M1 Air Excessive SSD Writing

[Tekguy0]

I am aware of the recent discoveries around excessive SSD writing by M1 machines. At least in my case, the main issue seems to be kernel_task in activity monitor, writing 7.35TB. I understand that given the 8GB of RAM on my base model, there will be some swap for virtual memory, but this seems ridiculous, and the data written shown in Activity Monitor is 7.62TB.

Is there any way to stop this excessive writing of data? Should I contact Apple Support? Thanks in advance.

 

[||\||]

I am aware of the recent discoveries around excessive SSD writing by M1 machines. At least in my case, the main issue seems to be kernel_task in activity monitor, writing 7.35TB. I understand that given the 8GB of RAM on my base model, there will be some swap for virtual memory, but this seems ridiculous, and the data written shown in Activity Monitor is 7.62TB.

Is there any way to stop this excessive writing of data? Should I contact Apple Support? Thanks in advance.

If you are using the Air for it's intended purpose - Web browsing, listening to audio, watching video - there should be no SWAPing of data. 8GB is more than enough RAM for casual use.

 

[tps3443]

I am aware of the recent discoveries around excessive SSD writing by M1 machines. At least in my case, the main issue seems to be kernel_task in activity monitor, writing 7.35TB. I understand that given the 8GB of RAM on my base model, there will be some swap for virtual memory, but this seems ridiculous, and the data written shown in Activity Monitor is 7.62TB.

Is there any way to stop this excessive writing of data? Should I contact Apple Support? Thanks in advance.

I wouldn’t worry about it... Your SSD getting damaged or becoming degraded from using swap is a myth.

When I had my 8GB M1 I would steadily
use between 15-20GB of ram usage.

I would usually have about 8-12+GB of ram in (Swap storage) almost all the time.

Most cheap commercially available SSD’s can handle

• 256 GB: 150 TB
• 512 GB and 1 TB: 300 TB
• 2 TB: 450 TB
• 4 TB: 600 TB

You are at a measly 7TB lol.. Keep going man. Those above numbers are also the minimum requirements from the manufacture, you’ll probably go much further..

I wouldn’t worry about it. I would keep working it every single day!

Also, for anyone wondering. If you own a 256GB M1 Macbook and you wrote 7-8TB every 3-4 months. You have essentially used 5% of your 256GB SSD’s life expectancy. If you continue to write like this, your SSD should last well over 8 years. If that’s a 512GB model then I’d say 16 years. Whoever started the whole SSD gate on the M1 Macbook was a doofis...

 

[tps3443]

If you are using the Air for it's intended purpose - Web browsing, listening to audio, watching video - there should be no SWAPing of data. 8GB is more than enough RAM for casual use.

It doesn’t matter what he uses it for. An 8GB of ram M1 Macbook can easily use over 20GB of system ram and still have a fairly low (Memory pressure) these systems are designed to use as much ram as they want.

if he writes 7+TB of data on his SSD every 3-4 months then a 256GB M1 Macbook would easily last over 8 years..A 512GB model would last over 16 years..

You can write over 150TB of data on a 256GB SSD without issues. And over 300TB on a 512GB model.

Now I imagine Apple is using a high quality SSD in these machines so the life expectancy is probably very good. Swap storage has been used in iPhones forever. Now, you‘ve never heard. (YOUR IPHONES SSD WILL DIE) lol.

Its a silly scandal is all that dodo brains started on YouTube for fun.

 

[drdudj]

I wouldn’t worry about it... Your SSD getting damaged or becoming degraded from using swap is a myth.

When I had my 8GB M1 I would steadily
use between 15-20GB of ram usage.

I would usually have about 8-12+GB of ram in (Swap storage) almost all the time.

Most cheap commercially available SSD’s can handle

• 256 GB: 150 TB
• 512 GB and 1 TB: 300 TB
• 2 TB: 450 TB
• 4 TB: 600 TB

You are at a measly 7TB lol.. Keep going man. Those above numbers are also the minimum requirements from the manufacture, you’ll probably go much further..

I wouldn’t worry about it. I would keep working it every single day!

Also, for anyone wondering. If you own a 256GB M1 Macbook and you wrote 7-8TB every 3-4 months. You have essentially used 5% of your 256GB SSD’s life expectancy. If you continue to write like this, your SSD should last well over 8 years. If that’s a 512GB model then I’d say 16 years. Whoever started the whole SSD gate on the M1 Macbook was a doofis...

i average about 25gb per day, just an average user, and based on those figures i figure my 256gb ssd is good for about 25 years. i'm good with that

 

[tps3443]

i average about 25gb per day, just an average user, and based on those figures i figure my 256gb ssd is good for about 25 years. i'm good with that

Not to mention, 150TB is really the manufacture spec. And the 150TB would be slightly underestimated to
avoid massive RMA or warranty problems VS. the true (death by data transfer) numbers. SSD’s more than often far exceed their rated life expectancy.

For example a ladder has a maximum weight capacity of (400lbs manufacturers warning label) but, the ladder actually doesn’t break until it’s holding 2,500 pounds lol. Most items are heavily underrated to be well within spec.

 

[Tekguy0]

It doesn’t matter what he uses it for. An 8GB of ram M1 Macbook can easily use over 20GB of system ram and still have a fairly low (Memory pressure) these systems are designed to use as much ram as they want.

if he writes 7+TB of data on his SSD every 3-4 months then a 256GB M1 Macbook would easily last over 8 years..A 512GB model would last over 16 years..

You can write over 150TB of data on a 256GB SSD without issues. And over 300TB on a 512GB model.

Now I imagine Apple is using a high quality SSD in these machines so the life expectancy is probably very good. Swap storage has been used in iPhones forever. Now, you‘ve never heard. (YOUR IPHONES SSD WILL DIE) lol.

Its a silly scandal is all that dodo brains started on YouTube for fun.

This was 7TB over 2 weeks, not 3-4 months. I am quite sure that Apple uses high quality flash in its SSDs, but it is simply excessive for the kernel to be writing that much data, it was in the realm of about 50MB/s, according to activity monitor. Note that this was with several firefox tabs open and a libreoffice doc or two, but nothing intensive that would gobble up RAM.

 

[tps3443]

This was 7TB over 2 weeks, not 3-4 months. I am quite sure that Apple uses high quality flash in its SSDs, but it is simply excessive for the kernel to be writing that much data, it was in the realm of about 50MB/s, according to activity monitor. Note that this was with several firefox tabs open and a libreoffice doc or two, but nothing intensive that would gobble up RAM.

Maybe the kernel is wrong? 7TB in 2 weeks does seem high. But nonetheless, these SSD’s are very high endurance and also super fast too. My 1TB/16GB Air M1 puts down speeds equivalent of my Raid 0 NVME desktop.

 

[Toutou]

I don't think there has been an official response from Apple. They're probably looking into it. Most people report very sane amounts of writes (like what you'd expect from other machines on other OSes), but some machines just write like crazy and nobody knows why.

 

[sracer]

This was 7TB over 2 weeks, not 3-4 months. I am quite sure that Apple uses high quality flash in its SSDs, but it is simply excessive for the kernel to be writing that much data, it was in the realm of about 50MB/s, according to activity monitor. Note that this was with several firefox tabs open and a libreoffice doc or two, but nothing intensive that would gobble up RAM.

If I were in your position, experiencing what you are experiencing with your M1 Air, I would look at what my options are to minimize my financial exposure. Comments dismissing your concerns aren't going to help you should the SSD fail due to premature aging.

Generally, the "bah, don't worry about it" turns into, "well, you did something to cause it" when things do become something to worry about.

But having said that, I believe that it is a software issue with Mac OS and not something specific to the M1 itself. Being software rather than hardware means that Apple will be more willing to acknowledge the issue sooner and provide a fix.

As for what things you can do differently to reduce writes, there doesn't seem to be any consistent behavior that reliably alters the write activity. You can try experimenting to see if something like using Firefox to do more online rather than locally (i.e. use Firefox/MBA as a chromebook of sorts) has an impact on SSD writes. (that's just an example of something to try and not a statement that this will resolve the issue)

 

[jdb8167]

If I were in your position, experiencing what you are experiencing with your M1 Air, I would look at what my options are to minimize my financial exposure. Comments dismissing your concerns aren't going to help you should the SSD fail due to premature aging.

Generally, the "bah, don't worry about it" turns into, "well, you did something to cause it" when things do become something to worry about.

But having said that, I believe that it is a software issue with Mac OS and not something specific to the M1 itself. Being software rather than hardware means that Apple will be more willing to acknowledge the issue sooner and provide a fix.

As for what things you can do differently to reduce writes, there doesn't seem to be any consistent behavior that reliably alters the write activity. You can try experimenting to see if something like using Firefox to do more online rather than locally (i.e. use Firefox/MBA as a chromebook of sorts) has an impact on SSD writes. (that's just an example of something to try and not a statement that this will resolve the issue)

There is a whole, very long thread about this here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ssd-swap-high-usage-of-terabytes-written.2284893/

Read the last 4 or 5 pages for a variety of mitigation strategies.

 

[tps3443]

I checked my Air M1 16GB/1TB and it has 400GB written. Today makes 2 weeks that I’ve owned my machine. (So yeah that means I can’t exchange it or return it)

I use tons of ram everyday too. I previously owned a 8GB/512GB M1 machine (which I exchanged for this 16GB /1024gig model)

I never checked the write history of my 8/512 model M1.

 

[rmn1644]

My Kernel is at 16TB after 6 days. My SSD shows 401TB written in 4 months, already at 13%.

 

[jahall05]

Didn’t the recent update address and fix this issue?

 

[trevpimp]

Honestly I know Apple knows about this problem and if it was an actual problem they would fix it with software updates and I haven't heard anything from them since high SSD writes came out

What seems like a huge amount of writes compared to technology back in the day for all we know it's perfectly normal for today's tech

I never checked how much my M1 MacBook Air has written

 

[rmn1644]

Didn’t the recent update address and fix this issue?

I have the most recent update and while I never checked usage before, these numbers would average across the unit lifetime to be the same as what I'm seeing. Hope there's a fix, I have a feeling I know what it will be: bricked internal drive and Apple selling a "Mac Mini Refurb" that runs off a non-motherboard SSD and uses all the returned motherboards.