New 256GB Mac Mini and 512GB MacBook Pro Have Slower SSD Speeds Than Previous Models

[foo2]

View attachment 2162587"Your system has run out of application memory". I get this force quit message after playing Classic Freecell - every time - I've never seen that on any Mac I've owned - not until I got this new M2 MacMini (8GB unified memory, 256GB storage).

I was getting ready to trade it in for a 16GB unified memory version - until - after researching - I learned that the single chip 256GB version will cause the exact problem I've been seeing (as seen on 256GB M2 MacBook Airs - insufficient memory issues). I'm now awaiting my new 512GB dual storage chip MacMini. I'll update this in a couple of days.

A few issues here:

1. As someone else said, that app is using 9+ GB. It has a massive memory leak, and the flaw is in that app (and perhaps MacOS to allow that, but I digress). Either replace the app, upgrade the app, or, at least, complain to the vendor.
2. 16GB might put off the problem a little longer (until the app grows to 18-20GB of RAM, and you have to do the same things again…) but that’s a pretty crappy solution to a pretty crappy application. Fix the application, don’t spend money.
3. This has exactly nothing to do with the 256GB/512GB nonsense that’s so popular on the pearl clutchers / amongst the silly folks on YouTube. It’s a programming and memory constraints / memory usage bug in that one particular application. Fix your application. The 512GB Mac mini won’t help this one iota. More RAM, as I wrote above, will at least forstall the issue (as you’ve more RAM to service the application’s problem).

 

[KennyJr]

A few issues here:

1. As someone else said, that app is using 9+ GB. It has a massive memory leak, and the flaw is in that app (and perhaps MacOS to allow that, but I digress). Either replace the app, upgrade the app, or, at least, complain to the vendor.
2. 16GB might put off the problem a little longer (until the app grows to 18-20GB of RAM, and you have to do the same things again…) but that’s a pretty crappy solution to a pretty crappy application. Fix the application, don’t spend money.
3. This has exactly nothing to do with the 256GB/512GB nonsense that’s so popular on the pearl clutchers / amongst the silly folks on YouTube. It’s a programming and memory constraints / memory usage bug in that one particular application. Fix your application. The 512GB Mac mini won’t help this one iota. More RAM, as I wrote above, will at least forstall the issue (as you’ve more RAM to service the application’s problem).

I'll let you know the outcome in a couple of days .. I'm staying with 8GB RAM but am increasing my storage to 512GB. I ran the same program with my MacBook with no issues. You sound quite sure of yourself. We'll see.

 

[deevey]

View attachment 2162587"Your system has run out of application memory". I get this force quit message after playing Classic Freecell - every time - I've never seen that on any Mac I've owned - not until I got this new M2 MacMini (8GB unified memory, 256GB storage).

I was getting ready to trade it in for a 16GB unified memory version - until - after researching - I learned that the single chip 256GB version will cause the exact problem I've been seeing (as seen on 256GB M2 MacBook Airs - insufficient memory issues). I'm now awaiting my new 512GB dual storage chip MacMini. I'll update this in a couple of days.

Why the heck would any basic app like this one use 9+ gigs of ram in the first place unless its doing weird stuff in the background? The developer has not submitted details on privacy (Red flag) and App has not been updated in 3 years (Red flag).

The problem is with the App obviously. Seriously - remove that crapware!

 

[foo2]

Why the heck would any basic app like this one use 9+ gigs of ram in the first place unless its doing weird stuff in the background? The developer has not submitted details on privacy (Red flag) and App has not been updated in 3 years (Red flag).

The problem is with the App obviously. Seriously - remove that crapware!

Please, don’t. There’s no cause to write this. This (massive memory usage) is a fairly common bug, and until there’s evidence of actual malice let’s not suggest otherwise. Nothing “weird” or anti-privacy is happening; the application likely just has a bug.

 

[foo2]

I'll let you know the outcome in a couple of days .. I'm staying with 8GB RAM but am increasing my storage to 512GB. I ran the same program with my MacBook with no issues. You sound quite sure of yourself. We'll see.

Storage and RAM solve two different things. The error message you got clearly said you were out of one, not the other, so I’m not clear how adding more storage would help an out of RAM issue at all.

Given that you ran the same thing on your Macbook without issues, the bug may require a very specific chain of events (or OS level, or many things) to manifest.

 

[deevey]

Storage and RAM solve two different things. The error message you got clearly said you were out of one, not the other, so I’m not clear how adding more storage would help an out of RAM issue at all.

Given that you ran the same thing on your Macbook without issues, the bug may require a very specific chain of events (or OS level, or many things) to manifest.

I think what he's getting at is the faster SSD Speed would allow for additional virtual memory to be used when the machine runs out of ram playing cards.

 

[foo2]

I think what he's getting at is the faster SSD Speed would allow for additional virtual memory to be used when the machine runs out of ram playing cards.

It won't allow any more virtual memory to be used. The amount of virtual memory used will track with the amount of memory required to run the application, or, in this case, the amount of memory required to address the memory overflow bug. SSD size won't impact that a bit.

Now if you are saying 512GB will do so at 3000MB/s rather than 1500MB/s, well, again, that's incredibly unlikely; random IO is what matters to a pagefile, not sequential reads and writes; you'll never see 1/50th of that top number, and both drives have essentially similar random IO speed.

And looking at a swapfile and trying to address the swapfile 'speed' (disk speed) is the reverse of what he should be doing:

1. Get enough RAM to run your applications
2. Learn how to look at actual swapfile use and how busy the swapfile is (iStats, memory tab)
3. Work with the application authors / publishers to let them know they have a buggy application, and ask them to fix it
4. (If required). Find another not-buggy application.

Let's be crystal clear here: No application should do what this one does. It's a BUG. A FLAW in the application. The author/publisher needs to fix it. Changing hardware purchase due to a BUG in an app is, IMHO, insane.

Istat Menus 6.70 (after a brew install istat-menus) gives me this. Note my page ins, page outs, and pressure.

This is on a 64GB i5-12400F running 13.2.1.

40GB free and I'm using a pagefile! Should I be concerned?

 

[dotnet]

View attachment 2164084

Istat Menus 6.70 (after a brew install istat-menus) gives me this. Note my page ins, page outs, and pressure.

This is on a 64GB i5-12400F running 13.2.1.

40GB free and I'm using a pagefile! Should I be concerned?

Text pages (memory pages containing executable code) are disposable and can be released if the process they belong to isn’t active. They will simply be reloaded from the executable file when needed. That’s probably the page ins you see in the absence of any page outs.

 

[foo2]

Text pages (memory pages containing executable code) are disposable and can be released if the process they belong to isn’t active. They will simply be reloaded from the executable file when needed. That’s probably the page ins you see in the absence of any page outs.

Yep, I'm aware. I was kidding a bit, as I'm trying to bring some sanity back to the RAM and pagefile discussions.

 

[the Boiling Frog]

Is it possible that there is a difference in the lifespan of the NAND chips used in the Mac Mini M1 and M2? I asked ChatGPT and it told me that the higher the number of layers in the NAND, the slower the speed (the notion that more layers means faster speed is false and is because TLC is used as SLC due to higher capacity), and at the same time, the shorter the lifespan. If this speculation is correct, then the official refurbished Mac Mini M1 may be worth buying.

 

[foo2]

Is it possible that there is a difference in the lifespan of the NAND chips used in the Mac Mini M1 and M2? I asked ChatGPT and it told me that the higher the number of layers in the NAND, the slower the speed (the notion that more layers means faster speed is false and is because TLC is used as SLC due to higher capacity), and at the same time, the shorter the lifespan. If this speculation is correct, then the official refurbished Mac Mini M1 may be worth buying.

Is this a comparison of 40-50 years vs. 35-40 years?

I think we all need to remember: there've been no systemic failures of SSDs, period. It's not like we see SSDs from the 2010s failing, nor do we see Mac SSDs failing.

I think this worrying needs to stop. Making a purchasing decision based on speculation and the complete lack of any issue is not wise.

 

[sracer]

Is this a comparison of 40-50 years vs. 35-40 years?

I think we all need to remember: there've been no systemic failures of SSDs, period. It's not like we see SSDs from the 2010s failing, nor do we see Mac SSDs failing.

I think this worrying needs to stop. Making a purchasing decision based on speculation and the complete lack of any issue is not wise.

I agree.

I've been using a 1TB external Sandisk Extreme SSD as a replacement drive for my 2017 21" iMac (the internal harddrive failed) for 3 years. Heavy daily use... running VMs, video encoding, audio processing, etc. The iMac just totally died, but the drive lives on. (I have a 2nd iMac that boots from an external 1TB Samsung SSD that has been in daily use for over 5 years)

This week I just replaced that iMac with a 8GB/256GB M2 Mac Mini. This is a very snappy system... in spite of the "slow" SSD.

 

[the Boiling Frog]

Is this a comparison of 40-50 years vs. 35-40 years?

I think we all need to remember: there've been no systemic failures of SSDs, period. It's not like we see SSDs from the 2010s failing, nor do we see Mac SSDs failing.

I think this worrying needs to stop. Making a purchasing decision based on speculation and the complete lack of any issue is not wise.

You have convinced me, thank you.

 

[the Boiling Frog]

Is this a comparison of 40-50 years vs. 35-40 years?

I think we all need to remember: there've been no systemic failures of SSDs, period. It's not like we see SSDs from the 2010s failing, nor do we see Mac SSDs failing.

I think this worrying needs to stop. Making a purchasing decision based on speculation and the complete lack of any issue is not wise.

I am not an industry insider, but from what I could find, the SSDs used in M1 and M2 are both equipped with SanDisk NAND flash memory. It is highly likely that M1 uses 96-layer NAND, while M2 uses 128-layer NAND. The difference between the two is not as significant as the transition from MLC to TLC. My misconception stemmed from the fact that outdated MLC-based SSDs are much more expensive than their TLC counterparts on Amazon.

 

[the Boiling Frog]

I agree.

I've been using a 1TB external Sandisk Extreme SSD as a replacement drive for my 2017 21" iMac (the internal harddrive failed) for 3 years. Heavy daily use... running VMs, video encoding, audio processing, etc. The iMac just totally died, but the drive lives on. (I have a 2nd iMac that boots from an external 1TB Samsung SSD that has been in daily use for over 5 years)

This week I just replaced that iMac with a 8GB/256GB M2 Mac Mini. This is a very snappy system... in spite of the "slow" SSD.

Both of you are correct, but I also want to explain that your old SSD might have used MLC NAND chips, while now the commonly used chips are TLC, including M1 and M2.

 

[Juno11]

I am so relieved to read this thread - also really angry of course. I just had to upgrade my super-fast, customized old iMac as Chrome etc not working on it - so got a Mac Mini2 and it is SO sluggish. It has same memory as old iMac and should technically be a step-up. It's so slow that I rang the ISP and accused them of throttling my bandwidth.
It also comes with Apple News and so on that you can't uninstall. So take-home tip from this is check SDD speed in specs, add on a tonne of extra memory or save up for a Pro?

 

[joloriquelme]

I am so relieved to read this thread - also really angry of course. I just had to upgrade my super-fast, customized old iMac as Chrome etc not working on it - so got a Mac Mini2 and it is SO sluggish. It has same memory as old iMac and should technically be a step-up. It's so slow that I rang the ISP and accused them of throttling my bandwidth.
It also comes with Apple News and so on that you can't uninstall. So take-home tip from this is check SDD speed in specs, add on a tonne of extra memory or save up for a Pro?

I really don’t think that this is the reason of your problems. I know many many people that have the base M2 model (Air, Pro, etc.) with the single NAND SSD and everything -in real world- works without any issue.

Maybe you installed another app or restore a faulty backup (with faulty apps) from your previous machine.

 

[foo2]

I am so relieved to read this thread - also really angry of course. I just had to upgrade my super-fast, customized old iMac as Chrome etc not working on it - so got a Mac Mini2 and it is SO sluggish. It has same memory as old iMac and should technically be a step-up. It's so slow that I rang the ISP and accused them of throttling my bandwidth.
It also comes with Apple News and so on that you can't uninstall. So take-home tip from this is check SDD speed in specs, add on a tonne of extra memory or save up for a Pro?

I think you need to do some research or find a technical friend and figure out what’s actually wrong.

You can use opencore legacy patcher to put Ventura on your iMac.

A new mac will feel slower after setup as it syncs with iCloud, photos, etc. install something like stats so you can monitor this. Let it run a bit and that will clear up.

Which old iMac? No matter what it is, it should be a snail next to a new m2.

 

[Juno11]

Thanks for this but the perception that the M2 chips are slower than Intel seems to be quite widespread and I didn't actually import any apps at all. On closer monitoring, however, it does seem more prevalent when Chrome is engaged, even if no actual browsing is being done, so rather than the chip it may be that Ventura doesn't play well with that.

 

[foo2]

Thanks for this but the perception that the M2 chips are slower than Intel seems to be quite widespread

At what, exactly? Not Chrome, that’s for sure. I’m sure we can all find something that’s faster on X86, but by and large X86 ship has sailed, and ARM is considerably faster for most things. Single-core CPU speeds, in particular, highlight obvious differences.

Much later Edit: If you meant 13th gen Intel being faster than M2, then sure, yes, agreed - but that's not in any iMac that exists, so it's not a real comparison. What exactly did you mean?

and I didn't actually import any apps at all.

The syncing I referred to was the data.

On closer monitoring, however, it does seem more prevalent when Chrome is engaged, even if no actual browsing is being done, so rather than the chip it may be that Ventura doesn't play well with that.

Are you running the X86 version of Chrome, or the ARM version?

You appear to be conflating bandwidth speed and computer speed. I suggest you take a few minutes and determine the actual problem.

Which old iMac?

 

[russell_314]

I am so relieved to read this thread - also really angry of course. I just had to upgrade my super-fast, customized old iMac as Chrome etc not working on it - so got a Mac Mini2 and it is SO sluggish.

There is something wrong with your M2 Mac, if it’s anything close to sluggish.

What exactly is sluggish? A lot of people equate their Internet speed to their computers speed. If your Internet connection is running slowly, perhaps troubleshoot your Wi-Fi.

 

[Beyo]

At what, exactly? Not Chrome, that’s for sure. I’m sure we can all find something that’s faster on X86, but by and large X86 ship has sailed, and ARM is considerably faster for most things. Single-core CPU speeds, in particular, highlight obvious differences.

I strongly disagree. X86 lives and will live for long time hopefully. Making assumptions only because Apple tries to force you to change architecture does not negate fact the rest of the world will still use Windows on x86. And I believe the day will come when market force Apple to abandon M chips as well

 

[foo2]

I strongly disagree. X86 lives and will live for long time hopefully. Making assumptions only because Apple tries to force you to change architecture does not negate fact the rest of the world will still use Windows on x86. And I believe the day will come when market force Apple to abandon M chips as well

I'm not speaking about the rest of the world when I said "the X86 ship has sailed"; clearly I was referencing MacOS. For MacOS, the X86 ship has sailed.

I even said so, very clearly, a month ago:
If you meant 13th gen Intel being faster than M2, then sure, yes, agreed - but that's not in any iMac that exists, so it's not a real comparison. What exactly did you mean?

Apple may very well abandon ARM. Anything's possible. For now, I think (particularly in the notebook/portable space) it's a very compelling alternative. For desktops, granted, I don't find it nearly as exciting, but for laptops, it's very interesting.

 

[Chancha]

Well, on x86 hackintosh (with 13900K), the M2 Max / Ultra are absolutely smoked...

And then on the user's side, if a certain workflow or application also exists on x86 Windows / Linux, then the comparison is still meaningful.

 

[foo2]

Well, on x86 hackintosh (with 13900K), the M2 Max / Ultra are absolutely smoked...

And then on the user's side, if a certain workflow or application also exists on x86 Windows / Linux, then the comparison is still meaningful.

Oh, fully agree, when compared against 300W modern x86 CPUs, the $4000 M2 Ultra only fares so-so. I completely agree. I clearly said as much in the last post, and in most previous posts.

I own a Hackintosh with AMD 6900XTXH and am very familiar with the benefits, but also the limitations.