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It’s a deal with the devil (especially on the pro machines) where you trade 50% faster CPU for 50% less RAM. Everyone raves about how 8GB machines feel, but th

by hajile 6y ago

It’s a deal with the devil (especially on the pro machines) where you trade 50% faster CPU for 50% less RAM. Everyone raves about how 8GB machines feel, but the massive SSD usage and pitiful lifespan shows that there’s not a free lunch here. 16GB (or a 24GB option) goes a long way toward preventing early death. I actually suspect they’ll be launching a free SSD replacement program in the next couple years. I’ve also heard claims from a couple devs that side-by-side comparisons with their x86 macs show a massive increase in RAM usage for the same app for whatever reason. I’d guess that’s solvable, but could contribute even more to the SSD problem. On the bright side, all this seems to indicate a great pre-fetch and caching algorithm.

foldr 6y ago
> I actually suspect they’ll be launching a free SSD replacement program in the next couple years. Not even the most alarmist estimates suggest that the SSDs on the 8GB machines will start dying after two years! At the moment the SSD lifetime concerns are little more than FUD. Everything we know is perfectly consistent with these machines having SSD lifetimes of a decade, even with heavy usage.
- 542458 6y ago
  I was going to say! People seem to get all paranoid whenever swap is brought up on SSD machines, but modern SSD lifespans are pretty awesome. https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/ https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experi... 700TB was the minimum that any drive in the above link managed. If you used 100gigs of swap per day it would take you two decades to hit that level.
astrange 6y ago
> I’ve also heard claims from a couple devs that side-by-side comparisons with their x86 macs show a massive increase in RAM usage for the same app for whatever reason. Partly because the GPU works differently, partly because some inaccurate methods of counting memory (Activity Monitor) have cosmetic issues displaying Rosetta processes.

by hajile 6y ago

foldr 6y ago

> I actually suspect they’ll be launching a free SSD replacement program in the next couple years. Not even the most alarmist estimates suggest that the SSDs on the 8GB machines will start dying after two years! At the moment the SSD lifetime concerns are little more than FUD. Everything we know is perfectly consistent with these machines having SSD lifetimes of a decade, even with heavy usage.

542458 6y ago
I was going to say! People seem to get all paranoid whenever swap is brought up on SSD machines, but modern SSD lifespans are pretty awesome. https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/ https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experi... 700TB was the minimum that any drive in the above link managed. If you used 100gigs of swap per day it would take you two decades to hit that level.

astrange 6y ago

> I’ve also heard claims from a couple devs that side-by-side comparisons with their x86 macs show a massive increase in RAM usage for the same app for whatever reason. Partly because the GPU works differently, partly because some inaccurate methods of counting memory (Activity Monitor) have cosmetic issues displaying Rosetta processes.