OSX SSD Tunings plus performance with and without TRIM on Intel 320 SSD

[dikrek]

Hello all,

I posted about this before here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...=#post12515592

I did some extra testing and decided to publish a how-to guide in my blog here:

http://recoverymonkey.org/2011/05/05...-without-trim/

Long story short: enabling TRIM support, at least on Intel 320 with the 10.6.7 OS X driver, is not the best idea.

Thx

D

[rev.b]

Same (much worse actually) with a Crucial m4 128 Gb (@ 3 Gb/s on a '10 MBP)


With TRIM:

Time:
101 seconds total
73 seconds of transactions (273 per second)

Files:
20163 created (199 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (3333 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10163 files (139 per second)
10053 read (137 per second)
9945 appended (136 per second)
20163 deleted (199 per second)
Deletion alone: 10326 files (413 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9837 files (134 per second)

Data:
557.87 megabytes read (5.52 megabytes per second)
1165.62 megabytes written (11.54 megabytes per second)

Without TRIM:

Time:
19 seconds total
13 seconds of transactions (1538 per second)

Files:
20163 created (1061 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (2500 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10163 files (781 per second)
10053 read (773 per second)
9945 appended (765 per second)
20163 deleted (1061 per second)
Deletion alone: 10326 files (5163 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9837 files (756 per second)

Data:
557.87 megabytes read (29.36 megabytes per second)
1165.62 megabytes written (61.35 megabytes per second)

[TXBDan]

^

this is very interesting. Anyone else care to make some measurements? I'll do some when i install my M4 tomorrow on my 2011

[kobyh15]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Wow, getting my 320 in next week. That's good to know. I was hoping TRIM would work well. This suggests it's a little on the aggressive side though.

[frankieboy]

Thanks for putting this post up. Good data point.

[daneoni]

This makes me worried because the C300 was notorious for its eventual drop in performance when running on setups without TRIM.

[kappaknight]

I wonder what the results will be like over time though.

[JGO]

Originally Posted by daneoni

This makes me worried because the C300 was notorious for its eventual drop in performance when running on setups without TRIM.

I don't think it should worry you. My wife has the C300 in her MBP without the trim modification and it runs well. When necessary I trim the drive using wiper.sh via an Ubuntu LiveCD.
If you don't do heavy writes then it is likely that you won't need to trim the drive very often.

Trim drive using Ubuntu LiveCD

For resized file systems (i.e. partitions added via Boot Camp) update the wiper folder with this file.

After doing some reading about Ubuntu I decided to put my old hard drive back in my MBP, install Ubuntu with everything necessary to run trim (including an modified version of wiper.sh posted by Antiram). Then create a text file on the desktop that includes your instructions (commands) for running trim in terminal. Lastly, install and run Remastersys so that you can create a custom LiveCD.

I reinstalled my SSD and now I have a custom LiveCD that allows me to trim my SSD - no need to go through the install process described in the link above. The process was tedious, but you need only do it one time.

[mape2k]

Just got my 320 ssd a couple of days ago an enabled TRIM support via the enabler from the start.

In normal work load, I don't really notice a difference. The boot time is about the same but I am not the type of guys stopping the start up time with a stop watch...
I will leave it enabled for now, even though your benchmarks clearly show a disadvantage when enabling TRIM on the 320.

[Malcolm.]

Originally Posted by daneoni

This makes me worried because the C300 was notorious for its eventual drop in performance when running on setups without TRIM.

I'm currently running on a Mushkin Callisto 120 GB SSD in my Thinkpad. Feels good to have full TRIM support in Windows 7.

[Weaselboy]

If users are worried about the TRIM hacks effect on performance and stability, you can just enable the hack once every few months and "Erase Free Space" on the drive, then remove the hack. This would TRIM the entire drive and put the drive back in a like new state.

What you might do is run a base line speed test and then rerun the test every six months to see if you detect a difference. If the lack of TRIM is having an effect you will notice a big drop in write speeds. If your test does show a big write speed drop you can enable the hack and TRIM the drive.

[JGO]

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

If users are worried about the TRIM hacks effect on performance and stability, you can just enable the hack once every few months and "Erase Free Space" on the drive, then remove the hack. This would TRIM the entire drive and put the drive back in a like new state.

I really think it is better to use the Ubuntu solution described above. The user doesn't have to hack their system files and they avoid permissions problems.

I have gone down the "erase free space" route before and ended up with boot and shutdown times over two minutes due to a bug (as some described it) in which permissions for the drive becomes botched in a way that disk utility can't fix, even when booting from the install disk. The only remedy to the problem was some command line stuff that I had to search out online.

Make the Ubuntu LiveCD and you can boot up from that cd trim the drive in minutes.

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by JGO

I really think it is better to use the Ubuntu solution described above. The user doesn't have to hack their system files and they avoid permissions problems.

I have gone down the "erase free space" route before and ended up with boot and shutdown times over two minutes due to a bug (as some described it) in which permissions for the drive becomes botched in a way that disk utility can't fix, even when booting from the install disk. The only remedy to the problem was some command line stuff that I had to search out online.

Make the Ubuntu LiveCD and you can boot up from that cd trim the drive in minutes.

Hmm... that's odd. Sounds more like a bug in the Disk Util than anything to do with TRIM maybe?

Is the live CD TRIM routine non-destructive? So just boot from the CD and run it and reboot to OS X and all set?

[JGO]

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

Hmm... that's odd. Sounds more like a bug in the Disk Util than anything to do with TRIM maybe?

Is the live CD TRIM routine non-destructive? So just boot from the CD and run it and reboot to OS X and all set?

Yes, non-destructive. However, I would still backup the drive before doing this. Once the custom ubuntu live cd is created it is so simple to boot from the cd, run the command in terminal and watch as it runs down the sector check and trim - done. I have used this method several times on three macs.

I am not the only one with a MBP and SSD who has taken this advice, read the responses of those who have:

1 2 3

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by JGO

Yes, non-destructive. However, I would still backup the drive before doing this. Once the custom ubuntu live cd is created it is so simple to boot from the cd, run the command in terminal and watch as it runs down the sector check and trim - done. I have used this method several times on three macs.

I am not the only one with a MBP and SSD who has taken this advice, read the responses of those who have:

1 2 3

Thanks. I'll give it a try.

[JGO]

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

Thanks. I'll give it a try.

Be sure to follow the instructions at this link

They are identical to the instructions posted in Macrumors by Antiram, but I removed the hyperlink formatting on part of the instructions as it was hiding part of a long url that you must type into terminal.

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by JGO

Be sure to follow the instructions at this link

They are identical to the instructions posted in Macrumors by Antiram, but I removed the hyperlink formatting on part of the instructions as it was hiding part of a long url that you must type into terminal.

Got it. Thanks

[kobyh15]

Bookmarked.

[bozz2006]

Have you made the cd yet weaselboy? How did it go? This process is pretty darn intimidating to me!

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by bozz2006

Have you made the cd yet weaselboy? How did it go? This process is pretty darn intimidating to me!

No. I TRIM'd using fsck just before I disabled the hack, so figured I don't need it yet. I just saved this info for later. It is intimidating.

[kobyh15]

Let us know how it goes Weaselboy, I'm putting in my 320 today when I get my RAM in a bit. I will probably not enable the TRIM hack yet. I'm going to do a little more research. Anyone run Xbench or something before and after TRIM enabler hack? Does it show the same speed detriments as exhibited by the OP?

[kobyh15]

I installed my 320 and 8 GB of RAM last night and this thing is awesome. It boots in 16 seconds after a PRAM and SMC reset. So I disabled the SMS with no problems. However, when I went to disable access time updates as described in the OP's article I came across a slight problem. I downloaded the script and opened in Finder, I then dragged the file into /Library/LaunchDaemons. The computer asked me to authenticate the change and I did so. I rebooted and then went to Terminal and typed "mount" and got this:

/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)

It doesn't seem to recognize the change, there is no "noatime" in the Terminal. I checked the /Library/LaunchDaemons folder and the script is there. The computer is working perfectly so I'm kind of confused as to what I need to do. Is there a step between adding the script, rebooting, and then checking Terminal? Thanks!

[dikrek]

You need to sudo chown root:wheel that file... then reboot. Drag/drop won't work.

[kobyh15]

Originally Posted by dikrek

You need to sudo chown root:wheel that file... then reboot. Drag/drop won't work.

How do I go about doing that?

[dikrek]

Originally Posted by kobyh15

How do I go about doing that?

open terminal and type the command

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.my.noatime.plist

then reboot