Lion: TRIM only for Apple-branded SSD's?

I understand that support for trim in the DP4 version is the same as Snow Leopard. This is not the final version of Lion though, so things can change between now and then.

I remember a statement of Apple that they are afraid to TRIM an SSD they do not know, because this may result in data loss.

SSDs are in a very early stage; hardware, controllers, drivers and firmware are somewhat experimental. In this situation you expect from Apple to guarantee, that their driver works with any SSD hardware you purchase from the wild.

Just search for "Windows 7" + "SSD" + "trouble" and you will see, what the consequence could be.

Uhm, I wouldn't say that they are 'experimental' but still definitely still and emerging technology. Apple is very anal about hardware certifications which is why you rarely see hardware incompatibilities that are frequent on PC's (I have 6 PC's so I know this well).

Still I wish they had enabled this feature on Lion, or even Snow Leopard. I'm holding out on buying an Intel 320 to get legit TRIM support.

Hopefully the final version will include TRIM support.. :S

Maybe not the very first version of Lion. But sooner or later Apple will need to support SSDs connected via ThunderBolt to a Mac. This will force Apple to evaluate a larger set of SSDs (e.g. Intel SSDs) and add support for them.

The basic idea of Thunderbold is, that it makes no difference whether a piece of hardware is connected directly to the motherboard or via the ThunderBold cable. So SSD support for ThunderBold will cover SSDs connected to an internal SATA port, too.

Maybe this support comes with Lion 10.7.1 ?

TomRadfahrer said:

Maybe not the very first version of Lion. But sooner or later Apple will need to support SSDs connected via ThunderBolt to a Mac. This will force Apple to evaluate a larger set of SSDs (e.g. Intel SSDs) and add support for them.

The basic idea of Thunderbold is, that it makes no difference whether a piece of hardware is connected directly to the motherboard or via the ThunderBold cable. So SSD support for ThunderBold will cover SSDs connected to an internal SATA port, too.

Maybe this support comes with Lion 10.7.1 ?

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It should have been a standard implementation in 10.6. Apple has been selling macbook airs with SSD drives for 3 years, but the drives themselves have been available longer and have been used in macs since for those who have upgraded on their own, especially recently. Any support given for TRIM via thunderbolt will mean support via SATA.

No excuse to not support TRIM in 10.7

TomRadfahrer said:

Maybe not the very first version of Lion. But sooner or later Apple will need to support SSDs connected via ThunderBolt to a Mac. This will force Apple to evaluate a larger set of SSDs (e.g. Intel SSDs) and add support for them.

The basic idea of Thunderbold is, that it makes no difference whether a piece of hardware is connected directly to the motherboard or via the ThunderBold cable. So SSD support for ThunderBold will cover SSDs connected to an internal SATA port, too.

Maybe this support comes with Lion 10.7.1 ?

Click to expand...

Doubtful that TB will support TRIM. Currently (for any OS) TRIM is only supported on SATA connected OS drives only. Any ancillary SSDs connected to the system are not subject to TRIM. Garbage Collection will still work as it is OS agnostic and a function of the controller/drive.

Does Windows 7 support trim?

Apple Expert said:

Does Windows 7 support trim?

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Its supported TRIM since its initial release 2 years ago.

I've said so before, but I really hope developers are filing bug reports about this, or at least are sending in enhancement requests!

wikus said:

Its supported TRIM since its initial release 2 years ago.

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As does Windows Server 2008 R2 and many Linux variants.

I report every problem I come across

If I buy the exact same model Toshiba SSD found in MBP's for my 2011 MBP 15.4. Will TRIM Support Work?

tkermit said:

I've said so before, but I really hope developers are filing bug reports about this, or at least are sending in enhancement requests!

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For what TRIM support? 1. It is not a bug. 2. I think Apple is aware the public wants TRIM support for non-Apple SSDs.

mrapplegate said:

For what TRIM support? 1. It is not a bug. 2. I think Apple is aware the public wants TRIM support for non-Apple SSDs.

Click to expand...

A bit of additional pressure can't hurt. I wouldn't be so sure about your second point.

tkermit said:

A bit of additional pressure can't hurt. I wouldn't be so sure about your second point.

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I'm pretty confident Apple knows.

mrapplegate said:

I'm pretty confident Apple knows.

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The issue certainly doesn't seem to have the highest priority over there.

tkermit said:

The issue certainly doesn't seem to have the highest priority over there.

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I'm sure it's all about the money.

slightly different question about TRIM support. If I have a bunch of files on my machine and delete them, etc.. will Lion mark those sectors as "unused" and wipe them even though they were deleted before Lion was installed?

I hope my question makes sense

Why TRIM is so important?

McGiord said:

Why TRIM is so important?

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A quicj and dirty explanation:
> SSDs are organized by blocks
> Once a block is written to, whether full or not, that block becomes 'dirty' and must be erased before it can be programmed again.
> Once all blocks become dirty, before any writes can occur to a block, an erase must occur which dramatically slows things down.
> TRIM tracks blocks that are dirty but not used (i.e. files you deleted) and will erase those blocks during idle time so (theoretically) you never run into a scenario where have to do an erase when attempting to write.

Bottomsup said:

slightly different question about TRIM support. If I have a bunch of files on my machine and delete them, etc.. will Lion mark those sectors as "unused" and wipe them even though they were deleted before Lion was installed?

I hope my question makes sense

Click to expand...

Yes and no.

The 'no' part - The OS doesn't track dirty blocks, the drive controller does. The OS just passes the command to execute TRIM which is handled by the controller.

The 'yes' part - yes TRIM will wipe these deleted files because again it's the comtroller, not the OS.

ScubaCinci said:

Yes and no.

The 'no' part - The OS doesn't track dirty blocks, the drive controller does. The OS just passes the command to execute TRIM which is handled by the controller.

The 'yes' part - yes TRIM will wipe these deleted files because again it's the comtroller, not the OS.

Click to expand...

Thanks so i interpret this to mean that currently in 10.6.7 those blocks are not being deleted because I don't have TRIM. When I'm in 10.7 the OS will send a command to tell the controller to clean deleted blocks, but I think you are also saying that the blocks that were flagged dirty by the controller in 10.6.7 before TRIM was available in the OS will remain as is....or will LION retroactively send a TRIM command for past deleted files/blocks?

I guess what I'm getting at is that I think performance could be improved with a clean install of 10.7 if most of the drive has dirty sectors on it that were not previously cleaned up via the TRIM command. I suppose if I leve the drive as is and upgrade to LION it will eventually sort itself out via natural create,delete,TRIM clean, etc..

And what about over provisioning? Garbage Collection?

Overprovisioning depends on the drive. Some have more than others and there isn't anything you can change about it. You can partition off more space for a spare area but that's about it. Garbage collection is OS agnostic and is handled by the drive controller but without TRIM it can only maintain things for a finite period - again, this period is drive dependent.