[spideymans]

Even on the 16 GB model, the system very aggressively swaps. During my normal workflow, RAM usage is typically at 12 GB, with 4 GB free and 4 GB+ swapped to the SSD. I have no clue why it prefers to swap to the SSD, rather than taking advantage of the 4 GB of unutilized RAM.

[eyelidlessness]

I overly obsessively watch memory usage and in my usage this usually indicates a pattern of consuming most RAM then purging some of it (common example is closing a browser window with 10ish+ tabs). It’s not that the OS favors swap over RAM, but that it’s very conservative about bringing memory out of swap once it’s there, because it had already been designated as low priority and may deoptimize higher priority usage in new workloads.

[spideymans]

Interesting. I don't think that's the case here though. I obsessively watch Activity Monitor as well, and I've yet to see memory utilization ever go above 12.5 GB on my M1, despite the system using a large amount of swap.