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SSD Writes for M1 Max MBP 16

B

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Original poster
Jan 10, 2012
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I have an M1 Max MBP 16 with 64GB of ram - 4 TB SSD. This laptop is almost a year old ( will be in 2 months ).

Figured I'd post my usage records just for information and to ask, are the SSD writes normal? This laptop is used all day long.

For most of the day this is how my memory utilization looks:
1677610503080.jpeg

For 14 days of uptime this is how my disk usage looks:

10:49 up 14 days, 21:45, 2 users, load averages: 6.56 7.16 6.85:

Written / Read:
1677610548379.jpeg
1677610578259.jpeg


Interesting observation - I only have 120GB of photos/videos. <shrug>.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/n2cjx7
Maybe this is normal.

1677610649123.jpeg



1677610693856.jpeg


36.64 TBs written in just under a year. Now, I'm not worried at all about this. I know cheap tiny SSDs can write hundreds of TBs (and more) before having problems. I have the 4TB SSD. Just an interesting observation. My 201 7 MBP had about 17TB written after 2.5 years.

I contacted a friend who has the SAME MBP but the 6TB SSD - and his read values were almost identical and written was around 10TB less. So maybe this is normal?


According to: https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/hardware/ssd-lifespan-how-long-will-your-ssd-work/
  • 2 TB: 450 TBW
  • 4 TB: 600 TBW
Should be able to do this for 15 years. I'm also guessing Apple's TBW is probably higher than that?


Figured I'd post for reference also if others had similar questions.

This is by far the most amazing computer I've ever used. Takes everything I throw at it and more.
 
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Hi,
I have got an iMac M1, bought it this year, 8/8 256Gb unit. I haven't seen any massive writting to the disk so far.
But this week I bought a used M1 Mini 8Gb 512Gb and found out that it had more than 110Tb already written in less than 2 years, it had been in use more than 3.000 hours but for me 110Tb is a huge amount for this period of time.

So I would say that unfortunately it is normal for Apple. Many cheap SSDs have got a TBW of 150/300Tb I'm sure that Apple SSD will last longer but I am returning this unit. I would have accepted even 50Tb written (when buying used computer you always take a risk). Not sure if the issue was worse with the first Mac OS silicon versions and now it has improved but with 8Gb of RAM swap is unavoidable.

Your figures look fine for me, I wouldn't worry in your case.
 
Last edited:
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The 64GB of memory definitely helps minimize the swap. Photos processes are the only thing that seem to show a bunch of writes for me too, with a ~200GB library.

But overall I’ve been very impressed with my 16GB/256GB M1 MBA. Still serves my needs and more after 2.5 years.
 
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So I wrote the OP post back in Feb 28. It's June 27 - almost 4 months later.

1687919159510.jpeg


So in the span of 4 months it went from 37 TB to 55 TB (18 TB in 4 months).

And yeah, photo analysis seems to be the primary disk usage.

Not worried about it, just very interesting.
 
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Just noticed 11 days ago my Life Percentage Used went -1 on drivedx. (I open this app maybe once every few months just for fun).

1693786228928.jpeg


1693786240544.jpeg


1693786256544.jpeg


Despite this, the main page shows (below):
1693786289995.jpeg


So not too bad, from 55TB in June to 65.9TB in September - not changing any usage behavior from prior year.

Using the heck out of this thing (most week days running a 300GB Windows 11 VM on Parallels with VS 2022 and other apps) - 3 browsers with 10+ tabs each all day long.

Continues to be the best computer I've ever used. :D

Posting data points for reference/info/hobby.


Full health page if anyone is interested:

1693786507213.jpeg
 
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BigMcGuire said:
I have an M1 Max MBP 16 with 64GB of ram - 4 TB SSD. This laptop is almost a year old ( will be in 2 months ).

Figured I'd post my usage records just for information and to ask, are the SSD writes normal? This laptop is used all day long.

For most of the day this is how my memory utilization looks:
View attachment 2166081
For 14 days of uptime this is how my disk usage looks:

10:49 up 14 days, 21:45, 2 users, load averages: 6.56 7.16 6.85:

Written / Read:
View attachment 2166082 View attachment 2166083

Interesting observation - I only have 120GB of photos/videos. <shrug>.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/n2cjx7
Maybe this is normal.

View attachment 2166084


View attachment 2166086

36.64 TBs written in just under a year. Now, I'm not worried at all about this. I know cheap tiny SSDs can write hundreds of TBs (and more) before having problems. I have the 4TB SSD. Just an interesting observation. My 201 7 MBP had about 17TB written after 2.5 years.

I contacted a friend who has the SAME MBP but the 6TB SSD - and his read values were almost identical and written was around 10TB less. So maybe this is normal?


According to: https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/hardware/ssd-lifespan-how-long-will-your-ssd-work/
  • 2 TB: 450 TBW
  • 4 TB: 600 TBW
Should be able to do this for 15 years. I'm also guessing Apple's TBW is probably higher than that?


Figured I'd post for reference also if others had similar questions.

This is by far the most amazing computer I've ever used. Takes everything I throw at it and more.
Click to expand...

how do you check this info to see data written on SSD?
 
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