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Interesting, can't believe you're able to run all those containers on a meager 8GB. Is it because the swap ability on M1 is somehow better/faster than previous

Interesting, can't believe you're able to run all those containers on a meager 8GB. Is it because the swap ability on M1 is somehow better/faster than previous gen?

gs17 4y ago
The memory management definitely is better. I have an 8GB M1 Air as a "work laptop" and I've never had any issues despite my Windows/Linux computers needing an upgrade to 24 GB because 16 just wasn't cutting it anymore.
pbronez 4y ago
Exactly. M1 is a new processor design, not an iteration on previous intel Macs. It’s not just “better swap” - it’s “unified memory.” This makes much better use of the memory available to the system. From https://www.macworld.com/article/234843/m1-macs-memory-isnt-what-it-used-to-be.html https://www.macworld.com/article/234843/m1-macs-memory-isnt-... : “The M1 processor’s memory is a single pool that’s accessible by any portion of the processor. If the system needs more memory for graphics, it can allocate that. If it needs more memory for the Neural Engine, likewise. Even better, because all the aspects of the processor can access all of the system memory, there’s no performance hit when the graphics cores need to access something that was previously being accessed by a processor core. On other systems, the data has to be copied from one portion of memory to another—but on the M1, it’s just instantly accessible.”
- princevegeta89 4y ago
  Thanks for the insight. Looks like the unified memory does provide a lot of complementing value to RAM in general then. However, I am wondering, what would be the value of adding more physical RAM compared to having it provisioned via swap?
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    SSD throughput was crippled for the entry level M2, beware. More real RAM always better to a point. 16GB is a bare minimum for a machine that can’t be upgraded imho, and has been for years. Due to that insistence our 2013 MBP is still going strong, and saved several thousand dollars in the process.

Interesting, can't believe you're able to run all those containers on a meager 8GB. Is it because the swap ability on M1 is somehow better/faster than previous gen?

gs17 4y ago

The memory management definitely is better. I have an 8GB M1 Air as a "work laptop" and I've never had any issues despite my Windows/Linux computers needing an upgrade to 24 GB because 16 just wasn't cutting it anymore.

pbronez 4y ago

Exactly. M1 is a new processor design, not an iteration on previous intel Macs. It’s not just “better swap” - it’s “unified memory.” This makes much better use of the memory available to the system. From https://www.macworld.com/article/234843/m1-macs-memory-isnt-what-it-used-to-be.html https://www.macworld.com/article/234843/m1-macs-memory-isnt-... : “The M1 processor’s memory is a single pool that’s accessible by any portion of the processor. If the system needs more memory for graphics, it can allocate that. If it needs more memory for the Neural Engine, likewise. Even better, because all the aspects of the processor can access all of the system memory, there’s no performance hit when the graphics cores need to access something that was previously being accessed by a processor core. On other systems, the data has to be copied from one portion of memory to another—but on the M1, it’s just instantly accessible.”

princevegeta89 4y ago
Thanks for the insight. Looks like the unified memory does provide a lot of complementing value to RAM in general then. However, I am wondering, what would be the value of adding more physical RAM compared to having it provisioned via swap?
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  SSD throughput was crippled for the entry level M2, beware. More real RAM always better to a point. 16GB is a bare minimum for a machine that can’t be upgraded imho, and has been for years. Due to that insistence our 2013 MBP is still going strong, and saved several thousand dollars in the process.