Bought my wife the M3 MBA 8/256 because she is a casual user. She opened up activity monitor and it was using swap with just having one browser open watching streaming tv on YouTube tv. Kind of surprised it was swapping already on one browser with no other apps running. It was around 430mb swapped. Is that something that is hard on the SSD or is that normal, small amount of swapping?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MBA 8gb swapping so quickly
- Thread starter bellflyer14
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Nothing to worry about. Close activity monitor. Unless you're a developer troubleshooting a software package, it's just going to freak you out unnecessarily.
Swap is normal. Even lots of swap is normal and the SSDs that Apple uses are enterprise class ones that can handle a massive write burden.
Here's a very good discussion on swap and how much it really affects your hardware:
Shorter: It'll be really hard for any normal user to exhaust their SSD before their machine itself reaches the end of its lifespan.
Swap is normal. Even lots of swap is normal and the SSDs that Apple uses are enterprise class ones that can handle a massive write burden.
Here's a very good discussion on swap and how much it really affects your hardware:
Shorter: It'll be really hard for any normal user to exhaust their SSD before their machine itself reaches the end of its lifespan.
I greatly appreciate that response. Hate to spend another $400 on the next tier available at Best Buy which is the 16/512. She really doesn't need that much ssd space. I really don't see her saving much at all to the ssd. It's a glorified Chromebook really because she much prefers to be in the apple ecosystem. I will tell her to turn off Activity Monitor and just enjoy the MacBook
So, the OS is large and uses up a lot of RAM on its own. 8GB on an M1, M2, or M3 won't cause you noticeable sluggishness. But, as you've discovered, it doesn't take much for it to fill up its RAM and use swap. Is it a bad thing? It's not great or at all ideal. But it's still perfectly workable. It will wear out your drive. But it's arguable as to whether that will happen before it's time to get a new Mac anyway.
Ugh, thanks for the reply. I'm torn on what to do. I am not sure if I should spend the $400 extra for the 16/512. Both that and the base model are on sale, but only through the end of today, so I only have a couple hours til Best Buy closes. $1049 for the base and $1449 for the 16/512. Im guessing after today the 16/512 will go back up to $1699
I'd absolutely spend the extra money. The machine will last longer. Plus, it's only a matter of time before Apple puts in features that favor 16GB of RAM over lower. I think they're already starting to do that in Sequoia a bit!
Read that thread I referred you to and save your $400. She's not going to wear out that drive doing everyday computing or even some occasional very intense processing loads. She doesn't need any more than the base specs if it's going to be a glorified Chromebook. I'm a dev and I pushed an 8GB Original M1 MBP so far past the limit it was silly. I was stunned at how well it held up.
Even if you buy this configuration, you're going to have swap. That's just how the OS works. It's normal.
That is a very good thread. Was impressive seeing the numbers of how people have GB's per day written and how long the quality SSD "should" last at that rate. I also read somewhere a person said Activity Monitor was most likely designed by Apples marketing team vs the engineering team....that made me chuckle for sure
This. macOS uses swap when it decides something has been in memory for a while and is unlikely to be used again. The exact algorithm for this is obscure but every 8/16/24 GB Mac will generally have some swap. For performance you don’t care about swap-outs (writing RAM to SSD) since it is entirely possible that the RAM swapped will never be needed. If you have excessive reads from SSD back to RAM (swap-ins) then you might see performance issues.
As above, MacBook Airs have very long life SSDs. Unless you are doing something very unusual, you don’t have to worry about it.
People don’t wear out their system drives. It doesn’t happen unless you deliberately go out your way to make it so.
People have been afraid of SSD wear-death ever since MLC and its successors started getting implemented in ~2009 and so far a typical SSD death can mostly be pointed towards shoddy engineering (nand gets cooked in an instant) or bugs with the storage controller.
The only cases I know of that are death by wear has come from video scratch disk usage (and they still have to do it a LOT) or Chia mining.
People have been afraid of SSD wear-death ever since MLC and its successors started getting implemented in ~2009 and so far a typical SSD death can mostly be pointed towards shoddy engineering (nand gets cooked in an instant) or bugs with the storage controller.
The only cases I know of that are death by wear has come from video scratch disk usage (and they still have to do it a LOT) or Chia mining.
If buying in 2024, make sure to get 16GB RAM minimum
430MB swapped is...
... nothing!
... nothing!
Why? is a sheer waste of money if the user doesn't need. I've used base model 13" MBP's in engineering roles for well over a decade, none have presented issue.
I still have a 8GB 2014 MBP that's never been below 90% SSD capacity. It's been absolutely hammered; dropped numerous times, used in some of the worst conditions from the sub artic to the the jungles of Papua New Guinea, free space down to just few MB. Safe to say it's suffered a great deal heavier workloads than just browsing the web, watching YouTube & checking email.
I treat my base M1 MBP exactly the same, I dont care about swap I just want it to execute. Far too much of this worry warden mentality here. I wonder if those that continuously recomend 16GB or more would be so keen to send the OP the difference in price as opposed to so easily spending somebody else's money ?
This machine has 32GB RAM as it needs it for the tasks it performs, it too has been hammered. Difference being it's SSD is now down to 69% of expected life, then again it's not a Mac equally it still reports as healthy... Next PC will need 64GB potentially 128GB.
@turbineseaplane I generally agree with your commentary, but in this case your off the mark. @bellflyer14 save your money, ignore the worry wardens. Your wife's usage is as basic as it gets, a few hundred MB of swap is nothing. Perspective I was experimenting with some SW last week, swap on my M1 MBP was pushing 9GB swap. As long as it doesn't slowdown I dont care and it takes a lot to slowdown an Mx Mac. Yes there are workflows that do, equally those with such specific workloads know that and spec their HW accordingly as they very likely profit from their work.
There's even developers here on MR who will say the same, just save your money, Apple has more than enough. Doubts? 1K from nowhere...
Q-6
Last edited:
I think Apple are ******es for not starting with a base config of 16GB since its actual component cost is peanuts.
But I do think 8GB is fine for -many-. If it starts feeling genuinely sluggish, you can check memory pressure in activity monitor. Just don't check it sporadically for no reason.
Regardless, my point is towards attributing casual swap as a cause to worry about SSD death. Death by wear is an EXTREMELY exotic phenomenon that gets talked about way too often given how small of a thing it is in the real world.
Agree wouldn't kill Apple to offer 12 or 16 GB as the base, however those with experience of such companies know profit is everything, down to the last 0.001 percent. 8GB is ok for those just wanting do basic tasks and TBH a great deal more if they grasp the SW.
Given the price of the SSD chips at volume and resilience to use, makes Apple look cheap and overly greedy. That said the 8GB machines are not problematic. If wanting to be premium, be that...
Q-6
Last edited:
Longevity
It should already be the default as shipped by Apple
We probably won't agree on this
Agree to disagree -- just adding my opinion for the OP
👍
I have a 64 GB M1 Max, which swaps as needed. My family uses a base M2 MBA with 8 GB. Increasing RAM doesn’t gurantee OS won’t use it. Swap isn’t a bad thing, OS optimizes for performance when it has memory available. I rather have OS proactively swap then trying to free memory when it needs. Close the activity monitor and enjoy your mac unless it slows down.
As said, wouldn't kill Apple to ship the base models with either 12 or 16 GB RAM, equally the 8GB base models are not as inadequate as some would like you to think. If they were I'd have opted for BTW with 16GB or more years ago for my traveller, given the 13" was a work tool.
Longevity is down to usage, 2011 15" MBP with 8GB (factory upgrade) still serves purpose as a media server. Bumping up the memory wont serve anything. A newer machine is needed as it now has increasing difficulties with modern codecs. That all said as long as it runs it saves on e-waste. Something Apple needs to get behind and quit with the Green BS, do something substancial that actually matters. Like stop filling landfills with it's disposable products.
I dont relish, yet I hope the EU continues to take on such companies head to head to reduce e-waste and protect customer rights. Customer not consumer, if your in the latter category they already own you and all your personal data.
Longevity in computing devices is simply a matter of diminishing returns, more so over time as tech progresses. Buy base, sell at the market high. The BTW upgrades, you'll be lucky to get 10% on the $ as the secondary market is just looking for a deal. I could buy a maxed out MBP, I'd just be giving more to Apple with little to no purpose. Faster yes, game changing no...
Q-6
Last edited:
Listen to the person who already told you to close Activity Monitor and leave it alone. Let her use the Mac. There is nothing wrong with. 5 years from now there will still be nothing wrong with it.
Your memory pressure will still be yellow at best even if you don't have Activity Monitor open...
Same. I was using mine (8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) to do a ton of Illustrator and InDesign work, alongside email, web, Slack, calendar and all the usual productivity stuff. It handled it all incredibly well, and frankly I was shocked at the irresponsible amount of multitasking I was able to get away with. The only thing I was able to throw at it that caused serious beachballs was having a complex Illustrator file open while running two separate user accounts. And even then the slowdown only happened right after I switched accounts.
As others have said, swap space is a normal part of the way the machine is designed to function, and it's not like the bad old days of HDDs when you would have to wait for the drive to spin up whenever stuff was swapped in and out. SSDs are so much faster, I just don't notice if/when swap is happening.
Memory pressure may seem related to swap but having swap doesn’t mean you will have memory pressure at yellow. In fact, I did an experiment with swap disabled. My memory pressure was more consistently red on my 64GB M1 Max with swap disabled, than enabled. Swap in activity monitor doesn’t mean active memory paging. It just means OS proactively frees up memory that isn’t used often. It avoids dumping memory pages to swap under load, when OS has more important things to do.
OP: Rebooting will clean up the swap. It is unecessary unless you have OCD.
Don't look at your memory pressure then. For the vast majority of people obsessing about what color their memory pressure is hypocondria.
When I upgraded to an M1 MBP Pro, I intentionally only got the 16GB model. I just needed to see for myself if being constantly in yellow memory pressure was as much of a disaster as everyone said it was.
I've now been living in constant yellow pressure for almost 3 years compiling software, running VMs, loading dev utilities, viewing in multiple browsers at the same time, and using professional photo programs. I rarely notice anything amiss.