Some M1 Mac owners report a worryingly large number of writes to their Macs' SSDs, though in some cases it could be explained by faulty monitoring tools
“If this is accurate, some of these machines aren't going to last half a year” — What you need to know
iMoreStephen Warwick
Context & Ripple Effects
The initial reports left open a crucial distinction: unusually heavy flash writes versus inaccurate health telemetry. Later coverage says Apple addressed the excessive reporting problem in macOS 11.4, giving the episode a clearer diagnostic arc rather than establishing widespread physical SSD failure.
M1 Mac owners using SSD-health utilities face an immediate reliability concern, while Apple must determine whether the readings reflect device wear or faulty measurement.
The uncertainty makes storage-health reporting itself part of the product issue: users cannot act confidently on the reported write totals until the telemetry is validated.
Second-order effects
Apple's later macOS 11.4 fix for excessive wear reporting shifts attention from an apparent hardware-longevity problem to the trustworthiness of system diagnostics.
Reviewers and buyers gain reason to examine SSD behavior alongside processor performance, a focus reinforced by later reports of slower storage performance in some M2 configurations.
Third-order effects
If Apple Silicon Mac storage continues to vary visibly by configuration, SSD performance and health telemetry become more consequential purchase criteria rather than background specifications.
The pattern points to tighter coupling between hardware design and software diagnostics: a misleading metric can create a reliability crisis even when the underlying hardware issue is unresolved or absent.
The trend: Apple Silicon Macs are making storage performance and diagnostic transparency more visible factors in how buyers assess otherwise tightly integrated hardware.
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. https://twitter.com/...
2TB 16GB model. 3% used. That means that for a 256GB model, proportionally, you'd expect ~30% usage. If this is accurate, some of these machines aren't going to last half a year to 100%. And that's a 16GB model. 8GB should be worse. Holy shit. https://twitter.com/...
Update on M1 SSD wear issue: Available data suggests that write endurance ratings are not proportional to drive size. 256GB model: ~2000TB [1700-2300] 2TB model: ~5000TB [4300-6000] This means that @david_rysk's currently known worst case would push a 256GB model to 100% in ~2y
any mac experts know why my SSD just fills up throughout the day, frequently going from 65%ish percent free to 100% over the course of 8 hours? reboot dumps whatever cache is loading up, but it's super annoying. Big Sur 11.2.1, https://mail.app/ is not syncing email.
People with an M1 mac, please run ‘brew install smartmontools && sudo smartctl —all /dev/disk0’ and report back (and what kind of usage you make of the machine, especially RAM). I'm at <600GBW on my MBP, but I don't use it heavily. https://twitter.com/...
This is not good- but easily fixable via software. Apple needs to hurry up with that. I'll investigate on my M1 Macs and report back what I find https://twitter.com/...
We are already throwing away perfectly good computers and phones because over time software upgrades make the devices progressively slow & incompatible. Now we have computers where even the hard drive cannot be replaced and limited lifespan seems built in. #Environment https://tw…
This is still way too fast, but not as bad as we previously thought (<1y). If you have >100TB written on an M1 mac, or a percentage used indicator of 3% or more, please do reply with your stats.
This story about M1 Macs with excessive SSD read/write data does seem to be true. On the left, my 2017 iMac; on the right, my M1 Air from last fall. Somehow, in 3 months, it's registered about 15-20% of what my iMac has in 3.5 years? Not sure what the implications are, but weird.…