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What work are people doing on an MBA or MBP 13" that needs more than 16GB of physical RAM? Last I saw the swap is extremely performant so you'd really need to b

What work are people doing on an MBA or MBP 13" that needs more than 16GB of physical RAM? Last I saw the swap is extremely performant so you'd really need to be pushing that limit.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
You don't want to wear out the SSD with constant swapping though. Especially because it can't be replaced so it'll have to last the entire life of the computer.
- foldr 5y ago
  SSD lifetime concerns with the M1 are largely FUD (and based on initial reports with bad stats). The SSDs should last for the lifetime of the device even with heavy write usage. https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/04/apple-resolves-m1-mac-ssd-storage-longevity-issue-in-macos-114-beta https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/04/apple-resolves-m1...
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    I know about the bad stats. But what's the lifetime of the device? That tends to differ a LOT. For example I still use my Mac Mini 2011 today. After I stopped using it as desktop it became an ESXi server (because ESXi automatically permits Mac guests if you run on Mac hardware). I've already burned through two good SSDs (Crucial MX).
    - foldr 5y ago
      Non-replaceable SSDs in macbooks predate the M1. The interesting claim (which now appears either to have been entirely erroneous, or based on a bug that has now been fixed) was that the M1 Macs hit the SSDs harder than their predecessors. If you are just talking about general SSD lifetime issues, then we already have over 5 years of user experience to go on (https://uk.pcmag.com/mac-laptops/86074/15-inch-macbook-pro-uses-a-non-removable-ssd https://uk.pcmag.com/mac-laptops/86074/15-inch-macbook-pro-u...). And I believe that SSD reliability and lifetime has increased since 2016.
jlokier 5y ago
Yesterday Firefox was reporting 66GB RAM usage on my MBP with 16MB RAM. I also have a Linux VM that must be permanently running Firefox became unresponsive until it decided to shrink its caches, which it did over about 5 minutes down to 10GB usage. It clearly didn't need 66GB, most of it swap space. Usually it's not that much, and is more likely reach 20-30GB. Firefox on Mac seems to grow and grow and grow usage, then when it becomes unresponsive it shrinks usage until it's responsive again. Several times a minute when scrolling sometimes, a long pause. It shrinks down to 10GB or less consistently. (My guess is a bug in the internal heuristics governing how much it decides to cache, being confused by MacOS memory compression and/or the fast swap.) Perhaps I'd have a better browsing experience with 64GB RAM than 16GB. And less SSD wear. Perhaps less battery consumption, depending on whether SSD I/O for swap consumes more or less than powering extra DRAM.

What work are people doing on an MBA or MBP 13" that needs more than 16GB of physical RAM? Last I saw the swap is extremely performant so you'd really need to be pushing that limit.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

You don't want to wear out the SSD with constant swapping though. Especially because it can't be replaced so it'll have to last the entire life of the computer.

foldr 5y ago
SSD lifetime concerns with the M1 are largely FUD (and based on initial reports with bad stats). The SSDs should last for the lifetime of the device even with heavy write usage. https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/04/apple-resolves-m1-mac-ssd-storage-longevity-issue-in-macos-114-beta https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/04/apple-resolves-m1...
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I know about the bad stats. But what's the lifetime of the device? That tends to differ a LOT. For example I still use my Mac Mini 2011 today. After I stopped using it as desktop it became an ESXi server (because ESXi automatically permits Mac guests if you run on Mac hardware). I've already burned through two good SSDs (Crucial MX).
  - foldr 5y ago
    Non-replaceable SSDs in macbooks predate the M1. The interesting claim (which now appears either to have been entirely erroneous, or based on a bug that has now been fixed) was that the M1 Macs hit the SSDs harder than their predecessors. If you are just talking about general SSD lifetime issues, then we already have over 5 years of user experience to go on (https://uk.pcmag.com/mac-laptops/86074/15-inch-macbook-pro-uses-a-non-removable-ssd https://uk.pcmag.com/mac-laptops/86074/15-inch-macbook-pro-u...). And I believe that SSD reliability and lifetime has increased since 2016.

jlokier 5y ago

Yesterday Firefox was reporting 66GB RAM usage on my MBP with 16MB RAM. I also have a Linux VM that must be permanently running Firefox became unresponsive until it decided to shrink its caches, which it did over about 5 minutes down to 10GB usage. It clearly didn't need 66GB, most of it swap space. Usually it's not that much, and is more likely reach 20-30GB. Firefox on Mac seems to grow and grow and grow usage, then when it becomes unresponsive it shrinks usage until it's responsive again. Several times a minute when scrolling sometimes, a long pause. It shrinks down to 10GB or less consistently. (My guess is a bug in the internal heuristics governing how much it decides to cache, being confused by MacOS memory compression and/or the fast swap.) Perhaps I'd have a better browsing experience with 64GB RAM than 16GB. And less SSD wear. Perhaps less battery consumption, depending on whether SSD I/O for swap consumes more or less than powering extra DRAM.