6 ms·

Did the question about Apple’s new laptops and their apparently high writes in general usage get resolved? And was it incorrect/misleading reporting, or somehow

Did the question about Apple’s new laptops and their apparently high writes in general usage get resolved? And was it incorrect/misleading reporting, or somehow not a problem (life of SSD still likely to be ‘long enough’) or is it still potentially the case that the machines will be ‘bricked’ due to the non-replaceable SSD dying early? I don’t mind having to have the SSD replaced by Apple if the cost is reasonable, just as I do with batteries, but would be good to know what to expect.

drooopy 4y ago
According to the guy behind Asahi Linux, there was no misreporting. It was an actual bug and those excessive write operations happened. https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1396374313591140357?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1396374313591140357?ref_... While I don't like it being that way, I can definitely see the benefits of non-upgradeable RAM. The performance of the SOC on my "lowly", entry-level M1 Air is out of this world. But an SSD that's glued on to the motherboard has 0 benefits that I can think of and basically only serves to give any computer a hard coded expiration date. And thinness is not an excuse. There are computers as thin as the Air that have removable storage drives.
- yakubin 4y ago
  Not to mention that thinness is not a thing in case of Mac Mini.
  - metadat 4y ago
    "Thin" is also no longer a word I'd use to describe the current M1 Macbook Pros; they're significantly thicker and heavier than their Intel counterparts of old (bigger battery required to achieve that legendary battery life?)
    - buran77 4y ago
      > significantly thicker and heavier than their Intel counterparts That's really hyperbolic. The 13" M1 MBP is 0.7mm thicker and 30g heavier than the equivalent Intel of not so old, 2015-2019 when the dimensions dropped to the lower bound.
      - metadat 4y ago
        I have both a 2019 Intel and 2022 M1, and the M1 is more than 0.5KG heavier and more than 0.7mm thicker. I was surprised to realize they'd made the newer machines significantly thicker and heavier. Both machines have their pros and cons, neither is perfect or terrible.
        buran77 4y ago
        All specs are available here [0]. Even if you compare different sizes the 14" M1 is still just ~230g heavier than the 13" Intel. At the same size (13") the differences are what I put above. "More than 0.5kg" means almost half the weight of the laptop. You need a 16" M1 Pro to get there. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201300 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201300
        metadat 4y ago
        Oops, I'd meant to specify, they are both 16". Thank you, buran777!
        buran77 4y ago
        At 16" it would still put them at a barely noticeable 100g (at 2kg) and 0.6mm difference. Even after Apple rid itself of Ive's obsession with thinness they would never go for "significantly thicker and heavier" than the previous model in a portable device. Can't really think of many (any?) laptops that have this mix of thin, light, high performance, and long battery life.
        ek750 4y ago
    - caycep 4y ago
      People complained because the thin ones didn't have the ports they wanted.
      - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
        And they're still complaining because one of the ports they wanted was the M.2 slot for the SSD. Some things are worth more than saving 10 grams.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  Yeah, that's what kills me. And the only viable mitigation strategies involve giving Apple more money. Spec'ing a larger onboard SSD to spread out the writes for hopefully longer endurance should be effective. And, perhaps, opting for more RAM to reduce VM writes to disk? I'm not sure if that's effective. Perhaps the resulting sleep file will be larger as well, resulting on more writes overall. I'm sure somebody can chime in on that? At least the newer models have SD card slots; can use SD cards for semidurable storage. They are obviously unsuitable for some things, but fine for others.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but how does non-modular RAM improve performance?
  - javchz 4y ago
    Less Physical Distance should create less latency, plus an optimized profile for one list of model of banks vs the diversity in the modula industry with different clock speeds and latencies.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      Is there any actual evidence that this marginally lower latency makes any real life difference? And why would the laptops suddenly ship with a variety of modules if they're replaceable? You can still ship it with the same modules in every laptop and get those benefits. And if someone upgrades it, that's still an improvement over no upgrade path, so this makes no sense to me.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        > Is there any actual evidence that this marginally lower latency makes any real life difference? Yes, compare the specs of DDR4 and DDR5 to LPDDR4X and LPDDR5X. The latter are significantly higher performance. This is also the reason that Dell recently introduced CAMM memory modules -- it is an attempt to address the packaging bottleneck that is limiting the speed of DIMMs currently. The amount of time that it takes a signal to go down a wire has been relevant for DRAM for a while now. If you look at the traces on the board of any relatively modern computer, you'll see some that take circuitous routes, for the purpose of having the signals arrive at the CPU at the same time. You can see this even on relatively low performance devices like a Raspberry Pi. https://www.cnx-software.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Raspberry-Pi-4-Model-B-Large.jpg https://www.cnx-software.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Rasp...
        wtallis 4y ago
        > If you look at the traces on the board of any relatively modern computer, you'll see some that take circuitous routes, for the purpose of having the signals arrive at the CPU at the same time. Having all the signals arrive at the same time isn't the same thing as having the signals arrive soon.
- AceJohnny2 4y ago
  > But an SSD that's glued on to the motherboard has 0 benefits It's because, since the T2 chip and going on with Apple Silicon, they're not SSDs in the NVMe sense. They're an Apple-specific technology derived from their Anobit acquisition, that only look like an NVMe device to the upper layers.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 4y ago
  > While I don't like it being that way, I can definitely see the benefits of non-upgradeable RAM. The performance of the SOC on my "lowly", entry-level M1 Air is out of this world. It's not even clear that this has a performance benefit on typical workloads. At release the M1 was non-trivially faster than contemporaneous PC mobiles, but its competition was also using TSMC 7nm and DDR4. Now we've seen Zen3+ mobiles on 6nm with DDR5 and upgradeable memory and they're about the same speed for nearly everything despite the M1 being on 5nm, which basically proves they didn't need to solder the RAM.
walrus01 4y ago
The SSD is soldered onto the motherboard on all new apple laptops and has been for years, there is no replacing it without the whole board. Which can be 70% of the cost of a new laptop. Whatever ram and SSD config you buy when new is how it will be forever.
- i_am_proteus 4y ago
  That's reason enough for me to avoid these products. (I recognize that others may have different preferences). I have several old (5-15yrs) laptops still providing useful service. None of them is on the original HDD/SSD.
  - Swinx43 4y ago
    This is the exact reason I am currently very uncomfortable with the idea of a new Macbook Pro for my own business use. On the one had it absolutely makes life a lot easier and all the software I need runs great on it. On the other I would by buying into a device I simply cannot upgrade or maintain myself. This makes me extremely uncomfortable. I dont want to run Windows as a daily driver since it is really jarring for my personal workflow etc. Yet Linux lacks quite a few of the essential pieces of software I need outside of development. E.g. (Krisp.AI, Reincubate Camo etc) Rock <--> Hard Place
    - trinsic2 4y ago
      I was a windows user and thought the same thing for awhile about switching to Linux. I was heavily dependent on Adobe products to create PDF Forms. Then I realized I could use a CRM solution to handle the from creation for me. I wrote about my experience in switching to Linux and so far it is work well for me: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transition-windows-to-linux/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...
      - sthlmb 4y ago
        Nice piece!
pilsetnieks 4y ago
It was fixed more than a year ago in macOS 11.4 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...
- moffkalast 4y ago
  - dpkirchner 4y ago
    This is kind of a weird diss against a phone manufacturer that regularly releases OS updates for devices that are over 5 years old. Are there others that even come close? Google abandoned their first-party Pixel 3 about 3-4 years in. I'm not sure Samsung has done any better.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    The 'iPhone Slowdown Thing' seems to be the 'McDonalds Frivolous Lawsuit" of the computer world. As in, misunderstood mainly for ideological reasons. What Apple did in response to aging batteries was perfectly sensible technically, what they failed to do was communicate it properly to the user.
    - fencepost 4y ago
      What Apple did in response to aging batteries was perfectly sensible technically Yep, and what would be even more sensible is allowing users to 'cap' the charge level the way Samsung has started to with a "charge only to 85%" ability. Don't just respond to aging batteries, allow steps to reduce aging. But, that goes against the upgrade sales process.
      - Marsymars 4y ago
        > Yep, and what would be even more sensible is allowing users to 'cap' the charge level the way Samsung has started to with a "charge only to 85%" ability. You can kinda do this with AOSP, but it's obnoxiously convoluted. You enable the adaptive charging feature, then set a silent alarm for 9:59, then set an alarm on something other than your phone so you can unplug your phone at 7:00 or so. (edit: or I guess you could get a smart outlet to cut power to your phone at 7:00)

drooopy 4y ago

According to the guy behind Asahi Linux, there was no misreporting. It was an actual bug and those excessive write operations happened. https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1396374313591140357?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1396374313591140357?ref_... While I don't like it being that way, I can definitely see the benefits of non-upgradeable RAM. The performance of the SOC on my "lowly", entry-level M1 Air is out of this world. But an SSD that's glued on to the motherboard has 0 benefits that I can think of and basically only serves to give any computer a hard coded expiration date. And thinness is not an excuse. There are computers as thin as the Air that have removable storage drives.

yakubin 4y ago
Not to mention that thinness is not a thing in case of Mac Mini.
- metadat 4y ago
  "Thin" is also no longer a word I'd use to describe the current M1 Macbook Pros; they're significantly thicker and heavier than their Intel counterparts of old (bigger battery required to achieve that legendary battery life?)
  - buran77 4y ago
    > significantly thicker and heavier than their Intel counterparts That's really hyperbolic. The 13" M1 MBP is 0.7mm thicker and 30g heavier than the equivalent Intel of not so old, 2015-2019 when the dimensions dropped to the lower bound.
    - metadat 4y ago
      I have both a 2019 Intel and 2022 M1, and the M1 is more than 0.5KG heavier and more than 0.7mm thicker. I was surprised to realize they'd made the newer machines significantly thicker and heavier. Both machines have their pros and cons, neither is perfect or terrible.
      - buran77 4y ago
        All specs are available here [0]. Even if you compare different sizes the 14" M1 is still just ~230g heavier than the 13" Intel. At the same size (13") the differences are what I put above. "More than 0.5kg" means almost half the weight of the laptop. You need a 16" M1 Pro to get there. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201300 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201300
        metadat 4y ago
        Oops, I'd meant to specify, they are both 16". Thank you, buran777!
        buran77 4y ago
        At 16" it would still put them at a barely noticeable 100g (at 2kg) and 0.6mm difference. Even after Apple rid itself of Ive's obsession with thinness they would never go for "significantly thicker and heavier" than the previous model in a portable device. Can't really think of many (any?) laptops that have this mix of thin, light, high performance, and long battery life.
        ek750 4y ago
  - caycep 4y ago
    People complained because the thin ones didn't have the ports they wanted.
    - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
      And they're still complaining because one of the ports they wanted was the M.2 slot for the SSD. Some things are worth more than saving 10 grams.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
JohnBooty 4y ago
Yeah, that's what kills me. And the only viable mitigation strategies involve giving Apple more money. Spec'ing a larger onboard SSD to spread out the writes for hopefully longer endurance should be effective. And, perhaps, opting for more RAM to reduce VM writes to disk? I'm not sure if that's effective. Perhaps the resulting sleep file will be larger as well, resulting on more writes overall. I'm sure somebody can chime in on that? At least the newer models have SD card slots; can use SD cards for semidurable storage. They are obviously unsuitable for some things, but fine for others.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but how does non-modular RAM improve performance?
- javchz 4y ago
  Less Physical Distance should create less latency, plus an optimized profile for one list of model of banks vs the diversity in the modula industry with different clock speeds and latencies.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    Is there any actual evidence that this marginally lower latency makes any real life difference? And why would the laptops suddenly ship with a variety of modules if they're replaceable? You can still ship it with the same modules in every laptop and get those benefits. And if someone upgrades it, that's still an improvement over no upgrade path, so this makes no sense to me.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      > Is there any actual evidence that this marginally lower latency makes any real life difference? Yes, compare the specs of DDR4 and DDR5 to LPDDR4X and LPDDR5X. The latter are significantly higher performance. This is also the reason that Dell recently introduced CAMM memory modules -- it is an attempt to address the packaging bottleneck that is limiting the speed of DIMMs currently. The amount of time that it takes a signal to go down a wire has been relevant for DRAM for a while now. If you look at the traces on the board of any relatively modern computer, you'll see some that take circuitous routes, for the purpose of having the signals arrive at the CPU at the same time. You can see this even on relatively low performance devices like a Raspberry Pi. https://www.cnx-software.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Raspberry-Pi-4-Model-B-Large.jpg https://www.cnx-software.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Rasp...
      - wtallis 4y ago
        > If you look at the traces on the board of any relatively modern computer, you'll see some that take circuitous routes, for the purpose of having the signals arrive at the CPU at the same time. Having all the signals arrive at the same time isn't the same thing as having the signals arrive soon.
AceJohnny2 4y ago
> But an SSD that's glued on to the motherboard has 0 benefits It's because, since the T2 chip and going on with Apple Silicon, they're not SSDs in the NVMe sense. They're an Apple-specific technology derived from their Anobit acquisition, that only look like an NVMe device to the upper layers.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
AnthonyMouse 4y ago
> While I don't like it being that way, I can definitely see the benefits of non-upgradeable RAM. The performance of the SOC on my "lowly", entry-level M1 Air is out of this world. It's not even clear that this has a performance benefit on typical workloads. At release the M1 was non-trivially faster than contemporaneous PC mobiles, but its competition was also using TSMC 7nm and DDR4. Now we've seen Zen3+ mobiles on 6nm with DDR5 and upgradeable memory and they're about the same speed for nearly everything despite the M1 being on 5nm, which basically proves they didn't need to solder the RAM.

walrus01 4y ago

The SSD is soldered onto the motherboard on all new apple laptops and has been for years, there is no replacing it without the whole board. Which can be 70% of the cost of a new laptop. Whatever ram and SSD config you buy when new is how it will be forever.

i_am_proteus 4y ago
That's reason enough for me to avoid these products. (I recognize that others may have different preferences). I have several old (5-15yrs) laptops still providing useful service. None of them is on the original HDD/SSD.
- Swinx43 4y ago
  This is the exact reason I am currently very uncomfortable with the idea of a new Macbook Pro for my own business use. On the one had it absolutely makes life a lot easier and all the software I need runs great on it. On the other I would by buying into a device I simply cannot upgrade or maintain myself. This makes me extremely uncomfortable. I dont want to run Windows as a daily driver since it is really jarring for my personal workflow etc. Yet Linux lacks quite a few of the essential pieces of software I need outside of development. E.g. (Krisp.AI, Reincubate Camo etc) Rock <--> Hard Place
  - trinsic2 4y ago
    I was a windows user and thought the same thing for awhile about switching to Linux. I was heavily dependent on Adobe products to create PDF Forms. Then I realized I could use a CRM solution to handle the from creation for me. I wrote about my experience in switching to Linux and so far it is work well for me: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transition-windows-to-linux/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...
    - sthlmb 4y ago
      Nice piece!

pilsetnieks 4y ago

It was fixed more than a year ago in macOS 11.4 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...

moffkalast 4y ago
- dpkirchner 4y ago
  This is kind of a weird diss against a phone manufacturer that regularly releases OS updates for devices that are over 5 years old. Are there others that even come close? Google abandoned their first-party Pixel 3 about 3-4 years in. I'm not sure Samsung has done any better.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  The 'iPhone Slowdown Thing' seems to be the 'McDonalds Frivolous Lawsuit" of the computer world. As in, misunderstood mainly for ideological reasons. What Apple did in response to aging batteries was perfectly sensible technically, what they failed to do was communicate it properly to the user.
  - fencepost 4y ago
    What Apple did in response to aging batteries was perfectly sensible technically Yep, and what would be even more sensible is allowing users to 'cap' the charge level the way Samsung has started to with a "charge only to 85%" ability. Don't just respond to aging batteries, allow steps to reduce aging. But, that goes against the upgrade sales process.
    - Marsymars 4y ago
      > Yep, and what would be even more sensible is allowing users to 'cap' the charge level the way Samsung has started to with a "charge only to 85%" ability. You can kinda do this with AOSP, but it's obnoxiously convoluted. You enable the adaptive charging feature, then set a silent alarm for 9:59, then set an alarm on something other than your phone so you can unplug your phone at 7:00 or so. (edit: or I guess you could get a smart outlet to cut power to your phone at 7:00)