SSD Issue on ARM Macs

[telo123]

Because there is a huge thread now, it’ll be hard to read what is discussed about this issue and what has helped.

TL;DR: Update to 11.4 Big Sur as soon as you can to solve the SSD issue.

As many are already aware (and to those who are new to this issue), the problem was largely fixed by macOS 11.4 — I highly encourage everyone, especially those with M1 macs, to update to the latest OS as soon as you can.

There is a general consensus amongst Reddit and MacRumors users that 11.4 has quietly addressed the issue.

An AppleInsider article has recently reported the following:

“an AppleInsider source within Apple, not authorized to speak on behalf the company, told us that it was a data reporting error within the tools used to report SSD wear.

According to that source, it was not believed to be an actual hardware issue with the SSD, nor were the SSDs aging notably faster than prior because of RAM swap or other reasons.”

and then:

“Now that same source has told AppleInsider that the issue has been fixed in the latest release of macOS. AppleInsider can also now independently confirm that macOS 11.4 is reporting proper uptime statistics as well, where it was not previously.

 

[chabig]

Update to 11.4 Big Sur as soon as you can to solve the SSD issue

Based on the content quoted in your post, it was a non-issue. The reporting was incorrect. But yes, the reporting issue was fixed in 11.4.

 

[jdb8167]

Based on the content quoted in your post, it was a non-issue. The reporting was incorrect. But yes, the reporting issue was fixed in 11.4.

Reporting hasn’t changed. I’m seeing the same progression on TBW on 11.4 as on previous versions. I’m not sure who Apple Insider’s source is, but whoever it is a bozo or is trying to spin the issue.

 

[leman]

An AppleInsider article has recently reported the following:

“an AppleInsider source within Apple, not authorized to speak on behalf the company, told us that it was a data reporting error within the tools used to report SSD wear.

According to that source, it was not believed to be an actual hardware issue with the SSD, nor were the SSDs aging notably faster than prior because of RAM swap or other reasons.”

I have hard time believing this explanation. Of course, this is all custom hardware, so I can imagine a reporting bug in the SMART status for example, but I have hard time believing that a reporting bug would affect multiple levels of information collected by different sources. SMART status counters and kernel I/O counters are independent as far as I understand and they would likely show different values if it were a mere reporting issue.

Frankly, I find it more likely that either the AppleInsider source (or AppleInsider themselves) were randomly making stuff up.

 

[jdb8167]

I have hard time believing this explanation. Of course, this is all custom hardware, so I can imagine a reporting bug in the SMART status for example, but I have hard time believing that a reporting bug would affect multiple levels of information collected by different sources. SMART status counters and kernel I/O counters are independent as far as I understand and they would likely show different values if it were a mere reporting issue.

Frankly, I find it more likely that either the AppleInsider source (or AppleInsider themselves) were randomly making stuff up.

It is possible that most of the reporting was correct but just the percentage used number was off. I don't think this was the case but I haven't seen a comprehensive analysis of the percentage used numbers from a variety of heavily used SSDs. We've seen a few reports here of 10%-30% used but nothing comprehensive. In my case, I'm still at 0% so that tells me nothing.

 

[leman]

It is possible that most of the reporting was correct but just the percentage used number was off. I don't think this was the case but I haven't seen a comprehensive analysis of the percentage used numbers from a variety of heavily used SSDs. We've seen a few reports here of 10%-30% used but nothing comprehensive. In my case, I'm still at 0% so that tells me nothing.

Yeah, but still, hundreds of TBW without few months is not normal, percentages here or there. There is just no reason why a system would write couple of TB every day, even with heavy swap. And these heavy write counts were shown by multiple sources — the SMART counter, the kernel, the per-process counters etc.

 

[MK500]

TL;DR: Update to 11.4 Big Sur as soon as you can to solve the SSD issue.

Unless you would like to continue using all your iOS apps on your Mac. In that case stay on 11.2.3.

Anyone staying on 11.2.3 to keep your iOS apps?

Reasons: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, YoutubeTV, Youtube, SiriusXM, MLB are all better apps than their browser interface. Having Texttool 2 and a google voice client like GV Connect on the Mac is also awesome.

forums.macrumors.com

 

[jdb8167]

Yeah, but still, hundreds of TBW without few months is not normal, percentages here or there. There is just no reason why a system would write couple of TB every day, even with heavy swap. And these heavy write counts were shown by multiple sources — the SMART counter, the kernel, the per-process counters etc.

The command line tool that I wrote using only Apple NVMe SMART APIs showed that at the very least any bugs were Apple’s and not the tools.

I’ve been monitoring my TBW since the bug was first reported and my data units written value wasn’t adjusted after updating to 11.4. I can’t tell about the percentage used because it is still at 0%.

 

[badsimian]

I thought it had gone away with 11.4 and started to use Safari again only to find the other day I had written 2TB since the last reboot a couple of days previous. I largely use various browsers, terminal and VSCode. Swapped Safari back to Firefox for now with a tab sleeping extension and so far it is back to sensible numbers.