Do I need a Macbook?

[_RedstonePvP_]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking to buy a new laptop, my current one the Ideapad Flex 5 with the Ryzen 7 4700U and 16GB of ram just isn't cutting it. The battery life sucks. the keyboard is ok, I can only output to one monitor and I just generally want something better. I do some programing, front and backend web dev, though I want to get into app development at some point and maybe even machine learning. I also do some 3D design stuff with Fusion 360 and light video editing with Davinci Resolve. I am looking at the base model Macbook Pro 14 especially since its $250 off rn, but the price is still just really hard for me to swallow. Also never used a Mac before so worried about switches OS from windows. Any tips or other suggestions?

 

Thanks so Much for any feedback!

[Senzelian]

14 minutes ago, _RedstonePvP_ said:

I can only output to one monitor

Aren't M1 and M2 macbooks still limited to that, too?

 

14 minutes ago, _RedstonePvP_ said:

Also never used a Mac before so worried about switches OS from windows.

Yeah that'll kill you.

I have both, because I need a Mac for work and while I can sorta work with it, I really don't want to, because I'm used to Windows.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention that instead of my Macbook (16" i9, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD) I actually prefer to use my aging Lenovo T580 (i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) simply because I like to use Windows. It's must slower, but that's still not reason enough to get me to change over to a Macbook.

[Blackjack1336]

i wouldn’t get an MacBook at this moment. It doesn’t matter how good it performs right now. Some day your warranty is gone and the Mac will get slower and slower until something breaks and that’s it. Don’t get me wrong a lot of windows laptops have the same issue but I would get a Windows Pc wich is upgradable/ repairable. There are a lot of short circuits about current gen laptops. 

[Bombastinator]

MacBooks seem to have advantages for college students and arts folk for different reasons.  If you’re not one of those though go with what you are used to.  There is a difference between behavior of MacOS and windows.  MacOS is massively simpler, but if you’ve already gone through the trouble to learn the PC stuff the worst part is already over.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Bombastinator

[fuzz0r]

1 hour ago, _RedstonePvP_ said:

Hi Everyone,

I am looking to buy a new laptop, my current one the Ideapad Flex 5 with the Ryzen 7 4700U and 16GB of ram just isn't cutting it. The battery life sucks. the keyboard is ok, I can only output to one monitor and I just generally want something better. I do some programing, front and backend web dev, though I want to get into app development at some point and maybe even machine learning. I also do some 3D design stuff with Fusion 360 and light video editing with Davinci Resolve. I am looking at the base model Macbook Pro 14 especially since its $250 off rn, but the price is still just really hard for me to swallow. Also never used a Mac before so worried about switches OS from windows. Any tips or other suggestions?

 

Thanks so Much for any feedback!

I can only really give my experiences then.

I use a Macbook Pro M1 for work - it's great, honestly. I love the Apple ecosystem, and don't really care what people think, the things work terriffic together.

Battery life is the best I've tried, and I test this thing. Keyboard is so-so, I'd definitely say my Lenovo ThinkPad has a better typing experience overall.

I haven't tried outputting to more than 1 monitor, you'd need to do some googling to figure out if that's possible, maybe a dock and/or hub?

As long as you make sure that the programs you're going to be using are compatible, you'll have a fine experience on a Mac - in my opinion.

[manikyath]

what level of "battery lfie doesnt suck" do you need?

 

there's plenty of laptops that have a dedicated GPU if you need the power, and can go really energy efficient if you want 6+ hours of office work.

 

nothing comes close to the M1/M2 macs, but they also have one massive problem: if your application doesnt play well with the M1 chip, you're basicly at netbook performance.

 

since autodesk is quite vocal about hardware support if you know where to look... there's a pretty good guesstimation on how support is:

it's not ideal on apple silicon right now. 

 

so yeah.. if you *need* dat 20 hour battery life - macbook.

if you *need* dat application support, tune your power settings on a windows device to get an acceptable balance.

 

as for the monitor situation.. try an HP usb-c dock G5. they work with pretty much any laptop out there, and the performance is flawless for office work, youtube videos, and the like. (havent tried gaming on it, but i have my suspicion that's gonna flake out the USB connectivity).

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-usb-c-dock-g5

 

 

[Imbadatnames]

1 hour ago, Blackjack1336 said:

i wouldn’t get an MacBook at this moment. It doesn’t matter how good it performs right now. Some day your warranty is gone and the Mac will get slower and slower until something breaks and that’s it. Don’t get me wrong a lot of windows laptops have the same issue but I would get a Windows Pc wich is upgradable/ repairable. There are a lot of short circuits about current gen laptops. 

You can’t just take your PC with your everywhere though. 
 

All systems get slower eventually. Someday I’ll have to replace my Titan, for the sake longevity I’ll likely have to pay more than the cost of a MBP and that’s without including having to upgrade the rest of the entire system on top if that. 
 

You can also get MacBooks repaired. 

[Imbadatnames]

1 hour ago, _RedstonePvP_ said:

Hi Everyone,

I am looking to buy a new laptop, my current one the Ideapad Flex 5 with the Ryzen 7 4700U and 16GB of ram just isn't cutting it. The battery life sucks. the keyboard is ok, I can only output to one monitor and I just generally want something better. I do some programing, front and backend web dev, though I want to get into app development at some point and maybe even machine learning. I also do some 3D design stuff with Fusion 360 and light video editing with Davinci Resolve. I am looking at the base model Macbook Pro 14 especially since its $250 off rn, but the price is still just really hard for me to swallow. Also never used a Mac before so worried about switches OS from windows. Any tips or other suggestions?

 

Thanks so Much for any feedback!

If the software works with M1 then sure it’s great. Personally prefer MacOS to windows and if you have an iPhone that’s a good positive too. 
 

make sure fusion works well on the mac

[Bombastinator]

34 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

You can’t just take your PC with your everywhere though. 
 

All systems get slower eventually. Someday I’ll have to replace my Titan, for the sake longevity I’ll likely have to pay more than the cost of a MBP and that’s without including having to upgrade the rest of the entire system on top if that. 
 

You can also get MacBooks repaired. 

This is a laptop not a desktop.  Pc laptops are often less repairable than Mac laptops because the models change so frequently often replacement parts were never even arranged for, let alone be available.  It’s a bit random by manufacturer and model, but it does seem to be a major trend.  With apple you have to go through the Mac store for repairs, but repairs can still be done.  That often isn’t even an option with PCs.  There are some exceptions.  Apple M stuff has serious issues with memory and SSD longevity and replacement, and with screen panels they can be found for PCs by a manufacturer other than the vendor.  Downside though is it’s often the ONLY way to do it. So to some degree it’s a matter of which part breaks. The most common one is keyboards though and it’s not uncommon that if your PC laptop keyboard dies your only hope is parted out salvage.  If there is any.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

what level of "battery lfie doesnt suck" do you need?

 

there's plenty of laptops that have a dedicated GPU if you need the power, and can go really energy efficient if you want 6+ hours of office work.

 

nothing comes close to the M1/M2 macs, but they also have one massive problem: if your application doesnt play well with the M1 chip, you're basicly at netbook performance.

 

since autodesk is quite vocal about hardware support if you know where to look... there's a pretty good guesstimation on how support is:

it's not ideal on apple silicon right now. 

 

so yeah.. if you *need* dat 20 hour battery life - macbook.

if you *need* dat application support, tune your power settings on a windows device to get an acceptable balance.

 

as for the monitor situation.. try an HP usb-c dock G5. they work with pretty much any laptop out there, and the performance is flawless for office work, youtube videos, and the like. (havent tried gaming on it, but i have my suspicion that's gonna flake out the USB connectivity).

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-usb-c-dock-g5

 

 

Netbook seems a bit strong, but I do not debate your basic point.  Apple actually had the tech to avoid this one but apparently chose not to use it which I find totally perplexing.

[rikitikitavi]

8 hours ago, _RedstonePvP_ said:

The battery life sucks. the keyboard is ok, I can only output to one monitor and I just generally want something better.

Monitors:

M1 Pro: 2x 6k @60hz

M1 Max: 3x 6k + 1x 4k @60hz

 

MacBook Pros (the real ones: 14", 16") are great overall machines. I highly suggest topping up your RAM if you know you need it (although macOS usually behaves a bit better with RAM than Windows afaik).

Switching OS shouldn't be a big problem - macOS is way more streamlined than Windows, and unless you work is Windows-centric you’ll be fine. Terminal and package managers like brew might become your besties.

 

8 hours ago, Senzelian said:

Aren't M1 and M2 macbooks still limited to that, too?

Yes, but those are only on the 13” models. Also there is a 3rd party software solution (I believe special docks too), that make multiple externals possible on M1 and M2.

 

8 hours ago, Blackjack1336 said:

Some day your warranty is gone and the Mac will get slower and slower until something breaks and that’s it.

PCs don’t just become slower out of nowhere and ‘out of warranty’ =/= broken computer.

 

If your workload suddenly change to something that requires way more horses -> you pc didn't get slower, your requirement changed.

Whatever software got bloated with feature updates -> that is a possibility, but I can not remember any real example except OS itself.

 

macOS got heavier over the years, but not to the point of killing a performance level machine - even my 2012 MacBook Air w/ 4GB is still kicking, mostly as a home server, and getting some security updates years after becoming unsupported. I'm not saying that it was/is fast, but a base model older Intel can not be compared with the cheapest M1 of today. You do not make the same (if any) compromises as you had to years ago when choosing to get the cheapest machine.

 

Heck, my 2009 low tier MacBook Pro 13" is rocking Ubuntu just because the latest officially supported macOS is simply too old.

 

The only problem I've encountered through the years was burnt Radeon on my 2011 MacBook Pro 15", that I used for 7 years, with the logic board changed (due to Radeon) on its 4th year being OUT of warranty and without any coverage for FREE. Btw, got it destroyed due to overheating while playing (too much lol) Battlefiend 3 on Windows via BootCamp.

 

So, MacBooks are very reliable machines in my experience. There are a lot of overblown issues in the media - do not believe everything.

 

8 hours ago, Blackjack1336 said:

Don’t get me wrong a lot of windows laptops have the same issue but I would get a Windows Pc wich is upgradable/ repairable.

MacBooks are repairable, but more involved, and might get pricey. Upgradability is a different story, you have to think ahead.

 

7 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

MacBooks seem to have advantages for college students and arts folk for different reasons.  If you’re not one of those though go with what you are used to.

... you forgot to add professional software development as another reason to chose one.

 

6 hours ago, manikyath said:

if your application doesnt play well with the M1 chip, you're basicly at netbook performance.

Where did you get such info? Afaik most non-native AS apps I checked on had no problems with Rosetta - on the opposite. Unfortunately for Fusion 360, it's not great when working on big projects afaik, but I doubt it is anywhere near 'netbook'...

 

Edit:

6 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Apple M stuff has serious issues with memory and SSD longevity and replacement

What do you mean? Are you talking about SSD being abused too much due to little RAM and going into swap?

[Imbadatnames]

6 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

This is a laptop not a desktop.  Pc laptops are often less repairable than Mac laptops because the models change so frequently often replacement parts were never even arranged for, let alone be available.  It’s a bit random by manufacturer and model, but it does seem to be a major trend.  With apple you have to go through the Mac store for repairs, but repairs can still be done.  That often isn’t even an option with PCs.  There are some exceptions.  Apple M stuff has serious issues with memory and SSD longevity and replacement, and with screen panels they can be found for PCs by a manufacturer other than the vendor.  Downside though is it’s often the ONLY way to do it. So to some degree it’s a matter of which part breaks. The most common one is keyboards though and it’s not uncommon that if your PC laptop keyboard dies your only hope is parted out salvage.  If there is any.

SSD longevity is fine. They only die when you’ve rewritten them a bunch and that’s into the tens or hundreds of terabytes. You’re not reaching that unless you try.

 

The butterfly switches are in the past, even with that I’ve never had a MacBook keyboard break on me. The amount of 2012 MBPs that are still kicking is a testament to that too.

 

Applecare also now has no expiration date if you pay monthly if repairs and longevity are a concern.

[Bombastinator]

13 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

SSD longevity is fine. They only die when you’ve rewritten them a bunch and that’s into the tens or hundreds of terabytes. You’re not reaching that unless you try.

 

The butterfly switches are in the past, even with that I’ve never had a MacBook keyboard break on me. The amount of 2012 MBPs that are still kicking is a testament to that too.

 

Applecare also now has no expiration date if you pay monthly if repairs and longevity are a concern.

 

13 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

SSD longevity is fine. They only die when you’ve rewritten them a bunch and that’s into the tens or hundreds of terabytes. You’re not reaching that unless you try.

 

The butterfly switches are in the past, even with that I’ve never had a MacBook keyboard break on me. The amount of 2012 MBPs that are still kicking is a testament to that too.

 

Applecare also now has no expiration date if you pay monthly if repairs and longevity are a concern.

The life is fine but you have to buy a special apple one with a t2 on it, and they’re twice the price, IF they’re not soldered to the motherboard.  That’s a major error imho.  Effectively shortens the life of the motherboard to the life of the SSD.  There’s a reason memory and hard drives are easily replacable and not permanently attached to motherboards.  They’re wear parts. Memory just sometimes dies because of uncontrollable circumstance so it’s not wear per se, but the effect is the same.  PSU, memory, and storage NEED to be removable.  Apple screwed that one up in a few laptop models. 

[rikitikitavi]

19 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 

The life is fine but you have to buy a special apple one with a t2 on it, and they’re twice the price, IF they’re not soldered to the motherboard.  That’s a major error imho.  Effectively shortens the life of the motherboard to the life of the SSD.  There’s a reason memory and hard drives are easily replacable and not permanently attached to motherboards.  They’re wear parts. Memory just sometimes dies because of uncontrollable circumstance so it’s not wear per se, but the effect is the same.  PSU, memory, and storage NEED to be removable.  Apple screwed that one up in a few laptop models. 

True, anything can break. However, again here's my anecdotal experience (post above), where all my MacBooks with soldered SSD and RAM are still kicking. My main one has been abused for 5y now.

The oldest SSD I have (SATA3) is actually taken from a 2011 MBP and currently resides in PS4.

[Imbadatnames]

15 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 

The life is fine but you have to buy a special apple one with a t2 on it, and they’re twice the price, IF they’re not soldered to the motherboard.  That’s a major error imho.  Effectively shortens the life of the motherboard to the life of the SSD.  There’s a reason memory and hard drives are easily replacable and not permanently attached to motherboards.  They’re wear parts. Memory just sometimes dies because of uncontrollable circumstance so it’s not wear per se, but the effect is the same.  PSU, memory, and storage NEED to be removable.  Apple screwed that one up in a few laptop models. 

The SSD should outlast the motherboard. They don’t die from physical wear or just time and they can’t be killed by magnets. 
 

They really don’t. They don’t have real PSU’s for a start they run off battery (which can be replaced) and the parts you’ve listed aren’t high wear components, aside from malfunction the will last longer than the device is a viable option.

[Bombastinator]

16 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

The SSD should outlast the motherboard. They don’t die from physical wear or just time and they can’t be killed by magnets. 
 

They really don’t. They don’t have real PSU’s for a start they run off battery (which can be replaced) and the parts you’ve listed aren’t high wear components, aside from malfunction the will last longer than the device is a viable option.

Um.. maybe..?  It depends on how often the drive is written to.  Drives have a certain amount of possible writes after which they are no longer useful.  Back when SSDs came out and they had a smaller numbers of writes, data centers would sometimes use up drives in 3 months.  So data centers now use a lot more HDDs. There’s actually a thing called wear leveling on them.  No if there are enough writes and they get written to rarely enough an SSD could do that.  It’s one reason SSDs are liked as boot drives.  Because the OS (at least used to) not get written to a lot (it’s JUST writes.  Reads are free.  If an SSD doesn’t get written to it doesn’t wear out.  Writes happen though) so the drives had potentially very long lives.  It is possible to make something though that would write to a drive a hundred times a second.  There just aren’t any SSDs that can handle stuff like that effectively indefinitely. That sort of “leaking toilet” app could destroy a drive much faster than normal.  A leaking toilet can run hundreds of dollars a month in water bills all by itself btw.  They’re best avoided.  This sort of behavior wouldn’t bother a HDD much because they wear by revolutions.  All you’d get is more noise and more wear on the arm.  Also people tend to keep their macs a whole lot longer than PCs. Something apple at least used to absolutely hate.  It’s a thing they really really need to get over.  Their stuff costs more but lasts longer so amortized cost can actually be lower.  They just won’t sell them as often. If the write number is in the millions or billions I could see it.  I am not convinced though.  It is notable that neither is apple, because while some of the early m1 laptops had this, a lot of their later products don’t.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Bombastinator]

On 7/22/2022 at 11:49 PM, rikitikitavi said:

Monitors:

M1 Pro: 2x 6k @60hz

M1 Max: 3x 6k + 1x 4k @60hz

 

MacBook Pros (the real ones: 14", 16") are great overall machines. I highly suggest topping up your RAM if you know you need it (although macOS usually behaves a bit better with RAM than Windows afaik).

Switching OS shouldn't be a big problem - macOS is way more streamlined than Windows, and unless you work is Windows-centric you’ll be fine. Terminal and package managers like brew might become your besties.

 

Yes, but those are only on the 13” models. Also there is a 3rd party software solution (I believe special docks too), that make multiple externals possible on M1 and M2.

 

PCs don’t just become slower out of nowhere and ‘out of warranty’ =/= broken computer.

 

If your workload suddenly change to something that requires way more horses -> you pc didn't get slower, your requirement changed.

Whatever software got bloated with feature updates -> that is a possibility, but I can not remember any real example except OS itself.

 

macOS got heavier over the years, but not to the point of killing a performance level machine - even my 2012 MacBook Air w/ 4GB is still kicking, mostly as a home server, and getting some security updates years after becoming unsupported. I'm not saying that it was/is fast, but a base model older Intel can not be compared with the cheapest M1 of today. You do not make the same (if any) compromises as you had to years ago when choosing to get the cheapest machine.

 

Heck, my 2009 low tier MacBook Pro 13" is rocking Ubuntu just because the latest officially supported macOS is simply too old.

 

The only problem I've encountered through the years was burnt Radeon on my 2011 MacBook Pro 15", that I used for 7 years, with the logic board changed (due to Radeon) on its 4th year being OUT of warranty and without any coverage for FREE. Btw, got it destroyed due to overheating while playing (too much lol) Battlefiend 3 on Windows via BootCamp.

 

So, MacBooks are very reliable machines in my experience. There are a lot of overblown issues in the media - do not believe everything.

 

MacBooks are repairable, but more involved, and might get pricey. Upgradability is a different story, you have to think ahead.

 

... you forgot to add professional software development as another reason to chose one.

 

Where did you get such info? Afaik most non-native AS apps I checked on had no problems with Rosetta - on the opposite. Unfortunately for Fusion 360, it's not great when working on big projects afaik, but I doubt it is anywhere near 'netbook'...

 

Edit:

What do you mean? Are you talking about SSD being abused too much due to little RAM and going into swap?

No, I’m talking about some models having SSD chips soldered to the motherboard instead of being removable.  SSDs are a wear part. The life of SSDs has been getting better over time, but SSDs wear according to how often they are written to, and sure, for some people they write rarely enough that something else will break first, but that’s not everyone or every app.  This makes it possible to make a malware app that could destroy a whole machine over time, not just a removable drive.   With a BGA chip, This means the motherboard, which in an apple laptop is effectively the entire machine,  by definition  can only last as long as the thing still has writes left in the SSD.  I’m not a fan of soldered on memory either, but it’s not nearly as bad as an SSD.  Whether RAM fails is more or less luck.  Cosmic rays are not controllable, but ram gets put on daughtercards anyway. SSDs wear with normal use. 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Imbadatnames]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Um.. maybe..?  It depends on how often the drive is written to.  Drives have a certain amount of possible writes after which they are no longer useful.  Back when SSDs came out and they had a smaller numbers of writes, data centers would sometimes use up drives in 3 months.  So data centers now use a lot more HDDs. There’s actually a thing called wear leveling on them.  No if there are enough writes and they get written to rarely enough an SSD could do that.  It’s one reason SSDs are liked as boot drives.  Because the OS (at least used to) not get written to a lot (it’s JUST writes.  Reads are free.  If an SSD doesn’t get written to it doesn’t wear out.  Writes happen though) so the drives had potentially very long lives.  It is possible to make something though that would write to a drive a hundred times a second.  There just aren’t any SSDs that can handle stuff like that effectively indefinitely. That sort of “leaking toilet” app could destroy a drive much faster than normal.  A leaking toilet can run hundreds of dollars a month in water bills all by itself btw.  They’re best avoided.  This sort of behavior wouldn’t bother a HDD much because they wear by revolutions.  All you’d get is more noise and more wear on the arm.  Also people tend to keep their macs a whole lot longer than PCs. Something apple at least used to absolutely hate.  It’s a thing they really really need to get over.  Their stuff costs more but lasts longer so amortized cost can actually be lower.  They just won’t sell them as often. If the write number is in the millions or billions I could see it.  I am not convinced though.  It is notable that neither is apple, because while some of the early m1 laptops had this, a lot of their later products don’t.

To write enough to an SSD to reach its rates TBW you have to constantly write and rewrite it over a span of years. For a cheap MX500 250GB drive the endurance is rated for 100TBW. You would have to rewrite the entire drive 400 times to break it and that’s towards the bottom end SSDs. 
 

Data centres use HDDs for several reasons, one of them is they are constantly rewriting the drive but they’re also cheaper, have a predictable lifespan, don’t need fast load times, have longer warranties and they use RAID for redundancy so if a drive dies they can just hit swap one in. 
 

 

[Bombastinator]

I ran into a YouTube video of a guy who knew nothing about MacOS but was a lifelong PC user switched as an experiment.  He was apparently fairly positively surprised though there were some annoyances.  I copied a link but it seems to have disappeared.  It will be searchable I assume.  There are probably several.  The basic difference I’ve found is there isn’t as much software, but the software there is is generally better made.  If the software you run has a code native Mac version, you should be fine.  If it doesn’t you may need to find work-alike stuff.

 

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

To write enough to an SSD to reach its rates TBW you have to constantly write and rewrite it over a span of years. For a cheap MX500 250GB drive the endurance is rated for 100TBW. You would have to rewrite the entire drive 400 times to break it and that’s towards the bottom end SSDs. 
 

Data centres use HDDs for several reasons, one of them is they are constantly rewriting the drive but they’re also cheaper, have a predictable lifespan, don’t need fast load times, have longer warranties and they use RAID for redundancy so if a drive dies they can just hit swap one in. 
 

 

What’s the actual write limit though? That “entire drive” thing confuses matters.  Most writes are small bit affairs.  Changing the numbers on a clock for instance.  Every one of those is a write.  If they couldn’t swap out where a given thing was written SSDs would be unusable by almost everyone. This is where wear leveling comes in.  With wear leveling it becomes feasible.  Yes.  Years could well be required.  Single digit years though.  Remember how macs get used for longer than other machines? 8years is common. If you buy a machine that you expect to use for 8 years and it needs a motherboard replacement after 3 it’s kind of a crap deal.

[Imbadatnames]

58 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

What’s the actual write limit though? That “entire drive” thing confuses matters.  Most writes are small bit affairs.  Changing the numbers on a clock for instance.  Every one of those is a write.  If they couldn’t swap out where a given thing was written SSDs would be unusable by almost everyone. This is where wear leveling comes in.  With wear leveling it becomes feasible.  Yes.  Years could well be required.  Single digit years though.  

Remember how macs get used for longer than other machines? 8years is common. If you buy a machine that you expect to use for 8 years and it needs a motherboard replacement after 3 it’s kind of a crap deal.

It’s longer than single digit years. On a 256GB model you’re going to have to write around 100TB at the very least to kill the drive. I don’t think you realise just how much data that is. 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Imbadatnames said:

It’s longer than single digit years. On a 256GB model you’re going to have to write around 100TB at the very least to kill the drive. I don’t think you realise just how much data that is. 

Oh it can be.  It depends on use case though.  Computers are general use devices and they get used for all kinds of things

[Imbadatnames]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Oh it can be.  It depends on use case though.  Computers are general use devices and they get used for all kinds of things

You would have to be trying to kill the SSD at that point. General usage wouldn’t do that within single digit years. You’d have to write 30GB a day every day for a year to kill it in 9 years. 27 a day in 10 years. And that’s the smallest SSD, the 512GB model has a longer lifespan. 

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

You would have to be trying to kill the SSD at that point. General usage wouldn’t do that within single digit years. You’d have to write 30GB a day every day for a year to kill it in 9 years. 27 a day in 10 years. And that’s the smallest SSD, the 512GB model has a longer lifespan. 

Assumes accidents don’t happen.  A malware person won’t care whether he’s killing your SSD or not.  An app dev might not either.  It isn’t any easier to kill a non-removable SSD than a removable one.  What changes is how much work and cost is involved in replacing it.  I understand apple mostly stopped doing it anyway.  It was considered the worst flaw in the apple first gen m1 thin-and-lights.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Imbadatnames]

6 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Assumes accidents don’t happen.  A malware person won’t care whether he’s killing your SSD or not.  An app dev might not either.  It isn’t any easier to kill a non-removable SSD than a removable one.  What changes is how much work and cost is involved in replacing it.

You’re looking for excuses now. Malware likely won’t be after rewriting your SSD into oblivion and you should check the software you’re installing is safe. There is nothing wrong with the SSD in the MacBook and they will in all likelihood outlast the M1 or M2 chip that the system runs on. It’s the same with Intel laptops and AMD laptops. The limiting factor of the products life is the chip. And at least with apple if the SSD does die you can get it replaced through applecare