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Does Snow Leopard support the *critical* SSD "TRIM" command?

Does TRIM work?

From what I've read TRIM is a good idea because it addresses a problem with the differences in write technology between SSD's and spinning hard drives, but I haven't actually found anything that proved a real-world difference. Does anyone know of a website with properly controlled experiments to see if TRIM (as currently implemented in Windows 7 betas) actually speeds up SSD's?

I know that TRIM is a good idea that needs to be developed and implemented, but until it's actually been proven to work quickly and reliably, I don't want Apple to support it.
 
RealEvil said:
I will say it again - the latest PC Per podcast stated that the 'garbage collection' done by the Samsung (and I think Indilinx) controllers ONLY work for Windows based file systems. I could you have misheard but I dont think I did. This means there are no TRIM exes, and no in built protection against slow down.

I hope this is not correct.
Click to expand...

Dude, those idle garbage collection are in both Samsung and Indilinx(added in FW 1.3) and they are not the same thing as TRIM, however a lot of people are calling it "internal trim" or "auto trim". We are not talking about the same thing. I repeat once again, TRIM is not the same thing as those idle garbage collection. Idle garbage collection is also called Nand Launderer in Indilinx devices.

Those Idle garbage collection requires the computer to be completely idle for a long period of time (like overnight) to start working. It is not the same thing as the OS issuing TRIM commands and the SSD starts performing it in the background. Two different situation for same purpose in the end.

dwsolberg said:
Does TRIM work?

From what I've read TRIM is a good idea because it addresses a problem with the differences in write technology between SSD's and spinning hard drives, but I haven't actually found anything that proved a real-world difference. Does anyone know of a website with properly controlled experiments to see if TRIM (as currently implemented in Windows 7 betas) actually speeds up SSD's?

I know that TRIM is a good idea that needs to be developed and implemented, but until it's actually been proven to work quickly and reliably, I don't want Apple to support it.
Click to expand...

PcPer has a couple of reviews on TRIM and OCZ forums have many users showing the difference between before and after benchmarks.

here's an link to OCZ forum.

TRIM works fine. It does not restore 100% of the initial performance but it can restore 85%+ enough to not worth flashing firmwares to get the drive back. Those reports were with TRIM utility exe and with the internal idle garbage collection as shown in the link above. OS supported TRIM will probably be much better.
 
MikhailT said:
Rumors are that OCZ/Indilinx is working on same thing for Mac OS X, I been hearing the same thing from the past few months. We'll probably hear something by the end of the summer.
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Yeah, hopefully we with the Indilinx drives can get some TRIM running soon. :)
 
My Vertex 30GB slowed to speeds way below the original specs. I removed the drive from my MBP, put it in a Windows based desktop computer, and ran the wiper app from OCZ. The results are below and they speak for themselves. I can't wait to be able to do this on the Mac side.
 

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emt1 said:
My Vertex 30GB slowed to speeds way below the original specs. I removed the drive from my MBP, put it in a Windows based desktop computer, and ran the wiper app from OCZ. The results are below and they speak for themselves. I can't wait to be able to do this on the Mac side.
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Are you running FW1.3? It has the idle garbage collection. You need to leave the SSD running idle overnight, it should restore the speed back to 80% or above.
 
MikhailT said:
Are you running FW1.3? It has the idle garbage collection. You need to leave the SSD running idle overnight, it should restore the speed back to 80% or above.
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I've heard about that, but the details about how/if it works were never released by OCZ. The "Tony" guy on the forums seems to never know anything.
 
emt1 said:
I've heard about that, but the details about how/if it works were never released by OCZ. The "Tony" guy on the forums seems to never know anything.
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The idle GC is actually suppose to be OS independant, so it doesn't matter which OS you're running. It should work in the background. Many people reported successes with it.

Tony is in marketing and technical department, he gets all of his information from the engineers that work on those products and from playing with those SSDs himself.

I started the thread at OCZ to try to gain information about the idle GC, you can check it out here.
 
I have a feeling that Apple is already testing TRIM out on SSDs to see if it is any good. If we ever end up seeing it, it will probably make an appearance in a later version of SL.
 
geoffreak said:
I have a feeling that Apple is already testing TRIM out on SSDs to see if it is any good. If we ever end up seeing it, it will probably make an appearance in a later version of SL.
Click to expand...

I think it is more likely 10.7 than a 10.6.x. I have a feeling 10.7 will show up within 12-18 months more.

I would like to think that 10.7 will bring default ZFS file system that already have all the SSDs optimizations.
 
MikhailT said:
I would like to think that 10.7 will bring default ZFS file system that already have all the SSDs optimizations.
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Nah, ZFS won't be standard until 10.9. 10.7 is where we first get to use it as a secondary file system natively and 10.8 is when we will be able to boot with it.
*sigh*:rolleyes:
 
Apple should really include TRIM with a checkbox option or via console enabler...

it works fine, it's not rocket science, but it's very helpful.
 
tempusfugit said:
if you have an SSD, when you delete stuff make sure you secure delete. that will result in sectors not needing to be TRIM'd
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Umm, no it won't. Don't confuse secure delete in Mac OSX with SecureErase that is often used by people running it to reset the drive back to default. It is not the same thing. Secure delete will mark the sector zero or deleted yes but it does not reset those memory cells back to fresh state. TRIM is setting those memory state back to fresh.

You still need a TRIM utility to run a trim operation and even in there, secure delete or non secure delete wouldn't matter, it'll do it's thing for any invalid, deleted and zeros block of data.

While i recommend people to always use secure delete, it is not needed for unimportant data and can be worse for the SSD life as memory cells do have limited write cycles.
 
tempusfugit said:
if you have an SSD, when you delete stuff make sure you secure delete. that will result in sectors not needing to be TRIM'd
Click to expand...

This is actually BAD to do for SSDs. It only writes over the data with zeros, but the cells are not actually empty according to the SSD. Secure wiping is also very bad for SSDs.
 
emt1 said:
This is actually BAD to do for SSDs. It only writes over the data with zeros, but the cells are not actually empty according to the SSD. Secure wiping is also very bad for SSDs.
Click to expand...


It is not bad or very bad. Security > lifespan of SSD, nothing is an excuse when it comes to the security of your data. Even secure trash once a day won't bring your SSD to death for another 2-5 years. It'll be fine.

It is just not recommended to use secure wipe for trying to use it as an alternative for TRIM nor is it recommended for unimportant data.
 
p3ncil said:
not sure if this is true. but i hope this helps.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=410647&postcount=2
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Nobody knows for sure until we get real ATA TRIM support in our SSD drives. Once we get it, we can figure out how to test it in SL. Until then, we don't know if SL already has it built in or not.

Everybody, read this information to see what the status on the TRIM in either 10.5.7+ or 10.6.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=409366&postcount=5
 
Mac OS X integrated defragmentation at a level that was unseen by the user and could do it in the background... judging by this logic, at some point in the future they should support the TRIM garbage collection functionality and start to implement it when the computer is idle just as defragmentation happens.
 
raymondu999 said:
Mac OS X integrated defragmentation at a level that was unseen by the user and could do it in the background... judging by this logic, at some point in the future they should support the TRIM garbage collection functionality and start to implement it when the computer is idle just as defragmentation happens.
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They will support it, it's already in the code in both 10.5.7 and 10.6. It is called IOStorage::discard.

More info here.
 
At this rate of SSD development, TRIM won't be as important as everybody claims it would be.

The recent intense development of idle garbage collection system that has been showing up in Intel, OCZ and Samsung has basically reduced the requirement for TRIM for performance. OCZ's latest firmware in testing has shown to recover performance up to 90% after a few hours. Trim is still needed for those deleted data but at this moment, it may not be that important now.
 
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