I'm sure that swapping isn't a huge deal, but the big issue is around longevity of the SSD. If you have workloads that use more than 16gb of ram, swapping a lot will prematurely wear the SSD, which isn't replaceable.
I think this has been largely debunked by now, early SSDs had these problems but newer ones? not so much..; I mean, here's what smart says about the drive in my Mac atm:
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 12,515,207 [6.40 TB]
Data Units Written: 13,202,995 [6.75 TB]
Host Read Commands: 264,092,805
Host Write Commands: 158,635,815
Controller Busy Time: 0
Power Cycles: 188
Power On Hours: 223
The % used is (I think) the lost capacity due to wear, I've fairly hammered it so far and it's not even at 1%.. I'm pretty sure I'll get at least a few years out of it based on that..
Uhh, that may be what apple is reporting but most SSDs only last for about 100-200TB of write, so I would take that percentage used with a grain of salt. They are probably counting wear leveling percentage used.
On the low end assuming 200TBW that means you have used about 3.3% of the life of your SSD and on the high side you have used 6.75%. Lets say you got your M1 on release in November, that would mean you are using about 1.68%/month on the high end and .84%/month on the low end.
Assume it lasts 200TBW, which I don't think they will, you would be on track for a 8 year lifespan of the SSD. Otherwise 4 years on the low end, assuming the write amount stays the same (which won't likely happen), which would imply you are using the same or less swap.
Every year, I find that I use about 1-2gb more on average, so for me/my usage patterns I almost find the 16gb of memory in the MBPs to be a slap in the face. I have a 13'' and a 16'' MBP with 32/64gb respectively and I don't think I would find anything less acceptable. Right now, my typical memory usage is around 30-40gb when I run docker, vscode, chrome, slack, zoom, etc. I am not even running any VMs(other than the docker vm), I typically will spin those up elsewhere.
For reference, this is my 16'' daily MBP after nearly a year (4.84TB write) and I typically pull down lots of logs/data.
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 99%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 4,406,559 [2.25 TB]
Data Units Written: 9,454,881 [4.84 TB]
Host Read Commands: 183,307,692
Host Write Commands: 406,821,556
> "most SSDs only last for about 100-200TB of write"
My 3.5-year old MacBook Pro has 119 TB of writes, and still claims 79% "available spare":
Available Spare: 79%
Available Spare Threshold: 2%
Percentage Used: 15%
Data Units Read: 256,111,725 [131 TB]
Data Units Written: 232,470,299 [119 TB]
Host Read Commands: 2,872,362,421
Host Write Commands: 1,547,764,735
That said, my 1-month old M1 MacBook Air is already up to 7 TB writes, so seems to be writing at a significantly higher rate. Both are 8GB machines.
From what I have seen the available spare value will decrease rapidly near end of life.
As Flash cells start to fail they are replaced by spare. Because of write leveling this is delayed for a while, but then as each cell reaches its 300 or 3,000 writes, they all start to fail.
If you care about the keyboard longevity, I'd get the macbook air or wait for the new macbook refresh when they bring the air keyboard over to the pro.
The MacBook Air keyboard is exactly the same as the Pro keyboard, except for the Touch Bar. Any problems with the Touch Bar are UX issues: I don't think anyone has questioned its longevity/reliability.
