M1 Mac SSD Swap Issues Explained: Should you be WORRIED?

I wouldn’t be worried about memory swap if I could replace the dead SSD on my MacBook.

Just stumpled upon this morning, and learned something good. I have some intel-only apps on my system. I found that the major resource hog among those was Logi Options+. Taking 3.5 GB of memory just for warning me about battery state of my mouse or keyboard and displaying some on-screen feedback when I change settings on my keyboard. I disabled it and eventually my Mac wasn't using swap space any longer after just have been booted. And that's with a 16 GB RAM machine. I lost one mouse button due to the fix, but it was the least important one. The figures you showed with rather high percentage of lifetime spent are accurate though, if one takes them into relation to the SSD size (which wasn't in the figures but may be deduced). On my mac mini M1 (16GB, 1TB SSD) the lifetime used is 5% after two-and-a-half-year of usage and the TBW is above the 200 mark. Half the size of the SSD and it would be 10% with the same amount of TBW and I think I saw that combination in your video. Using 2% lifetime/a of a 1TB SSD is considered power-usage by macOS system administrators. I am a software developer. Needless to say that this SSD will still be there when I am no longer. It will last for another 48 years. I won't. Would need to become 106 years old.

Ah great solution, pay more money to Apple.
NEXT ADVICE from Apple fanboiz-> Save the 400, invest it in something and buy a new macbook after 3 years when this dies :-P haha 😂

I strongly believe that it was done intentionally by Apple to generate more profits. Sure the unified memory, Apple Silicone chips are powerful, and sure they wanted to keep the performance high and the best as possible. But, they took advantage of this issue and tried to make a buck by putting a really high/ridiculous price tag on the higher storage space and Rams. Honestly, these RAMs and SSDs don't even cost much them, particularly when they are procuring them in mass manufacturing, they profit at least 100-300% for each upgrade people do. The fact that Apple never even came out and explained this makes this so much more valid.

Do not copy to much data on my pc you will kill ssd 😂

Listen I used Mac’s since 2007 and for them to build their ssd on their logic boards so users can’t replace it when it fails crosses the line for me. I bought a Dell precision desktop as my main desktop and I’m going to buy a Dell precision laptop in a few months as my main laptop. I switched away from Mac to a computer that has its parts easily accessible when they fail. Apple has been building the ssd on the logic boards since the 2016 MacBook Pro. Also to take note that Xbox being a game system has a expansion drive slot on the back and that expansion drive is thin enough to apple could make a user replaceable storage device in the shape of the Xbox expansion drive to slide right in the sides of their computers so people can replace the ssd when they fail. It should be as simple as click in and click out method. That would instead of building the ssd on the logic board of course but apple would never do this because they always want you to buy a new computer. Even their $7000 Mac Pro has its ssd built right on the logic board. I will never buy a new Mac until Apple corrects this massive problem.

Even if it swaps all the time, it could take 10-30 years until your SSD dies. But I still vote for Apple to use a replaceable SSD like other laptops in the market, If they really care for their customers. At least if they worry about performance on SSD, they could use specific SSD spec just like Sony did with their PS5. Nowadays it is just only how much profit they could make on their customers 😢

Apple is no more what it was in the past ... It falls from super great company to low company who think people will pay anyway. Starting to think to go back on windows or linux at this rate ( M1 SSD / 14 PRO / 15 PRO problems ... what a joke ).

I bought an MBA m2, it lasted for 10months and they said a logic board change is necessary. I think it is a related issue. In any case, im poised to loss all my data. FU apple.

The Macbooks from early 2017 to 2020, the last ones with intel chips have this issue too. When the lifespan of the ssd is reached, the storage basically explodes and ruins all the data inside it. It's not only a M1 issue, i'ts been around for a while.
If you are editing heavy files in Final cut, Logic Pro, erasing and copying big stuff to your computer, it will die eventually, and you can't do anything about it.

Apple is not the only one, everyone is using SOC so everything is soldered on the board. The only exception is the Mac Pro. Any changes to a file will cause the file system to create a new file and discard the old one: file version is not supported in most file systems. Just edit your videos with an external drive. The swap file is a bit of concern, however the warranty is not an arbitrary number slapped on a box: it is an estimation that suppose to minimized their risks. Do backup: maintenance is not avoidable. Even if Apple give you a free repair or replacement, your data is gone.

This video is not accurate at all. The issue is not just memory swapping killing your Mac, it's also every file, big and small that would get stored in your Mac at one time or another like a video, pictures, music etc. It's so dumb because this is the very thing M chip is so good like encoding video it's also what kills it in the first place. You'll be ok if only doing light work like email, Word and Excel but heavy lifting like video and music production, AKA the Pro line stuff? You are SoL because ALL models use soldered RAM. I say skip this guy just doing internet research and find videos from actual repair people who fix Macs for a living like Louis Rossman and iBoff RCC for the technical reasons this internet researcher Max Tech is absolutely oblivious about.

Only idiots would buy expensive ewaste. BTW microsoft surface are ewaste also because of soldered ssd.

First adopters…Apple’s unpaid lab rats.

This can have a negative impact on resale value as the hard drive cannot be replaced or upgraded by consumers. If I ever purchased a M based laptop, i would run a battery and hard drive health utility before finalizing the deal.

So your solution is to buy more expensive parts for the mac?
And you don't even mention the major problem: the ssd is soldered to the board and is not replaceable

They soldered the ssd on purpose, they know these issues but they don't want your device to last long so tou have to buy them frequently. Fuck that shit

So how many SSDs failed after 2 years of use in the end

This is the only reason im not buying Apple pc.

By the time your SDD fails your macbook would be long overdue for an upgrade.

I am so disappointed of this video. There were so many wrong things... for example: ''Dont be mad at Apple because Windows and Linux also use swap''. You mean dont be mad at the company that made the decision to solder the NaN storage on the motherboard and make it not replaceable by the user, when there is enough extra space for an SSD on the side of the motherboard.... yea i call that BS. I wouldn't watch such channels man because it just shows what bias you have and if the video is factual.

For my M1 MacBook Air I have used for 2 years and I found out that I already used 4% of SSD health.

So when my Mac fails, it'll be my fault. I'll just go buy an M Mac, and do that every time it's my fault, every year over and over... because it's my fault.

If you care about the longevity of your mac it’s always a good idea to buy more RAM than you’ll need, at least for a few years. Even with a fast SSD writing data from memory into storage and vice versa is relatively slow and wears out the SSD so best if that’s only done for data you wish to keep. This is inevitable on a MacBook with low RAM with multiple apps running that each consume a moderate to high amount of memory. It’s also a good idea to buy an SSD with more storage even if don’t need all that storage to decrease wear. Given everything is soldered means you can either spend more on a high spec mac or spend less and need to replace the mac sooner, where both options are expensive. Even on Linux systems that use an SSD I never use a swap partition because installing more RAM is better than having to replace a failing SSD.

so great that they keep corrupting every other external ssd drive... bravoo!! clap clap

I went to a store yesterday to check m1 macbook air, I opened word, excel, ppt, photos and safari app. It used around 5 GB of RAM, so while working if I open multiple tabs on chrome etc. it's definitely going to use the swap memory. So will it be okay for long term use or 16 GB RAM is better?

You can actually replace SSD chips, it just takes more skill; Apple switched to soldered on memory, both RAM and ROM because they don’t want user upgradability as it takes $ away from them. I’ve been a long time Apple customer and have upgraded a lot, at least on models that are upgradable. NVME SSDs are just as fast as Apple internal storage but they’re just user replaceable and upgradable which lets you extend the use of your computer instead of buying another one.
Some parts naturally wear out like batteries and Apple’s fight to remove repairability demonstrates they hate both their customers and the environment because it forces otherwise functional machines to the trash pile.

Being a tech guy your assessment of the time is not accurate and you are just holding water for Apple. As many of you know, apps don't get less complex, more and more code is added to it with updates and new versions. So the apps that are barely using swap memory today in the future when updated and 50,000 lines of code as been added in a year's worth of updates, it's not 14 years because the growth is going to be exponential. You buy your M1 and you will pay out your ass for a computer that has 3--4 years of use, you go talk to a genius at the bar and he clowns you telling you it can't be fixed and then you get bent over a sodomized with no lube as they rape you for another $3000. Apple fanboys applaud and cheer!

Apple still sells MacBooks with 8gb memory, that amount of ram was in cheap PCs 4 years ago. Even worse a cheap PC has 8 gb of ram and 2 gb video memory, a MacBook has just 8 - that's some next level cheapskates in apple 🍎

Can you disable swap on macOS?

So the “Right to repair” is nothing near to replacing SSD or choosing alternative SSD by users themselves ? Damn that’s suck.

Man if this man does not get paid from apple then this man is just a piece of sh*t

We can still pass this issue to set up Mac OS to another external SSD connected via Thunderbolt cable. Of course that solution is for desktop systems. Personally i used my older intel based mac like this since last 3 years. I got nothing issue at all.

Thank you for all your amazing videos!!! so educational and well informed and well detailed, only to help all of us buyers and users that care about our equipment/investments

Hey, what is the artwork behind you the one looks like a camera? Can we see a clearer picture of the same?

Use Thunderbolt as OS drive and laugh

Is it still not replaceable ? I think a real tech guy can make it possible soon, not an advertisor even if he is good at researching ❤️

I was one of the first people who ordered the M1 MBA it arrived December of 2020. Initially ran smartmontools when this video came out and mine said 1% used. Ran it again today Jan 2023, it now says 3%. This is my primary computer, going with this estimate the SSD on my MBA with my usage scenario should last 100 more years.

One thing I do notice is that my buddy's MBA M1 has 15% Used, but he seems to go out of his way to run x86 apps on it. Like there would be an ARM version of an App something like VLC, but he would still download the x86 version for some ridiculous reason. He would use the x86 version of Chrome over ARM. He doesn't even use the App Store.

Thank you guys actually doing the 400h research i dont have to do now myself 😂❤

its not a bug. its a feature. a feature to make you buy apple macbook more frequenly.

This is terrible. I have a 2017 Intel MBP with waaaay more intense usage than my 2021 MBP M1 and at this time, both computers have a TBW of 50tb

I paid 600 dollars to replace the logic board. Only after 1y4m was used.

I just bought a second hand MacBook air m1 that have 210 TB byte written already. And i saw that most of 256 gb ssd only have lifecycle of 150 TBW. So what should i do? What is the write cycle of the mac m1 air 256?

my M1 MBP SSD lifetime is currently at 89%

Has anyone heard of swap memory suddenly stop working on M1 MacBook Air. My laptop is very sluggish and shows zero activity in memory swap.

Other operating System Do same, but in other way, it's abnormal my M1Max with 32GB of RAM start eating SWAP while still has around 11GB of free RAM. Changed swap mode from kernel to nvram boot-args="vm_compressor=2" Now it's only eating swap after only a bit less of 1GB left.

Well done show.