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Riemann Zeta

macrumors 6502a
Feb 12, 2008
661
0
Some SSD controllers out there (e.g. Samsung, as well as ones to be released soon, such as the SandForce brand controllers) don't support TRIM at all, instead opting for some sort of proprietary "garbage collection" or internal defrag-like algorithm. So it seems like TRIM support is a long ways out, if it even ever becomes universally implemented.
 

Mr. Wonderful

macrumors 6502a
Feb 19, 2009
571
34
Some SSD controllers out there (e.g. Samsung, as well as ones to be released soon, such as the SandForce brand controllers) don't support TRIM at all, instead opting for some sort of proprietary "garbage collection" or internal defrag-like algorithm. So it seems like TRIM support is a long ways out, if it even ever becomes universally implemented.

Not really. All good new drives have been bragging about TRIM on their spec sheets since last fall.
 

Robb.Penoyer

macrumors member
Mar 8, 2010
69
0
Florida
SSD Purchase

OK, this thread has been really great, in fact it's the most recent discussion I can find on the topic of ssd's. I am looking to purchase either the Intel X25-M 160GB or the OCZ Vertex 250 Mac Edition.

Based on this article, I will not consider other SSD's
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/high-speed-ssd-shootout.aspx?page=9


Here is what I have gleamded from all my reading:

1. The Intel X25-M is the standard by which all SSD's are measured

2. The OCZ Vertex line is pretty close performance wise with the X25-M

3. X25-M optimized for small random read/write, OCZ V optimized for sequenction read/write

4. Trim IS A VERY IMPORTANT solution in the SSD space. Basically, over time as your drive fragments, write operations will take literally twice as long as SSD space must be erased before it can be written. TRIM will enable handshaking between the OS and the drive firmware to perform "lazy cleanups" in a STANDARD fashion.

5. As of this writing, Trim is supported in the X25-M intel Gen 2 SSD firmware. It is NOT supported in Snow Leopard 10.6.2

6. You can "clean up" your SSD every 6 months or so by backing it up, and running a cleaning utility such as Disk Tester.

My conclusion, go with the venerable X25-M and use a manual cleanup process until such time as Mac OS supports Trim.
 

applesupergeek

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2009
879
0
OK, this thread has been really great, in fact it's the most recent discussion I can find on the topic of ssd's. I am looking to purchase either the Intel X25-M 160GB or the OCZ Vertex 250 Mac Edition.

Based on this article, I will not consider other SSD's
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/high-speed-ssd-shootout.aspx?page=9


Here is what I have gleamded from all my reading:

1. The Intel X25-M is the standard by which all SSD's are measured

2. The OCZ Vertex line is pretty close performance wise with the X25-M

3. X25-M optimized for small random read/write, OCZ V optimized for sequenction read/write

4. Trim IS A VERY IMPORTANT solution in the SSD space. Basically, over time as your drive fragments, write operations will take literally twice as long as SSD space must be erased before it can be written. TRIM will enable handshaking between the OS and the drive firmware to perform "lazy cleanups" in a STANDARD fashion.

5. As of this writing, Trim is supported in the X25-M intel Gen 2 SSD firmware. It is NOT supported in Snow Leopard 10.6.2

6. You can "clean up" your SSD every 6 months or so by backing it up, and running a cleaning utility such as Disk Tester.

My conclusion, go with the venerable X25-M and use a manual cleanup process until such time as Mac OS supports Trim.

Excellent post Rob, sums up pretty much what I've come across out of hours of reading. Very messy business to get to the bottom of these ssds, and as per usual there's a lot of hype and not enough good concise info.

I am not aware of Disk Tester however, it's not even available for the mac I think. Is it written specifically with ssds in mind?
 

GMink

macrumors regular
Feb 10, 2010
135
0
6. You can "clean up" your SSD every 6 months or so by backing it up, and running a cleaning utility such as Disk Tester.

My conclusion, go with the venerable X25-M and use a manual cleanup process until such time as Mac OS supports Trim.

I just tested the method I plan on using. I have my Intel x25-m 160gb partitioned with OSX and Win 7 on it. I imaged my OSX boot drive to my backup drive then formatted the OSX partition from with in Win 7 to NTFS. Then I ran the Intel Toolbox Optimiser on the empty partion from within Windows. Booted to the image on my backup drive, reformatted back to HFS then coppied the image back. All this sounds like it would take alot of time but I think it took maybe 15 minutes. Mainly the backing up of the boot drive image took the most time. I think I'll just leave the image backed up on my drive so next time it won't take any time at all.
 

ShinySteelRobot

macrumors regular
Jul 22, 2002
184
71
Upper Left Corner, USA
OK, this thread has been really great, in fact it's the most recent discussion I can find on the topic of ssd's. I am looking to purchase either the Intel X25-M 160GB or the OCZ Vertex 250 Mac Edition.

Based on this article, I will not consider other SSD's
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/high-speed-ssd-shootout.aspx?page=9


Here is what I have gleamded from all my reading:

1. The Intel X25-M is the standard by which all SSD's are measured

2. The OCZ Vertex line is pretty close performance wise with the X25-M

3. X25-M optimized for small random read/write, OCZ V optimized for sequenction read/write

4. Trim IS A VERY IMPORTANT solution in the SSD space. Basically, over time as your drive fragments, write operations will take literally twice as long as SSD space must be erased before it can be written. TRIM will enable handshaking between the OS and the drive firmware to perform "lazy cleanups" in a STANDARD fashion.

5. As of this writing, Trim is supported in the X25-M intel Gen 2 SSD firmware. It is NOT supported in Snow Leopard 10.6.2

6. You can "clean up" your SSD every 6 months or so by backing it up, and running a cleaning utility such as Disk Tester.

My conclusion, go with the venerable X25-M and use a manual cleanup process until such time as Mac OS supports Trim.

Thanks, good summary. I would add:

7. NEVER EVER run a defrag utility on a SSD, it will actually slow the drive down (because it leaves garbage that the drive must then erase before it can write again)
 

lssmit02

macrumors 6502
Mar 25, 2004
400
38
check out OWC Mercury Extreme SSD

Here's the link. It contains a new controller, the Sandforce 1500.

When you go to the page, check out Diglloyd's review. He claims no slowdown on the drive even after running disktester, which continuously writes to the drive so that it gets completely filled.
 

applesupergeek

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2009
879
0
Guys, what is disktester, can't even find it while googling?

I just tested the method I plan on using. I have my Intel x25-m 160gb partitioned with OSX and Win 7 on it. I imaged my OSX boot drive to my backup drive then formatted the OSX partition from with in Win 7 to NTFS. Then I ran the Intel Toolbox Optimiser on the empty partion from within Windows. Booted to the image on my backup drive, reformatted back to HFS then coppied the image back. All this sounds like it would take alot of time but I think it took maybe 15 minutes. Mainly the backing up of the boot drive image took the most time. I think I'll just leave the image backed up on my drive so next time it won't take any time at all.
Excellent post. Is there not an Intel Toolbox Optimiser for Mac?:confused:
 

GMink

macrumors regular
Feb 10, 2010
135
0
Guys, what is disktester, can't even find it while googling?


Excellent post. Is there not an Intel Toolbox Optimiser for Mac?:confused:

Not yet but maybe in the next OSX release we will see some support. Apple has to get on the band waggon pretty quick on the SSD thing.
From what I understand from snooping around the Intel support forums that it is up to Apple to create support from within OSX for the commands.
 

applesupergeek

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2009
879
0
they are taking their sweet time getting this done, lol. Kinda embarrassing when you think that that all their mobile line up features ssd options touted but not really supported.
 

Robb.Penoyer

macrumors member
Mar 8, 2010
69
0
Florida
OK, I have to post in again on this... I went against my prior conclusions and went for the OCZ 250. Here are the reasons:

I was concerned about the idea of "Trim" and whether OCZ would support it. Which in the firmest sense, meaning the standard Trim command set, it does not. But then Neither does Mac OS. So I talked to OCZ and the explained about their integrated features which are proprietary, but much like Trim. Based on that, and the fact that I was able to speak to one of their engineers directly was telling for me.

The cost factor. I was able to get into an OCZ for about $3.20 per GB. The Intel was running $3.50.

The size factor. 160 GB (max intel size at the time of this post) just seemed on the verge of too small for me. I run a few virtual machines due to the nature of my work. The OCZ 250 is the biggest "consumer level" drive on the market.

The net effect --- I cannot believe the different an SSD makes. If you are thinking about getting one do it. I have no direct experience with the Intel X25-M, but the positive postings on it support me when I say, either of these drives will change your computing life forever.
 

DCIFRTHS

macrumors 65816
Jan 25, 2008
1,291
644
OK, I have to post in again on this... I went against my prior conclusions and went for the OCZ 250. Here are the reasons:

I was concerned about the idea of "Trim" and whether OCZ would support it. Which in the firmest sense, meaning the standard Trim command set, it does not. But then Neither does Mac OS. So I talked to OCZ and the explained about their integrated features which are proprietary, but much like Trim. Based on that, and the fact that I was able to speak to one of their engineers directly was telling for me.

The cost factor. I was able to get into an OCZ for about $3.20 per GB. The Intel was running $3.50.

The size factor. 160 GB (max intel size at the time of this post) just seemed on the verge of too small for me. I run a few virtual machines due to the nature of my work. The OCZ 250 is the biggest "consumer level" drive on the market.

The net effect --- I cannot believe the different an SSD makes. If you are thinking about getting one do it. I have no direct experience with the Intel X25-M, but the positive postings on it support me when I say, either of these drives will change your computing life forever.


So you are saying that the OCZ drives have proprietary firmware that accomplishes the same thing that TRIM does? If so, which specific model range are you referring to?

I notice that some of the OCZ drives do have support for TRIM. If an OCZ drive does have built in support for TRIM, does that mean that the proprietary OCZ "clean-up" method is not included?

Thanks!
 

alyks

macrumors newbie
Jun 29, 2008
5
0
where i can download Disk Tester? i cant found it:(
OK, this thread has been really great, in fact it's the most recent discussion I can find on the topic of ssd's. I am looking to purchase either the Intel X25-M 160GB or the OCZ Vertex 250 Mac Edition.

Based on this article, I will not consider other SSD's
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/high-speed-ssd-shootout.aspx?page=9


Here is what I have gleamded from all my reading:

1. The Intel X25-M is the standard by which all SSD's are measured

2. The OCZ Vertex line is pretty close performance wise with the X25-M

3. X25-M optimized for small random read/write, OCZ V optimized for sequenction read/write

4. Trim IS A VERY IMPORTANT solution in the SSD space. Basically, over time as your drive fragments, write operations will take literally twice as long as SSD space must be erased before it can be written. TRIM will enable handshaking between the OS and the drive firmware to perform "lazy cleanups" in a STANDARD fashion.

5. As of this writing, Trim is supported in the X25-M intel Gen 2 SSD firmware. It is NOT supported in Snow Leopard 10.6.2

6. You can "clean up" your SSD every 6 months or so by backing it up, and running a cleaning utility such as Disk Tester.

My conclusion, go with the venerable X25-M and use a manual cleanup process until such time as Mac OS supports Trim.
 

mrsteveman1

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2008
13
48
So you are saying that the OCZ drives have proprietary firmware that accomplishes the same thing that TRIM does? If so, which specific model range are you referring to?

I notice that some of the OCZ drives do have support for TRIM. If an OCZ drive does have built in support for TRIM, does that mean that the proprietary OCZ "clean-up" method is not included?

Thanks!

The OCZ Vertex drives (all of them) currently use firmware that has both garbage collection and TRIM in the same firmware build (1.5 right now). If the OS supports TRIM, then deleted data will be TRIM'ed when needed. If not, the drive will do its own house cleaning when the system is idle.

They're great drives, i have a Vertex 60 in one of the new glossy macbooks and it made the thing 5-10x faster, and it boots in ~8 seconds :)

There is also a Vertex LE which uses a different controller (sandforce), but they do internal garbage collection too it seems, so they should work fine in a Mac even without TRIM support.
 

cool11

macrumors 68000
Sep 3, 2006
1,821
222
The OCZ Vertex drives (all of them) currently use firmware that has both garbage collection and TRIM in the same firmware build (1.5 right now). If the OS supports TRIM, then deleted data will be TRIM'ed when needed. If not, the drive will do its own house cleaning when the system is idle.

They're great drives, i have a Vertex 60 in one of the new glossy macbooks and it made the thing 5-10x faster, and it boots in ~8 seconds :)

There is also a Vertex LE which uses a different controller (sandforce), but they do internal garbage collection too it seems, so they should work fine in a Mac even without TRIM support.

How can we find out which models of the market, supports internal garbage collection, so that mac would have any problem, even without trim support?
 

ungraphic

macrumors 6502a
Nov 15, 2007
596
0
Toronto, Canada
How can we find out which models of the market, supports internal garbage collection, so that mac would have any problem, even without trim support?

I'd like to know this too, I'm getting tired of waiting for Apple to release OS X with TRIM support. They released 10.6 last year with no support eventhough theyve been selling a laptop with an SSD drive for a long time now.

I want my mac pro with two 60-80gb SSD drives in RAID0, if theres a drive with both garbage collection internally and support for TRIM, I'll bite the bullet and pay top dollar (or less, if possible).

Anyway, would be nice if someone pointed out the specific drive! Thanks!
 

Mr. Wonderful

macrumors 6502a
Feb 19, 2009
571
34
I'd like to know this too, I'm getting tired of waiting for Apple to release OS X with TRIM support. They released 10.6 last year with no support eventhough theyve been selling a laptop with an SSD drive for a long time now.

I want my mac pro with two 60-80gb SSD drives in RAID0, if theres a drive with both garbage collection internally and support for TRIM, I'll bite the bullet and pay top dollar (or less, if possible).

Anyway, would be nice if someone pointed out the specific drive! Thanks!

Most drives that support TRIM as far as I know also support garbage collection.
 

appleweek

macrumors member
May 20, 2002
72
0
Well 10.6.3 is Officially out yesterday.... and unless i'm as blind as a bat I can confirm there are no changes related to SSD's/TRIM :( :(

So whats the general consensus about keeping our SSD's in tip-top condition? Format and re-image them once or twice a year?
 

calderone

Cancelled
Aug 28, 2009
3,743
352
I just discovered that both my Vertex Turbo's are on 1.0, which means I am going to have to image the images, update the firmware and drop the image back down.

Hooray for NetRestore.
 

applesupergeek

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2009
879
0
Well 10.6.3 is Officially out yesterday.... and unless i'm as blind as a bat I can confirm there are no changes related to SSD's/TRIM :( :(

So whats the general consensus about keeping our SSD's in tip-top condition? Format and re-image them once or twice a year?

Pretty much, some say 6 months.

Btw, let me just say though that garbage collection is not the same per se as trim, and I haven't hard that many good things about it, depends on the controller, and can be very hit and miss.
 

Robb.Penoyer

macrumors member
Mar 8, 2010
69
0
Florida
OK, I will update... I am about a month into my OCZ Vertex SSD experience. When I run XBench, my numbers are the same as the day I installed it. I am a software engineer, so I write and update lots and lots of small files all day long. A month is a pretty short time, but then again, I am a worse case user.

Just because the thread talked a little about this. When I spoke with the OCZ engineer, we discussed the OCZSSD2-1VTXA250G Mac Edition model. That is what I purchased and installed.

I know all this discussion on cleanups and such are really interesting... but to tell you the truth, an SSD is going to outperform your fastest 7500 RPM magnetic drive every minute of every day, regardless of the fragmentation. For my SSD to be outperformed by a Western Digital Caviar drive, it would have to drop in performance by a factor of 100.

So, like I said before. If you have the need and the means, buy one today and enjoy.
 

appleweek

macrumors member
May 20, 2002
72
0
Yeah, no one is disputing our SSD are still blazing fast compared to mechanical HDD's....... But for the price we paid for our drivers (some over US$500.00), we expect them to be in tip-top performance. Its like buying a fancy race car like a ferrari, you care about EVERY little performance degradation in intense detail!!! For the prices we paid for our SSD's and to be on the cutting edge, we want to make sure it stays 100x faster, not 75x faster after owning it for a year.........
 

DCIFRTHS

macrumors 65816
Jan 25, 2008
1,291
644
I just discovered that both my Vertex Turbo's are on 1.0, which means I am going to have to image the images, update the firmware and drop the image back down.

Hooray for NetRestore.

What firmware version is the Vertex Turbo up to? I don't see any firmware images available on OCZ's site. Thanks!
 
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