{"id":143387,"date":"2025-03-19T09:14:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T09:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/apple-2\/michael-tsai-blog-mac-ssd-performance\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T09:14:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T09:14:53","slug":"michael-tsai-blog-mac-ssd-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=143387","title":{"rendered":"Michael Tsai &#8211; Blog &#8211; Mac SSD Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macintouch.com\/post\/46034\/ssd-issues\/\">Ric Ford<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macintouch.com\/post\/46034\/ssd-issues\/\">\n<p>Apple\u2019s exhorbitantly-priced Mac storage comes with impressive benchmark claims but has some serious, hidden bottlenecks in certain scenarios, as do other SSDs.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NrJ36oPmXgM\">David Harry<\/a> illustrated this clearly in a video, using Activity Monitor as a novel window into dramatic SSD slowdowns when moving large amounts of data to an Apple internal SSD from a third-party Thunderbolt 5 SSD.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He actually finds that the external SSD, connected via Thunderbolt 4, is faster at reading than the MacBook Pro\u2019s internal one. Write performance drops once the SLC cache is full.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2025\/03\/17\/why-ssds-slow-down-and-how-to-avoid-it\/\">Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2025\/03\/17\/why-ssds-slow-down-and-how-to-avoid-it\/\">\n<p>In normal use, there are three potential causes of reduced write speed in an otherwise healthy SSD:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>thermal throttling,<\/li>\n<li>SLC write cache depletion,<\/li>\n<li>the need for Trimming and\/or housekeeping.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>To achieve their high storage density, almost all consumer-grade SSDs store multiple bits in each of their memory cells, and most recent products store three in Triple-Level Cell or <em>TLC.<\/em> Writing all three bits to a single cell takes longer than it would to write them to separate cells, so most TLC SSDs compensate by using caches. Almost all feature a smaller static cache of up to 16 GB, used when writing small amounts of data, and a more substantial dynamic cache borrowed from main storage cells by writing single bits to them as if they were SLC (single-level cell) rather than TLC.<\/p>\n<p>[\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>Keep ample free space on the SSD so the whole of its SLC write cache can be used.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dqaDaPjWKoE\">SomeTechGuy<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dqaDaPjWKoE\">\n<p>The price on added memory and SSD capacity on the otherwise excellent Mac Mini is horrible. I wanted to avoid paying the apple tax on that storage, so I am using an external SSD and it means I can get twice the storage for less than half the price. But I wanted to find out what it would mean for performance, and I couldn\u2019t believe what I found.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The Mac mini also has Thunderbolt 4, but he finds it limiting performance. The internal 256 SSD seems to be slow, despite what was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2024\/11\/08\/m4-mac-mini-modular-storage\/\">reported earlier<\/a> about it using multiple chips like the larger versions.<\/p>\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<p class=\"tags\"><a rel=\"tag\" href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/activity-monitor\/\">Activity Monitor<\/a> <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/mac\/\">Mac<\/a> <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/macmini\/\">Mac mini<\/a> <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/macbookpro\/\">MacBook Pro<\/a> <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/macos-15-sequoia\/\">macOS 15 Sequoia<\/a> <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/ssd\/\">Solid-State Drive (SSD)<\/a> <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/storage\/\">Storage<\/a> <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/thunderbolt\/\">Thunderbolt<\/a><\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"respond\"><\/a><br \/>\n3 Comments<br \/>\n <\/h2>\n<hr class=\"com-hr\" \/>\n<hr class=\"com-hr\" \/>\n<hr class=\"com-hr\" \/>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ric Ford: Apple\u2019s exhorbitantly-priced Mac storage comes with impressive benchmark claims but has some serious, hidden bottlenecks in certain scenarios, as do other SSDs. David Harry illustrated this clearly in a video, using Activity Monitor as a novel window into dramatic SSD slowdowns when moving large amounts of data to an Apple internal SSD from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11768],"tags":[3767,11553,1823,5786,16748,17088],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-143387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple-2","tag-blog","tag-mac","tag-michael","tag-performance","tag-ssd","tag-tsai"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Michael Tsai - Blog - Mac SSD Performance - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=143387\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Tsai - Blog - Mac SSD Performance - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ric Ford: Apple\u2019s exhorbitantly-priced Mac storage comes with impressive benchmark claims but has some serious, hidden bottlenecks in certain scenarios, as do other SSDs. David Harry illustrated this clearly in a video, using Activity Monitor as a novel window into dramatic SSD slowdowns when moving large amounts of data to an Apple internal SSD from [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=143387\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-19T09:14:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=143387#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=143387\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371\"},\"headline\":\"Michael Tsai &#8211; 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