Mac Studio -- 32 or 64Gb of RAM?

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Keep in mind a 2TB SSD has twice the lifespan of a 1TB SSD and is faster.
32 GB ARM gives more room than 32 GB Intel.
Go only for 64 GB if you do heavy tasks.

 

[MacGizmo]

I have never regretted buying a Mac that was "spec overkill." On the other hand, every single time I tried to save money by buying only what I thought I needed, I had varying levels of regret.

 

[BigJohno]

Keep in mind a 2TB SSD has twice the lifespan of a 1TB SSD and is faster.

Could you elaborate on why it has twice the lifespan? Are you saying a 2tb ssd will last longer than a 1tb? how?

 

[MacGizmo]

Could you elaborate on why it has twice the lifespan? Are you saying a 2tb ssd will last longer than a 1tb? how?

I'm not sure that statement is accurate when applied as a blanket over all SSDs—I'm not an expert in this field—but SSD's have a finite amount of writes before they stop working.

In theory, a 2TB SSD would have twice as many writes available than a 1TB SSD–but that could be fudged by manufacturers (they could use a lower quality chipset that only allows X amount of writes no matter what capacity the SSD is). And even if it isn't, the "lifespan" is completely dependent on how often you write to the drive... lots of little writes eats into that finite number faster than one large write (again, in theory).

As far as the speed of the drive, that has nothing to do with the storage capacity. I've seen plenty of 500GB SSDs that are MUCH faster than 1TB SSDs. By coincidence though, as drives get larger they also get faster, so it's difficult to prove that out.

So in short, what Mac Hammer Fan said is absolutely true... except when it's not. 🤪

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Could you elaborate on why it has twice the lifespan? Are you saying a 2tb ssd will last longer than a 1tb? how?

TBW Figures

250 GB SSD = 150 TBW
500 GB SSD = 300 TBW
1TB SSD = 600 TBW
2TB SSD = 1200 TBW

 

[goodcow]

TBW Figures

250 GB SSD = 150 TBW
500 GB SSD = 300 TBW
1TB SSD = 600 TBW
2TB SSD = 1200 TBW

I have a 2018 Mac mini with a 1TB SSD, and the terminal command to check its health claims only 20% used with 549TB written.

 

[Fishrrman]

Re the above posts about "swap".

If you're worried about VM disk swapping, buy sufficient RAM.
Then TURN OFF VM disk swapping using the terminal.

I've been running my Macs this way FOR YEARS now, with no ill effects.

 

[handheldgames]

Re the above posts about "swap".

If you're worried about VM disk swapping, buy sufficient RAM.
Then TURN OFF VM disk swapping using the terminal.

I've been running my Macs this way FOR YEARS now, with no ill effects.

I couldn't agree more about disabling SWAP. I've run that way for years. Now, with a portion of my pipeline running, I'm already at 32GB ram usage. Nothing like a swap free machine, allowing it to run at full speed unencumbered.

 

[NJRonbo]

Very interesting read here.

What is the terminal command to disable swap?

In doing so, am I essentially looking at longer SSD life out of my machine? Will I see any performance boosts?

I always buy 64GB of ram. My M1 Studio and 2021 16" MBP both have it. Very interested in what turning off swap will do.

 

[Fishrrman]

NJRonbo asks:
"What is the terminal command to disable swap?"

To DISABLE virtual memory:

sudo launchctl unload -wF /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist
(reboot necessary afterwards)

To REMOVE swap files:
sudo rm /private/var/vm/swapfile*

To check if VM is being used:
sysctl vm.swapusage

If VM is off, report should be:
vm.swapusage: total = 0.00M used = 0.00M free = 0.00M

Note:
All I've ever done is to DISABLE VM disk swapping.
I have NEVER turned it back on again, not sure if this is the right command, but here it is:

To enable swap, you need to boot in Single User Mode (Hold [CMD + S] at booting time) and run this command:
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

Fishrrman's note:
These are from my archives.
Not sure if the "remove swap file" still works on latest OS's.
But the other commands do.

 

[reboot81]

Having only used Intel Macs, current iMac 40GB, I'd say 32 would be fine.
However, knowing my system is heavily swapping I looked up my TBW on my interal 500.

Available Spare:                    100%
Available Spare Threshold:          10%
Percentage Used:                    44%
Data Units Read:                    1 079 138 319 [552 TB]
Data Units Written:                 723 958 241 [370 TB]

Yikes... time to order a Studio. With 64 and disabling swap.