Posted in Commentary with tags Apple on March 12, 2021 by itnerd
I’ve gotten a number of emails asking me about SSD swap issues with the new M1 Macs made by Apple and if they as new owners of M1 Macs should be concerned. Thus I decided to write this article explaining the issue, and giving you as much factual information to help you to decide if you should be concerned or not. First some background.
Every computer has two things. RAM which stands for Random Access Memory and storage which in the M1 Mac’s case is an SSD or Solid State Drive. Your programs run in RAM. But when that starts to fill up because you have a lot of apps open, or when macOS decides it’s not optimal to have so much data in RAM, it will do a swap of the data to the SSD to free up RAM. This will move some data from the RAM to the SSD which frees up RAM. And when it’s required, it will swap that data back. Every operating system does this. By that I mean Windows and Linux among others.
Now this is great, but a Twitter user named Longhorn posted this Tweet about his two month old M1 Mac:
M1 Mac SSD update…
Apple, this is NOT okay. Especially as the internal SSD isn’t replaceable. The machine is just a bit over 2 months old. pic.twitter.com/xqlSMjxwTa
Now SSDs have a lifespan that is calculated on the amount of writes that it does. Data recovery company Ontrack estimates this to be 60 to 150 terabytes written. So based on the Tweet above, going through 1% of the drive’s life in two months is insane as it will wear out the SSD faster. And the fact that you cannot replace the SSD once it fails doesn’t help.
Once that Tweet started to go viral, other users of M1 Macs reported the same thing. So clearly there’s an issue here. But if you own an M1 Mac, should you be concerned?
Well, for starters, I would say it’s a issue for all Mac owners as during the process to research this story, the same phenomena is happening to Intel based Mac owners as well:
That implies to me that this is more of an issue with macOS than an issue with the M1 chip. That also got me curious to see what my SSD stats are on my 15″ MacBook Pro from 2015. So I used a paid utility called DriveDx to find out:
So at least my drive isn’t going to die anytime soon. And it implies that I do not have this problem. So what is the issue? I have a few guesses:
During my research, some users found that some applications are causing this excessive wear. This Reddit thread for example points to Lightroom as being a cause of this issue. So in theory, any memory intensive app could cause this issue to happen.
A bug in tools that report on drive health mis-reporting the drive health.
The fact is that we don’t know. But given how popular Macs appear to be these days, especially the M1 processor based Macs, I think we need to find out. Now it’s a safe bet that Apple is looking at this. And they might be working on a fix or already have a fix. It would be nice if they said something though as they are giving users the silent treatment as usual.
Now if you are worried about this issue, I have some suggestions:
If you are buying a new M1 Mac, buy a 16GB model or more. That is likely to swap to disk less.
Higher SSD storage options tend to have longer lifespans in terms of the amount of writes that it can do. So you can buy a 512GB or 1TB or higher M1 Mac to mitigate this issue.
One thing that I would not do is disable the ability for macOS to swap to disk. Swapping to disk is there for a reason and you will likely take a performance hit if you disable it.
The bottom line is that I don’t think that this is an issue that you need to worry about. At least not with the evidence that exists at present. But if you are worried about this issue, there are some mitigations that you can take. But it would be nice if Apple speaks to this and addresses this in a timely manner. That would make all mac users feel better.
Posted in Commentary with tags TikTok on March 11, 2021 by itnerd
TikTok is giving you front row access to one of the hottest fashion shows of the season. On March 18th at 10 PM ET/7 PM PT, TikTok LIVE will close out Fashion Month in style with the Labyrinth Runway Show hosted by Frankie Jonas.
The runway show, which will spotlight diversity, body positivity, and promote inclusivity within the industry, will feature collections from renowned Black designers Victor Glemaud and Carrots by Anwar Carrots, and TikTok creator Joe Ando.
Throughout the LIVE stream, the TikTok community will have the opportunity to shop the plethora of looks styled by TikTok creator and stylistTabitha Sanchez.
More information about the Labyrinth Runway Show can be found in the TikTok Newsroom.
Posted in Commentary with tags Tribe on March 11, 2021 by itnerd
Tribe Property Technologies is pleased to announce the appointment of Jim Defer as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). This addition to Tribe’s senior leadership team is expected to support one of Canada’s fastest-growing residential community management companies in accelerating its expansion in the North American residential community living sector.
Mr. Defer is a seasoned financial executive with expertise in taking high-growth companies public. He has held a number of senior executive finance roles over the past 25 years, most recently as CFO at SPUD.ca, a technology-based grocery delivery company. Prior to Spud.ca, Mr. Defer worked with Food-X Technologies, Canopy Growth Corporation and SunSelect Produce. He is also the former head of investment banking at PI Financial, a Canadian independent full-service investment dealer.
In addition to strategic financial oversight, Mr. Defer will have direct responsibility for financial reporting, capital markets activities, treasury and taxation, amongst other activities of the company.
In conjunction with Mr. Defer’s appointment, John Tims has stepped down from his position as CFO, but will continue to serve as Tribe’s Corporate Secretary.
A one-stop-shop for residential community living, Tribe offers tech-enabled community management that is disrupting the traditional market. With one of the fastest growing tech-forward property management companies in Canada, Tribe’s integrated service-technology delivery model serves the needs of developers, condo/residential communities and owners/residents versus traditional property management. Tribe is empowering residential community living in cities.
ServiceNow today unveiled the Now Platform®Quebec release. This latest version of the Now Platform features expanded native AI capabilities and new low-code app development tools, empowering customers to innovate quickly, realize fast time-to-value, improve productivity and deliver great experiences. With companies radically changing the way they operate and accelerating digital transformation, the Now Platform is enabling the digital speed, agility and resilience every business needs to create the future of work.
Nearly 80% of the Fortune 500 and thousands of organizations worldwide are relying on the Now Platform to help protect revenue, maintain business continuity, stay productive and safe, and deliver great experiences for their customers and employees. As organizations plan for supporting distributed workforces long-term, cross-functional workflows that create great experiences for customers and employees are critical. Digital investments are at an all-time high. According to IDC, worldwide digital transformation investments will total more than $7.8 trillion by 2024.1
Industry leaders, including Nike, Adobe, Deutsche Telekom, Logitech, Medtronic, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and others are using the Now Platform to accelerate their digital transformation programs to deliver innovation, agility and productivity.
The low-code workflow revolution
ServiceNow today introduced Creator Workflows to join its existing IT, Employee and Customer Workflow portfolios to put the power of automation in the hands of the business, enabling people at every technical skill level to build apps at speed.
Creator Workflows feature ServiceNow’s low-code development tools, App Engine and IntegrationHub, which allow businesses to transform old, manual processes into modern, digital workflows at scale. With the Now Platform Quebec release, ServiceNow has introduced new products within Creator Workflows that let developers of every skill level build workflow apps fast:
App Engine Studio accelerates app development at scale with a fast, intuitive and guided low-code visual development environment that empowers people with no coding experience to collaborate and build applications.
App Engine Templates give teams access to pre-built workflow building blocks so that citizen developers can get a head start on building apps without having to start from scratch.
Low-code is becoming a strategic imperative for businesses to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. According to Gartner, “by 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity.”
Several organizations, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the City of Los Angeles,have turned to ServiceNow’s low-code App Engine to build custom end-to-end workflows that ensure these organizations can focus on delivering critical, lifesaving services to patients and citizens at scale during COVID.
With the Now Platform Quebec release, ServiceNow is helping organizations be more agile and adept at new ways of working. Leveraging one unified platform and data model, customers can continually monitor and optimize business processes to proactively identify and avoid bottlenecks and empower employees to work in an increasingly distributed fashion, as returning to the office becomes an option for some organizations. Three additional new workflow solutions include:
Process Optimization enables IT and customer service organizations to visually create and improve the underlying processes driving workflows and to proactively identify and avoid process bottlenecks to speed issue resolution.
Workforce Optimization provides a workspace for IT and customer service managers that helps organizations optimize productivity. The workspace monitors real-time agent productivity, workload and KPIs across multiple channels, resulting in improved customer experiences.
Engagement Messenger extends self-service to 3rd party portals to enable AI search, Knowledge Management, Case and Virtual Agent interactions, which result in increased case deflection and improved customer satisfaction.
Machine learning and native AI solutions for digital resiliency and business productivity
The Now Platform Quebec release allows organizations to enhance productivity with powerful, new, native AI capabilities. In addition to the need to innovate fast and deploy quickly at scale, customers need to deliver enterprise-wide, consumer grade digital tools that enhance productivity for more distributed workforces. New capabilities to enhance productivity include:
ITOM Predictive AIOps predicts issues before they become problems and helps organizations automate resolutions.
Virtual Agentenhancements accelerate time to value with guided setup and topic recommendations and speed incident resolution with end-to-end AI-powered conversational experiences.
AI Search delivers a consumer-grade search experience for employees and customers, giving people the personalized, relevant, and actionable information they need right from their search window in service portals, on mobile, and Virtual Agent.
These new capabilities represent the AI functionality acquired with Loom Systems and Attivio, which have been incorporated in the Quebec release. The Now Platform Quebec release keeps work flowing with advanced AIOps capabilities and gives customers deeper insights into their digital operations to minimize and fix incidents before they become issues, delivering consumer-grade AI-driven experiences that harness personalized insights to help organizations work smarter and faster.
Great employee experiences for the new world of work
ServiceNow continues to create great employee experiences by helping employees find answers to questions and fulfilling employee requests across the enterprise – from HR and IT to legal and facilities. In addition to providing consumer-grade search experiences with AI search, ServiceNow announced new innovations to help organizations boost employee engagement across the enterprise, includingUniversal Request. Universal Request enables agents to collaborate and transfer tickets across departments while keeping employees informed of the status of their ticket so that employees can stay focused on their work without being concerned where the request is supposed to go.
The Now Platform Quebec release is generally available today.
It seems that Metrolinx is finally hearing the voices of those who want options other than the Presto card to pay for transit. I spotted this post on the Metrolinx website this morning announcing a pilot project where people will be able to pay for transit on the UP Express transit line that runs between Pearson Airport and Union Station in Downtown Toronto:
Starting today (Mar.11), customers can use their physical credit card or the credit card in their mobile wallet to pay for their fare on UP Express as part of a pilot – some call this ‘open payment’.
For the same price as the PRESTO adult fare, UP Express customers can tap on a PRESTO device with a Visa, Mastercard or American Express credit card or their phone or watch with a mobile wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay.
That means more choice and convenience for customers – for those who are taking essential trips right now, and to be ready for when more customers return.
At some point in the spring, Interac Debit will be added to the mix. And when it is deemed to be a success, it will be rolled out to other Transit agencies like the Toronto Transit Commission and Mississauga Transit.
I will note that support for this appears to be rolling out as the Presto app on my phone was updated last night denoting support for this pilot project:
Posted in Commentary with tags ESET on March 11, 2021 by itnerd
The number of groups exploiting the latest Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities continues to grow, with more than 5,000 email servers in 115 countries affected
ESET researchers in Canada have discovered a potential threat to 5,000 Microsoft Exchange business and government email servers around the world.
Although the exact number of those affected by the vulnerability is unknown, ESET researchers estimate the number could reach hundreds of thousands of compromised servers globally. According to public sources, several important organizations, including the European Banking Authority, have suffered from this attack.
The threat comes from 10 different groups that were exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange to allow the cyberattacker to take over any reachable Exchange server, without the need to know any valid account credentials, making Internet-connected Exchange servers especially vulnerable. Microsoft has been alerted about the compromise and has since released patches to address and correct the vulnerabilities for Exchange Server 2013, 2016 and 2019.
“The early action of several threat actors using these vulnerabilities suggests these groups had access to the details of the vulnerabilities before the release,” says Matthieu Faou, Malware Researcher who is leading ESET’s research effort into the recent Exchange vulnerability chain. “Although it is unclear how the distribution of knowledge regarding the exploit happened, it is inevitable that more and more threat actors, including ransomware operators, will have access to it sooner or later.”
ESET has identified more than 10 different threat actors that likely leveraged the recent Microsoft Exchange RCE vulnerabilities in order to install malware like webshells and backdoors on victims’ email servers. In some cases, several threat actors were targeting the same organization.
The identified threat groups and behavior clusters are:
Tick – Compromised the web server of a company based in East Asia that provides IT services. As in the case of LuckyMouse and Calypso, the group likely had access to an exploit prior to the release of the patches.
LuckyMouse – Compromised the email server of a governmental entity in the Middle East. This group likely had an exploit at least one day before the patches were released, when it was still a zero day.
Calypso – Compromised the email servers of governmental entities in the Middle East and in South America. The group likely had access to the exploit as a zero day. In the following days, Calypso operators targeted additional servers of governmental entities and private companies in Africa, Asia and Europe.
Websiic – Targeted seven email servers belonging to private companies (in the domains of IT, telecommunications and engineering) in Asia and a governmental body in Eastern Europe. ESET named this new cluster of activity as Websiic.
Winnti Group – Compromised the email servers of an oil company and a construction equipment company in Asia. The group likely had access to an exploit prior to the release of the patches.
Tonto Team – Compromised the email servers of a procurement company and of a consulting company specialized in software development and cybersecurity, both based in Eastern Europe.
ShadowPad activity – Compromised the email servers of a software development company based in Asia and a real estate company based in the Middle East. ESET detected a variant of the ShadowPad backdoor dropped by an unknown group.
The “Opera” Cobalt Strike – Targeted around 650 servers, mostly in the US, Germany, the UK and other European countries just a few hours after the patches were released.
IIS backdoors – ESET observed IIS backdoors installed via webshells used in these compromises on four email servers located in Asia and South America. One of the backdoors is publicly known as Owlproxy.
Mikroceen – Compromised the exchange server of a utility company in Central Asia, which is the region this group typically targets.
DLTMiner – ESET detected the deployment of PowerShell downloaders on multiple email servers that were previously targeted using the Exchange vulnerabilities. The network infrastructure used in this attack is linked to a previously reported coin-mining campaign.
With these risks identified, Faou suggests patching all Microsoft Exchange servers as soon as possible, including those not directly exposed to the Internet. In case of compromise, admins should remove the webshells, change credentials and investigate for any additional malicious activity.
“The incident is a very good reminder that complex applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint should not be open to the Internet,” advises Faou.
Recent estimations by theAtlas VPN research team reveal that over 1 million US government employees were potentially exposed to mobile phishing scams from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020.
Phishing attacks designed to steal sensitive data like login credentials can be delivered through email, messaging applications, social media platforms, or even dating applications.
The estimations are based on numbers provided by Lookout, a leading mobile security platform. Lookout is used by the US federal, state, and local government workers on both personal and government-issued mobile devices.
Approximation reveals that as many as 140 thousand US federal employees were exposed to phishing scams in 2020. Furthermore, over 366 thousand state employees and 946 thousand local employees potentially received phishing scams at least one time in the period from January 1 to December 31, 2020.
99% of US government employees run outdated Android OS’s
Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that a staggering 99% of US government Android users run on outdated operating systems, exposing them to hundreds of vulnerabilities.
For example, as many as 22.8% of the US government staff that have Android devices still use the Android 8 operating system. This version of OS is called Android Oreo and was released to the public on August 21, 2017.
Currently, this operating system has 636 known vulnerabilities. We can expect countless new attack vectors to surface as time goes by.
As of March 10, 2021, the newest Android operating system is version 11. It was released on September 8, 2020, but only 0.08% of US government workers have updated their phones to this release.
Posted in Commentary with tags TikTok on March 10, 2021 by itnerd
TikTok continues to work towards maintaining a supportive environment that enables their community to focus on what matters to them – whether that’s expressing creativity, finding community, or having fun. Part of this fun is engaging with content, sharing ideas, and connecting through comments. Their goal is to promote a positive environment where people support and lift each other up.
Today, TikTok announced two new features on the app that helps foster kindness in their community:
The Filter All Comments feature gives creators more control, allowing them to decide which comments will appear on their videos. When enabled, comments aren’t displayed unless the video’s creator approves them using the new comment management tool. This feature builds on their existing collection of comment controls that allow filtering of spam, offensive comments and specific key words.
In addition, a new comment prompt now asks people to reconsider posting unkind or inappropriate comments. It also reminds users about TikTok’s Community Guidelines and allows them to edit their comments before sharing.
TikTok prioritizes creating a safe and positive app environment that allows creative expression to thrive. They will continue to strengthen their safeguards for users, build tools that provide people with more control to shape their experience, and keep listening to feedback from their community and experts.
Feel free to read more about this announcement on their blog post.
Posted in Commentary with tags Asus on March 10, 2021 by itnerd
ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced ROG Phone 5, ROG Phone 5 Pro and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, the latest and most powerful incarnation of the world’s most advanced gaming smartphone.
The ROG Phone 5 series is powered to win by the flagship Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888 5G Mobile Platform featuring advanced 5G communications and premium Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gaming™ features. The upgraded GameCool 5 cooling system along with the all-new performance manager in Armoury Crate ensure maximum performance is available for any gaming scenario.
For ultra-smooth and ultra-responsive gaming visuals, the ROG Phone 5 series is equipped with a Samsung-built 144 Hz / 1 ms AMOLED HDR10+ certified display with an industry-leading 300 Hz touch sampling rate and ultra-low 24.3 ms touch latency.
Gamers can play longer with the ROG Phone 5 series thanks to the monster 6000 mAh battery, and the phones come with a 65-watt HyperCharge adapter that tops up the battery in the shortest possible time.
The ROG Phone 5 series continues the ROG built-for-gamers design philosophy with ROG Vision, a never-before-seen rear matrix display — available exclusively on ROG Phone 5 Pro and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate — that shows customizable animations in response to a variety of system and in-game events.
There are also massive enhancements to the pioneering and still-unrivaled AirTrigger 5 control system, and the powerful GameFX audio system has also been overhauled to deliver even more immersive sound.
Dare to win
The ROG Phone 5 series harnesses the massive power of the latest flagship Snapdragon 888, which packs industry-leading innovations in 5G, AI, gaming, and camera technologies. Snapdragon Elite Gaming allows gamers to harness the power of ultra-smooth play at the highest possible HDR quality levels, with desktop-level capabilities. It also debuts Qualcomm Game Quick Touch, so players can experience up to a 20% increase in touch responsiveness and lower latencyi. With up to a stunning 35% increase in GPU performance and 25% in CPU performanceii, even the most demanding 3D mobile games run smoothly with maxed-out settings.
To enable maximum sustained performance, the GameCool 5 cooling system in the ROG Phone 5 series now has an optimum thermal structure featuring a centered CPU with the battery split into two parts, one located on each side of the CPU. This ensures that the heat generated by the CPU is transferred to all the edges and corners of the chassis simultaneously for higher thermal efficiency. The reshaped 3D vapor chamber and extensive graphite sheets also help to spread the heat evenly across the device to reduce heat build-up in the middle.
The completely revamped AeroActive Cooler 5 now intakes and expels an incredible amount of air directly onto the center of the phone — right where the CPU is — to deliver an amazing 10°C drop in the CPU temperature.
The all-new performance manager in Armoury Crate now includes X Mode, with multiple system profiles to give gamers even more performance settings and performance tuning tools, so they can instantly adapt the phone to the task at hand.
Additionally, ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is the world’s first smartphone to use 18 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, which dramatically increases the overall gaming performance and takes the user experience to the next level.
Dare to see
Cutting-edge displays have been a signature ROG Phone feature since its inception, and the ROG Phone 5 series continues this tradition. Boasting an industry-leading 300 Hz touch-sampling rate, the 144 Hz / 1 ms AMOLED display — built by Samsung — delivers a super-smooth gaming experience, with an ultra-low touch latency. Tuned in collaboration with leading visual-processing company Pixelworks®, the supreme visuals are enhanced even further with world-beating Delta-E <1 color accuracy, the new always-on HDR technologyiv that improves non-HDR visuals, and a screen that’s protected by the toughest ever Corning® Gorilla® Glass Victus™. The ROG Phone 5 series is built to endure — and built to win.
Dare to play
To extend both screen-on time and the lifespan of the monster 6000 mAh battery, ROG Phone 5 series is optimized using new software optimizations and power-saving mechanisms, including a charging upper limit, steady charging, and enhanced scheduled charging. There are also passive power-saving mechanisms to limit inactive apps and deliver up to 67% more power savingsv. The ROG Phone 5 series always optimizes itself for the best power efficiency, however it’s being used.
Rapid charging is assured by the bundled 65-watt HyperCharge adapter, which gets gamers up and running again in the fastest possible time.
Innovative ROG Vision
ROG Phone 5 Ultimate and ROG Phone 5 Pro let gamers make their presence known to the world with the exclusive ROG Vision, a pioneering rear matrix display that’s never been seen on any phone until now. ROG Phone 5 Pro features a color ROG Vision display, while ROG Phone 5 Ultimate has a monochrome version.
ROG Vision can display a variety of cool animations that show whether the phone is charging, if there’s an incoming call, whether X Mode is enabled, and more. Owners can even create custom animations to make their phone even more personal.
Built for gamers
Total control is the name of the game for the ROG Phone 5 series, and the massively upgraded AirTrigger 5 control system now gives gamers up to four distinct ways to interact with their ROG Phone 5, delivering an unrivaled level of game control. The AeroActive Cooler 5 now also features two extra physical buttons to allow a genuine console-like gaming experience.
The ROG Phone 5 series supports an unprecedented total of 10 different motion controls, so gamers can easily pick the moves to fit their game. In a racing game, for example, they can swivel the phone to steer or pull it towards them to brake. Game control has never been so easy.
ROG Phone 5 Pro and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate additionally features innovative hidden rear touch sensors on the back cover, which provide L2/R2 trigger functions, just like a game console controller. These also work together with the ultrasonic sensors, the AeroActive Cooler 5 buttons and the motion controls to provide full control for a total gaming experience.
The GameFX audio system in the ROG Phone 5 series now incorporates symmetrical seven-magnet dual speakers for truly balanced stereo sound effects. Optimized in collaboration with audio specialist Dirac, the projected sound quality will grab the user’s aural senses and take them to a different world. There’s also a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a hi-fi-grade ESS DAC for lossless audio processing. The AudioWizard audio-tuning app has also been completely revamped to optimize sound for different audio styles, including Game, Cinema, and Music settings. GameFX audio on ROG Phone 5 series delivers the crystal-clear in-game sound effects and powerful aural soundscapes that gamers never dared to hope for in a phone.
For the ROG Phone 5 series, ASUS has teamed up with some of the most popular game titles to give owners a series of different theme packs for customizing their device with their favorite characters and screens. Gamers can also share, discuss, and interact via ROG Connect, an online community that’s built into the ROG Phone 5 series.
ASUS held an early morning launch event for the ROG Phone 5 series that you can watch here:
Posted in Commentary with tags Sonos on March 9, 2021 by itnerd
Today Sonos introduced Sonos Roam, the ultra portable smart speaker that allows you to bring the Sonos experience with you everywhere you go. Sonos’ smartest and most versatile speaker yet, Roam offers incredible sound for its size, is effortless to set up and control, and packs new innovation into a premium, lightweight and durable design.
Roam connects to the rest of your system at home on WiFi and automatically switches to Bluetooth when you’re away.
With an all-new feature called Sound Swap, you can switch the music to the nearest speaker on your system at the touch of a button, making it easy to move music from room to room.
Automatic Trueplay, now available on both Bluetooth and WiFi, means Roam is always tuned for the best listening experience in any environment.
Available in shadow black or lunar white, Roam’s tactile triangular shape and soft profile is comfortable to pick up and looks great inside the home.
Roam is dust proof and fully waterproof with a rigorously tested IP67 rating.
With a versatile design, you can place Roam vertically for a smaller footprint or horizontally to provide added stability on uneven surfaces outdoors.
Roam is ready for any adventure with up to 10 hours of continuous playback on a single charge and up to 10 days of battery life when not in use.
Roam is available starting April 20 for $229, and you can pre-order today on sonos.com.
Apple M1 Mac SSD Swap Issues – Should You Be Concerned?
Posted in Commentary with tags Apple on March 12, 2021 by itnerdI’ve gotten a number of emails asking me about SSD swap issues with the new M1 Macs made by Apple and if they as new owners of M1 Macs should be concerned. Thus I decided to write this article explaining the issue, and giving you as much factual information to help you to decide if you should be concerned or not. First some background.
Every computer has two things. RAM which stands for Random Access Memory and storage which in the M1 Mac’s case is an SSD or Solid State Drive. Your programs run in RAM. But when that starts to fill up because you have a lot of apps open, or when macOS decides it’s not optimal to have so much data in RAM, it will do a swap of the data to the SSD to free up RAM. This will move some data from the RAM to the SSD which frees up RAM. And when it’s required, it will swap that data back. Every operating system does this. By that I mean Windows and Linux among others.
Now this is great, but a Twitter user named Longhorn posted this Tweet about his two month old M1 Mac:
Now SSDs have a lifespan that is calculated on the amount of writes that it does. Data recovery company Ontrack estimates this to be 60 to 150 terabytes written. So based on the Tweet above, going through 1% of the drive’s life in two months is insane as it will wear out the SSD faster. And the fact that you cannot replace the SSD once it fails doesn’t help.
Once that Tweet started to go viral, other users of M1 Macs reported the same thing. So clearly there’s an issue here. But if you own an M1 Mac, should you be concerned?
Well, for starters, I would say it’s a issue for all Mac owners as during the process to research this story, the same phenomena is happening to Intel based Mac owners as well:
That implies to me that this is more of an issue with macOS than an issue with the M1 chip. That also got me curious to see what my SSD stats are on my 15″ MacBook Pro from 2015. So I used a paid utility called DriveDx to find out:
So at least my drive isn’t going to die anytime soon. And it implies that I do not have this problem. So what is the issue? I have a few guesses:
The fact is that we don’t know. But given how popular Macs appear to be these days, especially the M1 processor based Macs, I think we need to find out. Now it’s a safe bet that Apple is looking at this. And they might be working on a fix or already have a fix. It would be nice if they said something though as they are giving users the silent treatment as usual.
Now if you are worried about this issue, I have some suggestions:
One thing that I would not do is disable the ability for macOS to swap to disk. Swapping to disk is there for a reason and you will likely take a performance hit if you disable it.
The bottom line is that I don’t think that this is an issue that you need to worry about. At least not with the evidence that exists at present. But if you are worried about this issue, there are some mitigations that you can take. But it would be nice if Apple speaks to this and addresses this in a timely manner. That would make all mac users feel better.
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