Do any versions of macOS perform “SSD data block swapping” to avoid SSD fatigue?

Question

I heard that SSD drives can become fatigued and have data errors, if the same data block is used for reading and writing to many times. So, there are mechanisms to swap the often used blocks with the less often used blocks.

One reference about SSD endurance and wear leveling is on this page.

For example, if a Mac had only 10 GB left on the SSD, then this 10 GB could be repeatedly used to download and move files to NAS, or as swap space for virtual memory.

Does the current macOS perform the SSD swapping to avoid the fatigue? If so, then with which version of macOS did this first occur? Or, does the Mac's internal SSD use low-level firmware to avoid the fatigue in way transparent to macOS?

Answer 1

Wear Leveling

This functionality is actually contained within the Solid State Drive (SSD) itself and known as wear levelling. It has been standard on all Macs that have had SSDs - i.e. for many, many years.

I remember back in approx. 2008 when replacing the internal hard drive of the MacBook Air with a third-party SSD, you had to look out not to buy an older model SSD without wear levelling - but since then it has been a feature that is just always there on an SSD.

Operating System Agnostic

The functionality does not depend on operating system support, so any version of macOS will do. If your system otherwise supports it, running under Windows or Linux is also just fine.

Free Space

Also the functionality does not depend on having "free space" on your drive. It doesn't matter if you have 10 GB of free space or 1000 GB of free space. It works just the same.