TRIM is automatically enabled without any hacks (10.7.1).
That's interesting. Can other Samsung 470 owners chime in on that observation?
are they any problems with sleep/hibernation like some of the sf drives?
He is mistaken. I have that drive in a 2011 MBP 13" with 10.7.1 and TRIM is not enabled without hack.
Has one of you owners done a firmware update so far?
I recently had my 2008 Unibody 5,1 MacBook Pro replaced with the new Core i7 version (boy do I love Apple), and I would really like to get a SSD. As much as I would like to think that I would be happy with the next gen Momentus XT, I was far from impressed with the first gen version.
I've decided to purchase the 256GB Samsung 470 SSD, but I have some concerns about enabling TRIM support via a hack. I am aware that TRIM support extends the life of the SSD, but by how much, and is it necessary?
If it has its own Garbage Collection, it isn't really necessary. I enabled it on mine anyways, I've yet to see a difference in performance with it enabled/disabled.
It's safe and reversible... just follow the instructions here
And read up on TRIM a little more to understand the concept... it basically helps prevent the SSD performance from degrading over time. It's more useful on older SSD drives where they didn't have their own independent garbage-collection.
And the consequences if I don't enable TRIM support?
...despite [the deleted files] being reported as "deleted" by the operating system, it also means that when the operating system later performs a write operation to one of the sectors, which it considers free space, it effectively becomes an overwrite operation from the point of view of the storage medium. For traditional hard disks this is no different from writing an empty sector, but because of how some SSDs function at the lowest level, an overwrite produces significant overhead compared to writing data into an empty page, potentially crippling write performance...
Well, basically if there is no garbage collection anywhere, theoretically you will start seeing major slowdowns and the like.
I have read that the 470 supports garbage collection, but does it "collect garbage" without TRIM support enabled?
...More recent SSDs will often contain internal idle/background garbage collection mechanisms that work independently of TRIM; although this successfully maintains their performance even under operating systems that do not (yet) support TRIM, it has the associated drawbacks of increased write amplification and wear of the flash cells...
Also, do you have to enable TRIM support before you install the SSD?
Yes. The SSD performs this operation independent of the OS. So, it does it regardless of whether or not the OS supports it, and regardless of what OS you have installed on it, or even if you don't have an OS on it! Really nice feature.
Though, an interesting piece of information from Wiki
Meaning the SSD's independent garbage collection could possibly have more wear on the SSD. Which really, you can't do anything about so it's not worth worrying about it.
No. No need to, just do it whenever, it won't hurt your drive to let it go without TRIM for a while. Might not even be a bad idea to see how it works at first without it, because many people have had beach ball problems with TRIM enabled.
By default, TRIM is disabled in OS X because Apple only enables it on their stock SSD drives (because it "just works" on their [Toshiba's, really] SSD's).
Because TRIM is a software level mechanism (the trim commands are sent from the OS itself, not from the SSD), you can't really enable TRIM before you install the SSD anyways. Just trying to clarify.
After being very satisfied with the 256GB Samsung 470 SSD I installed on my new Mini I decided to get a 64GB drive for my mid 2009 MBP. Instead of doing a fresh install like I did with Lion on the new Mini I just cloned my MBP Snow Leopard drive to the new SSD.
I'm happy to say it is working flawlessly just like the install on the Mini. I was concerned because initially it look well over a minute just to get to the grey screen with Apple logo when booting. Once it got there it was lightning fast to boot and run the OS. I remembered seeing a "boot drive" option in the System Preferences and wondered if that might be the problem. Sure enough, after setting the boot drive to the new 470 it booted up in about 16 seconds.
All-in-all, I'm sold on these Samsung 470 drives. Although not as fast as most of the new drives, both my installs went without a hitch and I have seen no beach balls, sleep issues, stuttering or any other anomalies. For my uses I will gladly give up a bit of speed for solid performance which these drives are giving me.
That's music to my ears. I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of mine from Amazon.
Do you have TRIM support enabled?
Yes. I used TRIM Enabler to turn on trim on both machines. Also, I purchased both of my drives from Amazon and both came with the latest firmware already installed.
My personal experience with several top of the line brands of SSD's over time, is both Samsung & OCZ are top tier in performance & long term reliability.