5 ms·

Can't this easily be a userspace app overwriting a logfile or something thousands of times over? Spotify is rebuilding a cache in the background every minute,

Can't this easily be a userspace app overwriting a logfile or something thousands of times over? Spotify is rebuilding a cache in the background every minute, or some audio editing app misuses a sqlite database and it's writing the same stuff every second etc? Any app/program can write to the disk. Why this is being framed as a hardware/OS error?

kitsunesoba 6y ago
My first thought when reading about this is that logging gone awry is a very likely cause. Could be the OS itself or apps doing it, but in either case a fix should be pretty reasonable.
- fomine3 6y ago
  I think logging can't be a problem for recent NVMe SSD (but problem for small eMMC on cars).
- bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
  Reminds me of this: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/07/27/vmware-virtualbox-tools-impacted-by-macos-catalina-memory-leaks https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/07/27/vmware-virtualbox... > The engineer explains problem relates to a "regression in the com.apple.security.sandbox kext (or one of its related components)" in macOS 10.15.6. As part of the investigation, it was discovered com.apple.security.sandbox was allocating millions of blocks of memory containing just the text "/dev" and no other data.
tyingq 6y ago
Maybe they transitioned from an earlier MacBook and feel like they are running the same apps? Though, of course, new architecture means that's a bad assumption.
marcos100 6y ago
The problem is that the ssd is not replaceable and people are saying the main cause of this heavy writing is the swapping to disk. So a hardware/OS problem. I think it wouldn't get a lot of attention if the ssd could be replaced.
- nixgeek 6y ago
  This isn't a correct statement, I think what you mean is it isn't user replaceable. Take one to Apple who can and does replace these due to failure through their service program. Outside warranty you will of course be paying for that.
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    They're not meaningfully replaceable without paying apple a lot of money for an ssd, assuming you're out of warranty, hastening planned obsolescence. How's that? People understand apple can replace them. Nobody wants to pay apple to replace an ssd.
    - adgjlsfhk1 6y ago
      Apple can't though. It's soldered to the motherboard, so replacement also involves replacing the CPU and ram. Suddenly a $50 part has turned into about $500 (or $1000 with apple price gouging on ram and storage prices).
  - knz_ 6y ago
    More likely that apple will just price gouge on a motherboard replacement and just trash the old one. And of course, they will do this only after attempting to upsell the user on an entirely new system. It reeks of shade to intentionally grenade the hardware just to get more door traffic at retail locations.
    - Bud 6y ago
      Every part of this is a made-up, unsupported, bad-faith, outright lie. No part of this is “more likely” based on my 30 years of experience of actually dealing with Apple. What’s actually more likely, in my experience, is Apple going above and beyond to cover repairs, even out of warranty, for issues that are even partially their fault. “Attempting to upsell” doesn’t pass the laugh test. And it’s incredibly crass and irresponsible of you to toss around words like “intentionally grenade the hardware” without the slightest hint of evidence.
gopalv 6y ago
> Why this is being framed as a hardware/OS error? Because this error closely matches the new Tesla hardware replacement (MCU mmc is not a "wear item" or not, depending on who you ask) and like that chip, the M1 also has non-replaceable parts which seem to be wearing faster than normal.
hmage 6y ago
To support your thought -- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/for-five-months-spotify-has-badly-abused-users-storage-drives/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/for-f... Since it's not happening to everyone (check the original twitter thread), I'm 100% sure it's third party apps writing in small 4kb chunks with O_DIRECT file opened, therefore creating write amplification effect where 4kb write becomes SSD block size write (for example 4mb), therefore one 4kb write per second, instead of being 0.3GB/day, becomes 345.6GB/day.
- ryan29 6y ago
  Can you explain this more? I always thought writes were by the page and erases were by the block, so the scenario you're describing would only be likely with TRIM disabled and an awful garbage collection algorithm. I could be wrong though because I don't understand the implications of O_DIRECT.
- curryst 6y ago
  That's an interesting thought. Given the prevalence, I almost wonder if it's a bug in an upstream framework or maybe a crazy default only on M1 Mac's in some language. Chrome would also be unsurprising. Theyre known for their memory churn already.
arrty88 6y ago
I suppose it could be Mail, Spotify, iCloud, or anything really. But if its happening on all the new M1 macs, what do you think the common denominator is?
- hmage 6y ago
  If you follow the original twitter thread - https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1364409829788250113 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1364409829788250113 - you'll find that it's not affecting all M1 macs, and affects many intel macs, therefore it's almost guaranteed to be third party app's behaviour (writing 4kb chunks with O_DIRECT will lead to SSD write amplification)
phabora 6y ago
I think Spotify insist on using 10% of my drive. I can’t configure it as far as I know (any more). The only solution that I know of is `rm -rf <cache>`.

kitsunesoba 6y ago

My first thought when reading about this is that logging gone awry is a very likely cause. Could be the OS itself or apps doing it, but in either case a fix should be pretty reasonable.

fomine3 6y ago
I think logging can't be a problem for recent NVMe SSD (but problem for small eMMC on cars).
bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
Reminds me of this: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/07/27/vmware-virtualbox-tools-impacted-by-macos-catalina-memory-leaks https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/07/27/vmware-virtualbox... > The engineer explains problem relates to a "regression in the com.apple.security.sandbox kext (or one of its related components)" in macOS 10.15.6. As part of the investigation, it was discovered com.apple.security.sandbox was allocating millions of blocks of memory containing just the text "/dev" and no other data.

tyingq 6y ago

Maybe they transitioned from an earlier MacBook and feel like they are running the same apps? Though, of course, new architecture means that's a bad assumption.

marcos100 6y ago

The problem is that the ssd is not replaceable and people are saying the main cause of this heavy writing is the swapping to disk. So a hardware/OS problem. I think it wouldn't get a lot of attention if the ssd could be replaced.

nixgeek 6y ago
This isn't a correct statement, I think what you mean is it isn't user replaceable. Take one to Apple who can and does replace these due to failure through their service program. Outside warranty you will of course be paying for that.
- LegitShady 6y ago
  They're not meaningfully replaceable without paying apple a lot of money for an ssd, assuming you're out of warranty, hastening planned obsolescence. How's that? People understand apple can replace them. Nobody wants to pay apple to replace an ssd.
  - adgjlsfhk1 6y ago
    Apple can't though. It's soldered to the motherboard, so replacement also involves replacing the CPU and ram. Suddenly a $50 part has turned into about $500 (or $1000 with apple price gouging on ram and storage prices).
- knz_ 6y ago
  More likely that apple will just price gouge on a motherboard replacement and just trash the old one. And of course, they will do this only after attempting to upsell the user on an entirely new system. It reeks of shade to intentionally grenade the hardware just to get more door traffic at retail locations.
  - Bud 6y ago
    Every part of this is a made-up, unsupported, bad-faith, outright lie. No part of this is “more likely” based on my 30 years of experience of actually dealing with Apple. What’s actually more likely, in my experience, is Apple going above and beyond to cover repairs, even out of warranty, for issues that are even partially their fault. “Attempting to upsell” doesn’t pass the laugh test. And it’s incredibly crass and irresponsible of you to toss around words like “intentionally grenade the hardware” without the slightest hint of evidence.

gopalv 6y ago

> Why this is being framed as a hardware/OS error? Because this error closely matches the new Tesla hardware replacement (MCU mmc is not a "wear item" or not, depending on who you ask) and like that chip, the M1 also has non-replaceable parts which seem to be wearing faster than normal.

hmage 6y ago

To support your thought -- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/for-five-months-spotify-has-badly-abused-users-storage-drives/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/for-f... Since it's not happening to everyone (check the original twitter thread), I'm 100% sure it's third party apps writing in small 4kb chunks with O_DIRECT file opened, therefore creating write amplification effect where 4kb write becomes SSD block size write (for example 4mb), therefore one 4kb write per second, instead of being 0.3GB/day, becomes 345.6GB/day.

ryan29 6y ago
Can you explain this more? I always thought writes were by the page and erases were by the block, so the scenario you're describing would only be likely with TRIM disabled and an awful garbage collection algorithm. I could be wrong though because I don't understand the implications of O_DIRECT.
curryst 6y ago
That's an interesting thought. Given the prevalence, I almost wonder if it's a bug in an upstream framework or maybe a crazy default only on M1 Mac's in some language. Chrome would also be unsurprising. Theyre known for their memory churn already.

arrty88 6y ago

I suppose it could be Mail, Spotify, iCloud, or anything really. But if its happening on all the new M1 macs, what do you think the common denominator is?

hmage 6y ago
If you follow the original twitter thread - https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1364409829788250113 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1364409829788250113 - you'll find that it's not affecting all M1 macs, and affects many intel macs, therefore it's almost guaranteed to be third party app's behaviour (writing 4kb chunks with O_DIRECT will lead to SSD write amplification)

phabora 6y ago

I think Spotify insist on using 10% of my drive. I can’t configure it as far as I know (any more). The only solution that I know of is `rm -rf <cache>`.