Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#11

Post by baal80spam » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

amichail wrote: post #3

CharlesW wrote: post #2

> If not, why not? At least on Apple devices, this is not something anyone has to worry about. For example, on my 2022 Mac Studio daily driver, on 24/7, DriveDx ( https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx ) reports my SSD lifetime left at 94%. (I'm aware of the February 2021 "wear-gate" scare involving the first M1 Macs. This turned to be incorrect SSD-wear reporting.)

What about people who want their laptop to last 10 years?

Well if 4 years decrease SSD life by 6%, then 10 years should decrease it by ~15% - so you have plenty of wiggling space.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#12

Post by ValentineC » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

amichail wrote: post #3

CharlesW wrote: post #2

> If not, why not? At least on Apple devices, this is not something anyone has to worry about. For example, on my 2022 Mac Studio daily driver, on 24/7, DriveDx ( https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx ) reports my SSD lifetime left at 94%. (I'm aware of the February 2021 "wear-gate" scare involving the first M1 Macs. This turned to be incorrect SSD-wear reporting.)

What about people who want their laptop to last 10 years?

For Macs, treat a renewable AppleCare subscription as part of the cost.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#13

Post by esseph » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

amichail wrote: post #3

CharlesW wrote: post #2

> If not, why not? At least on Apple devices, this is not something anyone has to worry about. For example, on my 2022 Mac Studio daily driver, on 24/7, DriveDx ( https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx ) reports my SSD lifetime left at 94%. (I'm aware of the February 2021 "wear-gate" scare involving the first M1 Macs. This turned to be incorrect SSD-wear reporting.)

What about people who want their laptop to last 10 years?

Then you probably want enterprise level drives, motherboard, ECC RAM, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#14

Post by tosti » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

Just configure wear leveling in your storage layer. FDE may be the easiest way ti do it. Writes will be done linearly in circular fashion. That makes it difficult to delete stuff, but with encryption it's moot.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#15

Post by justsomehnguy » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

amichail wrote: post #8

JohnFen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really?? I would consider such laptops not fit for purpose and wouldn't buy one in the first place. Of course, that doesn't help if that's the sort you have. Sorry.

MacBooks are like that.

I have a feeling you missed a giant "/s".

Or maybe not, can't be sure nowadays.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#16

Post by markhahn » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

why do you think this is a function of betas? or even of OS or app versions?

I guess you've been burned, or are worried about being burned, by some software that generated excessive writes? I think you need to describe that first, since this is a rare phenomenon.

which is probably why there isn't some kind of downdetector infra tracking it.

you know you can access smart counters on any OS, right?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#17

Post by justsomehnguy » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

If you are not using bottom of a barrel and you are not writing 4K HD 3H mkv every day then you wouldn't have a problem even with a 0.3 DPWD drive of a sufficient capacity.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#18

Post by embedding-shape » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

I feel like the only responsible thing is to have a home network with at least one persistent device running 24/7 with large storage for local backups of things, and ideally a E2E cloud backup of the same thing. With this, comes the possibility of using things like Grafana+Prometheus to monitor your personal computer/workstation as well. This is what I've done, together with alerts from various things, and since the recent "excessive writes by codex" issue, also alerts if there is obsessive writing over hours long period from any process on my workstation. Luckily I wasn't hit by the Codex issue myself, but certainly made me consider the issue more generally so, happy accidents :)

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#19

Post by kasabali » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

bot403 wrote: post #9

JohnFen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really?? I would consider such laptops not fit for purpose and wouldn't buy one in the first place. Of course, that doesn't help if that's the sort you have. Sorry.

It helps reduce size and weight since you can just directly place ssd chips on the motherboard instead of planning for connectors. Just depends on what your priorities are.

imagine the 2 grams you'll be losing by skipping the m.2 connector

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website that tracks excessive writes to SSDs in OS/app betas?

#20

Post by justthehuman » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

esseph wrote: post #13

amichail wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people who want their laptop to last 10 years?

Then you probably want enterprise level drives, motherboard, ECC RAM, etc.

I know I do!

Last time I looked at Laptops that supported ECC it was a very short and very expensive list. At least I could get enterprise datacenter SSDs... once upon a time...

I know that I DONT want iLO/IPMI/Redfish on a laptop though, the out of band stuff eats up a ton of power.