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2011 Thunderbolt iMac w/ SSD Shipment Tracker

TRIM support for SSD drives in iMac

in the newest issue of the german ct magazine they did a review of the new iMacs and mentioned that an apple spokesperson confirmed that only the ssd apple builds into the machines get support for the TRIM command.

For me the conclusion is clear: Due to the impossibility to assemble an iMac in a satisfactory way without a cleanroom and the fact that there is no TRIM support for non apple supported ssds there is no alternative as to order the machines with ssd.

If you use a SSD drive with no TRIM write speed is degrading significantly over time!
 
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chris 76646 said:
in the newest issue of the german ct magazine they did a review of the new iMacs and mentioned that an apple spokesperson confirmed that only the ssd apple builds into the machines get support for the TRIM command.

For me the conclusion is clear: Due to the impossibility to assemble an iMac in a satisfactory way without a cleanroom and the fact that there is no TRIM support for non apple supported ssds there is no alternative as to order the machines with ssd.
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Interesting... I was just reading about TRIM here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM

I guess TRIM essentially increases speed by allowing the SSD to do certain tasks that it normally couldn't? That wikipedia article isn't very understandable.

If what you say is true, I guess we can expect even better performance than people who are installing their own SSD...
 
Yes - basically a SSD disk needs free sectors to write at full speed.

The main difference compared to magnetic drives is that it is not sufficient to mark a sector to be free and reusable after a file has been deleted which is what the OS is doing without TRIM. To reuse a free disk sector in a SSD disk the on-chip controller needs time to do some housekeeping.

By introducing the TRIM command into the SATA command set, the OS can trigger this housekeeping procedure at the time disk sectors get freed up, typically after you delete a file.

Without TRIM the write performance of a SSD is degrading significantly over time

Also in LION TRIM is only supported for SSD which come with a Mac. But there are already patches to enable it for all SSDs.

Nevertheless if you want TRIM support for your SSDs without hacks and patches you should stay here in line patiently waiting for your SSD iMac
 
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chris 76646 said:
Without TRIM the write performance of a SSD is degrading significantly over time
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Not true...this has been discussed at length here at the MacRumors forums and elsewhere.

Many drives have hardware-based garbage collection/wear-leveling built-in (the Sandforce-based drives are good examples) that make TRIM redundant. It's been conclusively shown that SSDs with effective garbage collection don't degrade over time and work great in the long run even without TRIM support in OS X. Google is your friend, but here are a few links:

http://www.sandforce.com/index.php?id=3
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4010/kingston-ssdnow-v-plus-100-review
 
You are right. There are now drive controllers out which are able to do the housekeeping without the information from the OS where to clean up.

And yes with these drives you will not see a degradation of write speed over time. But the price you have to pay is write amplification:

From the anandtech article you referred: "There is a downside however: write amplification. For every 4KB we randomly write to a location on the drive, the actual amount of data written is much, much greater. It's the cost of constantly cleaning/reorganizing the drive for performance. While I haven't had any 50nm, 4xnm or 3xnm NAND physically wear out on me, the V+100 is the most likely to blow through those program/erase cycles. Keep in mind that at the 3xnm node you no longer have 10,000 cycles, but closer to 5,000 before your NAND dies. On nearly all drives we've tested this isn't an issue, but I would be concerned about the V+100. Concerned enough to recommend running it with 20% free space at all times (at least). The more free space you have, the better job the controller can do wear leveling."

I still prefer TRIM support for the SSD drives in OSX
 
chris 76646 said:
But the price you have to pay is write amplification:

From the anandtech article you referred: "There is a downside however: write amplification. For every 4KB we randomly write to a location on the drive, the actual amount of data written is much, much greater. It's the cost of constantly cleaning/reorganizing the drive for performance. While I haven't had any 50nm, 4xnm or 3xnm NAND physically wear out on me, the V+100 is the most likely to blow through those program/erase cycles. Keep in mind that at the 3xnm node you no longer have 10,000 cycles, but closer to 5,000 before your NAND dies. On nearly all drives we've tested this isn't an issue, but I would be concerned about the V+100. Concerned enough to recommend running it with 20% free space at all times (at least). The more free space you have, the better job the controller can do wear leveling."
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Meh. Most (if not all, I haven't checked) Sandforce-based drives, unlike the Kingston referenced, are overprovisioned anyway so there's "free space" already set aside for garbage collection. Unless you're doing tons of read/write operations (something significantly out of the ordinary) your SSD will be obsolete before it wears out from hardware-based garbage collection.
 
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c3076696 : Any updates?

bassanoclapper (not an MR user) : Has your iMac shipped? Please keep us and the sheet updated.

dilgit, kissfatdog, supersid, Omniver : You guys are the next to supposedly hit your ship dates. Two of you even have 21.5" models. Please keep us and the sheet updated.
 
mrfoof82 said:
c3076696 : Any updates?

bassanoclapper (not an MR user) : Has your iMac shipped? Please keep us and the sheet updated.

dilgit, kissfatdog, supersid, Omniver : You guys are the next to supposedly hit your ship dates. Two of you even have 21.5" models. Please keep us and the sheet updated.
Click to expand...

According to the sheet, the earliest delivery estimates are roughly a week away.

Any benchmarks on SSD performance would be greatly appreciated once the iMacs start arriving. :)
 
jrlepage said:
Yep I was just about to register on their forums myself to do this:

Here
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I emailed the guy directly. He said he miswrote in that thread. This is the email he sent in response to mine:
"Hi,
Let me start off by apologizing for my typo. In my post, I accidently
hit +ssd instead of -ssd. There was a long delay time if I ordered the
ssd and I needed the machine quickly. I opted for ram over the ssd and
the resultant delay. Sorry for the inconveniece as I am currently out
at sea and wish I could have caught my error sooner and corrected it.
Best regards."

So it looks like no one has an SSD iMac yet :(
 
Don't know if it has been mentioned before, but I just want to give a heads up anyway. When I tried to configure the 21.5 inch iMac with SSD + HDD the estimated shipping date changed to 5-7 business days. This doesn't apply to the 27 inch nor the 21.5 with SSD minus HDD. Only 21.5 inch with SSD + HDD.
 
christianhg said:
Don't know if it has been mentioned before, but I just want to give a heads up anyway. When I tried to configure the 21.5 inch iMac with SSD + HDD the estimated shipping date changed to 5-7 business days. This doesn't apply to the 27 inch nor the 21.5 with SSD minus HDD. Only 21.5 inch with SSD + HDD.
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Indeed, the 21.5 inch SSD CTO show shorter estimated shipping date (5-7 days for SSD+HDD, 1-2 weeks for SSD only). The 27" model didn't change. Does it mean that Apple will use different controllers for the 21.5" model?
 
Changed my order slightly as I wanted a wired keyboard and now the change has gone through the shipping has slipped by another 3 days - doh!
 
mrfoof82 said:
c3076696 : Any updates?

bassanoclapper (not an MR user) : Has your iMac shipped? Please keep us and the sheet updated.

dilgit, kissfatdog, supersid, Omniver : You guys are the next to supposedly hit your ship dates. Two of you even have 21.5" models. Please keep us and the sheet updated.
Click to expand...

My order still hasn't shipped, but I noticed some of the other orders for my store have shipped. They are the exact same configuration as mine so hopefully mine will be shipped soon.
 

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c3076696 said:
My order still hasn't shipped, but I noticed some of the other orders for my store have shipped. They are the exact same configuration as mine so hopefully mine will be shipped soon.
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I looked at the model. Why it's 2.7QC and 6770M? That's not the Mid 2011 IMac which should come with 6970M and 3.4GHz QC.:eek:
 
nyukfui said:
I looked at the model. Why it's 2.7QC and 6770M? That's not the Mid 2011 IMac which should come with 6970M and 3.4GHz QC.:eek:
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It actually is a mid-2011 iMac, I just ordered the entry level 27" with the SSD option instead of the faster 3.4GHz model.

The specs are:

- 2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
- 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
- 1TB Serial ATA Drive + 256GB Solid State Drive
- AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512MB GDDR5
- Apple Magic Mouse
- Apple Wireless Keyboard

I'll also be installing additional RAM to either 8 or 16GB when it arrives.
 
Following this thread closely. I think I'm going to wait til august to order mine so I can see how the ssds perform and wait for the 4-6 week wait to pass. Also to see if the Mac pros get updated from now til then.
 
c3076696 said:
My order still hasn't shipped, but I noticed some of the other orders for my store have shipped. They are the exact same configuration as mine so hopefully mine will be shipped soon.
Click to expand...
Why are the Aussie SSD iMacs shipping so quickly? Does it have something to do with kangaroos, utes and vegemite?
 
c3076696 said:
My order still hasn't shipped, but I noticed some of the other orders for my store have shipped. They are the exact same configuration as mine so hopefully mine will be shipped soon.
Click to expand...


I'm curious, where did this screenshot come from? Are you an employee at an Apple reseller or something? It's interesting that someone who ordered on May 18 had theirs ship already... You're sure these all had SSDs?

I hope we start to see people posting here saying they've received theirs. Would love to know the specs on the SSD.
 
21.5" shipped today, expected ultimately on May 26th

My 21.5" iMac shipped today and Apple mailed me the ultimate delivery date of May 26th. Both shipping and the new estimated delivery date a 1 day before initial dates.

I read about a benchmark request, I am not so familiar with benchmarking but very happy to do so. Any suggestions on applications to use for benchmarking?
 
supersid said:
My 21.5" iMac shipped today and Apple mailed me the ultimate delivery date of May 26th. Both shipping and the new estimated delivery date a 1 day before initial dates.

I read about a benchmark request, I am not so familiar with benchmarking but very happy to do so. Any suggestions on applications to use for benchmarking?
Click to expand...

XBench and Aja System test would be nice. Other suggestions, anyone?
 
supersid said:
My 21.5" iMac shipped today and Apple mailed me the ultimate delivery date of May 26th. Both shipping and the new estimated delivery date a 1 day before initial dates.

I read about a benchmark request, I am not so familiar with benchmarking but very happy to do so. Any suggestions on applications to use for benchmarking?
Click to expand...

Congrats!! :)

I'm assuming since you posted here, yours has an SSD? When you ordered, was the delivery estimate 5-7 days or 4-6 weeks?

Wish we'd see some state-side 27" w/SSD start moving...

By the way, on the Apple website, the 21.5" with all SSD options are now showing 2-4 days instead of 5-7... Going to go cry myself to sleep now.
 
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