Apple resolved M1 Mac SSD wear reporting issue in macOS 11.4

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited June 2021
Previous issues surrounding reporting tools reporting heavy wear on SSDs in Apple Silicon Macs now appear to be fixed in macOS 11.4




Solid State Drives (SSDs) can only be written to so many times before they can become unusable, but it takes many years. A series of reports in February 2021 about the SSDs in M1 Macs, however, appeared to show that their lifespan was considerably reduced.

At the time, an AppleInsider source within Apple, not authorized to speak on behalf the company, told us that it was a data reporting error within the tools used to report SSD wear. According to that source, it was not believed to be an actual hardware issue with the SSD, nor were the SSDs aging notably faster than prior because of RAM swap or other reasons.

Now that same source has told AppleInsider that the issue has been fixed in the latest release of macOS. AppleInsider can also now independently confirm that macOS 11.4 is reporting proper uptime statistics as well, where it was not previously.

Separately, users on Twitter including one of the developers working on the Linux port to Apple Silicon, developer Hector Martin, have now also reported that the issue is resolved.

Update on the macOS SSD thrashing issue: It seems the issue is fixed in 11.4. Feel free to try the betas if you're adventurous, or wait for the final release.

It's going to be interesting diffing the XNU kernel source once it drops and seeing what the bug was...

-- Hector Martin (@marcan42)


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Update: The fix was originally implemented in betas of macOS 11.4. It was made available to the public in the macOS 11.4 release.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    Yep, I already spotted this. Swap memory usage is also way down.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 13
    robabarobaba Posts: 228member
    What will all the trolls complain about now?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 13
    ppietrappietra Posts: 288member
    Yep, I already spotted this. Swap memory usage is also way down.
    Was the Write value corrected to a lower value?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 13
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 2,664member
    I wonder what this "fix" has done to performance. 

    Doesn't seem to just have been a reporting issue. It was actually being utilized more.

    any testing to compare before and after?
    darkvader
  • Reply 5 of 13
    nicholfdnicholfd Posts: 824member
    Yep, I already spotted this. Swap memory usage is also way down.
    "an AppleInsider source within Apple, not authorized to speak on behalf the company, told us that it was a data reporting error within the tools used to report SSD wear"

    Reading is hard...
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 13
    nicholfdnicholfd Posts: 824member
    I wonder what this "fix" has done to performance. 

    Doesn't seem to just have been a reporting issue. It was actually being utilized more.

    any testing to compare before and after?
    "an AppleInsider source within Apple, not authorized to speak on behalf the company, told us that it was a data reporting error within the tools used to report SSD wear"

    Did you read the article??????
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 13
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    nicholfd said:
    I wonder what this "fix" has done to performance. 

    Doesn't seem to just have been a reporting issue. It was actually being utilized more.

    any testing to compare before and after?
    "an AppleInsider source within Apple, not authorized to speak on behalf the company, told us that it was a data reporting error within the tools used to report SSD wear"

    Did you read the article??????
    The developer quoted in the article says it wasn't a data reporting error and they recorded the writes to the drive:





    But we'll only know for sure when they can check the source code differences in the kernel source code that was patched.
    MacProjdb8167OutdoorAppDeveloperdarkvaderwatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 13
    How does this fix the worn SSDs?
    darkvader
  • Reply 9 of 13
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    How does this fix the worn SSDs?
    Give it a rest.  These M1 Macs are only months old, and you're concerned about something that may or may not happen many years down the road at a point most people will have retired their machines already.

    Jeez... folks like you just want to make drama out of everything.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 13
    digitoldigitol Posts: 276member
    I’ve always questioned this non-removable HD. What if someone wrote a virus to  massively R/W (read/write) to the drive ?  If prolific, could be very costly or maybe impossible for Apple to replace or take care of. 
    jdb8167darkvader
  • Reply 11 of 13
    focherfocher Posts: 687member
    digitol said:
    I’ve always questioned this non-removable HD. What if someone wrote a virus to  massively R/W (read/write) to the drive ?  If prolific, could be very costly or maybe impossible for Apple to replace or take care of. 
    Good news!! Apple has already removed the HD from MacBooks, so it apparently is totally removable. They replaced it with an SSD.
    just cruisinwatto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 13
    digitoldigitol Posts: 276member
    focher said:

    Good news!! Apple has already removed the HD from MacBooks, so it apparently is totally removable. They replaced it with an SSD.
     OH MY! Soooo an SSD is not a hard drive then? ... And actually BAD News, as it turns out, there is discussion and POC of potential mac virus that will in fact, R/W the drive to  oblivion. Some were saying it was introduced in Spotify, but I don't believe so. I think that was just a bug, not a virus. Troubling times ahead possibly. Sigh. 
  • Reply 13 of 13
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    focher said:
    digitol said:
    I’ve always questioned this non-removable HD. What if someone wrote a virus to  massively R/W (read/write) to the drive ?  If prolific, could be very costly or maybe impossible for Apple to replace or take care of. 
    Good news!! Apple has already removed the HD from MacBooks, so it apparently is totally removable. They replaced it with an SSD.
    You so clever.
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