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First Third-Party SSD With Native OS X TRIM Support Launched by Angelbird

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,523
30,816



angelbird_ssd_trim-250x259.jpg
With the growing popularity and declining cost of solid-state drives (SSDs) for Macs and other personal computers, users have becoming increasingly interested in putting third-party SSDs into their machines. But one issue Mac users have been running into involves support for TRIM, a system-level command that allows the operating system and the drive to communicate about which areas of the drive are considered unused and thus ready to be erased and rewritten to.

Without TRIM, writes to the drive can see significant slowdowns as the system must read and erase each block on the fly before writing new data. But unfortunately for users looking to install third-party SSDs into their machines, Apple only officially supports TRIM on Apple-branded SSDs. Workarounds such as Trim Enabler have naturally been developed to enable TRIM on non-Apple SSDs, but a new lineup of SSDs released earlier this month by Austrian firm Angelbird claims to be the first third-party SSD to support TRIM right out of the box with no need for additional software tweaking.

Exactly how Angelbird has achieved native TRIM support on Mac is unclear, as the company has not responded to requests for comment. French site MacBidouille reports [Google Translate], however, that Angelbird's SSDs appear to simply be masquerading as genuine Apple SSDs, thereby qualifying for native TRIM support. While the method appears rather questionable and likely to draw Apple's attention, the drive could still be an appealing option for users looking for the easiest possible solution for upgrading to an SSD.

OS X Yosemite has added yet another wrinkle for third-party SSD users, as the new kext signing security measure included in the new operating system means that Yosemite systems will refuse to load modified drivers such as those used by TRIM-enabling software. Cindori, the company behind Trim Enabler, is for now recommending that users interested in enabling TRIM on third-party SSDs with Yosemite disable the kext-signing check entirely. The company acknowledges that turning off this global setting is far from ideal and "for most users it will not be worth it", but for now it is the only solution.

Angelbird has not specified whether its SSDs bypass the Yosemite TRIM issues, but if the drives do indeed simply qualify as Apple SSDs due to the way the model number is presented, it is possible that native TRIM support may still function under Yosemite. Angelbird's SSD wrk lineup is available in three capacities: 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB starting at an MSRP of $99.99.

Article Link: First Third-Party SSD With Native OS X TRIM Support Launched by Angelbird
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/31/angelbird-ssd-trim/
2

25ghosts

macrumors 6502
Jan 31, 2008
279
388
SoftRAID has made this Possible since YEARS

Hi...

this is nothing new... Users of SoftRAID has had this option for ANY 3rd pty. SSD since years.
 
2

2984839

Cancelled
Apr 19, 2014
2,114
2,239
A lack of Trim is really nothing to worry about on drives with good garbage collection and some over-provisioning.
 
WildCowboy

WildCowboy

Administrator/Editor
Staff member
Jan 20, 2005
18,390
2,829
25ghosts said:
Hi...

this is nothing new... Users of SoftRAID has had this option for ANY 3rd pty. SSD since years.
Click to expand...

This is native, no software like SoftRAID needed. And SoftRAID can't activate TRIM under Yosemite, precisely for the reasons discussed in the article.

When running Yosemite, the SoftRAID application no longer modifies the Apple driver to enable TRIM on non-Apple SSDs. When running Yosemite, modifying this Apple driver can cause your startup volume to longer work.
Click to expand...
 
theelysium

theelysium

Suspended
Nov 18, 2008
562
360
wholly hell,, I don't know there was an issue with SSD TRIM on macs! I've been shopping for a drive for months unaware of the issue.

What drives are good???
What drive with with TRIM?

----------
oneMadRssn said:
Not to pat myself on the back too much, I did post this in the forum on Monday.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1809973/

Nevertheless, I would love to hear if anyone tried this, and report back their results.
Click to expand...

Stroke, Stroke, Stroke... how is your ego now?:eek:
 
Mark-Technology

Mark-Technology

macrumors regular
Nov 25, 2011
140
306
theelysium said:
wholly hell,, I don't know there was an issue with SSD TRIM on macs! I've been shopping for a drive for months unaware of the issue.

What drives are good???
What drive with with TRIM?
Click to expand...

Samsung is the best consumer SSD brand and has been for the last 3 years. If you've got the money, go for the 850 Pro otherwise 840 Evo is still better than the other brands. Don't worry about trim; you can use trim enabler for that and these drives have excellent garbage collection management regardless.
 
Gav Mack

Gav Mack

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2008
2,193
22
Sagittarius A*
I would love the utilty they simply have to have used to stick official Apple device ID strings into their firmware.

One utilty for crucial and another for Samsung drives would be fantastic cos I cannot see how they can get native trim any other way!

I sense lawyers rubbing their hands near Cupertino...
 
M

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Ooops

Just got a 256GB Crucial SSD drive delivered to update my 2009 MBP w Yosemite installed and doing a backup right now before doing the swap. What should I do now? Trim Enabler, no Trim, Enabler , what about that kext security thing? :eek:
 
justperry

justperry

macrumors G5
Aug 10, 2007
12,557
9,750
I'm a rolling stone.
MacRumors said:
OS X Yosemite has added yet another wrinkle for third-party SSD users, as the new kext signing security measure included in the new operating system means that Yosemite systems will refuse to load modified drivers such as those used by TRIM-enabling software. Cindori, the company behind Trim Enabler, is for now recommending that users interested in enabling TRIM on third-party SSDs with Yosemite disable the kext-signing check entirely. The company acknowledges that turning off this global setting is far from ideal and "for most users it will not be worth it", but for now it is the only solution.
Click to expand...

Hey MR, when do you really listen to your members, I already said a few times kext signing will be reset when you reset NVRAM/PRAM.
The bad thing is, if you had it enabled and after a NVRAM/PRAM reset you almost sure can't boot into OS X yosemite.
 
Last edited:
M

Maltz

macrumors member
Mar 31, 2011
60
5
Mark-Technology said:
Samsung is the best consumer SSD brand and has been for the last 3 years. If you've got the money, go for the 850 Pro otherwise 840 Evo is still better than the other brands. Don't worry about trim; you can use trim enabler for that and these drives have excellent garbage collection management regardless.
Click to expand...

While all of that is true, and I'll second the Samsung recommendation (but make sure you get the firmware update for the EVO that was just released!) ...

It pisses me off to no end that Apple doesn't support TRIM on third-party drives. Windows 7/8 universally supports TRIM, Linux universally supports TRIM. Why doesn't OS X? It's like their lack of AHCI support when you're using Bootcamp (or anything that doesn't boot into EFI). There's just no reason for it other than to go out of their way to gimp performance when something is not 100% Apple.
 
Gav Mack

Gav Mack

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2008
2,193
22
Sagittarius A*
Maltz said:
While all of that is true, and I'll second the Samsung recommendation (but make sure you get the firmware update for the EVO that was just released!) ...



It pisses me off to no end that Apple doesn't support TRIM on third-party drives. Windows 7/8 universally supports TRIM, Linux universally supports TRIM. Why doesn't OS X? It's like their lack of AHCI support when you're using Bootcamp (or anything that doesn't boot into EFI). There's just no reason for it other than to go out of their way to gimp performance when something is not 100% Apple.
Click to expand...


You can mod most pre PCIe ssd Mac to support ahci booting windows, mine all do though it's not for the novice!
 
K

KALLT

macrumors 603
Sep 23, 2008
5,361
3,378
I hope that they can keep this up and that Apple can’t do anything about it. This whole Trim debacle with Yosemite makes me very angry.
 
MacGod

MacGod

macrumors regular
Jul 2, 2008
177
281
Or just run an OWC drive that has the SANDFORCE controller and doesn't require TRIM at all - been using one for 2 years now - Still fast as day 1. Great SSD's, hands down, for Macs.
 
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