How to monitor disk writes

[ced89]

Hi,

I have a MacBook Air M1.
Online I found a few methods only by installing smartctl or similar tools using brew.

Is there any official tool instead of messing around with brew?
Is there any third party tool that I can download from the App Store?

Thanks.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

So you want to do SMART monitoring? There are quite a few apps that do this. There's one in particular that's free and suitable for the MBA, and that's SSDReporter. It's also a Universal binary. It doesn't give much information about your SSD though, other than "it's fine!" But I would suggest trying this first to see if it gives you what you want.

DriveDx is one that's held in high regard, and is what I use on my iMac since I have an internal SSD and an external HDD. It provides a lot more granular data about your drive's health. It's not free, but worth it IMO. My only concern at the moment is that they have yet to release a Universal binary. It still works on the M1 platform, but we are well over a year into this and the fact that they have yet to catch up worries me just a little about their future. However, it does work perfectly fine for now and the driver to monitor external drive at least is explicitly M1 compatible.

The monitoring tool that I currently use on my M1 MBA is a component of Disk Drill, a piece of data recovery software. This is a fantastic piece of software for recovering data and if it's something you were planning to look into for that reason, then the SMART monitoring is a nice bonus.

 

[ced89]

So you want to do SMART monitoring? There are quite a few apps that do this. There's one in particular that's free and suitable for the MBA, and that's SSDReporter. It's also a Universal binary. It doesn't give much information about your SSD though, other than "it's fine!" But I would suggest trying this first to see if it gives you what you want.

DriveDx is one that's held in high regard, and is what I use on my iMac since I have an internal SSD and an external HDD. It provides a lot more granular data about your drive's health. It's not free, but worth it IMO. My only concern at the moment is that they have yet to release a Universal binary. It still works on the M1 platform, but we are well over a year into this and the fact that they have yet to catch up worries me just a little about their future. However, it does work perfectly fine for now and the driver to monitor external drive at least is explicitly M1 compatible.

The monitoring tool that I currently use on my M1 MBA is a component of Disk Drill, a piece of data recovery software. This is a fantastic piece of software for recovering data and if it's something you were planning to look into for that reason, then the SMART monitoring is a nice bonus.

Thanks a lot, but these 2 tools are not in the store... My goal is do not install anything outside the store, unless strictly necessary.

DriveDx seems good, does it give you the amout of data written into the disk?
That bug has ben fixed by Apple, but it scares me a bit, so I'd like to keep an eye to it . I hope that these info are stored in the disk itself, otherwise the software should start recording these data from the day 1, and save them somewhere on the cloud as backup...

I see a free version for disk monitoring in Disk Drill.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Thanks a lot, but these 2 tools are not in the store... My goal is do not install anything outside the store, unless strictly necessary.

DriveDx seems good, does it give you the amout of data written into the disk?
That bug has ben fixed by Apple, but it scares me a bit, so I'd like to keep an eye to it . I hope that these info are stored in the disk itself, otherwise the software should start recording these data from the day 1, and save them somewhere on the cloud as backup...

I see a free version for disk monitoring in Disk Drill.

Uuugh. So a piece of advice... avoid the App Store for most utilities. Apple has so many restrictions that many apps, especially of this class, just can't do their job. The App Store is also riddled with garbage. It's fine for some things, but most of us just avoid it as much as possible. You can still easily install apps that are signed with a developer certificate. Anything that isn't signed "can" still be installed, but you have to go through an extra step to do so and would be ill advised unless you are highly confident of the developer's trustworthiness.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Oh, to answer your question as to if DriveDx gives you the amount of data written... yes. There is a parameter called "Data Units Written", which is what I assume you are looking for. Also, "Host Write Commands". Here's a screen cap of "most" of my readout.

 

[ced89]

Uuugh. So a piece of advice... avoid the App Store for most utilities. Apple has so many restrictions that many apps, especially of this class, just can't do their job. The App Store is also riddled with garbage. It's fine for some things, but most of us just avoid it as much as possible. You can still easily install apps that are signed with a developer certificate. Anything that isn't signed "can" still be installed, but you have to go through an extra step to do so and would be ill advised unless you are highly confident of the developer's trustworthiness.

Basically, the only reason the best softwares are not in the store is due to the store fee for developers?

I'm aware of the garbage on the store, even very old apps not updated since 7y

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Basically, the only reason the best softwares are not in the store is due to the store fee for developers?

I'm aware of the garbage on the store, even very old apps not updated since 7y

That is not at all what I said or implied.

 

[pm-r]

Thanks a lot, but these 2 tools are not in the store... My goal is do not install anything outside the store, unless strictly necessary.

Personally, I would suggest with that philosophy you are doing yourself quite a disservice. Many of the utilities and applications provides through their App Store are deliberately partly disabled.

And don't forget the Mac OS has its own varieties of user protection built in if that was a concern to keep you protected with installing third-party software that may not be available at the App Store, and certainly not all Developers sell or provide their software through Apple's store.


- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

Why do you want to do the monitoring? And what "bug" are you referring to in post #3?

If all you want is to monitor what is writing to the disk(s) in your system or how much writing is being done by each app, you can use Activity Monitor, in the utilities folder, and select "Disk" tab.

 

[ced89]

I've written 365GB in 3 days of ownership, whenever I should have made max 80GB...
Something is up here .

Why do you want to do the monitoring? And what "bug" are you referring to in post #3?

If all you want is to monitor what is writing to the disk(s) in your system or how much writing is being done by each app, you can use Activity Monitor, in the utilities folder, and select "Disk" tab.

I'm talking about the swap bug of a few months ago, it doesn't exist anymore but look at what it did in 2 days

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I've written 365GB in 3 days of ownership, whenever I should have made max 80GB...
Something is up here .

You are pretty quick to blame the OS, but maybe it's something you have running? Try this... open up Activity Monitor; switch to the Disk tab; click on the Bytes Written column so they are sorted that way. What are, I dunno, let's say the top 3 items in that list? Better yet, post a screen cap of that window if you feel nothing confidential is in it.

 

[MacInWin]

Time Machine turned on? Has 365GB of disk space been consumed, or have you just overwritten already existing files? Lot's of questions before we go blaming the OS for it. Or searching under the cupboards for the culprit.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

I've written 365GB in 3 days of ownership, whenever I should have made max 80GB...
Something is up here .


I'm talking about the swap bug of a few months ago, it doesn't exist anymore but look at what it did in 2 days

OK, so? I'm wondering why it matters how much you've written or read? My machine has been up for 4+ days and kernel_task has written 174GB and read 24GB. Launchd is the next at 76GB, 386MB and Docker is third at 29GB,7GB..

kernel_task covers a ton of stuff, so that makes sense.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

OK, so? I'm wondering why it matters how much you've written or read? My machine has been up for 4+ days and kernel_task has written 174GB and read 24GB. Launchd is the next at 76GB, 386MB and Docker is third at 29GB,7GB..

kernel_task covers a ton of stuff, so that makes sense.

I think you have your read/written numbers flipped there. For 2 days on my M1 MBA, total data read/write is 150/38. Similar values on my Intel iMac. kernel_task is, rounded up, 6 GB/1GB written/read on my MBA. That process isn't running on my Intel iMac, if it exists on Intel? Seems odd.

 

[ced89]

- Disk Utility: 43 GB used
- Activity Monitor: 32GB (It's fine, I rebooted at least once), it matches considering the installations I had, but it didn't consider the iCloud download (40 GB)
- I also reinstalled the OS 2 times
- Yes, I used time machine and it wrote ~30GB , but due to the changes, it should have been much more... In any case, look below.

DriveDx works only with the internal disk, so, from 43 (OS and data) + 20GB max (OS reinstallation), there is a long way up to 365 GB...
If you wait it to work with the USB drive, you need to install it and add the kext manually, which I didn't.
I'm not sure how to verify if the software made a mistake, I need to dig into it...

 

[ced89]

OK, so? I'm wondering why it matters how much you've written or read? My machine has been up for 4+ days and kernel_task has written 174GB and read 24GB. Launchd is the next at 76GB, 386MB and Docker is third at 29GB,7GB..

kernel_task covers a ton of stuff, so that makes sense.

Do you even ask? Do you know how many M2 disks Apple burn out with the recent bug??
That's all my concern

 

[Lifeisabeach]

- Disk Utility: 43 GB used
- Activity Monitor: 32GB (It's fine, I rebooted at least once), it matches considering the installations I had, but it didn't consider the iCloud download (40 GB)
- I also reinstalled the OS 2 times
- Yes, I used time machine and it wrote ~30GB , but due to the changes, it should have been much more... In any case, look below.

DriveDx works only with the internal disk, so, from 43 (OS and data) + 20GB max (OS reinstallation), there is a long way up to 365 GB...
If you wait it to work with the USB drive, you need to install it and add the kext manually, which I didn't.
I'm not sure how to verify if the software made a mistake, I need to dig into it...

What? Why did you reinstall the operating system twice? Isn't this new? Reinstalled twice in 3 days of ownership? And you are wondering why there are so many disk writes?

 

[MacInWin]

Do you know how many M2 disks Apple burn out with the recent bug??

What are "M2 disks" and what bug? I'm struggling to see what the problem is here. The TM numbers you report are typical, it is very efficient and what you THINK it writes, it may not have actually written. TM and disk space is the study of a lifetime. I was going to write it out for you, but Howard already did it better:

Managing snapshots: how to stop them eating free space

Snapshots are of great value, but can grow large if you don’t keep an eye on them. If you find Time Machine or another backup utility is storing large snapshots, here’s what to do.

eclecticlight.co

 

[ced89]

What? Why did you reinstall the operating system twice? Isn't this new? Reinstalled twice in 3 days of ownership? And you are wondering why there are so many disk writes?

I made a little mistake in the OS reinstallation, so I did it twice instead of once. Even if it comes from Apple, it's better to start afresh (manually).

 

[ced89]

What are "M2 disks" and what bug? I'm struggling to see what the problem is here. The TM numbers you report are typical, it is very efficient and what you THINK it writes, it may not have actually written. TM and disk space is the study of a lifetime. I was going to write it out for you, but Howard already did it better:

Managing snapshots: how to stop them eating free space

Snapshots are of great value, but can grow large if you don’t keep an eye on them. If you find Time Machine or another backup utility is storing large snapshots, here’s what to do.

eclecticlight.co

There are many people that noticed this: M1 SSD high read and write usage per smar… - Apple Community
That is the issue I want to avoid, I know it was fixed, but I'd like to keep an eye anyway.

You suggested me that software and that's the result, it ma be wrong, it may have summed up even the snapshots not written, I don't know right now, I just gave you the amounts I saw here and there.