Boot disk volume layout is intricate in Big Sur. M1 Macs lose the EFI partition on their internal SSDs and gain two more for APFS. Contents of /System/Volumes has also changed.
Apple silicon
Detailed tutorial steps you through getting accurate and reproducible benchmarks for your disks. Also further projects and tests you can try.
Now with proper random write and read tests, sophisticated analysis including group medians and linear regression, and detailing reporting.
There’s no more critical app on your Mac, yet Disk Utility has suffered years of neglect – years in which APFS has grown many new features, and all Disk Utility gets is bugs and workaround.
Can M1 Macs really defy the laws of physics and read files from SSD at around 12 GB/s? Or are their performance improvements more modest?
Using 140 files of sizes 10 KB – 2 GB, the M1 read files significantly faster than a T2 Mac, but the latter wrote files slightly quicker. Highest read rate on the M1 was 10.8 GB/s, which seems almost incredible.
Shipping the M1 Macs has been a milestone, although how you interpret that depends on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist.
A short introduction to some of the highlights and quirks of M1 Macs, from dealing with apps which don’t run properly, to entering Recovery Mode and dealing with disaster.
If you’ve been unable to create a bootable external disk to use with your M1 Mac, this explains what you need and its limitations and quirks.
How to use kernel extensions, and their replacement system extensions, on Macs running Big Sur, including M1 Macs.
The Eclectic Light Company 