4 ms·

I’m using one as a daily driver (red teaming) and it easily handles a couple busy vms, term, few services, editor, obsidian, slack/teams/whatever and browser..

I’m using one as a daily driver (red teaming) and it easily handles a couple busy vms, term, few services, editor, obsidian, slack/teams/whatever and browser.. I stopped even bothering carrying the charger with it.. Sometimes I look at activity monitor and it is swapping a bit but I don’t notice any perf degradation so I stopped thinking about it.. shrug

genmud 6y ago
I'm sure that swapping isn't a huge deal, but the big issue is around longevity of the SSD. If you have workloads that use more than 16gb of ram, swapping a lot will prematurely wear the SSD, which isn't replaceable.
- cyberpunk 6y ago
  I think this has been largely debunked by now, early SSDs had these problems but newer ones? not so much..; I mean, here's what smart says about the drive in my Mac atm: Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 12,515,207 [6.40 TB] Data Units Written: 13,202,995 [6.75 TB] Host Read Commands: 264,092,805 Host Write Commands: 158,635,815 Controller Busy Time: 0 Power Cycles: 188 Power On Hours: 223 The % used is (I think) the lost capacity due to wear, I've fairly hammered it so far and it's not even at 1%.. I'm pretty sure I'll get at least a few years out of it based on that..
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Hopefully, the keyboard lasts as long as the SSD. Previous gens spectacularly did not.
    - cyberpunk 6y ago
      Ha, seems to be a bit better. I kinda hate working on the laptop keyboard tho so I tend to use an external magic keyboard :}
    - gtm1260 6y ago
      If you care about the keyboard longevity, I'd get the macbook air or wait for the new macbook refresh when they bring the air keyboard over to the pro.
      - Reason077 6y ago
        The MacBook Air keyboard is exactly the same as the Pro keyboard, except for the Touch Bar. Any problems with the Touch Bar are UX issues: I don't think anyone has questioned its longevity/reliability.
  - genmud 6y ago
    Uhh, that may be what apple is reporting but most SSDs only last for about 100-200TB of write, so I would take that percentage used with a grain of salt. They are probably counting wear leveling percentage used. On the low end assuming 200TBW that means you have used about 3.3% of the life of your SSD and on the high side you have used 6.75%. Lets say you got your M1 on release in November, that would mean you are using about 1.68%/month on the high end and .84%/month on the low end. Assume it lasts 200TBW, which I don't think they will, you would be on track for a 8 year lifespan of the SSD. Otherwise 4 years on the low end, assuming the write amount stays the same (which won't likely happen), which would imply you are using the same or less swap. Every year, I find that I use about 1-2gb more on average, so for me/my usage patterns I almost find the 16gb of memory in the MBPs to be a slap in the face. I have a 13'' and a 16'' MBP with 32/64gb respectively and I don't think I would find anything less acceptable. Right now, my typical memory usage is around 30-40gb when I run docker, vscode, chrome, slack, zoom, etc. I am not even running any VMs(other than the docker vm), I typically will spin those up elsewhere. For reference, this is my 16'' daily MBP after nearly a year (4.84TB write) and I typically pull down lots of logs/data. Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 4,406,559 [2.25 TB] Data Units Written: 9,454,881 [4.84 TB] Host Read Commands: 183,307,692 Host Write Commands: 406,821,556
    - llukas 6y ago
      High end SSD can have over 1000 TBW. Any idea which are in Apple HW?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Reason077 6y ago
      > "most SSDs only last for about 100-200TB of write" My 3.5-year old MacBook Pro has 119 TB of writes, and still claims 79% "available spare": Available Spare: 79% Available Spare Threshold: 2% Percentage Used: 15% Data Units Read: 256,111,725 [131 TB] Data Units Written: 232,470,299 [119 TB] Host Read Commands: 2,872,362,421 Host Write Commands: 1,547,764,735 That said, my 1-month old M1 MacBook Air is already up to 7 TB writes, so seems to be writing at a significantly higher rate. Both are 8GB machines.
  - doctor_eval 6y ago
    How do you get these stats? What command do you run?
    - Reason077 6y ago
      brew install smartmontools smartctl -a disk0
jclardy 6y ago
I replaced my i9 16” MBP with a 13” Air. Performance with Xcode is either the same or better on the Air. Battery life is the true game changer though. When I went out with the 16” I had to make sure I had 100% charge, if I wanted to use it for ~3-4 hours while out. With the Air I can grab it with 25% battery left and be fine for the same amount of time. The “actual” pro machines with M1 derivatives are going to be incredible…so long as apple doesn’t make another Touchbar/butterfly keyboard-esq mistake.
- deergomoo 6y ago
  I also replaced a 16" (although i7) with a 13" Air. Best computing purchase I've ever made. I was lucky if I could even make it to 4 hours battery on the 16", but the real killer for me was heat and noise. It was like sitting in front of a little aeroplane all day long, and because the video out is wired up through the dedicated GPU, just plugging it into an external monitor added an extra 20W to dissipate. It also had weird sleep issues the entire time, if I left it connected to a monitor overnight I'd often sit down at my desk the next morning to find it burning hot, fans blasting, with the lid closed. So happy to see the back of that piece of crap. It got reasonable reviews at the time, I can only imagine that either no-one tested it with external monitors, or because it was the first model to drop the butterfly keyboard people just gave it a pass on everything else.
omniscient_oce 6y ago
I got the Air and when I was compiling Nodejs to install it the chassis got really hot. I read a lot about it barely ever getting warm but I guess those reviews were a little exaggerated.

genmud 6y ago

I'm sure that swapping isn't a huge deal, but the big issue is around longevity of the SSD. If you have workloads that use more than 16gb of ram, swapping a lot will prematurely wear the SSD, which isn't replaceable.

cyberpunk 6y ago
I think this has been largely debunked by now, early SSDs had these problems but newer ones? not so much..; I mean, here's what smart says about the drive in my Mac atm: Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 12,515,207 [6.40 TB] Data Units Written: 13,202,995 [6.75 TB] Host Read Commands: 264,092,805 Host Write Commands: 158,635,815 Controller Busy Time: 0 Power Cycles: 188 Power On Hours: 223 The % used is (I think) the lost capacity due to wear, I've fairly hammered it so far and it's not even at 1%.. I'm pretty sure I'll get at least a few years out of it based on that..
- dylan604 6y ago
  Hopefully, the keyboard lasts as long as the SSD. Previous gens spectacularly did not.
  - cyberpunk 6y ago
    Ha, seems to be a bit better. I kinda hate working on the laptop keyboard tho so I tend to use an external magic keyboard :}
  - gtm1260 6y ago
    If you care about the keyboard longevity, I'd get the macbook air or wait for the new macbook refresh when they bring the air keyboard over to the pro.
    - Reason077 6y ago
      The MacBook Air keyboard is exactly the same as the Pro keyboard, except for the Touch Bar. Any problems with the Touch Bar are UX issues: I don't think anyone has questioned its longevity/reliability.
- genmud 6y ago
  Uhh, that may be what apple is reporting but most SSDs only last for about 100-200TB of write, so I would take that percentage used with a grain of salt. They are probably counting wear leveling percentage used. On the low end assuming 200TBW that means you have used about 3.3% of the life of your SSD and on the high side you have used 6.75%. Lets say you got your M1 on release in November, that would mean you are using about 1.68%/month on the high end and .84%/month on the low end. Assume it lasts 200TBW, which I don't think they will, you would be on track for a 8 year lifespan of the SSD. Otherwise 4 years on the low end, assuming the write amount stays the same (which won't likely happen), which would imply you are using the same or less swap. Every year, I find that I use about 1-2gb more on average, so for me/my usage patterns I almost find the 16gb of memory in the MBPs to be a slap in the face. I have a 13'' and a 16'' MBP with 32/64gb respectively and I don't think I would find anything less acceptable. Right now, my typical memory usage is around 30-40gb when I run docker, vscode, chrome, slack, zoom, etc. I am not even running any VMs(other than the docker vm), I typically will spin those up elsewhere. For reference, this is my 16'' daily MBP after nearly a year (4.84TB write) and I typically pull down lots of logs/data. Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 99% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 4,406,559 [2.25 TB] Data Units Written: 9,454,881 [4.84 TB] Host Read Commands: 183,307,692 Host Write Commands: 406,821,556
  - llukas 6y ago
    High end SSD can have over 1000 TBW. Any idea which are in Apple HW?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Reason077 6y ago
    > "most SSDs only last for about 100-200TB of write" My 3.5-year old MacBook Pro has 119 TB of writes, and still claims 79% "available spare": Available Spare: 79% Available Spare Threshold: 2% Percentage Used: 15% Data Units Read: 256,111,725 [131 TB] Data Units Written: 232,470,299 [119 TB] Host Read Commands: 2,872,362,421 Host Write Commands: 1,547,764,735 That said, my 1-month old M1 MacBook Air is already up to 7 TB writes, so seems to be writing at a significantly higher rate. Both are 8GB machines.
- doctor_eval 6y ago
  How do you get these stats? What command do you run?
  - Reason077 6y ago
    brew install smartmontools smartctl -a disk0

jclardy 6y ago

I replaced my i9 16” MBP with a 13” Air. Performance with Xcode is either the same or better on the Air. Battery life is the true game changer though. When I went out with the 16” I had to make sure I had 100% charge, if I wanted to use it for ~3-4 hours while out. With the Air I can grab it with 25% battery left and be fine for the same amount of time. The “actual” pro machines with M1 derivatives are going to be incredible…so long as apple doesn’t make another Touchbar/butterfly keyboard-esq mistake.

deergomoo 6y ago
I also replaced a 16" (although i7) with a 13" Air. Best computing purchase I've ever made. I was lucky if I could even make it to 4 hours battery on the 16", but the real killer for me was heat and noise. It was like sitting in front of a little aeroplane all day long, and because the video out is wired up through the dedicated GPU, just plugging it into an external monitor added an extra 20W to dissipate. It also had weird sleep issues the entire time, if I left it connected to a monitor overnight I'd often sit down at my desk the next morning to find it burning hot, fans blasting, with the lid closed. So happy to see the back of that piece of crap. It got reasonable reviews at the time, I can only imagine that either no-one tested it with external monitors, or because it was the first model to drop the butterfly keyboard people just gave it a pass on everything else.

omniscient_oce 6y ago

I got the Air and when I was compiling Nodejs to install it the chassis got really hot. I read a lot about it barely ever getting warm but I guess those reviews were a little exaggerated.