Processors haven’t just increased in speed and packed more transistors into a smaller space. Features such as the Neural Engine in the M1 show Apple is moving in a different direction.
M1
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.
A new version of Stibium which performs series tests raises further questions about benchmarking SSDs on Intel and M1 Macs. And is an X5 worth the extra cost?
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.
A new version using Mach absolute time brings accuracy to a few microseconds, and a Help page. Tests progress well, and continue to make interesting comparisons.
It’s a commonplace task: make a bootable external disk for emergency use, containing your diagnostic and repair tools. On a new M1 Mac? Should be simple.
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