Apple's custom NVMes are amazingly fast – if you don't care about data integrity (twitter.com)

Article summary

The article discusses Apple's custom NVMe storage, which achieves high performance by deferring flushes, potentially compromising data integrity. This approach may lead to data loss in the event of a power failure. The discussion revolves around the trade-off between performance and data safety. Apple's implementation is seen as a 'hack' by some, while others argue it could be a viable approach with proper mitigation strategies.

Main themes

• NVMe storage performance
• data integrity vs performance
• power failure mitigation
• firmware optimization
• operating system comparisons
• data safety strategies

What commenters say

• Deferring flushes for performance gain is a reasonable trade-off if the risk of data loss is mitigated.
• Apple's implementation is a 'dirty hack' that prioritizes performance over data integrity.
• The use of internal batteries or a last-gasp flush mechanism could ensure data safety in the event of power loss.
• Other operating systems, like Linux, may also benefit from similar performance optimizations.
• The slow flush performance on Apple's NVMe storage is a firmware issue, not a hardware limitation.
• Journaling file systems may also be corrupted by deferring flushes on the NVMe level.
• Apple's approach may be acceptable on laptops but not on desktops or workstations.
• Proper handling of kernel panics and power button shutdowns is necessary to ensure data integrity.