublepost=1535498310][/doublepost]I get this on startup now
Looking at the Error display: With T2 Bridge drives are always encrypted. If they are not in FileVault mode, the first Admin password is stored somewhere, but might have gotten lost in your wipes. You will also likely find that you cannot get into the Startup Security Utility, because this token is lost.

Before doing anything else, boot and log into your admin account, if you can still do that. Then run this exactly in terminal:
sysadminctl interactive -secureTokenOn YourUserName -password -

This will reestablish the token.

If I would have known that, I likely could have saved myself returning my system to Apple and having to wait fora replacement. This info is thanks to Mike Bombich - more here:
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/frequen...out-encrypting-backup-volume#startup_security
 
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Containers on the same partition (disk) share free space.

Small correction: on an APFS formatted drive, only volumes in the same container share space. Containers on the same disk do not. When you click the partition tab you are given the choice between "Partition" which adds a fixed size container or "Add volume" which creates a volume which shares space with the other volumes in that container.
 
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I would say the amount of overwriting for installs add negligible numbers of writes to the total life expectancy of the system.

The main wear and tear is on the mind...

Given APFS the best approach is to create container and install beta OSs into that. You can then use apps on the High Sierra partition. If there are large additional installs in Application Support that are not different, you can make symbolic links so they do not replicate. Same goes for DropBox, but not iCloud files. Mail folders, Photos Library, and iTunes databases will be different between OS versions.

This gives you a gradual and riskfree way to slowly migrate.

Containers on the same partition (disk) share free space.
[doublepost=1535498889][/doublepost]
Set your boot drive to high Sierra and then do the update.

I just did it on mine and had no trouble.
[doublepost=1535499175][/doublepost]
Looking at the Error display: With T2 Bridge drives are always encrypted. If they are not in FileVault mode, the first Admin password is stored somewhere, but might have gotten lost in your wipes. You will also likely find that you cannot get into the Startup Security Utility, because this token is lost.

Before doing anything else, boot and log into your admin account, if you can still do that. Then run this exactly in terminal:
sysadminctl interactive -secureTokenOn YourUserName -password -

This will reestablish the token.

If I would have known that, I likely could have saved myself returning my system to Apple and having to wait fora replacement. This info is thanks to Mike Bombich - more here:
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/frequen...out-encrypting-backup-volume#startup_security
Thanks for the advice, but this didn't do anything I'm afraid. I'll see what the Genius Bar says on Saturday.... maybe reinstalling stock HS would fix things (as opposed to going from a Time Machine backup), but then I'd lose all of my files and settings...
 
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