Apple M1

The 8GB M1 MacBook Air SSD Problem May Be Overblown

So far, my analysis says I will have bought new long before my SSD disk fails

Less geekery, more fun! Harry gets his wallet picked and Mary has to change her name! We also have puppies — everybody likes puppies!

Screenshot by author

At the first moment possible, I ordered the 8GB M1 MacBook Air with a 512GB SSD drive.

In the past, I would have upgraded the RAM to 16GB or more, but I’m retired now and didn’t think I’d have any need for it. When I had my business, I often needed to run virtual machines, sometimes two at once. Those VM’s suck memory hard, but I do not need them now. I felt 8GB would be fine.

It certainly has been fine in terms of performance. I have sometimes seen the spinning rainbow ball that can be an indication of heavy system memory swapping, but it has almost never lasted long enough to annoy me.

Swap (with puppies)

Swap happens when you switch to a new app (or one you haven’t touched recently) and memory needs to be allocated but is not available. Imagine you have a puppy daycare service. The puppies (your apps) need your constant attention. You are running from puppy to puppy and you are already feeling hot but then somebody…