My MacBook Air M1 is dead(medium.com)
medium.com
My MacBook Air M1 is dead
https://medium.com/codex/my-macbook-air-m1-is-dead-a394e3581e95
188 comments
> is that you have no choice other than to lose data.
Right-to-repair is great and all, but trusting the storage on a laptop is crazy. I've had basically the same thing happen with Dells, etc.
Forget just laptops, though they are more failure prone. Trusting the storage on any single machine for critical work data for any longer than necessary is unprofessional.
Right-to-repair is great and all, but trusting the storage on a laptop is crazy. I've had basically the same thing happen with Dells, etc.
Forget just laptops, though they are more failure prone. Trusting the storage on any single machine for critical work data for any longer than necessary is unprofessional.
It's not about trusting the storage, it's that failures in components not storage end up junking the storage in the repair. In all likelihood this board suffered some other sort of component failure (because if it was the flash, something would still boot and display). That 1TB flash device was perfectly good, and with only an ever so slightly compromised design could have been dropped right into a new board and the user would have left happy with "their laptop" still intact.
But now the poor guy needs to recover a huge partition from partial backups, and that sucks. And it was totally avoidable..
(FWIW: I don't understand your point about not trusting storage on laptops. Modern SSDs are extremely reliable. Sure they can fail, and you should always have a plan for what happens if they do. But in practice you should absolutely trust your laptop storage.)
But now the poor guy needs to recover a huge partition from partial backups, and that sucks. And it was totally avoidable..
(FWIW: I don't understand your point about not trusting storage on laptops. Modern SSDs are extremely reliable. Sure they can fail, and you should always have a plan for what happens if they do. But in practice you should absolutely trust your laptop storage.)
> But in practice you should absolutely trust your laptop storage
As a consumer this is perhaps practical advice.
> Trusting the storage on any single machine for critical work data for any longer than necessary is unprofessional.
But if you were a customer, would you be okay with a business losing your vital data because they wanted everything on a single machine? It doesn't matter if it's a laptop, it may be a server on the cloud.
As a consumer this is perhaps practical advice.
> Trusting the storage on any single machine for critical work data for any longer than necessary is unprofessional.
But if you were a customer, would you be okay with a business losing your vital data because they wanted everything on a single machine? It doesn't matter if it's a laptop, it may be a server on the cloud.
I’m a consumer and a professional. Consumer me cares more about not losing my local data a lot more than professional me does. (Professional me has a lot of other copies even if not perfect backups, I could do a good-enough restore. Consumer me can’t get back a picture of my kids when they were young if I didn’t have backups.)
They start heavily corrupting data if left unpowered for around a year or two though, in case this gives anyone false confidence in a use case they aren't designed for.
No they don't. This myth originated when Alvin Cox (Seagate) gave a JEDEC presentation in 2015 talking about cell corruption when the drive reaches its end of life AND is stored at abnormal temperatures. Simply leaving flash unpowered won't corrupt data, especially consumer drives. This has been debunked by Alvin Cox and all the manufacturers of flash storage.
Do all SSDs do that? Is just powering them up every now and then enough? I mean, it's not refreshing the entire drive, is it?
Its nonsense. For both SSD and HDD.
Although HDD do have a tendency to fail shorty after reuse if they where not used for years. This is due to lubrication decomposing afaik.
Yes, all SSD's suffer this effect.
Just plugging them in often isn't enough to make them notice and refresh all data - the SSD doesn't have a clock in so doesn't know it's been unplugged for a long time.
The real answer is "for every month an SSD is powered down, leave it powered up for a day"
Just plugging them in often isn't enough to make them notice and refresh all data - the SSD doesn't have a clock in so doesn't know it's been unplugged for a long time.
The real answer is "for every month an SSD is powered down, leave it powered up for a day"
>Yes, all SSD's suffer this effect.
Wrong. Stop repeating nonsense.
Wrong. Stop repeating nonsense.
Source for my claim: https://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data...
Your source doesn't support your statement.
The original poster stated, "They start heavily corrupting data if left unpowered for around a year or two though, in case this gives anyone false confidence in a use case they aren't designed for." A person asked if all SSDs do that and you said, "Yes, all SSD's suffer this effect." This statement is wrong.
The AnandTech article even mentions the falsehoods and states it wants to clear up the confusion. A drive must meet certain conditions before data loss begins. Simply putting a backup or thumb drive in a safe for several years isn't going to cause data loss and the AnandTech article comes to this conclusion.
Here is another article from PCWorld with commentary from the authors of the 2015 JEDEC presentation that started this hysteria.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wo...
The original poster stated, "They start heavily corrupting data if left unpowered for around a year or two though, in case this gives anyone false confidence in a use case they aren't designed for." A person asked if all SSDs do that and you said, "Yes, all SSD's suffer this effect." This statement is wrong.
The AnandTech article even mentions the falsehoods and states it wants to clear up the confusion. A drive must meet certain conditions before data loss begins. Simply putting a backup or thumb drive in a safe for several years isn't going to cause data loss and the AnandTech article comes to this conclusion.
Here is another article from PCWorld with commentary from the authors of the 2015 JEDEC presentation that started this hysteria.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wo...
That's 2015, densities have gotten much higher since then. I'll take back heavily corrupting, I've seen it happen but I don't know that it is the norm within 1-2 years.
> and you should always have a plan for what happens if they do.
This is what I meant. Not that you expect your laptop to fail (or be stolen), but any important work should exist in a recoverable way. OP claims to have lost a lot of data when this happened to them. That should approximately never happen, at least not more than the day's worth when you were off network.
This is what I meant. Not that you expect your laptop to fail (or be stolen), but any important work should exist in a recoverable way. OP claims to have lost a lot of data when this happened to them. That should approximately never happen, at least not more than the day's worth when you were off network.
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Really sad to see that almost all comments here immediately turn to "victim blaming" and mention that this is a story about the need for backups, and not the story of hardware manufacturers removing the rights of consumers.
And while the RTR laws would have helped here, let's remember there's only one thing we can do in the meantime to put pressure on these companies: don't buy hostile hardware in the first place.
Nobody's perfect. I use an iPhone and I just bought a watch from them. But I think it's equally true that you should be able to keep two thoughts in your head at once: even when buying Apple hardware because you're more or less forced to (or really want to), keep talking about how this is unacceptable and lobby every lawmaker you can. It's not cool.
And while the RTR laws would have helped here, let's remember there's only one thing we can do in the meantime to put pressure on these companies: don't buy hostile hardware in the first place.
Nobody's perfect. I use an iPhone and I just bought a watch from them. But I think it's equally true that you should be able to keep two thoughts in your head at once: even when buying Apple hardware because you're more or less forced to (or really want to), keep talking about how this is unacceptable and lobby every lawmaker you can. It's not cool.
The moral of the story isn’t we need right-to-repair, it’s back up your data.
We need right-to-repair (the sane version), but that’s really not the issue here.
We need right-to-repair (the sane version), but that’s really not the issue here.
You do have another choice: backup your important data, at least daily!
What's old is new, I suppose.
This is one of the reasons the cloud storage services became so popular. Properly backing up data, with multiple backups, not all piled in the flood prone corner of a closet, is not fun.
This is one of the reasons the cloud storage services became so popular. Properly backing up data, with multiple backups, not all piled in the flood prone corner of a closet, is not fun.
Which can be very difficult, on the road where you have low bandwidth especially.
It's really not hard to carry an external drive. Even tiny thumb drives have massive capacities these days.
Edit: typo
Edit: typo
This isn't specific to the M1. I had my MBP 2016 13" die in the same exact way about two years ago. Same failure mode where it just refused to boot no matter what I did, though it was possible to sort of turn it on if you left it alone for a couple of days. Was able to use that to pull the data off the machine and create a Time Machine backup, but it turns out that Time Machine can lie to you about having completed a backup so I would have lost all of my data were it not for the manual backup I performed.
What was frustrating to me was that I knew my model had a diagnostics port that allowed direct access to the SSD (see https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/24/apple-special-cdm-tool-macboo...) to pull the data off of it, but the service wasn't offered when I went to get my machine repaired. I was forced to accept the data loss from having the logic board replaced.
I later had bluetooth issues on the same laptop, and that required another logic board replacement. Which, surprise, came with data loss once again. Also had a lot of fun learning with that repair that Apple changed the extension backups are stored as, and Time Machine can't recognize the new one as a restore source for some reason unless you rename the folder to use the old one. Wasted quite a few hours on that, and Apple's phone support had no idea about why Time Machine wasn't seeing it.
Anyway, moral of the story is, backup often, and have more than one backup method, unless you like losing your data.
What was frustrating to me was that I knew my model had a diagnostics port that allowed direct access to the SSD (see https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/24/apple-special-cdm-tool-macboo...) to pull the data off of it, but the service wasn't offered when I went to get my machine repaired. I was forced to accept the data loss from having the logic board replaced.
I later had bluetooth issues on the same laptop, and that required another logic board replacement. Which, surprise, came with data loss once again. Also had a lot of fun learning with that repair that Apple changed the extension backups are stored as, and Time Machine can't recognize the new one as a restore source for some reason unless you rename the folder to use the old one. Wasted quite a few hours on that, and Apple's phone support had no idea about why Time Machine wasn't seeing it.
Anyway, moral of the story is, backup often, and have more than one backup method, unless you like losing your data.
> Anyway, moral of the story is, backup often, and have more than one backup method, unless you like losing your data.
And I would recommend that no one use Time Machine for backups. I have several anecdotes of my own where TM backups became silently corrupted or a seemingly good backup refused to restore, and you can find many more examples in the Apple forums. An unreliable backup isn’t a backup at all.
And I would recommend that no one use Time Machine for backups. I have several anecdotes of my own where TM backups became silently corrupted or a seemingly good backup refused to restore, and you can find many more examples in the Apple forums. An unreliable backup isn’t a backup at all.
I have 4x Time Machine backups. Hopefully I'm safe? Surely at least one of those separate independent backups should work?
I’ve come to the conclusion that Time Machine itself is fundamentally broken and wouldn’t trust it with any of my data. If I went back to using a Mac I’d find some other backup application.
On the other hand, all of my experiences were not recent; maybe Time Machine is fine now. Or maybe the corruption is random enough that you’re safe with 4 copies. In any case, I’d check on your backups regularly to make sure they’re still good.
On the other hand, all of my experiences were not recent; maybe Time Machine is fine now. Or maybe the corruption is random enough that you’re safe with 4 copies. In any case, I’d check on your backups regularly to make sure they’re still good.
> Same failure mode where it just refused to boot no matter what I did
Maybe because of no internet?
Maybe because of no internet?
>You have 1 free member-only story left this month. Sign up for Medium and get an extra one
for a love of God stop using Medium
Is there an objectively better (in every way) alternative to Medium?
Not for me (I host me own), but for the next time it comes up. I don’t want to tell people “don’t use Medium” without an alternative to suggest.
Not for me (I host me own), but for the next time it comes up. I don’t want to tell people “don’t use Medium” without an alternative to suggest.
Writing on a piece of paper and throwing it to the wind?
Seriously, though, if you have an inch of computing skills, any of the static site generators combined with a free tier CDN like Netlify. The most popular generators are pretty easy to use.
But perhaps I'm underestimating how hard that actually is.
Seriously, though, if you have an inch of computing skills, any of the static site generators combined with a free tier CDN like Netlify. The most popular generators are pretty easy to use.
But perhaps I'm underestimating how hard that actually is.
I don't think you're underestimating how hard it is, but you are overestimating 99% of web writer's tech skills.
The whole point of medium is anyone can go write without any.
I still hate it, but that's why it continues to exist.
The whole point of medium is anyone can go write without any.
I still hate it, but that's why it continues to exist.
Ghost, or Wordpress, or just write some markdown or html. Honestly it doesn't need to be better in every way to be better.
GitHub pages with Hugo:
https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-github/
https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-github/
Ghost and Wordpress aren't free. Medium is.
Both are free. As for hosting, Wordpress has a free hosting option.
Most other non-paywalled websited are better by definition. It's blocked-from-reading vs. reading an article.
Disable cookies for Medium, I have "2 free member-only stories left" forever this way.
Better yet, disable cookies for every website not explicitly whitelisted.
Is there a way to do this natively on Firefox, Chrome or with ublock.
I use Vivaldi, but on most browsers there is an "Accept Cookies" setting that is tri-state: All, Session Only and Never (third-party cookies is a parallel setting). You can change it to "Never" then set up site-specific exceptions for the sites you do want to allow cookies on, e.g. Hacker News.
Yes, with uMatrix. Its like ublock but much more configurable. In one dimension you have cookies, images, js, xmlhttprequest, frames, etc; in another dimension you have domain, subdomain, TLD of the site URL; and in the third dimension you have domains that your current site is connected to. Each is configurable at different levels.
It is archived though. The developed stopped working on it I believe
It is archived though. The developed stopped working on it I believe
The other way is with the Multi Account Containers, Temporary Containers, and Containerize addons. Make permanent containers for sites where you want to allow cookies to be saved. Let everything else open in temporary containers. Shortly after closing the temporary tab, all cookies (and local storage, etc) for that tab get deleted. Permanent containers keep their data. Containerize lets you add matching rules to URLs without having to visit that URL in a GUI. Handy for redirects.
Medium won't even render on my old iPad. Just crashes the browser tab on load. I seriously don't know how bad your tech must be if you can't reliably deliver a page of text.
I use temp containers on firefox, set it up to automatically open a temp container for medium based articles.
But yeah, fucke medium
But yeah, fucke medium
As soon as I see medium in the URL I pull the CMD W trigger
>3. I wasn’t the ONLY ONE who encountered this.
You should check out the posts in MacRumors and this long thread in Reddit.
This issue is quite well known for those who followed the Apple M1 rollout closely. My suspicious is that
1. It is the same USB / Thunderbolt Charging issue again as with previous Intel Mac. Where basically the USB-C somehow fried the CPU. ( Louis Rossmann has tons of video on it )
2. The CPU / System is simply not designed for these type of usage. Especially with zero cooling. ( Sometimes, I would even leave the machine switched on for overnight rendering ) And it could also be other component that overheat.
Apple needs to sell an official Time Capsule and Make Encrypted Backup to iCloud as option for Offline Backup.
This issue is quite well known for those who followed the Apple M1 rollout closely. My suspicious is that
1. It is the same USB / Thunderbolt Charging issue again as with previous Intel Mac. Where basically the USB-C somehow fried the CPU. ( Louis Rossmann has tons of video on it )
2. The CPU / System is simply not designed for these type of usage. Especially with zero cooling. ( Sometimes, I would even leave the machine switched on for overnight rendering ) And it could also be other component that overheat.
Apple needs to sell an official Time Capsule and Make Encrypted Backup to iCloud as option for Offline Backup.
> The CPU / System is simply not designed for these type of usage. Especially with zero cooling.
While I agree that consumer hardware in general and laptops in particular aren't designed for this usage, internal overheating should never be the cause for catastrophic failure.
A system should be designed to throttle down or shut down before risking permanent damage. Should this be a heat related problem, I'd consider it a design flaw.
Degraded performance is acceptable, permanent damage to non-replaceable internal hardware isn't.
> Apple needs to sell an official Time Capsule and Make Encrypted Backup to iCloud as option for Offline Backup.
Not going to happen. Since they disbanded the router team 3 years ago, there's zero chance of a Time Capsule product coming back anytime soon.
They want customers to use iCloud and I think that's the better option for most users. People like the person in this blog are professionals and should use professional backup solutions (whether offline or online).
While I agree that consumer hardware in general and laptops in particular aren't designed for this usage, internal overheating should never be the cause for catastrophic failure.
A system should be designed to throttle down or shut down before risking permanent damage. Should this be a heat related problem, I'd consider it a design flaw.
Degraded performance is acceptable, permanent damage to non-replaceable internal hardware isn't.
> Apple needs to sell an official Time Capsule and Make Encrypted Backup to iCloud as option for Offline Backup.
Not going to happen. Since they disbanded the router team 3 years ago, there's zero chance of a Time Capsule product coming back anytime soon.
They want customers to use iCloud and I think that's the better option for most users. People like the person in this blog are professionals and should use professional backup solutions (whether offline or online).
> I'd consider it a design flaw.
Agree, except Apple dont think like that anymore.
Agree, except Apple dont think like that anymore.
> The CPU / System is simply not designed for these type of usage.
Maybe they shouldn’t advertise it as such then?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a $2400 machine to be left on overnight without worrying about it being fried in the morning.
Maybe they shouldn’t advertise it as such then?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a $2400 machine to be left on overnight without worrying about it being fried in the morning.
>Maybe they shouldn’t advertise it as such then?
I really dont think they did. It should be MacBook Pro with proper cooling. And personally I dont think overnight rendering, that is 100% CPU usage for 8+ hours should even be done on a laptop with no cooling fans.
The $2400 price tag was because of Apple's ridiculous memory and Storage upgrade cost.
I really dont think they did. It should be MacBook Pro with proper cooling. And personally I dont think overnight rendering, that is 100% CPU usage for 8+ hours should even be done on a laptop with no cooling fans.
The $2400 price tag was because of Apple's ridiculous memory and Storage upgrade cost.
You have to understand the Apple fanboy mindset. If it breaks, it's your fault. Soldered SSD? Do backups you dummy! Over heating? Just use it for email and browsing. Dead pixels? Get better glasses. No ESC key? Buy an external keyboard. Keys not working? Don't push them so hard, they're butterflies!
> this laptop suddenly died when I was using Adobe Photoshop for a project. Yes, dead. It wasn’t taking its time to “shut down”. It just blacked out and showed no signs of life at all. [...] and it just wouldn’t turn on.
I was in a similar situation once. My laptop suddenly died, and it just wouldn't turn on; plugging in the charger would instantly extinguish the charger light, and that light would only come back if I unplugged the charger from the wall and plugged it again to the wall (but not to the laptop). The solution was also similar: the entire motherboard had to be replaced under warranty. The cause was probably a short somewhere on the motherboard's power delivery subsystem.
The main difference: my laptop's storage wasn't soldered onto the motherboard. I lost nothing other than the time it took before the technician came to do the repair.
I was in a similar situation once. My laptop suddenly died, and it just wouldn't turn on; plugging in the charger would instantly extinguish the charger light, and that light would only come back if I unplugged the charger from the wall and plugged it again to the wall (but not to the laptop). The solution was also similar: the entire motherboard had to be replaced under warranty. The cause was probably a short somewhere on the motherboard's power delivery subsystem.
The main difference: my laptop's storage wasn't soldered onto the motherboard. I lost nothing other than the time it took before the technician came to do the repair.
There are so many good and easy backup solutions that I can’t imagine gambling on the SSD itself always being readable.
This is a very long article with only one real lesson learned. BACK UP! Just get a backblaze account or something.
Two lessons: back up your shit, and prefer hardware with replaceable storage like M.2 slots.
> and prefer hardware with replaceable storage like M.2 slots.
I'm not sure how that would have accomplished anything (except a smaller repair bill, but that was footed by the warranty) in this story: either the logic board died and since the storage is encrypted at rest with the key stored in the Secure Enclave, the data is not recoverable; and if the storage is dead, well, the data is gone. Either way the data is as good as gone.
So either way, one lesson. Backup. Twice.
(Also, a brand new laptop has just as much chance of being stolen or suffering water damage or mistaken file erasure or a thousand other things that would destroy the data. Two months without backup is lunacy)
I'm not sure how that would have accomplished anything (except a smaller repair bill, but that was footed by the warranty) in this story: either the logic board died and since the storage is encrypted at rest with the key stored in the Secure Enclave, the data is not recoverable; and if the storage is dead, well, the data is gone. Either way the data is as good as gone.
So either way, one lesson. Backup. Twice.
(Also, a brand new laptop has just as much chance of being stolen or suffering water damage or mistaken file erasure or a thousand other things that would destroy the data. Two months without backup is lunacy)
What's encryption got to do with the "logic board" (whatever that is)?
Encryption is done using a key. You are the owner of the machine, so you have the key. Just use that key to decrypt your files. Simple.
Encryption is done using a key. You are the owner of the machine, so you have the key. Just use that key to decrypt your files. Simple.
The whole premise of the T2/Secure Enclave (or TPMs or whatever name is fancied this day if you want to talk non-Apple lingo) is that the disk encryption key (or other private key kind of secrets) cannot be extracted, not by malware, not by knowing your password, not by electronic microscope, not -ever-.
There's data on my machine that I'd like to be that well protected, but... certainly not all of it.
#justapplethings
There's no reason you wouldn't have access to the encryption key, though. In a sensible system it would be derivable from your password and data on the drive.
So many people are making the encryption point, and that seems nonresponsive to me. I mean, the whole point here is a demand for Apple to change their board design. If we're going to do that, it's not at all unreasonable to demand that they also support some form of key escrow or user-managed key storage. The software part of the puzzle is significantly cheaper to implement, especially given that all they need to do is copy one of the gazillion variants already shipping.
The drive encryption design is a holdover from iOS, and... a Macbook isn't a phone. People do very different thing with them (the linked article is by a video producer!) and need different solutions.
The drive encryption design is a holdover from iOS, and... a Macbook isn't a phone. People do very different thing with them (the linked article is by a video producer!) and need different solutions.
> since the storage is encrypted at rest with the key stored in the Secure Enclave
Bitlocker on W10 allows you to export the long key it to a file or printer. I've used this to swap SSDs from family members laptops with out much friction. This makes for simple upgrades or getting them going quickly after a failure. Perhaps Apple's implementation is different, but it doesn't need to be.
> (Also, a brand new laptop has just as much chance of being stolen or suffering water damage or mistaken file erasure or a thousand other things that would destroy the data. Two months without backup is lunacy)
For laptops used mostly at home, it's surprisingly difficult to kill the SSD inside them. Everyone's risk is different.
Bitlocker on W10 allows you to export the long key it to a file or printer. I've used this to swap SSDs from family members laptops with out much friction. This makes for simple upgrades or getting them going quickly after a failure. Perhaps Apple's implementation is different, but it doesn't need to be.
> (Also, a brand new laptop has just as much chance of being stolen or suffering water damage or mistaken file erasure or a thousand other things that would destroy the data. Two months without backup is lunacy)
For laptops used mostly at home, it's surprisingly difficult to kill the SSD inside them. Everyone's risk is different.
> and prefer hardware with replaceable storage like M.2 slots.
Heed this advice folks. Even the new Surface Laptop SSDs are replaceable.
Heed this advice folks. Even the new Surface Laptop SSDs are replaceable.
Yes very much this. A soldered SSD is absolutely putting a real limit to the lifespan of your pc. Not to mention making it unreasonably expensive to try to recover data in event of system board failure.
Data recovery is impossible [IN THIS SITUATION for those who want to tell a tale about Linux] given full disk encryption. Even if the SSD were removable, and presuming there is no issue with the SSD -- they fail too -- there is nothing he could have gotten from it. This is true on modern Windows devices as well. There are devices that use passphrase encryption, or similes, but they're a usability problem so it isn't what Apple does.
Devices are lost (failed, stolen, burned, destroyed) as a simple fact of life. Anyone who doesn't have an immediate recovery process with negligible loss simply isn't being a professional. His laptop could have easily been nicked from a coffee shop.
It's why most of us simply don't sweat this at all. I will never be in a situation where I'm desperate to recover what's on a device.
Remarkable that the comments are full of people speculating about failures and then, remarkably, getting angry and on a soap box about their speculation. Computing device failed. Amazing story at 11!
Devices are lost (failed, stolen, burned, destroyed) as a simple fact of life. Anyone who doesn't have an immediate recovery process with negligible loss simply isn't being a professional. His laptop could have easily been nicked from a coffee shop.
It's why most of us simply don't sweat this at all. I will never be in a situation where I'm desperate to recover what's on a device.
Remarkable that the comments are full of people speculating about failures and then, remarkably, getting angry and on a soap box about their speculation. Computing device failed. Amazing story at 11!
> I will never be in a situation where I'm desperate to recover what's on a device.
I will never be in a situation where I’m desperate to recover two months worth of data, but even losing a day is pretty inconvenient.
I will never be in a situation where I’m desperate to recover two months worth of data, but even losing a day is pretty inconvenient.
> Data recovery is impossible in most situations given full disk encryption.
Key escrow has been a solved problem for decades, Apple just doesn't implement it (AFAIK, anyway).
And it's not like user-managed keys are that hard anyway. I mean, just install any modern Linux distro with a decent pass phrase and you can securely and safely move that SSD between almost any two laptops on the planet.
OS X does board-locked enclave-managed storage because iOS does board-locked enclave-managed storage, not because it's the right choice for the problem area. It's not a phone; the guy in the linked article lost 800G of video editting work!
Key escrow has been a solved problem for decades, Apple just doesn't implement it (AFAIK, anyway).
And it's not like user-managed keys are that hard anyway. I mean, just install any modern Linux distro with a decent pass phrase and you can securely and safely move that SSD between almost any two laptops on the planet.
OS X does board-locked enclave-managed storage because iOS does board-locked enclave-managed storage, not because it's the right choice for the problem area. It's not a phone; the guy in the linked article lost 800G of video editting work!
Everyone understands the deal with Apple hardware. No one ever thought you could pull out the SSD and stick it in another device. No one is surprised by this reality. No one planned around doing that unless they were profoundly ignorant.
If the T2 failed (it is now integrated right into the M1, so any failure of the mainboard), the data is gone. Everyone should know that by now.
So he went in with his scheme regardless of that. And his work had so little value that if his laptop were stolen, if a single rank of the storage failed, etc, he'd be in the same situation.
He lost data because he was careless in the same foolish way that we read about so often. But people get to beat their ridiculous anti-Apple drums, so here we are.
"OS X does board-locked enclave-managed storage because iOS does board-locked enclave-managed storage"
This is boorish noise. Apple does it because it provides strong storage encryption while imposing no performance or usability problems. You like something better - good for you. I don't. I have zero issues with this reality.
"I lost all my data!" stories are ridiculous nonsense 99% of the time, and this isn't in the 1%.
If the T2 failed (it is now integrated right into the M1, so any failure of the mainboard), the data is gone. Everyone should know that by now.
So he went in with his scheme regardless of that. And his work had so little value that if his laptop were stolen, if a single rank of the storage failed, etc, he'd be in the same situation.
He lost data because he was careless in the same foolish way that we read about so often. But people get to beat their ridiculous anti-Apple drums, so here we are.
"OS X does board-locked enclave-managed storage because iOS does board-locked enclave-managed storage"
This is boorish noise. Apple does it because it provides strong storage encryption while imposing no performance or usability problems. You like something better - good for you. I don't. I have zero issues with this reality.
"I lost all my data!" stories are ridiculous nonsense 99% of the time, and this isn't in the 1%.
> Everyone understands the deal with Apple hardware.
The linked article and this thread argues otherwise. But regardless, even if everyone understands "the deal" that doesn't constitute a reply to an argument that this is a bad deal.
The linked article and this thread argues otherwise. But regardless, even if everyone understands "the deal" that doesn't constitute a reply to an argument that this is a bad deal.
>the guy in the linked article lost 800G of video editting work!
In my experience, video editors are the least backed-up PC users.
Large videos are too much data to back up quickly and easily, the deadlines are always yesterday, they're always pushing the hardware's limits, the data is ephemeral so just not quite important enough to pay extra for redundancy, and they know just enough about computers to get themselves in trouble.
In my experience, video editors are the least backed-up PC users.
Large videos are too much data to back up quickly and easily, the deadlines are always yesterday, they're always pushing the hardware's limits, the data is ephemeral so just not quite important enough to pay extra for redundancy, and they know just enough about computers to get themselves in trouble.
See how BitLocker solved https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/finding-your-bit...
err, linux+dmcrypt puts the key on the encrypted disk which you decrypt with a passphrase to open it.
That disk can be moved around, you just need the passphrase to open it.
We've been doing this for decades now in linux land...
That disk can be moved around, you just need the passphrase to open it.
We've been doing this for decades now in linux land...
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Yep, works great, and saved me from an costly backup restore a couple of times.
> I will never be in a situation where I'm desperate to recover what's on a device.
... again.
I suspect by far the majority of people who know this, learned this the hard way. I know I did.
(And even _after_ learning that, I once left a backpack with my laptop at an outdoor table at a cafe. It also have both the USB drive with my primary backup and the iPod with my secondary backup. I was extremely fortunate that a friendly waitress grabbed it and told management it was mine, and I only spent one sleepless night before collecting it after calling up the next morning... In my defence, this was back before "cloud backup" and high bandwidth internet to make that practical was a thing here. )
... again.
I suspect by far the majority of people who know this, learned this the hard way. I know I did.
(And even _after_ learning that, I once left a backpack with my laptop at an outdoor table at a cafe. It also have both the USB drive with my primary backup and the iPod with my secondary backup. I was extremely fortunate that a friendly waitress grabbed it and told management it was mine, and I only spent one sleepless night before collecting it after calling up the next morning... In my defence, this was back before "cloud backup" and high bandwidth internet to make that practical was a thing here. )
Full disk encryption is still done using a key. The owner of the machine will have that key. So he can decrypt the data with the key. Full disk encryption does not mean data recovery is impossible. Your laptop bring owned by Apple, not you is what makes recovery impossible.
You can still un-solder your disk from the motherboard if the MB is already fucked though, right?
In theory yes, but fatality rates for that kind of operation are very high, and having any chance of success requires an expert practitioner. Staffing every Genius Bar with a solder surgeon isn't really practical. BGA chips are simply not designed to be moved.
But if it's encrypted properly, you still can't access the data, right?
Yes but it's encrypted to the secure enclave on that MB, so you can't recover data off it.
A soldered SSD is absolutely putting a real limit to the lifespan of your pc
I hadn't really thought of this, but it's a concern for personal use. Not so much for data - I do backups - but because I tend to keep my laptops for ages (currently using an 8 year old MBA). Something to think about, certainly.
I hadn't really thought of this, but it's a concern for personal use. Not so much for data - I do backups - but because I tend to keep my laptops for ages (currently using an 8 year old MBA). Something to think about, certainly.
Or use an external Thunderbolt drive for project data.
You still need to back that drive up.
It’s not a question of if it will fail, just when. If you want that data tomorrow, run an automatic, continuous backup solution.
It’s not a question of if it will fail, just when. If you want that data tomorrow, run an automatic, continuous backup solution.
Sure, but my point is that if the machine fails, the drive won't be soldered. Just plug it to another computer and keep working.
MacOS's Time Machine backup stuff is really good. At the very least, just get an external and plug it in.
Given his use case which involves massive video and photo editing, and the reports of excessive writes on the SSD in the M1s is it possible his SSD just reached EOL?
I don’t know what the symptoms of an SSD reaching EOL are, would it just stop responding at all?
I don’t think we still have heard anything from Apple about the massive SSD writes and that for me is the biggest concern before making an M1 based purchase.
I don’t know what the symptoms of an SSD reaching EOL are, would it just stop responding at all?
I don’t think we still have heard anything from Apple about the massive SSD writes and that for me is the biggest concern before making an M1 based purchase.
I’d be incredibly surprised if that was the case, even cheap budget SSDs have 500+ TBW ratings.
I’m amazed this person had 800GB of important data on a laptop and yet zero backups. Especially when a backup service like backblaze is $5 a month and you just set it up in 2 minutes and it runs on its own.
I’m amazed this person had 800GB of important data on a laptop and yet zero backups. Especially when a backup service like backblaze is $5 a month and you just set it up in 2 minutes and it runs on its own.
If there was 800GB of static data, it was almost full, so the wear-leveling process wouldn’t be optimal and it would write over a small part of the flash cells over and over. In that case you could exceed the program-erase lifetime, but not necessarily the TBW. We know the total TBW was high, though, so it was even more excessive.
From what I’ve read, Apple has fixed this problem in a recent Mac OS version. Apparently, it was a swapping bug.
From what I’ve read, Apple has fixed this problem in a recent Mac OS version. Apparently, it was a swapping bug.
Where did you read that it was fixed or acknowledged as a bug? It definitely was not fixed.
This thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ssd-swap-high-usage-of-...
Posters had narrowed down the excessive writes down by limiting memory usage, so they knew it was a swap problem, and some users said the latest OS fixed it. Now that I’ve checked it again, they’re saying it’s better but not fixed.
Posters had narrowed down the excessive writes down by limiting memory usage, so they knew it was a swap problem, and some users said the latest OS fixed it. Now that I’ve checked it again, they’re saying it’s better but not fixed.
I believe that modern SSDs shuffle data around so that wear levelling does still work even with nearly full drives.
Its the difference between static and dynamic wear leveling. Static wear leveling will shuffle around the data in static blocks to even out the program-erase cycles.
I am surprised this person had an encyclopedia and didn't Xerox it, leaving it on someone else's bookshelf.
Contrary to popular belief, not everyone reaches for someone else's computer to look after their important things.
Sad though it is that they learned their lesson the hard way, they can't really be faulted for it.
Contrary to popular belief, not everyone reaches for someone else's computer to look after their important things.
Sad though it is that they learned their lesson the hard way, they can't really be faulted for it.
Nothing keeping you from using time machine with your own NAS or harddrive.
SSDs that reach EOL should go into read only mode; not die.
Maybe it did. But it was the boot drive and soldered to the motherboard. So the OS would need to write to it and there’s no way to get the data off in a third-party manner. That’s kind of the big issue.
Do M1 Macs have user-facing drive health / write-count reports?
Yes, there are some reports, including some posts on HN itself, where people are seeing unusually high TBs of writes - most likely due to swap.
See this: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=m1+writes
See this: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=m1+writes
Did anyone see the linked article at the end which described very large writes to the SSD in short time frames? I think Marcan had joined in on the twitter conversation. Lots of terabytes in just a fee months. Any ideas why this might be?
I saw him mention it at the end of this article, but the way the link was presented caused me to lose any interest in clicking it. Is it a story worth reading?
The style was obnoxious I agree. If you're interested in buying an M1 MacBook — I wouldn't buy without being aware of the need to watch SSD writes. It seems like M1 devices with low memory have scenarios that they will use their SSDs crazy hard.
Over-reliance on swap due to small RAM and fast SSD, I would guess.
Wasn’t that debunked with the tool used to monitor the writes not being updated for M1s so it was showing garbage?
Is it possible that the small amount of RAM on M1 machines leads to virtual memory thrashing the SSD?
Yes. There were many articles lately about heavy writes due to swapping, but in most cases it shouldn't impact the lifespan so much.
> You can technically desolder the SSD from the logic board
Well, you can, but even that wouldn’t get you your data back. It’s all encrypted, tied to the hardware.
There are data recovery tools for MacBooks, but I suppose in this specific case an essential part for that was broken.
The data probably isn’t worth the price of doing it (no warranty, all money gone if it fails), but if it was you could’ve called up a component level repair shop, which can sometimes fix issues at a fraction of what Apple charges and preserve your data by replacing only broken components instead of rushing to replace the whole board.
Well, you can, but even that wouldn’t get you your data back. It’s all encrypted, tied to the hardware.
There are data recovery tools for MacBooks, but I suppose in this specific case an essential part for that was broken.
The data probably isn’t worth the price of doing it (no warranty, all money gone if it fails), but if it was you could’ve called up a component level repair shop, which can sometimes fix issues at a fraction of what Apple charges and preserve your data by replacing only broken components instead of rushing to replace the whole board.
> It’s all encrypted, tied to the hardware.
And that's a terrible idea to begin with. Yes, encryption is a good thing. But it's only good as long as it's not tied to a particular piece of hardware against user's will. You should be able to remove an SSD from a dead laptop and plug it into a working one, and, after entering the correct password, be able to access it. Apple seems to view this exact scenario as an attack for some reason.
And that's a terrible idea to begin with. Yes, encryption is a good thing. But it's only good as long as it's not tied to a particular piece of hardware against user's will. You should be able to remove an SSD from a dead laptop and plug it into a working one, and, after entering the correct password, be able to access it. Apple seems to view this exact scenario as an attack for some reason.
An active component like the T2 can ensure the keys are erased after N failed attempts. A passive encryption key cannot. There are indeed also disadvantages to this.
Similarly on PC, TPM lockout for decrypt PIN after some tries, then BitLocker requires user to input very long generated passphrase (virtually unbreakable, same as Apple's internal key). They can also export encryption key. Of course exported key must be stored to secure place.
But then you are encouraged to circumvent this by making backups.
How technically feasible would it be for Apple to design emergency drive access into the hardware? Even though the flash is soldered on, you could still picture some kind of connector that allows a special device to operate that part of the board independently of the other stuff on the board.
The special device could even be another laptop of the same model that supplies power. Disassemble both, connect a cable, and essentially "move" the drive to a different computer even though it's physically still unmoved.
The special device could even be another laptop of the same model that supplies power. Disassemble both, connect a cable, and essentially "move" the drive to a different computer even though it's physically still unmoved.
They used to have this. It was the Life boat connector. You would connect a magic black box to another mac and the connector to the logic boards life boat connector and you were able to migrate the customer data from the dead board. HOWEVER since they started encrypting the userdata at a hardware level they removed that port (because unless you went via the T2 chip the data you extracted from the drive would just be random data).
EDIT: Could they in theory add a port to machines going forward that as long as the T2 chip (or what ever they use today, i think they incorperated it into the M1 chip itself) was still functional (as it holds the keys). Sure, why not? But they would have create a way to unlock the T2 (or what ever chip) but apple could create a way either by having a master key or devise keys based on serial numbers, etc etc etc. The Mac they use to recover data via the life boat connector could phone home to Apple and with the right auth be granted an auth to unlock the chip and allow data retrival.
If I were to give apple the benefit of doubt, they might not want to as they don't want a way to be compelled to decrypt customers data on their hardware (Be it a 3 letter agency or a rouge employee).
EDIT: Could they in theory add a port to machines going forward that as long as the T2 chip (or what ever they use today, i think they incorperated it into the M1 chip itself) was still functional (as it holds the keys). Sure, why not? But they would have create a way to unlock the T2 (or what ever chip) but apple could create a way either by having a master key or devise keys based on serial numbers, etc etc etc. The Mac they use to recover data via the life boat connector could phone home to Apple and with the right auth be granted an auth to unlock the chip and allow data retrival.
If I were to give apple the benefit of doubt, they might not want to as they don't want a way to be compelled to decrypt customers data on their hardware (Be it a 3 letter agency or a rouge employee).
What about a port for unlocking the storage via T2 with the user’s password as normal, just bypassing everything else on the mobo so that data would still be recoverable if the dead component was something other than the T2 or storage?
My understanding is that the T2 chip and storage works like how the iPhone does. Everything on flash is encrypted but you have system data and user data. The keys to system data are unlocked during the boot process (the T2 also replaces the SMC so it also handles the POST). User data is encrypted with different keys (which are probably locked with the users password). This way the machine can boot without a password (like how on a iPhone you don’t enter your passcode until the phone has finished booting).
If you were to replicate that hand shake between the OS and chip, sure apple could have created a “lifeboat connector” on T2 based macs. However the “isolated island” of the PCB communicates with would get more complex (you don’t want to be back powering the whole board from the connector, if there was a simple short on the board somewhere which was preventing the machine from powering on, then with no isolation you could be also “powering that short” from the lifeboat connector and be unable to recover data without more work.
On M1 MacBooks things have been stepped up a notch. The Application processor and the security processor that handles the encryption are now the same chip, so you would have to power a “whole lot more”. To top it off the flash chip which is to your SSD and the RAM chip are on the same package as the M1 unit as one big System On Chip.
Think of it like this, it’s like if a Intel I7 processor also had the ram and SSD on that chip you brought when you built your machine.
Now it’s a lot more harder to create a lifeboat connector. Not impossible but harder.
Now as Apple will have a lot of data on their own repair program they can look into how often they were able to / could be bothered to recover data off their older models and how much it pissed the customer off and probably decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.
If I were giving them the benefit of the doubt. They think their customers data will be more secure without it.
But it’s another reason why right to repair is important. As we have seen with phones, people are willing to write off the phone and pay decent cash to recover the pictures of their kids they had on their phones. With schematics, 3rd parties could much easier create tools and fixes to get the SOC in a workable state just long enough to recover data (Apple R&D prob even have have test boards where they can swap the SOC, If the SOC, Ram, Flash are all ok and not had LCD backlight voltage sent down the data lines... And recover the data. But their "repair techs" have to now learn how to remove the SOC package from the main board).
If the chip that contains the keys itself is dead, even with all documentation and access to parts you wanted, you are SOL as these chips are typically designed to create the keys on chip and never let them out.
If you were to replicate that hand shake between the OS and chip, sure apple could have created a “lifeboat connector” on T2 based macs. However the “isolated island” of the PCB communicates with would get more complex (you don’t want to be back powering the whole board from the connector, if there was a simple short on the board somewhere which was preventing the machine from powering on, then with no isolation you could be also “powering that short” from the lifeboat connector and be unable to recover data without more work.
On M1 MacBooks things have been stepped up a notch. The Application processor and the security processor that handles the encryption are now the same chip, so you would have to power a “whole lot more”. To top it off the flash chip which is to your SSD and the RAM chip are on the same package as the M1 unit as one big System On Chip.
Think of it like this, it’s like if a Intel I7 processor also had the ram and SSD on that chip you brought when you built your machine.
Now it’s a lot more harder to create a lifeboat connector. Not impossible but harder.
Now as Apple will have a lot of data on their own repair program they can look into how often they were able to / could be bothered to recover data off their older models and how much it pissed the customer off and probably decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.
If I were giving them the benefit of the doubt. They think their customers data will be more secure without it.
But it’s another reason why right to repair is important. As we have seen with phones, people are willing to write off the phone and pay decent cash to recover the pictures of their kids they had on their phones. With schematics, 3rd parties could much easier create tools and fixes to get the SOC in a workable state just long enough to recover data (Apple R&D prob even have have test boards where they can swap the SOC, If the SOC, Ram, Flash are all ok and not had LCD backlight voltage sent down the data lines... And recover the data. But their "repair techs" have to now learn how to remove the SOC package from the main board).
If the chip that contains the keys itself is dead, even with all documentation and access to parts you wanted, you are SOL as these chips are typically designed to create the keys on chip and never let them out.
I don’t have anything else to contribute, but thank you for the detailed reply!
Apple purposely removed it a couple generations ago. If you're m1 machine dies you can't recover your data (Apple might be able to but probably won't). If the SSD dies, your laptop is a brick and can't even boot from external media.
Given everything is encrypted at rest and requires the M1 and with Secure Enclave to decrypt… probably pretty hard. If you can't boot, you also probably can't decrypt the drive.
I had, and still have, a 2014 MacBook pro. I bought it used in 2015/16 but still paid near a grand so I babied it. Pushed it as a dev machine but took good physical care of it.
Eventually same or similar issue where it just wouldn't boot. I took it to Apple and they said they had to send it off somewhere else but they suspected gpu failure, they noticed some screen tearing and said they could do that for me no problem and warrantied it.
Got a call later that my MacBook had passed the gpu tests and they had to do more to figure out what was up. Another call and they said my MacBook had water damage and they wouldn't touch it. I called bs because they wouldn't have warrantied the screen if it had water damage, and also I babied the hell out of the thing. The person I was talking to said she was going to get to the bottom of it and would call back.
They replaced every component in the damn laptop, but only after it broke and they tried to take no fault. I'm never going to stop complaining about this experience but at least I still have this laptop for now
Eventually same or similar issue where it just wouldn't boot. I took it to Apple and they said they had to send it off somewhere else but they suspected gpu failure, they noticed some screen tearing and said they could do that for me no problem and warrantied it.
Got a call later that my MacBook had passed the gpu tests and they had to do more to figure out what was up. Another call and they said my MacBook had water damage and they wouldn't touch it. I called bs because they wouldn't have warrantied the screen if it had water damage, and also I babied the hell out of the thing. The person I was talking to said she was going to get to the bottom of it and would call back.
They replaced every component in the damn laptop, but only after it broke and they tried to take no fault. I'm never going to stop complaining about this experience but at least I still have this laptop for now
I am having a similarly bad experience with a Late 2013 MBP after Apple screwed up a battery replacement and the charging port started overheating. I took it to various Apple stores multiple times (they wouldn't do the repair by mail). First time, they didn't even test the charging system; battery cycle count was the same when I picked it up. Second time, they gave the laptop back to me with the bottom cover screws installed in the wrong places. Third time, they tried to tell me it was a preexisting issue or maybe due to a third-party SSD. The people involved are very friendly but none of them seem to have any idea how a computer works, and they seem to care more about managing my expectations and making me disinfect the LCD with an alcohol wipe than they do about repairing a computer they damaged.
I've seen so many comments online from people saying that Apple claimed there was water damage when they were sure that there wasn't. I bet there's something wrong with their water ingress detectors.
The idea of soldering the main storage still seems insane to me. Also it's not like a standard M.2 connector is profile connection either.
Spending $2399 on a maxed out but entry-level laptop, to use as an intense workstation, seems a bad idea.
There's a reason the Mac Mini has a fan.
There's a reason the Mac Mini has a fan.
Author didn't complain about performance issues, so I assume thermal throttling didn't kick in for their workload, or it wasn't noticeable.
Always have a back up! Always be backing up!
The follow up article is interesting — after replacing the motherboard, the new Mac was writing tens of gigabytes of data a day, which is obviously not good for the SSD. Other users reported the same issue.
That’s, like, really bad, right?
That’s, like, really bad, right?
If you're using a USB hub/dock (the author says he isn't), you should upgrade to macOS 11.2.2 because:
> macOS Big Sur 11.2.2 prevents MacBook Pro (2019 or later) and MacBook Air (2020 or later) models from incurring damage when they are connected to certain third-party, non-compliant powered USB-C hubs and docks.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211896#macos1122
> macOS Big Sur 11.2.2 prevents MacBook Pro (2019 or later) and MacBook Air (2020 or later) models from incurring damage when they are connected to certain third-party, non-compliant powered USB-C hubs and docks.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211896#macos1122
What does it mean the SSD is soldered to the motherboard? If I was to loose 2 months of work I would rip the disks off with my teeth. What is the real issue here?
The data is encrypted with the key stored in the T2 chip (if it's still called that) so you couldn't even just solder it to another board.
Shouldn't Apple be able to recover the data if T2 is intact? It's possible that it's not worth to them, but I'd think it's doable.
It's of course technically doable - the laptop itself is a device that talks to the drive via T2. But it's not something Apple wants to do. This was an issue for years already before M1 was introduced.
You have to backup more regularly than every two months...
And Apple replaces the entire motherboard if a component on it fails. The agreement that you may lose data has been around awhile and it's just boilerplate. When mucking around on a board they aren't going to guarantee anything - and I don't know if third party repair shops would do that either. There is always the chance someone screws up and breaks something.
And Apple replaces the entire motherboard if a component on it fails. The agreement that you may lose data has been around awhile and it's just boilerplate. When mucking around on a board they aren't going to guarantee anything - and I don't know if third party repair shops would do that either. There is always the chance someone screws up and breaks something.
Replacing the motherboard shouldn't mean losing your data. But it does if you own an Apple.
200GB cache, working on internal 1TB SSD, huge video files and the OS all on 1TB SSD ( which might be questionable quality endurance wise ). This is just asking for disaster. I suspect that the SSD had just reached the limit on total bytes written and went belly up.
Not having backup is a cherry on top. People just literally asking for disaster to happen. Curious why Medium even bother with publishing articles like this.
Not having backup is a cherry on top. People just literally asking for disaster to happen. Curious why Medium even bother with publishing articles like this.
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The lesson here is Always backup your data on a continuous basis! Computers break in unrecoverable ways all the time. While there is a low chance of your computer doing that, it happens. Macs come with Time Machine just for this reason, use it.
The article mentions https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx to regularly check the SSD and aware of potential problems. Has anybody experience with this app?
>Okay, I may have exaggerated a little
I really feel motivated to digest a blog post where even the writer admits that the title is click bait.
I really feel motivated to digest a blog post where even the writer admits that the title is click bait.
Was 'Target Disk Mode' (i.e. using another mac to mount the broken macbook) attempted to recover data?
That would require the computer to be bootable, so it wouldn't allow you to get around a fried motherboard sadly.
"It just blacked out and showed no signs of life at all"
good point, thanks.
good point, thanks.
Regardless of the hardware, it just tells one lesson : everything can fail, do have a full backup strategy.
Certainly. The lesson I took from this was that the risk of data loss is much higher on the MacBooks these days because the it's not simply the chance of the SSD failing that could cause data loss but also a failure of any of the motherboard components as well. It's something I hadn't considered and something definitely worth keeping in mind.
This is why it never pays to be an early adopter.
I am very satisfied in my decision to wait a few generations on this.
I am very satisfied in my decision to wait a few generations on this.
Well we did warn them enough times to avoid first-gen Apple products and 'going all in' on the risk and now they are the ones crying on the bench having lost their work because 'it died' for no reason.
It never hurts to wait for Apple to fix these issues. By then the software for Apple Silicon will be optimised on a faster chip. (M2 and higher)
It never hurts to wait for Apple to fix these issues. By then the software for Apple Silicon will be optimised on a faster chip. (M2 and higher)
That money will buy you two Zenbooks, both of which are faster and easier to repair.
Just saying.
Beautiful plumage, isn't it?
devices fail. it’s not something you can avoid in the aggregate. backup your data!
I don't care what kind of computer you have.
Back up your shit.
Back up your shit.
For anyone reading this..... macOS has Time Machine.... you just plug in an external usb disk as big as you can afford, tell time machine to use it, and it backs up your stuff in the background. There’s no excuse for losing data cause your primary disk crashes.
time machine uses snapshots, which might take your disk space away if you do not know it.
just for anybody wondering why they do not have any disk space left of their 1tb drive, besides only using like 400g
The disk space used for snapshots is automatically re-claimed by the OS when it's needed by the user. The trade off is near-instant backup images.
And while MacOS sometimes has issues expediently clearing space the was previously used for snapshots, tools like DaisyDisk and others can force its hand if you need.
Bottom line, you don't lose available disk space by using Time Machine.
And while MacOS sometimes has issues expediently clearing space the was previously used for snapshots, tools like DaisyDisk and others can force its hand if you need.
Bottom line, you don't lose available disk space by using Time Machine.
That’s the theory, and it works like that on my MBP. But for some reason on my old iMac, snapshots used to just accumulate and every so often things start crashing because there was no space left, causing all sorts of issues. Sometimes the OS couldn’t boot because of that, it really was a pain.
And yes, you can nuke snapshots preemptively, but often the first visible sign was Mail having corruption issues because it’s database was borked, at which point it was too late.
And yes, you can nuke snapshots preemptively, but often the first visible sign was Mail having corruption issues because it’s database was borked, at which point it was too late.
Even better, use Time Machine to a NAS! You can have redundant drives, in case one dies!
Migrating Time Machine backups from a USB drive to a network share is not supported, but it's doable, not impossible. (This is something I've done before, and in fact I'm doing this for family right now.)
Migrating Time Machine backups from a USB drive to a network share is not supported, but it's doable, not impossible. (This is something I've done before, and in fact I'm doing this for family right now.)
I've had nothing but trouble with time machine..
Time Machine can't run on my Mac because there's not enough space on disk for it to run. Third party backup services that can function with the comically small default SSDs are preferable.
> Time Machine can't run on my Mac because there's not enough space on disk for it to run.
If your Mac HD is that low on space, you're going to be getting horrible performance. You should sort that out and try to keep around 10% free.
If your Mac HD is that low on space, you're going to be getting horrible performance. You should sort that out and try to keep around 10% free.
And Time Machine deletes data if it runs out of disk space.
Do NOT trust Time Machine. Back up your data.
And restore it once in a while.
"Backups not issue. Backups very boring. Restore is issue. Restore very exciting."
Do NOT trust Time Machine. Back up your data.
And restore it once in a while.
"Backups not issue. Backups very boring. Restore is issue. Restore very exciting."
No backup scheme can keep storing data once the disks are full… TimeMachine is fine to restore a computer to its state a day or a week ago (say, before an OS update or to transfer data to a new device), and to get some documents up to a couple of months back if the backup drive has the recommended size. It’s not a professional tool designed to restore a whole computer to the state in which it was 2 years ago.
But yes, you need to check that it can restore every now and then.
But yes, you need to check that it can restore every now and then.
There is a difference between "quit storing data" and "delete old data" when full.
Time Machine deletes old data. That is not a good backup plan.
Time Machine deletes old data. That is not a good backup plan.
It’s not the same use case. When your computer kicks the bucket and you need to transfer your data to a new one you don’t care about documents from 5 years ago. If your backup does not have your state from yesterday you’re screwed.
Time Machine is not a long term backup, it’s a safety net.
Time Machine is not a long term backup, it’s a safety net.
Just buy the 16GB one like I did, my SSD usage is roughly 50GB a day.
It's a bit discouraging that the most valuable company in the world makes shiny garbage toys that are a nightmare to use in a professional capacity.
Even more discouraging is that the whole SV-influenced tech hivemind appears to have adopted them as their professional tools of choice.
When Chia mining really ramps up, it will kill off SSDs faster than a T-rex in a petting zoo.
I think the horror stories are going to just explode.
If Apple has any weakness here (and this might be the butterfly keyboard all over again), then their products are going to get absolutely trashed in the media.[0]
[0] - I use apple products pretty much everywhere, so I'm not looking forward to this, just presuming it will highlight any SSD weakness they might actually have.
I think the horror stories are going to just explode.
If Apple has any weakness here (and this might be the butterfly keyboard all over again), then their products are going to get absolutely trashed in the media.[0]
[0] - I use apple products pretty much everywhere, so I'm not looking forward to this, just presuming it will highlight any SSD weakness they might actually have.
> When Chia mining really ramps up, it will kill off SSDs faster than a T-rex in a petting zoo.
It's possible, but the "farmer" would have to be very serious about Chia and also not have read any FAQs, not watched any videos, not visited any forums, etc. A healthy fear of plotting on one's boot drive is the first thing drilled into Chia-heads' heads.
It's possible, but the "farmer" would have to be very serious about Chia and also not have read any FAQs, not watched any videos, not visited any forums, etc. A healthy fear of plotting on one's boot drive is the first thing drilled into Chia-heads' heads.
This is an old story, and it's pretty clear that SSD EOL is the actual problem.
That's a problem, for everyone using SSD, and for Apple, for not managing write, monitoring it, warning about it, ec., but this not a problem unique to the M1.
The author should add an update to this effect.
That's a problem, for everyone using SSD, and for Apple, for not managing write, monitoring it, warning about it, ec., but this not a problem unique to the M1.
The author should add an update to this effect.
All these comments explaining that you can't have an SSD that's not permanently locked to the secure enclave on the Logic Board™ because of "security".
Which means that a customer really needs a backup... Which by definition can't be locked to the motherboard. SMH.
Apple™ apologists come up with any justification, no matter how implausible, for Apple™'s user-hostile self-serving design choices.
I guess it's just a happy coincidence that then they can charge customers for using their Cloud as a backup, because they've removed any autonomy that the customer might have had otherwise.
One button saying, "set your own recovery password", and one 20c connector, and then any customer or lowly genius bar™ Logic Board™ replacement drone could easily transplant the drive into another PC when the self destructing crap Apple™-designed Logic board™ with tiny inadequate heatsink or secure enclave™ linked touchbar or dust-powered exploding keyboard switch or whatever other obvious self destruct mechanism they've designed in inevitably kicks the bucket.
The cherry on the shit sundae is that they would still get to sell another mac to the lucky 𝚟̶𝚒̶𝚌̶𝚝̶𝚒̶𝚖̶ customer, so there is no advantage to them in preventing this.
Apple™ just doing asshole things because Apple™.
It's like the story of the scorpion and the frog [1]. "I couldn't help it. It's in my nature."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog#Syno...
Which means that a customer really needs a backup... Which by definition can't be locked to the motherboard. SMH.
Apple™ apologists come up with any justification, no matter how implausible, for Apple™'s user-hostile self-serving design choices.
I guess it's just a happy coincidence that then they can charge customers for using their Cloud as a backup, because they've removed any autonomy that the customer might have had otherwise.
One button saying, "set your own recovery password", and one 20c connector, and then any customer or lowly genius bar™ Logic Board™ replacement drone could easily transplant the drive into another PC when the self destructing crap Apple™-designed Logic board™ with tiny inadequate heatsink or secure enclave™ linked touchbar or dust-powered exploding keyboard switch or whatever other obvious self destruct mechanism they've designed in inevitably kicks the bucket.
The cherry on the shit sundae is that they would still get to sell another mac to the lucky 𝚟̶𝚒̶𝚌̶𝚝̶𝚒̶𝚖̶ customer, so there is no advantage to them in preventing this.
Apple™ just doing asshole things because Apple™.
It's like the story of the scorpion and the frog [1]. "I couldn't help it. It's in my nature."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog#Syno...
And there you have it. What have I been telling the M1 hype squad over the past few months over first-gen products from Apple? [1] [2] [3] [4]
Not even Apple support knows the cause of this issue. You are better off skipping it altogether and waiting for the M2 or higher. Losing a $1000 laptop due to heavy work is already one unacceptable thing, but replacing the whole unit and losing your work in order to 'fix it' is another unacceptable 'solution'.
Always have a backup handy. I doubt the regular folk buying this machine would be bothered to do this anyway so the risk of this event runs higher for them. Especially when the SSD is baked into the motherboard.
I rest my magnificent case.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247531
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247333
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26879674
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26887380
Not even Apple support knows the cause of this issue. You are better off skipping it altogether and waiting for the M2 or higher. Losing a $1000 laptop due to heavy work is already one unacceptable thing, but replacing the whole unit and losing your work in order to 'fix it' is another unacceptable 'solution'.
Always have a backup handy. I doubt the regular folk buying this machine would be bothered to do this anyway so the risk of this event runs higher for them. Especially when the SSD is baked into the motherboard.
I rest my magnificent case.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247531
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247333
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26879674
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26887380
> And there you have it. What have I been telling the M1 hype squad...
> I rest my magnificent case
Perhaps people didn’t care about what you had to say because you come off as insufferable.
> I rest my magnificent case
Perhaps people didn’t care about what you had to say because you come off as insufferable.
Or maybe that they now realise that they know I am insufferably right (and hate me for it) and are now coming to terms to what they have just purchased.
Well I guess we'll have to see if the fanatics and the hype squad have learned their lesson into jumping into immature first-gen Apple products.
Well I guess we'll have to see if the fanatics and the hype squad have learned their lesson into jumping into immature first-gen Apple products.
It wouldn't surprise me if some of the "hype squad" (as you put it) were part of the marketing campaign at product launch. Rave reviews about a new product that are based on benchmarks alone rarely make sense to me.
The issue with having only first-party repair is that you have no choice other than to lose data.