4 ms·

I've seen this a lot since the first m1 macs came out. While I'm not a hardware engineer my understanding is this: For regular stuff that's not gpu intensive,

I've seen this a lot since the first m1 macs came out. While I'm not a hardware engineer my understanding is this: For regular stuff that's not gpu intensive, it's not really much different to any other system in terms of how it uses ram. What's different is it has a ridiculously fast SSD and can swap without much performance hit. Relying on your ssd for swap over getting enough memory in the first place seems like false economy to me.

rbanffy 3y ago
> Relying on your ssd for swap over getting enough memory in the first place seems like false economy to me. Important to keep in mind you won’t be able to replace that SSD without taking the machine to an Apple Store, and I’m not even sure they can replace the SSD without replacing the motherboard.
wryanzimmerman 3y ago
It’s more that the system itself is designed with the assumption of a super fast SSD, so it keeps way more in both ram and swap longer because it can swap fast enough to not be bottlenecked. So almost no matter how much ram you get, in multi-application day to day workflows it’ll still use swap sometimes just because it can. If your workflow involves something like giant objects in python or huge data structures that need to be in ram for performance, then you need the ram. But for use cases like 2,000 browser tabs plus photoshop plus Lightroom plus ten electron apps, mac osx “feels” like it has way more ram than an equivalent windows machine.
- stephenr 3y ago
  I don't believe I've yet seen any swapping on my 128G M2 studio but I also don't watch it like a hawk. Being able to use swap is obviously beneficial, and if you're going to use it, it's better if it's fast. But relying on it in place of regular RAM means you're just artificially shortening the life of your SSD - that's what I meant about "a false economy". The machine "feeling" responsive isn't the point. If all other factors are the same, the ssd wear on a machine that's used the ssd heavily for swap is going to be significantly higher.

rbanffy 3y ago

> Relying on your ssd for swap over getting enough memory in the first place seems like false economy to me. Important to keep in mind you won’t be able to replace that SSD without taking the machine to an Apple Store, and I’m not even sure they can replace the SSD without replacing the motherboard.

wryanzimmerman 3y ago

It’s more that the system itself is designed with the assumption of a super fast SSD, so it keeps way more in both ram and swap longer because it can swap fast enough to not be bottlenecked. So almost no matter how much ram you get, in multi-application day to day workflows it’ll still use swap sometimes just because it can. If your workflow involves something like giant objects in python or huge data structures that need to be in ram for performance, then you need the ram. But for use cases like 2,000 browser tabs plus photoshop plus Lightroom plus ten electron apps, mac osx “feels” like it has way more ram than an equivalent windows machine.

stephenr 3y ago
I don't believe I've yet seen any swapping on my 128G M2 studio but I also don't watch it like a hawk. Being able to use swap is obviously beneficial, and if you're going to use it, it's better if it's fast. But relying on it in place of regular RAM means you're just artificially shortening the life of your SSD - that's what I meant about "a false economy". The machine "feeling" responsive isn't the point. If all other factors are the same, the ssd wear on a machine that's used the ssd heavily for swap is going to be significantly higher.