120GB Vertex 3 SSD - Should I enable TRIM support?

DarkFlame · Apr 5, 2011

I was lucky enough to grab one of these off Newegg for $275 for the 2 hours they were in stock last week...

I own a 2011 13inch Macbook Pro.

It has been a dream! I can confidently say I have not felt this way about a technological upgrade to a computer system since I burned my first ever mix cd on a 8x creative cd burner I bought for 150 dollars ten years ago. After that, a 1TB portable HD for 60 dollars came in close second. But this SSD takes the cake. It has changed the response time of my system incredibly. This coupled with 8GB of ram for $70 made this computer the most affordable and best computer I have ever owned. /rant

Now on to the question: Should I bother enabling TRIM with 3rd party software or should I wait until Lion and let the OS do it natively? Will it improve performance or prolong the life of the hard drive? I know garbage collector is active natively within the drive, do these work simultaneously together or does one shut the other one off?

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

kdoug · Apr 5, 2011

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I'm going to do it on mine. I'm not sure how it could hurt. I'm going to do it immediately once I install mine.

DarkFlame · Apr 5, 2011

There's a chance that Lion will not support third party SSD. If that's the case I will just do it now. I can't seem to find any more info on google.

marc11 · Apr 5, 2011

I did it to mine and have no complaints.

DarkFlame · Apr 7, 2011

There are just so many conflicting answers:

Some say Sandforce controllers have garbage collection and therefor it makes trim useless.

I've read that performance is (minimially) affected by enabling trim, ie 1-2 second slower boot times.

I've read that if its on OS X you shouldn't enable it because of how the operating system handles it?

I've heard if I DON'T enable it, I'm shortening the lift of my drive.

Please help if you can provide valid sources and not just opinions. Experience is great, but not many ppl were able to get their hands on the new Vertex 3 with the new SF controllers like me.

So far, as a side note, the 120GB V3 is working very very well!

Blue Sun · Apr 7, 2011

DarkFlame said:
There are just so many conflicting answers:

Some say Sandforce controllers have garbage collection and therefor it makes trim useless.

I've read that performance is (minimially) affected by enabling trim, ie 1-2 second slower boot times.

I've read that if its on OS X you shouldn't enable it because of how the operating system handles it?

I've heard if I DON'T enable it, I'm shortening the lift of my drive.

Please help if you can provide valid sources and not just opinions. Experience is great, but not many ppl were able to get their hands on the new Vertex 3 with the new SF controllers like me.

So far, as a side note, the 120GB V3 is working very very well!

Don't worry about TRIM, your drive will be fine. It does have GC after all.

marc11 · Apr 7, 2011

DarkFlame said:
There are just so many conflicting answers:

Some say Sandforce controllers have garbage collection and therefor it makes trim useless.

I've read that performance is (minimially) affected by enabling trim, ie 1-2 second slower boot times.

I've read that if its on OS X you shouldn't enable it because of how the operating system handles it?

I've heard if I DON'T enable it, I'm shortening the lift of my drive.

Please help if you can provide valid sources and not just opinions. Experience is great, but not many ppl were able to get their hands on the new Vertex 3 with the new SF controllers like me.

So far, as a side note, the 120GB V3 is working very very well!

TRIM does not shorten drive life, it was designed to increase drive life and maintain speeds. TRIM does not conflict Sand Force, if anything it compliments it, think about it, Windows computers have TRIM and SF....for me, my boot time did not slow down, my deleting files did not slow down and my benchmarks increased after enabling TRIM.

YMMV, but for me it was a positive change so far.

amarcus · Apr 7, 2011

DarkFlame said:
Some say Sandforce controllers have garbage collection and therefor it makes trim useless.

Nope, all drives thus far can benefit from TRIM (if capable of course!). While garbage collection is a great feature and one that can make the lack of TRIM a non-issue, it is not a substitute.

DarkFlame said:
I've read that performance is (minimially) affected by enabling trim, ie 1-2 second slower boot times.

Could be true. Remember the "cleaning-up" TRIM is doing will have to be done at some point. That or suffer reduced performance when it counts.

DarkFlame said:
I've read that if its on OS X you shouldn't enable it because of how the operating system handles it?

I'm afraid this isn't true.

DarkFlame said:
I've heard if I DON'T enable it, I'm shortening the lift of my drive.

If it does shorten the lifetime of your drive it will be insignificant. However if anything I think the opposite might happen due to decreased write amplification.

Adam

DarkFlame · Apr 7, 2011

amarcus said:
Nope, all drives thus far can benefit from TRIM (if capable of course!). While garbage collection is a great feature and one that can make the lack of TRIM a non-issue, it is not a substitute.

Could be true. Remember the "cleaning-up" TRIM is doing will have to be done at some point. That or suffer reduced performance when it counts.

I'm afraid this isn't true.

If it does shorten the lifetime of your drive it will be insignificant. However if anything I think the opposite might happen due to decreased write amplification.

Adam

Awesome, thanks for clarifying. Would it make any difference if I waited until Lion to avoid any software conflicts with the hack/homebrew? I remember reading it gave an individual on a forum problems with iStat (or some other software) until they disabled it?

Then again, someone above says it'll still only be for Apple drives so might as well get it over with?

So...FINAL recommendation is to do it? Seems that way, from all of you - anyone against it?

Thanks!

kobyh15 · Apr 7, 2011

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I say do it and report back.

johnnyturbouk · Apr 7, 2011

just back-up with time machine before enabling the trim hack
then if you experience any probs, or performance has significantly dropped, revert back with time machine

i have owc 120gb ssd, the sf1200 sandforce controller; i did not notice any significant performance drop, but my boot times went from 7-10 secs - this i can live with

amarcus · Apr 8, 2011

DarkFlame said:
Would it make any difference if I waited until Lion to avoid any software conflicts with the hack/homebrew?

Well it all comes down to whether you believe apple aren't releasing TRIM (for non-apple drives) because its not ready or because they're being greedy. If it's because it's just not ready then your better off waiting.

DarkFlame said:
it'll still only be for Apple drives so might as well get it over with?

Well if you think apple are being greedy then I'd go for it. I'm not too sure...

DarkFlame said:
So...FINAL recommendation is to do it?

For me, I value my data so I'd probably hold off till Lion. If by then apple hasn't released TRIM officially then I'd assume they're just being greedy and do the hack.

The important thing to remember is that your vertex is going to be FAST. With GC you won't notice the lack of TRIM that much unless you really tax your drive.

Adam

Wicked1 · Apr 8, 2011

DarkFlame said:
I was lucky enough to grab one of these off Newegg for $275 for the 2 hours they were in stock last week...

I own a 2011 13inch Macbook Pro.

It has been a dream! I can confidently say I have not felt this way about a technological upgrade to a computer system since I burned my first ever mix cd on a 8x creative cd burner I bought for 150 dollars ten years ago. After that, a 1TB portable HD for 60 dollars came in close second. But this SSD takes the cake. It has changed the response time of my system incredibly. This coupled with 8GB of ram for $70 made this computer the most affordable and best computer I have ever owned. /rant

Now on to the question: Should I bother enabling TRIM with 3rd party software or should I wait until Lion and let the OS do it natively? Will it improve performance or prolong the life of the hard drive? I know garbage collector is active natively within the drive, do these work simultaneously together or does one shut the other one off?

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

What does Trim support actually do, or garbage collector for that matter. One reason I stayed away from SSD is they require firmware updates and certain models can only be updated on a windows box? Can someone please clarify?

NickZac · Apr 8, 2011

TRIM importance is overstated. Modern solid state drives will do fine without it longevity wise.

Weaselboy · Apr 8, 2011

Wicked1 said:
What does Trim support actually do, or garbage collector for that matter. One reason I stayed away from SSD is they require firmware updates and certain models can only be updated on a windows box? Can someone please clarify?

Here is an overview of what TRIM does.

You are correct, some brands of SSD can only have the firmware updated using Windows... most notably OWC. Many vendors like Crucial and Intel provide a downloadable boot CDRom you can burn to do a firmware update on a Mac system.

waslater · Apr 22, 2011

johnnyturbouk said:
just back-up with time machine before enabling the trim hack
then if you experience any probs, or performance has significantly dropped, revert back with time machine

i have owc 120gb ssd, the sf1200 sandforce controller; i did not notice any significant performance drop, but my boot times went from 7-10 secs - this i can live with

Yesterday I installed a 240 GB Vertex 3 from Newegg in place of the BTO 128GB Apple SSD.

Almost immediately I patched with the TRIM support enabler and everything was looking good, UNTIL I let the system go to sleep. It would come back after a wake, but any program open would go unresponsive with beachballs. One time I was able to avoid a hard restart, but 2 other times, the whole system locked up (except the mouse). Might be my imagination, but it seemed like my boot time was a little slower too.

I just restored the original TRIM settings with the app, and now I can go to sleep and wake normally. Anyone had this happen?

altecXP · Apr 22, 2011

waslater said:
Yesterday I installed a 240 GB Vertex 3 from Newegg in place of the BTO 128GB Apple SSD.

Almost immediately I patched with the TRIM support enabler and everything was looking good, UNTIL I let the system go to sleep. It would come back after a wake, but any program open would go unresponsive with beachballs. One time I was able to avoid a hard restart, but 2 other times, the whole system locked up (except the mouse). Might be my imagination, but it seemed like my boot time was a little slower too.

I just restored the original TRIM settings with the app, and now I can go to sleep and wake normally. Anyone had this happen?

Does this only effect SATA3 drives? my sata2 has been brilliant with TRIM.

m4rk0 · Apr 23, 2011

altecXP said:
Does this only effect SATA3 drives? my sata2 has been brilliant with TRIM.

it depends on which controller your ssd has.

you guys could have a look at this informative thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1122793/

brokeneck · Apr 23, 2011

waslater said:
Yesterday I installed a 240 GB Vertex 3 from Newegg in place of the BTO 128GB Apple SSD.

Almost immediately I patched with the TRIM support enabler and everything was looking good, UNTIL I let the system go to sleep. It would come back after a wake, but any program open would go unresponsive with beachballs. One time I was able to avoid a hard restart, but 2 other times, the whole system locked up (except the mouse). Might be my imagination, but it seemed like my boot time was a little slower too.

I just restored the original TRIM settings with the app, and now I can go to sleep and wake normally. Anyone had this happen?

I had exactly same experience. Revered to no TRIM and all was good again.

Cheffy Dave · Apr 23, 2011

waslater said:
Yesterday I installed a 240 GB Vertex 3 from Newegg in place of the BTO 128GB Apple SSD.

Almost immediately I patched with the TRIM support enabler and everything was looking good, UNTIL I let the system go to sleep. It would come back after a wake, but any program open would go unresponsive with beachballs. One time I was able to avoid a hard restart, but 2 other times, the whole system locked up (except the mouse). Might be my imagination, but it seemed like my boot time was a little slower too.

I just restored the original TRIM settings with the app, and now I can go to sleep and wake normally. Anyone had this happen?

Yes I did as well, with an OWC, removed the hack ,all is fine

Macsavvytech · Apr 23, 2011

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Don't worry about it.
Wait until TRIM is enables by default.

hehe299792458 · Apr 23, 2011

Weaselboy said:
Here is an overview of what TRIM does.

You are correct, some brands of SSD can only have the firmware updated using Windows... most notably OWC. Many vendors like Crucial and Intel provide a downloadable boot CDRom you can burn to do a firmware update on a Mac system.

Assuming I don't care about the performance in the meantime, would enabling TRIM a few month down the road restore performance to initial conditions? For example, I use the drive for 4 month and when TRIM comes enabled (my assumption) with Lion, I'll zero out the free space. Would that work? Or would my lack of TRIM in these 4 months irredeemably cause a performance downgrade/

Weaselboy · Apr 23, 2011

hehe299792458 said:
Assuming I don't care about the performance in the meantime, would enabling TRIM a few month down the road restore performance to initial conditions? For example, I use the drive for 4 month and when TRIM comes enabled (my assumption) with Lion, I'll zero out the free space. Would that work? Or would my lack of TRIM in these 4 months irredeemably cause a performance downgrade/

Lack of TRIM does no damage to the drive. All that happens is after EVERY NAND cell on the drive has been written to once, write speeds will slow a little. To restore to like new performance just do a Disk Util erase free space with TRIM enabled.

Even if Lion does not enable TRIM, you can use the TRIM patch for Snow Leopard to run TRIM. If are worried about leaving the patch running, you can install the patch and do a erase free space then remove the TRIM patch. You could do this routine every few months if you like.

What you could do it run a benchmark test for write speeds when the drive is new to establish a baseline. Then rerun that same test once in a while and if you see write speeds have dropped significantly you can run erase free space with TRIM enabled. This is assuming you are not comfortable leaving the TRIM patch turned on. If you do leave it on you never need to worry about TRIM.

NickZac · Apr 23, 2011

hehe299792458 said:
Assuming I don't care about the performance in the meantime, would enabling TRIM a few month down the road restore performance to initial conditions? For example, I use the drive for 4 month and when TRIM comes enabled (my assumption) with Lion, I'll zero out the free space. Would that work? Or would my lack of TRIM in these 4 months irredeemably cause a performance downgrade/

Modern drives have their own wear-leveling and performance maintenance systems built in. With or without TRIM, performance stats would be virtually the same after 4 months, and from my experience, even beyond a few years.

mape2k · Apr 23, 2011

NickZac said:
With or without TRIM, performance stats would be virtually the same after 4 months, and from my experience, even beyond a few years.

Which drives are you exactly referring to?

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