The Spotify app is killing your Mac’s solid-state storage drive, and you need to update now to prevent it.
For the past five months, a bug has caused the app to write massive amounts of data to SSDs, potentially knocking years off their lifespan.
The bug isn’t exclusive to Macs with SSDs — it’s a problem on machines with traditional spinning hard drives, too — but because SSD drives have a finite amount of write capacity, they’re the ones that are going to feel the impact.
[contextly_auto_sidebar] The problem, which has been present since Spotify was updated in June, occurs when the app is idle and isn’t storing any songs locally, according to Ars Technica. The bug also affects Windows and Linux machines.
“Reports of tens or in some cases hundreds of gigabytes being written in an hour aren’t uncommon, and occasionally the recorded amounts are measured in terabytes,” reports Ars, which found the bug “wrote from 5 to 10 GB of data in less than an hour” in the publication’s test.
If Spotify has been doing this every single day for the past five months, you can imagine the amount of data it has needlessly written to your drives. And every bit of it is slowly wearing down your SSD drives.
Spotify users have been complaining about this issue all over the web. The complaints started back in June — not long after the guilty update rolled out — and Spotify has been ignoring it. Since the problem was brought to light by Ars, it has finally been fixed.
How to update Spotify on Mac
Spotify says that version 1.0.42, which is available to download now, finally eliminates the bug. We obviously recommend that you update as soon as possible — especially if you use a Mac with an SSD drive.
To do so, open the Spotify app on your Mac. Go to Spotify and then About Spotify. You should see a link to download the crucial update.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
11 responses to “Update Spotify immediately to stop it killing your SSD”
How do you update? No updates available on the App Store nor could I find anything on the Mac app. Let me know pleaseeeee!! =)
The app auto updates itself and is not a mac app store app
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Oh ok then. Thanks!
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In the Menu Bar of Spotify: Spotify -> “About Spotify” there is an update link.
Thanks. We updated the post to include this.
What the fuck Spotify
I concur.
I’ve just got rid! Should I concerned with this?
Spotify just took 5 to 10 years of ours SSD’s avg. life, people should do something about it