Mac Mini m2 Pro - 16GB vs 32GB

[marstan]

Dude, the abuse of swap killed the HDD, period. I strictly don't care about what you think, since you're so cynical and negative. Byebye!

I have found those old 2.5" HDDs to be pretty reliable. I still have the ones from my '09 mini and '08 MBP and they still work; in fact I have used them recently to back up my laptops. Now, I swapped them out for SSDs long ago not because I was concerned about wear and tear but because they were slow and produced undesirable heat and vibration in the case of the laptop.

You should be grateful to foo2 instead of barking at him for trying to enlighten you. Ignorance followed by petulant arrogance. Bad form.

 

[Freida]

Not everybody here have the same opinion as you and foo2's. Others are disagreeing with your advice. You don't hold the truth, and you don't know what I'm doing with my computers (except the few of what I've described here). You just share your biased personal experience, and that's okay, but I don't agree with it. My mini is coming, and I'm off from this thread now.

Read the post above from Marstan! I'm not the one that is claiming to hold the truth

 

[Cham2000]

I have found those old 2.5" HDDs to be pretty reliable. I still have the ones from my '09 mini and '08 MBP and they still work; in fact I have used them recently to back up my laptops. Now, I swapped them out for SSDs long ago not because I was concerned about wear and tear but because they were slow and produced undesirable heat and vibration in the case of the laptop.

Yes, they are pretty reliable. I used it for 11 years in the mini, before it died, and the same version is still holding in my current 12 years old MBP. But head crash or failure may happen at anytime, unfortunately, when there is wear after a long and intensive use of a slow HDD. That was the case of the mini, which hold much longer than what I was expecting when I brought it in 2009. The lack of memory didn't helped it much (only 4GB ram).

But sorry to bother you with my disagreement about the amount of memory needed for my new mini. I do need more than 16GB because of some apps that I use frequently and the amount of multitasking I'm usually doing. I'm in peace with my overkill choice (32GB, since 24GB isn't an option on the mini M2 Pro). I wont elaborate more on this subject because I'm now off from this thread. Thanks for all the comments. It was helpfull.

 

[foo2]

Not everybody here have the same opinion as you and foo2's. Others are disagreeing with your advice. You don't hold the truth, and you don't know what I'm doing with my computers (except the few of what I've described here). You just share your biased personal experience, and that's okay, but I don't agree with it. My mini is coming, and I'm off from this thread now.

The problem isn't you are wrong on your opinions. You're wrong on facts. I've shown how, and you've shown you aren't interested in an adult conversation. If you'd like to re-engage, stop replying by changing quotes to "blablabla" juvie behavior, and instead quote and reply based on facts.

The fact that you have not speaks volumes. But that's ok; we're here to grow and help each other learn. Treat this as learning points.

 

[thebart]

o, short of extraordinary issues like what Apple fixed in 2021 (? - the smartctl issue iirc) timeframe.

What's the snartctl issue?

 

[foo2]

What's the snartctl issue?

M1 Mac Users Report Excessive SSD Wear

Over the past week, some M1 Mac users have been reporting alarming SSD health readings, suggesting that these devices are writing extraordinary...

www.macrumors.com

 

[thebart]

M1 Mac Users Report Excessive SSD Wear

Over the past week, some M1 Mac users have been reporting alarming SSD health readings, suggesting that these devices are writing extraordinary...

www.macrumors.com

I ran smartctl on my used M1 mini I got 11 days ago.

smartctl -a disk0
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [Darwin 22.3.0 arm64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       APPLE SSD AP0512Q
Serial Number:                      xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Firmware Version:                   873.40.4
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID:            0x106b
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x000000
Controller ID:                      0
NVMe Version:                       <1.2
Number of Namespaces:               3
Local Time is:                      Sat Mar 11 16:41:56 2023 PST
Firmware Updates (0x02):            1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0004):   Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x0004):     DS_Mngmt
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         256 Pages

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
 0 +     0.00W       -        -    0  0  0  0        0       0

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning:                   0x00
Temperature:                        23 Celsius
Available Spare:                    100%
Available Spare Threshold:          99%
Percentage Used:                    0%
Data Units Read:                    38,480,035 [19.7 TB]
Data Units Written:                 12,345,812 [6.32 TB]
Host Read Commands:                 1,084,605,374
Host Write Commands:                199,500,185
Controller Busy Time:               0
Power Cycles:                       194
Power On Hours:                     329
Unsafe Shutdowns:                   23
Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
Error Information Log Entries:      0

Read 1 entries from Error Information Log failed: GetLogPage failed: system=0x38, sub=0x0, code=745

Is this right? 6.3 TB in 329 hrs? That's crazy high. Last I checked, my Windows system drive, a 512G Sandisk SATA ssd, had like 6 TB total NAND writes in 2800 hrs, 100% health. I have no swap on the PC but haven't any on this one either (16GB RAM). PC is using a different reporting program, though (crystal disk info).

 

[foo2]

I ran smartctl on my used M1 mini I got 11 days ago.

smartctl -a disk0
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [Darwin 22.3.0 arm64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       APPLE SSD AP0512Q
Serial Number:                      xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Firmware Version:                   873.40.4
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID:            0x106b
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x000000
Controller ID:                      0
NVMe Version:                       <1.2
Number of Namespaces:               3
Local Time is:                      Sat Mar 11 16:41:56 2023 PST
Firmware Updates (0x02):            1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0004):   Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x0004):     DS_Mngmt
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         256 Pages

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
 0 +     0.00W       -        -    0  0  0  0        0       0

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning:                   0x00
Temperature:                        23 Celsius
Available Spare:                    100%
Available Spare Threshold:          99%
Percentage Used:                    0%
Data Units Read:                    38,480,035 [19.7 TB]
Data Units Written:                 12,345,812 [6.32 TB]
Host Read Commands:                 1,084,605,374
Host Write Commands:                199,500,185
Controller Busy Time:               0
Power Cycles:                       194
Power On Hours:                     329
Unsafe Shutdowns:                   23
Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
Error Information Log Entries:      0

Read 1 entries from Error Information Log failed: GetLogPage failed: system=0x38, sub=0x0, code=745

Is this right? 6.3 TB in 329 hrs? That's crazy high. Last I checked, my Windows system drive, a 512G Sandisk SATA ssd, had like 6 TB total NAND writes in 2800 hrs, 100% health. I have no swap on the PC but haven't any on this one either (16GB RAM). PC is using a different reporting program, though (crystal disk info).

On my Hack I have this:

smartctl -a disk0
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [Darwin 22.3.0 x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: ADATA SX8200PNP
Serial Number: x
Firmware Version: 42B7T1KA
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x1cc1
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x000000
Controller ID: 1
NVMe Version: 1.3
Number of Namespaces: 1
Local Time is: Sat Mar 11 20:38:20 2023 CST
Firmware Updates (0x14): 2 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0017): Security Format Frmw_DL Self_Test
Optional NVM Commands (0x005f): Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat Timestmp
Log Page Attributes (0x0f): S/H_per_NS Cmd_Eff_Lg Ext_Get_Lg Telmtry_Lg
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 64 Pages
Warning Comp. Temp. Threshold: 75 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold: 80 Celsius

Supported Power States
St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
0 + 9.00W - - 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 + 4.60W - - 1 1 1 1 0 0
2 + 3.80W - - 2 2 2 2 0 0
3 - 0.0450W - - 3 3 3 3 2000 2000
4 - 0.0040W - - 4 4 4 4 15000 15000

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 48 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 10%
Percentage Used: 4%
Data Units Read: 40,691,308 [20.8 TB]
Data Units Written: 43,710,150 [22.3 TB]
Host Read Commands: 1,161,893,406
Host Write Commands: 930,290,734
Controller Busy Time: 19,555
Power Cycles: 32,443
Power On Hours: 7,388
Unsafe Shutdowns: 156
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
Warning Comp. Temperature Time: 22
Critical Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Thermal Temp. 1 Transition Count: 61
Thermal Temp. 2 Transition Count: 51
Thermal Temp. 1 Total Time: 2044
Thermal Temp. 2 Total Time: 1189

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 256 entries)
No Errors Logged

 

[thebart]

^^ wow, so your hackintosh has around 3GB/hr written and my mini has 19GB/hr written. Quite a difference. Your rate is in line with my PC's.

Anyone with an M1 mini cares to post their numbers?

 

[foo2]

^^ wow, so your hackintosh has around 3GB/hr written and my mini has 19GB/hr written. Quite a difference. Your rate is in line with my PC's.

Anyone with an M1 mini cares to post their numbers?

% smartctl -a disk0
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [Darwin 22.3.0 arm64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: APPLE SSD AP0512Z
Serial Number: x
Firmware Version: 873.40.4
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x106b
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x000000
Controller ID: 0
NVMe Version: <1.2
Number of Namespaces: 3
Local Time is: Sat Mar 11 21:48:34 2023 CST
Firmware Updates (0x02): 1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0004): Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x0004): DS_Mngmt
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 256 Pages

Supported Power States
St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
0 + 0.00W - - 0 0 0 0 0 0

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 31 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 4,697,540 [2.40 TB]
Data Units Written: 4,219,802 [2.16 TB]
Host Read Commands: 93,552,016
Host Write Commands: 73,974,358
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 72
Power On Hours: 57
Unsafe Shutdowns: 6
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0

Read 1 entries from Error Information Log failed: GetLogPage failed: system=0x38, sub=0x0, code=745

 

[foo2]

Note that power on hours is nonsense. It's been on a lot more than that. Unless that subtracts out all sleep time, but even then that looks silly low.

 

[thebart]

Note that power on hours is nonsense. It's been on a lot more than that. Unless that subtracts out all sleep time, but even then that looks silly low.

How long have you had that machine

 

[foo2]

2nd week of Feb, give or take.

 

[marstan]

deleted

 

[dgdosen]

I've got a 512GB M1 Macbook Air with 16GB of memory showing 135 TB read, 113 TB written and 4% "used" over ~2.3 years, that's somewhere north of 40 years left of SSD life.

I can deal with that. Is macos paging an issue? No...

 

[thebart]

I've got a 512GB M1 Macbook Air with 16GB of memory showing 135 TB read, 113 TB written and 4% "used" over ~2.3 years, that's somewhere north of 40 years left of SSD life.

I can deal with that. Is macos paging an issue? No...

So the drive is telling snartctl it has a TBW of around 2800 TB? Impressive if true. A 500gb Samsung 980 pro claims a TBW of 300TB. Somehow I doubt Apple is using an SSD with ten times the resilience of one of the top NVMEs on the market

Maybe that's a wrong interpretation of what 4% used means. But that seems to be the interpretation you're making too with your 40 yrs comment

 

[Predtek]

Upgrading from a 2020 M1 Mac mini 16Gb Ram 8Core CPU 2TB SSD.

I need to get a Mac computer for my graphic artist staff so I am giving my M1 to him and getting a M2 Pro Mac mini for myself now. I am going for:

FUTURE PROOFING IS KINDA BS NOWADAYS. Especially when you have to pass/buy computers to your staff/family/kids or so on. They are powerful enough to last a long time. Get what you need for now or what you expect to need in near future.

4 Thunderbolt Ports on the pro model is way more useful than any other upgrades.

12Core CPU 19Core GPU: Review show some difference in computational intensive apps. This $300 upgrade is not fully rationalized.

1TB SSD: Don't get the 256Gb, it's paltry in size and it's very slow. 512Gb would cause some inconveniences. I am not getting 2TB anymore as it is exorbitantly expensive. A whopping $400 more than the 1TB. I am going to use a SSD enclosure since this is not a MacBook which I would have to carry around. APPLE COMEON! > LET ME move the very expensive 2TB upgrade over to the new M2 Pro Mac mini I am getting!

16Gb Ram: Reviews show that there are minimal performance differences. My M1 never lagged or feel sluggish. MacOS handle memory efficiently so it definitely is enough for me even for video encodings. By the time 32GB ram is necessary, a base spec computer would out perform a maxed out version ($$$) available now already.

 

[Predtek]

With Apple, they can’t, so let’s put that to bed.

My thought process is to buy what you need now, not what you might need to keep a hypothetical machine for 10 years. Some people are literally saying 10 years, and I think that’s crazy. In just 3 years Apple will probably have drastically better models that work drastically differently. It’s wise to save money now, and spend later, when there’s a product that better meets your needs, rather than spending lots of money now for (in a few years) will end up being an only mildly differentiated product.

And storage is easy to add. RAM is the main point here. And I’m hoping that in 3 years Apple’s not still giving 8GB on the low end, and $180 per 8GB upgrade.

Agreed. Spending an additional $1000 on CPU, Max Ram, High Cap SSD is not worth it. A base model in the near future is gonna out perform a maxed out model today. Save the money on unnecessary options and upgrade to a newer one. You can always sell or give the computer to your family, kids or whatever, which you would have to spend money to get one for them anyways.

 

[Predtek]

Why would you spend extra now for a potential benefit 5 years down the road?

My recommendation to anyone who will listen: buy enough computer for a year or two or three, then sell and get the latest. Apple is constantly innovating and offering new and better products at better pricing; spending 200% of a $value for minor benefit today in the hopes of keeping a product for longer (rather than spending 100%, a normal $value, and keeping it a shorter time) doesn't make financial sense to me.

Makes total sense to me. The world is different now. Now I am giving my 2TB SSD M1 to my staff (Who needs it for work). Hurts. But Hell I am getting the 1TB this time.

 

[George Dawes]

I had two minis with fusion drives , both went kaput

The ones with standard hd hand one with ssd no issues …

 

[foo2]

1TB SSD: Don't get the 256Gb, it's paltry in size and it's very slow. 512Gb would cause some inconveniences. I am

Agreed with all the rest except this. The 256GB is not "very slow"; it's faster than most drives anyone would upgrade from, and from a random IO point of view (which is what we use, most of the time, particularly for vm/swap work) the M2 is faster than the M1 gen before it.

 

[Ben J.]

Agreed with all the rest except this. The 256GB is not "very slow"; it's faster than most drives anyone would upgrade from, and from a random IO point of view (which is what we use, most of the time, particularly for vm/swap work) the M2 is faster than the M1 gen before it.

I agree. Even if the 256 is half the speed of the 512, it's still around 1500MB/s r/w, and that's plenty fast. I swapped my M1 mini with a M2 recently, and saved $200 by going with the smallest SSD. Everything is still faster; bootup, app launches etc. than the M1 with 3000MB/s ssd. It takes a bit of organizing to manage all system, apps and essential files on a small disk, but I've done it before and I have now 50% available space because I've copied big files/folders to externals and replaced them with symlinks/aliases. I have 2TB at 1300MB/s, and 2TB at 300MB/s.

 

[verm]

^^ wow, so your hackintosh has around 3GB/hr written and my mini has 19GB/hr written. Quite a difference. Your rate is in line with my PC's.

Anyone with an M1 mini cares to post their numbers?

This is the smartctl result from my refurbished M1 Mac Mini 1TB/16GB within one hour of unboxing. The unsafe shutdowns is a bit worrying to me. Anyone knows if it's a bad sign? But the read/write numbers are relatively low (imo for a refurb).

 

[Freida]

What is the command to get this info, please?

This is the smartctl result from my refurbished M1 Mac Mini 1TB/16GB within one hour of unboxing. The unsafe shutdowns is a bit worrying to me. Anyone knows if it's a bad sign? But the read/write numbers are relatively low (imo for a refurb).

View attachment 2195013

 

[foo2]

Check post 258, 260 for details.