M1 Mac Users Reporting Extremely Poor Solid State Drive Health Readings

As spotted by iMore, several M1 Mac owners have shared extremely troublesome health readings from their solid state drives (SSDs) on LTT forums, suggesting that the life spans of these hard drives could be in real danger.

Users report that the new M1 Macs are experiencing extremely high drive writes over a relatively short time. “The most severe cases have “consumed” about 10-13% of the maximum warrantable TBW value of the SSDs,” notes one user. The issue of ‘TBW’, or total bytes written, refers to the lifespan of an SSD.

If the readings being given out from these machines are correct, developer Hector Martin believes that some machines “aren’t going to last half a year.”

The developer, however, states this is “definitely” a bug, although it remains unclear if that relates to the readings being given, or macOS behaviour which is causing the readings to be abnormally high.

Apple has not yet acknowledged or issued any comments regarding the matter.

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