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MacBookAir M1 $849


Fleer

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2 hours ago, Fleer said:

Quite remarkable indeed as Kontakt isn’t Silicon native but using Rosetta 2. 

Rosetta is completely transparent and anything running under it feels the same as native.  Equally snappy.  And some software actually runs better under Rosetta than on windows or intel Mac. .  Like Ableton.  On my windows laptop (2016 dell Inspiron) and on my previous 2018 15inch MacBook Pro (with 16gb ram), Ableton would take a really long time to load.  Under Rosetta with the m1,  it opens  up right away.    I am looking forward to more software being m1 native, though.   That should translate into even better performance.  However, Rosetta works so well,  it seems many developers are dragging their feet a bit on porting to M1.  Some may never do it.  
 

 

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46 minutes ago, Hugh Mann said:

Like Ableton.  On my windows laptop (2016 dell Inspiron) and on my previous 2018 15inch MacBook Pro (with 16gb ram), Ableton would take a really long time to load.  Under Rosetta with the m1,  it opens  up right away.    I am looking forward to more software being m1 native, though.   That should translate into even better performance.  However, Rosetta works so well,  it seems many developers are dragging their feet a bit on porting to M1.  Some may never do it.  
 

 

Loading times are completely irrelevant to whether it is an M1 or Intel or AMD. It is an indication of the speed of the SSD. SSD speeds have come a long way since 2016 and even since 2018.

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44 minutes ago, Doug Rintoul said:

Loading times are completely irrelevant to whether it is an M1 or Intel or AMD. It is an indication of the speed of the SSD. SSD speeds have come a long way since 2016 and even since 2018.

The difference in loading times is so much, that I don't think its due to the speed difference  of the ssds.  Maybe to some extent.  According to the article below,  it seems the reason that some x86 programs run better under Rosetta is more due to the efficiency of the M1 chip vs Intel, than Rosetta itself.  So my prior comment attributing the performance to Rosetta is incorrect .  A more accurate statement would be that  Ableton on an M1  runs better  than on intel (and maybe AMD.  I haven't tested that).  In either case,  it is quite remarkable that music production software written for x86 can be emulated on an M1 under rosetta and perform so well.  Here is a quote from the article and link to it.  

"Some software can run faster on Rosetta 2 than on your old Intel-based Mac or PC. 

However, this is more because of how well Apple Silicon is built than any special trick Rosetta 2 uses".  

https://dev.to/thatguysam/common-questions-about-apple-silicon-does-it-arm-2lge

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1 hour ago, Fleer said:

I won’t run anything under Rosetta on my M1 as it uses memory swaps more often. 

Are you concerned for the longevity of the ssd?  How much more swaps does Rosetta 2 use?  Enough to be a significant difference?  Ive seen various articles and videos that conclude the constant writing to the ssd won't really be an issue.  Of course,  nobody has had an m1 for more than 7-8 months.  So we really won't know for sure for some time.  But based on longevity tests of similar ssds as what apple uses,  some have concluded that it could be 10 years or more before the ssd fails.  Im personally not worried about that.  I'll probably be on on another laptop long before the ssd fais on my current one.  

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18 minutes ago, Jim Roseberry said:

Modern SSDs often have 1.5 million hours MTBF (or better).

It's the number of writes that people are worried about... as those are finite. 

Yes,  the writes is the concern.  Based on your expertise,  how long would you estimate an ssd on an Apple M1 could last? Do you consider the constant writing to be an issue to be worried about? 

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18 minutes ago, Hugh Mann said:

how long would you estimate an ssd on an Apple M1 could last? Do you consider the constant writing to be an issue to be worried about? 

Using the Samsung 980 as an example (popular/good NMVe SSDs):

250GB version is warranted for 150-TBW (terabytes written) or 5 years (whichever comes first).

 

I've seen reports where M1 Macs were writing ~0.682TB of data per day to the onboard SSD. 

If the onboard SSD has the same specs as the Samsung 980, it could potentially fail after ~220 days.

 

You should have a backup of your boot drive (no matter what you're running).

With that backup in hand, I'd not get overly obsessed about it.

It's a tool.  Tools are meant to be used.

Of course, it's a whole lot easier to replace the boot drive in a PC (vs the M1 MBP, MBA, and Mini).

 

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22 minutes ago, Paul Young said:

They can also prematurely fail. 

I'm aware of that...  😁

If you deal with enough quantity, you see a percentage of defective parts... across all computer components.

Lately, and I think this is somewhat related to manufacturing during the pandemic, I've seen a higher percentage of defective Intel CPUs.

The rate is still extremely low... but it's more common today than several years back.

 

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52 minutes ago, Jim Roseberry said:

 

If the onboard SSD has the same specs as the Samsung 980, it could potentially fail after ~220 days.

 

 

 

Potentially fail in 7 months?!  Well, let hope you are wrong on that one.  I'm hoping for at least 5 years.  I know Apple has been accused of planned obsolescence, but I would have to have faith that Apple realizes that ssds failing after 7 or so months would be catastrophic for them. I guess only time will tell,  but 7 or so months seems extremely  unlikely.   M1 Macs have been out around 7-8 months, so we would start seeing reports already.  At least Macs make it ez to back up and restore with their Time Machine program.  

Reminds me of the  old Henny Youngman joke.  Doctor gave a man 6 months to live.  The man couldn't pay his bill, so he gave another  him another 6 months.  

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38 minutes ago, Hugh Mann said:

Potentially fail in 7 months?!  Well, let hope you are wrong on that one.  I'm hoping for at least 5 years.  I know Apple has been accused of planned obsolescence, but I would have to have faith that Apple realizes that ssds failing after 7 or so months would be catastrophic for them. I guess only time will tell,  but 7 or so months seems extremely  unlikely.   M1 Macs have been out around 7-8 months, so we would start seeing reports already.  At least Macs make it ez to back up and restore with their Time Machine program.  

Reminds me of the  old Henny Youngman joke.  Doctor gave a man 6 months to live.  The man couldn't pay his bill, so he gave another  him another 6 months.  

I suspect the actual size of the SSD is larger than is available to the OS.  Most SSD manufacturers recommend you leave 10% or so of the SSD unformatted so it can re-allocate blocks from there if any blocks from the main partitions fail.   

So even if blocks do start failing after 7 or 8 months, there's probably enough spare good blocks to keep it going until around the time Apple decides your Mac is too old to run their latest OSX offering.

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15 hours ago, msmcleod said:

I suspect the actual size of the SSD is larger than is available to the OS.  Most SSD manufacturers recommend you leave 10% or so of the SSD unformatted so it can re-allocate blocks from there if any blocks from the main partitions fail.   

So even if blocks do start failing after 7 or 8 months, there's probably enough spare good blocks to keep it going until around the time Apple decides your Mac is too old to run their latest OSX offering.

Interesting theory.  You may be right about that.  There is 494gb available out of the advertised 512gb.  Will there be a future ssd-gate?  We’ll see in time I guess.    

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13 hours ago, fret_man said:

Are there SSD monitors to warn when sectors start failing or end-of-life is eminent?

Macs have a utility called S.M.A.R.T., bUt it’s not that detailed.  There are other apps, though not from Apple.  

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2 hours ago, Hugh Mann said:

Interesting theory.  You may be right about that.  There is 494gb available out of the advertised 512gb.  Will there be a future ssd-gate?  We’ll see in time I guess.    

Many SSDs do overprovision, i.e. provide more storage than advertised. That discrepancy you point out there isn't to do with overprovisioning though; that's just the overhead used for the file system, e.g. file tables (and no, I am not suggesting in any way that it is using FAT).

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2 hours ago, Hugh Mann said:

Macs have a utility called S.M.A.R.T., bUt it’s not that detailed.  There are other apps, though not from Apple.  

S.M.A.R.T. is something that's built into the disks themselves. I suspect the app you mentioned reads and displays that data.

For Windows users, try CrystalDiskInfo

https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

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22 hours ago, Jim Roseberry said:

I'm aware of that...  😁

If you deal with enough quantity, you see a percentage of defective parts... across all computer components.

Lately, and I think this is somewhat related to manufacturing during the pandemic, I've seen a higher percentage of defective Intel CPUs.

The rate is still extremely low... but it's more common today than several years back.

 

My first SSD drive fail was Intel.   At least with Intel they send you a replacement and you send the defective item back. 

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