Transcend Debuts JetDrive SSD Upgrade Kits Up to 960GB for MacBook Air, Retina Macbook Pro

FuNGi said:

Ah o.k. Thanks. $10 though. I think I'll wait for the Transcend update.

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The basic version with the Trim Enabler is free. But you can upgrade it for $10 which will add Benchmark and S.M.A.R.T features and some Tweaks. So mostly useless stuff.

Will Transcend even be able to release a Yosemite update for their Toolbox?
As far as I understand now Apple has to approve 3rd party kernel extensions and I don't expect them to give Transcend a free pass for their SSD kits.

Frits48 said:

One thing I don't understand:
As I mentioned here before, I installed the Transcend 720 960GB drive into my late 2012 MBP Retina and it works great.

Issue is with the original 250GB SSD that came with my MBP.
I have the drive in the Transcend enclosure, reformatted and verify disk states all is well.
I use it USB 3 connected to my MBP and it is awesome. Responsive and lightning fast.

BUT...when I try to use it in my iMac it hardly works at all.
Here is the info:
iMac: Late 2012, 27", i7 3.4 GHz, 24MB RAM, Mavericks, 1TB fusion drive

The drive mounts fine in the iMac, but when I try to copy stuff onto the SSD is slows down to being just about non-active. When I copy, say, one or 2 small files at a time it copies OK. But any big files or folders with files it all gets stuck in the mud (no beach ball).

Any ideas?

Click to expand...

Solved this after just forgetting about it for a while.
The reason it was so slow in the iMac is that I plugged it into a USB 3 hub. Plugged it directly into the iMac and it flies!

^^^^My bet, it was not a powered hub. I use a USB Plugable powered hub with a USB 3.0 RocketekU PCIe card on my Mac Pro, and obtain USB 3.0 speeds through the hub.

Lou

flowrider said:

^^^^My bet, it was not a powered hub. I use a USB Plugable powered hub with a USB 3.0 RocketekU PCIe card on my Mac Pro, and obtain USB 3.0 speeds through the hub.

Lou

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Right you are (not powered). Works for most of my needs but no good for the external SSD.

Can someone tell me the current status of the JetDrive Toolbox on OS X 10.10? Is it working well and can still we enable TRIM with it?

The SSD on my MBA 2012 hasn't much space left and I am finally thinking about getting a 3rd party SSD replacement soon.

^^^^Asked and answered on the previous page:

flowrider said:

IMHO, I wouldn't use it. Cindori has kept Trim Enabler Up To Date, and it works so well, that I can't think of a reason not to use it.

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Lou

I just installed a new transcend 960GB SSD into my mid 2011 MBA.

Wow am loving the extra disk space.

I did a fresh install of yosemite onto it.

Speed test show it is much faster then my old drive.

As for real world speed differences my MBA seems faster but that might be just a fresh install. But I will put it down to the SSD of course early days yet.

Oh it does seem to run a bit warmer then my old SSD but i am not to worried.

Installation was a breeze, very simple.

Has anyone tried using the external carrier from Transcend with their old SDD as a boot device to run Windows? 8.1 on the external drive with Yosemite on the internal drive would be ideal.

Looks like this might work, just wondering if anyone has actually tried it:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5431182?start=30&tstart=0

^^^^Don't see what it wouldn't. I don't run windoze, but I have booted the Mac OS from the old internal SSD installed in Transcend's external enclosure.

Lou

JetDrive Toolbox 1.9 is out. It disables kext signing (warns you that it will do so but doesn't really explain the implications) and then is able to enable trim on Yosemite.

Toolbox 1.9 on Yosemite with questions

Just tried toobox 1.9 on a 725 960gb drive with Yosemite 10.10.1. It warned about disabling kext and did the trim enable but it took two reboots for the toolbox to show trim enabled.

This allows non-trusted kernel extensions. So two questions:
1) will the trim enabler extension be wiped in any update of OS X?
2) it seems dangerous to leave non-trusted kernel extension enabled, is there a plan for making a trusted extension so we can shut that door?

^^^^My Post from another thread concerning TRIM:

flowrider said:

Updated to the final released version of 10.10.1 this morning. A few more steps involved, but installation relatively easy.

1. Downloaded 10.10.1 Updater.

2. Disabled TRIM Enabler and reenabled Kext Signing

3. Restarted

4. Repaired Disk Permissions

5. Installed OS Update

6. Restarted

7. Reenabled TRIM Enabler and disabled Kext Signing

8. Restarted

9. OS updated to 10.10.1 and TRIM enabled.

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I would follow the above procedure with any application that enables TRIM for non Apple supplied SSDs.

See this:

http://www.cindori.org/trim-enabler-and-yosemite/

Lou

Thanks, good instructions for what to do if you can't boot at the cindori link.

This has to be the nastiest thing I've done to my MBP since 2005. It has been constantly upgraded and migrated with new OS updates and new hardware since then. A lot of low level hacking in those years but this one makes me nervous.

Another example of Apple doing things that are not in their customer's interest to coerce more $ from us.

hello there..

for first sorry for my english i'm italian

i found this discussion on the net and it is the only one that talk in depth of trascend jetdrive 720..

I bought an (used) mbpro retina 13 early 2013 with 256 gb but few day before i order from amazon the jetdrive 720 480gb..

I installed few min ago.. (yes few) because the installation was really really fast and easy
and also the setup of yosemite (from usb drive) was really fast...

but on the last days i search for information about extend the life of ssd..

i read about the trim and the "joke" of apple on yosemite.. and im a bit disappointed ..
i read of really instable system if i disable kext and enable with third part trim.. and i have to pay attention in a lot of things... (update reboot, pram reset.. )

that i want to know.. is..
the transcend 720 have garbage collector? so is ESSENTIAL turn on trim ?
if i not turn on trim what happen ? just slow speed or i really can damage my ssd?

what other kind of attention we have to had for extend life and be quiet with ssd and not loss data?

i found this simple (italian) guide...
here translated...

here i think there are more expert people.. so the things on the guide is really a MUST to do ?

thanks !!

Weaselboy said:

Actually, your English is pretty good. Welcome to the MR forums.



The Transcend drives to have garbage collection, but garbage collection and TRIM work together, so it is good to enable TRIM if you can.

Just enable TRIM with this free tool. Before you do that though, give this a read and maybe print it out and keep it somewhere so you don't get locked out of your drive. The article I linked talks about the Yosemite TRIM issue you mentioned and explains how to work around it.



Other than using TRIM, you don't need to use any of those other hacks listed on that page in my option. Most of those were designed to minimize write activity to the drive and that is simply not an issue on any modern SSD used under normal conditions.

If you do not use TRIM, nothing bad will happen to your drive. It just may have slower write speeds as it gets older. And even then, that can be restored by using TRIM. So no permanent damage will be done.

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thanks Weaselboy

i know cindori website and i read all info about.. is the only one you found for trim for macosx ...

you say just active trim and disable kext, if something happen and i be stuck on grey screen on lofon, just follow the guide and restore with command line

ok i'll do..

.. but im still curious to know..

who use trim and this "hack" since yosemite.. how many times have to use restore procedure?

I had to use Cindori's restore guide once while upgrading to a beta seed of 10.10.1 and with TRIM enabled via the JetDrive Toolbox.
After that I used Cindori's TRIM enabler and had not any problem with OS X upgrades until then.

But still I would advice to disable any TRIM enabler before installing a new OS X version. Just to be sure...

Using Jetdrive with late 2013 rMBP, as external.

Apologies if already answered in the thread. I haven't been through all posts.

The JetDrives are sold to put inside earlier rMBP, and are not compatible with late 2013 RMBP.

But is there any reason why they can be used externally with late rMBP?

Can't see why not ....it's just a USB3 external isn't it?

Much neater than conventional external drives.

Thanks

Hi guys,

is it a good time to buy a Jetdrive now, or are SSD prices poised to come down in the near future?

I'm looking to buy a Jetdrive 725 960GB on Amazon for my MacBook Retina for US$570. Any thoughts?

I mean when compared to Apple's upgrades it's cheaper, but I can wait if price reductions are imminent.

Mike Boreham said:

Apologies if already answered in the thread. I haven't been through all posts.

The JetDrives are sold to put inside earlier rMBP, and are not compatible with late 2013 RMBP.

But is there any reason why they can be used externally with late rMBP?

Can't see why not ....it's just a USB3 external isn't it?

Much neater than conventional external drives.

Thanks

Click to expand...

I have not done extensive testing, but I have used the 720 960GB drive inside of the USB case on my MBPr Mid 2012 and MBPr late 2013. Worked fine as some external storage.

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runbuh said:

Has anyone tried using the external carrier from Transcend with their old SDD as a boot device to run Windows? 8.1 on the external drive with Yosemite on the internal drive would be ideal.

Looks like this might work, just wondering if anyone has actually tried it:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5431182?start=30&tstart=0

Click to expand...

Nope - doesn't boot. I tested this using the Transcend 960GB drive installed into the USB caddy (not the Apple drive)>

When following the directions above, I end up with a drive that is seen as a boot device by my mid 2012 MBPr. However, when I select it for booting, it tries to boot, but freezes. The drive starts flashing, I get a cursor in the upper left corner for a few seconds, then the screen goes blank and the drive stops flashing. I let it sit for several minutes and no change. Tried this several times. Interestingly, the drive light is green the entire time.

If I plug the drive into my late 2013 MBPr, it boots and works just fine. The drive light is blue the entire time.

If I plug the drive into my mid 2012 MBPr booted to Yosemite, the drive is blue the entire time. So I'm guessing blue/green light indicates USB 3.0/2.0?

EDIT: Forgot to mention: I tried both USB ports, 3 different USB 3.0 cables, and I even tried plugging the drive into the Mac after booting up to the boot device selection screen. No joy.

runbuh said:

I have not done extensive testing, but I have used the 720 960GB drive inside of the USB case on my MBPr Mid 2012 and MBPr late 2013. Worked fine as some external storage.flashing.

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Thanks very much.

I don't understand why Transcend don't market it this way, (as well as the internal upgrade alternative). It is much smaller and neater than a conventional external 2.5 drive.

The latest version of Jetdrive Toolbox that came out 2 days ago, ver 1.11 doesn't show the TRIM option anymore, and in system profiler it shows that TRIM support is off. Anyone else having this issue. On Yosemite 10.10.1

Ok, I'll leave this here for everyone else, I got a response from Transcend tech support:

Thank you for contacting customer support. The engineering team has decided to implement a feature in v1.11 of the Toolbox that detects which version of OS-X is running and removes the TRIM option if Yosemite is running. They have decided that disabling the kext signing and reducing system security may not be the best course of action. Our SSDs still utilize garbage collection algorithms to help manage data and maintain peak performance. Even without TRIM enabled, the garbage collection algorithms in place will still help to prolong the lifespan of your SSD. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Click to expand...

moebis said:

Ok, I'll leave this here for everyone else, I got a response from Transcend tech support:

Click to expand...

It sucks. I'd like to have the option. It was probably my idea but I thought that when TRIM was enabled the drive seemed faster. I might do some tests to check.