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Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

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Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#1

Post by cool_hw »

This was a discussion when M1 macbooks were launched, and Apple supposedly addressed it in an OS update (macOS 11.4).

But I'm seeing really high read/write numbers. I'm aware that SSD lifespans are long and TBW spec is pretty generous. Still, compared to my linux machines, this seems extraordinarily high.

On my newish M1 MBA, with the latest updates, with barely any use, 98%+ sleep, I'm seeing about 3 to 5 GB reads per day and 2 to 4 GB writes per day.

Latest report from smartctl.

----------------------------------------------------

    === START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
    SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
    
    SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
    Critical Warning:                   0x00
    Temperature:                        27 Celsius
    Available Spare:                    100%
    Available Spare Threshold:          99%
    Percentage Used:                    0%
    Data Units Read:                    716,195 [366 GB]
    Data Units Written:                 616,232 [315 GB]
    Host Read Commands:                 9,108,273
    Host Write Commands:                6,947,397
    Controller Busy Time:               0
    Power Cycles:                       95
    Power On Hours:                     5
    Unsafe Shutdowns:                   11
    Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
    Error Information Log Entries:      0
---------------------------------------------------- M1 Air 16GB 1TB.

Is this normal?

Re: Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#2

Post by AdamJacobMuller » 

    SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
    Critical Warning:                   0x00
    Temperature:                        34 Celsius
    Available Spare:                    100%
    Available Spare Threshold:          99%
    Percentage Used:                    0%
    Data Units Read:                    33,233,061 [17.0 TB]
    Data Units Written:                 63,502,177 [32.5 TB]
    Host Read Commands:                 1,054,789,960
    Host Write Commands:                1,703,081,155
    Controller Busy Time:               0
    Power Cycles:                       184
    Power On Hours:                     921
    Unsafe Shutdowns:                   18
    Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
    Error Information Log Entries:      0
Even after 32TBW i'm at 0% used? Wow.

Re: Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#3

Post by cool_hw »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #2

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 34 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 33,233,061 [17.0 TB] Data Units Written: 63,502,177 [32.5 TB] Host Read Commands: 1,054,789,960 Host Write Commands: 1,703,081,155 Controller Busy Time: 0 Power Cycles: 184 Power On Hours: 921 Unsafe Shutdowns: 18 Media and Data Integrity Err…

That is good to note, I wonder how accurate it is. Can you share how long you've had it and the typical usage (hours and disk activity)?

Re: Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#4

Post by drdo »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #2

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 34 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 33,233,061 [17.0 TB] Data Units Written: 63,502,177 [32.5 TB] Host Read Commands: 1,054,789,960 Host Write Commands: 1,703,081,155 Controller Busy Time: 0 Power Cycles: 184 Power On Hours: 921 Unsafe Shutdowns: 18 Media and Data Integrity Err…

What model of Macbook is this? And how big is the SSD?

Re: Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#5

Post by jrib »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #2

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 34 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 33,233,061 [17.0 TB] Data Units Written: 63,502,177 [32.5 TB] Host Read Commands: 1,054,789,960 Host Write Commands: 1,703,081,155 Controller Busy Time: 0 Power Cycles: 184 Power On Hours: 921 Unsafe Shutdowns: 18 Media and Data Integrity Err…

another data point:

    SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
    Critical Warning:                   0x00
    Temperature:                        30 Celsius
    Available Spare:                    100%
    Available Spare Threshold:          99%
    Percentage Used:                    1%
    Data Units Read:                    53,345,304 [27.3 TB]
    Data Units Written:                 59,621,038 [30.5 TB]
    Host Read Commands:                 349,163,066
    Host Write Commands:                218,226,588
    Controller Busy Time:               0
    Power Cycles:                       109
    Power On Hours:                     225
    Unsafe Shutdowns:                   8
    Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
    Error Information Log Entries:      0
MacBook Air (M1, 2020) 16GB 512GB

Re: Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#6

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

My M1Max 1TB:

    SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
    Critical Warning:                   0x00
    Temperature:                        39 Celsius
    Available Spare:                    100%
    Available Spare Threshold:          99%
    Percentage Used:                    1%
    Data Units Read:                    139,236,989 [71.2 TB]
    Data Units Written:                 58,514,871 [29.9 TB]
    Host Read Commands:                 6,104,303,185
    Host Write Commands:                716,889,789
    Controller Busy Time:               0
    Power Cycles:                       392
    Power On Hours:                     1,311
    Unsafe Shutdowns:                   121
    Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
    Error Information Log Entries:      0
I keep it busy (I'm on it for, like 12 hours a day).

Re: Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#7

Post by cool_hw »

jrib wrote: post #5
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #2

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 34 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 33,233,061 [17.0 TB] Data Units Written: 63,502,177 [32.5 TB] Host Read Commands: 1,054,789,960 Host Write Commands: 1,703,081,155 Controller Busy Time: 0 Power Cycles: 184 Power On Hours: 921 Unsafe Shutdowns: 18 Media and Data Integrity Err…

another data point: SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 30 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 1% Data Units Read: 53,345,304 [27.3 TB] Data Units Written: 59,621,038 [30.5 TB] Host Read Commands: 349,163,066 Host Write Commands: 218,226,588 Controller Busy Time: 0 Power Cycles: 109 Power On Hours: 225 Unsafe Shutdowns: 8 Media and Dat…

Your read/writes seem to be comparable to the parent, but your power on hours are significantly lower, really hard to draw any conclusions here.

I wonder if this whole issue is simply MacOS dumping the stuff in memory to disk when going to standby, and then reading it all back.

So for a 16GB machine, for simplicity, let's say you always have RAM saturated, and you open/close the lid 5 times in a day, you have 16GB * 5 = 80GB per day read/written. For 365 days, that is 80 * 365 = 29200 GB or 28.51 TB read/written.

Re: Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#9

Post by [deleted] »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #2

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 34 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 33,233,061 [17.0 TB] Data Units Written: 63,502,177 [32.5 TB] Host Read Commands: 1,054,789,960 Host Write Commands: 1,703,081,155 Controller Busy Time: 0 Power Cycles: 184 Power On Hours: 921 Unsafe Shutdowns: 18 Media and Data Integrity Err…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Has the Apple Silicon excessive disk read/write issue been fixed?

#10

Post by matai_kolila »

My MacBook Air (M1, 2020):

    === START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
    SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

    SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
    Critical Warning:                   0x00
    Temperature:                        32 Celsius
    Available Spare:                    100%
    Available Spare Threshold:          99%
    Percentage Used:                    1%
    Data Units Read:                    8,843,213 [4.52 TB]
    Data Units Written:                 12,256,532 [6.27 TB]
    Host Read Commands:                 229,897,011
    Host Write Commands:                452,963,852
    Controller Busy Time:               0
    Power Cycles:                       208
    Power On Hours:                     258
    Unsafe Shutdowns:                   3
    Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
    Error Information Log Entries:      0
Seems fine to me!
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