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

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

#121

Post by lynndotpy »

Wow. I haven't even had this laptop for two weeks, and it's written 311 GB.

    === 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:                    1,318,438 [675 GB]
    Data Units Written:                 608,401 [311 GB]
    Host Read Commands:                 19,089,015
    Host Write Commands:                9,721,576
    Controller Busy Time:               0
    Power Cycles:                       129
    Power On Hours:                     7
    Unsafe Shutdowns:                   6
    Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
    Error Information Log Entries:      0
For comparison, my most recent Linux install (Pop!_OS 22.04) on a fresh hard drive, is at 800GB read and 1.2GB written over a four month period.

I am very concerned for the longevity of this Mac.

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

#122

Post by nottorp »

cool_hw wrote: post #57
lossolo wrote: post #51

MacBook M1 Pro 32 GB RAM 1 TB from November 2021 === START OF SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 28 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 29 661 010 [15,1 TB] Data Units Written: 25 608 898 [13,1 TB] Host Read Commands: 658 892 494 Host W…

The two relatively lower posts I've seen here are both higher RAM, 32GB and 64GB. I wonder there's anything to read into this.

Well... 8 Gb should be enough for everyone? :)

I seem to be using 12 Gb on this mbpro with just firefox, mail and a few chat apps open. But it has 16 G ram.

On my 32 Gb mac mini that has work stuff open i use 26 Gb atm.

Both are Intel, not brave enough to make the architecture jump yet.

If you use more than the physical ram the Mx machines may be more responsive than the intel ones, but they're still going to swap.

Said 2018 mbpro intel smartctl says:

  SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
  Critical Warning:                   0x00
  Temperature:                        34 Celsius
  Available Spare:                    100%
  Available Spare Threshold:          99%
  Percentage Used:                    5%
  Data Units Read:                    138,517,507 [70.9 TB]
  Data Units Written:                 111,676,933 [57.1 TB]
  Host Read Commands:                 1,625,559,618
  Host Write Commands:                968,996,058
  Controller Busy Time:               0
  Power Cycles:                       89
  Power On Hours:                     1,363
  Unsafe Shutdowns:                   30
  Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
  Error Information Log Entries:      0
It should be a little over 4 years old now.

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

#123

Post by cool_hw »

lynndotpy wrote: post #121

Wow. I haven't even had this laptop for two weeks, and it's written 311 GB. === 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: 1,318,438 [675 GB] Data Units Written: 608,401 [311 GB] Host Read Command…

This is why I asked here. Most folks don't seem to mind it, but it is an order of magnitude, if not more, higher disk usage than linux.

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

#124

Post by gjsman-1000 »

cnagesh wrote: post #95
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #27

MacBook Air, M1, 512GB, purchased December 2020, 16GB RAM, as you can tell quite hammered for a web developer who doesn't use the main JavaScript frameworks or Docker almost ever. SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 30 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 2% Data Units Read: 139,890,354 [71.6 TB] Data Units Written: 100,146,689 [51.2 TB…

Unsafe Shutdowns: 85 What does this mean? and looks like it is very high compared to others in the list

That’s my fault. I have two or three kernel extensions for different types of hard drive file systems and sometimes they react badly to disconnects or quirks. Apple’s Blu Ray UDF handler also needs work and likes occasionally crashing.

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

#125

Post by cool_hw »

navjack27 wrote: post #103

my cheapest m1 mac mini that is on all day long and is my main entertainment computer that has multiple drives connected to it... but this is the built in apple drive === START OF SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 33 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 4%…

What is your RAM/SSD config?

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

#126

Post by cool_hw »

matai_kolila wrote: post #89
cool_hw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I shared in another post, compared to my linux machine, most of the posts, including yours, have atleast 5x-10x the usage. I understand that disk usage can vary wildly, but the linux machine I'm comparing with has been used through the work week for the past 6 years with VMs/docker and other large files.

Honestly I’ll probably replace this computer much before this becomes an issue.

I think most folks will.

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

#127

Post by cool_hw »

nieve wrote: post #94
cool_hw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I shared in another post, compared to my linux machine, most of the posts, including yours, have atleast 5x-10x the usage. I understand that disk usage can vary wildly, but the linux machine I'm comparing with has been used through the work week for the past 6 years with VMs/docker and other large files.

On the other hand my linux Thinkpad has worryingly high numbers: Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 10% Percentage Used: 6% Data Units Read: 123,210,825 [63.0 TB] Data Units Written: 59,502,097 [30.4 TB] Host Read Commands: 1,335,288,785 Host Write Commands: 740,649,667 Controller Busy Time: 3,494 Power Cycles: 3,069 Power On Hours: 5,339 Unsafe Shutdowns: 155

Power On Hours seem to indicate the disk has been on for a good chunk of time, so I would think you're doing fine. Percentage used says 6%, so that seems decent too.

What model SSD is this?

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

#128

Post by cool_hw »

nottorp wrote: post #122
cool_hw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two relatively lower posts I've seen here are both higher RAM, 32GB and 64GB. I wonder there's anything to read into this.

Well... 8 Gb should be enough for everyone? :) I seem to be using 12 Gb on this mbpro with just firefox, mail and a few chat apps open. But it has 16 G ram. On my 32 Gb mac mini that has work stuff open i use 26 Gb atm. Both are Intel, not brave enough to make the architecture jump yet. If you use more than the physical ram the Mx machines may be more responsive than the intel ones, but they're still going to swap. S…

Thanks for sharing, is this a 1TB drive?

Going by the percentage used, looks like an expected lifespan of 1200TBW.

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

#129

Post by nottorp »

cool_hw wrote: post #128
nottorp wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... 8 Gb should be enough for everyone? :) I seem to be using 12 Gb on this mbpro with just firefox, mail and a few chat apps open. But it has 16 G ram. On my 32 Gb mac mini that has work stuff open i use 26 Gb atm. Both are Intel, not brave enough to make the architecture jump yet. If you use more than the physical ram the Mx machines may be more responsive than the intel ones, but they're still going to swap. S…

Thanks for sharing, is this a 1TB drive? Going by the percentage used, looks like an expected lifespan of 1200TBW.

It's a 512 G drive.
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