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Should I do this SSD optimization thing?

Of course you should. If it was bad it wouldn't exist :)

There are a few things in there that will lengthen your SSD's life significantly over time, like disabling the massive sleep files being written.

Have you also gone to System Preferences > Startup Disk and selected the SSD?

Cheers
 
I think so. In Startup Disk, I see there are two parts:
Mac OS X, 10.6.8 on Macintosh (the one I restarted with)
Network Startup

How can I make sure it's SSD?
 
astbn4 said:
I think so. In Startup Disk, I see there are two parts:
Mac OS X, 10.6.8 on Macintosh (the one I restarted with)
Network Startup

How can I make sure it's SSD?
Click to expand...

Post a screenshot of Startup Disk, I'm not sure I know what you mean by two parts

For example:

Screen_Shot_2013_05_05_at_2_35_37_AM.png
 
astbn4 said:
After replacing my 2010 13'' MacBook Pro's 4GB RAM with 8GB and HDD with SDD, my computer's performance improved beyond my expectations--what a relief!

Should I do this SSD optimization thing? (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1505922/)
Thoughts?

Many thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

It depends, if it has a sandforce controller inside you might be better of without enabling it.

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astbn4 said:
I think so. In Startup Disk, I see there are two parts:
Mac OS X, 10.6.8 on Macintosh (the one I restarted with)
Network Startup

How can I make sure it's SSD?
Click to expand...

The network should not be choosen if you don't have a network drive, if your Mac starts up from SSD now you don't need to do anything.
 
justperry said:
It depends, if it has a sandforce controller inside you might be better of without enabling it.
Click to expand...

Without enabling what? I think he meant the tweaks in general. Are you referring to TRIM?

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justperry said:
The network should not be choosen if you don't have a network drive, if your Mac starts up from SSD now you don't need to do anything.
Click to expand...

I only mentioned that startup disk thing because a lot of people (me included) do not know to do this and it drastically improves boot up performance. The Mac is still able to boot with this not done, but it's a lot slower. Obviously not necessary, but still a helpful hint.
 
johnnnw said:
Without enabling what? I think he meant the tweaks in general. Are you referring to TRIM?
Click to expand...

My bad, clicked on the link, just saw TRIM, that's it, if there are other tweaks it's all up to the OP.

Edit: It still depends on the SSD, if it is an MLC SSD I wouldn't bother, and the bigger the SSD the less it effect the lifespan of the SSD.
 
justperry said:
My bad, clicked on the link, just saw TRIM, that's it, if there are other tweaks it's all up to the OP.

Edit: It still depends on the SSD, if it is an MLC SSD I wouldn't bother, and the bigger the SSD the less it effect the lifespan of the SSD.
Click to expand...

I agree with that for sure.

There are some very helpful hints in the tweaks thread however. Disabling sleep writes saves very significant writes to the SSD daily. I think up to like 10GB if you are doing it multiple times a day, also depending on the amount of RAM it's writing to the SSD. So I'd recommend at least giving it a read OP.
 
johnnnw said:
I agree with that for sure.

There are some very helpful hints in the tweaks thread however. Disabling sleep writes saves very significant writes to the SSD daily. I think up to like 10GB if you are doing it multiple times a day, also depending on the amount of RAM it's writing to the SSD. So I'd recommend at least giving it a read OP.
Click to expand...

We were discussing this in another thread, and the consensus is that is not correct. The sleep image only writes if you let a Mac portable's battery run down to near dead, then and only then does the sleep image write form RAM to the drive to prevent data loss if the battery dies completely and shuts down the system. Just normal sleep does not write a sleep image at all.

There was another thread I can't find at the moment, but the user manually deleted the sleep image then recreated it and slept the computer several times and the image size stayed ay zero.

No offense to anybody in the "SSD tweaks" thread, but other than optionally running TRIM if you like, everything else there is unnecessary.
 
astbn4 said:
After replacing my 2010 13'' MacBook Pro's 4GB RAM with 8GB and HDD with SDD, my computer's performance improved beyond my expectations--what a relief!

Should I do this SSD optimization thing? (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1505922/)
Thoughts?

Many thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, no. Currently there is no significant improvement in performance or health, and plenty of opportunity for error. The advantages are minimal at best and take some work. A few years ago some of the tips were very good, but SSD technology has moved past those issues.

Now if you are a geek, it may be gratifying to toy a bit. Otherwise just sit back an enjoy.
 
I think the whole list is overkill some advice is good.

1. Activate Trim especially on all the newer Samsung and Curcial drives. Older and Sandforce too. There was once a Trim bug in a Sandforce firmware but it really is better of with Trim. Enabling Trim likely helps your SSDs life more than any of the other stuff mentioned as among other things it lowers write amplification.
2. I would do regardless of an SSD. Just a waste of space IMO. Always gives you a wrong indication of your real free space. It is just annoying IMHO.
3. I would also do regardless. hibernation mode 0 is just better. Notebook enters sleep immediately and unless you frequently let your notebook run out of juice while it is in standby; there is no point to using that annoyingly slow sleep.
4. Overkill forget it. Unless you use some old 32GB SSD you simply won't wear out your NAND cells ever. NAND wear is the point of 2 & 3 as well yet I would do those just because they are a good idea anyway.
5. Stupid idea. Move the folder once they really cannot fit anymore. Start with movies as it is the biggest and it doesn't hurt speed on the HDD. Next Music and Picutres. The rest should always remain on the SSD. If you only have and SSD and not and SSD+ HDD (one in optibay) this whole move folder idea is generally not of interest to you. Like always archive files that you don't need externally.
6. same as #4. Overkill and not necessary.
7. & 8. also not needed. OSX takes care of what needs doing in that respect. Some very old firmware may have had bugs there once but that is long time in the past.
9. This (the tweak for #3) is the only one I recommend. Regardless of SSD or HDD to anybody.
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
It turns of safe sleep. Saves space and if you close your MBP and forgot something and reopen quickly it wakes up immediately rather than stay dark for a long time until it decides to wake up again.

There is nothing to comment on 10 & 11.

Enable Trim and optionally set hibernatemode 0. Otherwise ignore that you have an SSD, use as you would an HDD and just enjoy the speed.
 
Weaselboy said:
We were discussing this in another thread, and the consensus is that is not correct. The sleep image only writes if you let a Mac portable's battery run down to near dead, then and only then does the sleep image write form RAM to the drive to prevent data loss if the battery dies completely and shuts down the system. Just normal sleep does not write a sleep image at all.

There was another thread I can't find at the moment, but the user manually deleted the sleep image then recreated it and slept the computer several times and the image size stayed ay zero.

No offense to anybody in the "SSD tweaks" thread, but other than optionally running TRIM if you like, everything else there is unnecessary.
Click to expand...

If you find that thread let me know, I'd like to read that. I kind of just figured why not do it and save the ssd a little. Either way I'd be interested in checking that discussion.
 
Weaselboy said:
We were discussing this in another thread, and the consensus is that is not correct. The sleep image only writes if you let a Mac portable's battery run down to near dead, then and only then does the sleep image write form RAM to the drive to prevent data loss if the battery dies completely and shuts down the system. Just normal sleep does not write a sleep image at all.

There was another thread I can't find at the moment, but the user manually deleted the sleep image then recreated it and slept the computer several times and the image size stayed ay zero.
Click to expand...
Just check out the difference in time it takes to enter and immediately exit sleep with hibernation mode 3 (safe sleep) and 0.
It is so huge a difference there can be no doubt OSX writes the image immediately and not wakes up on a timer. It most likely otimizes and doesn't write everything it could.
Just normal sleep is never enabled unless you set the hibernationmode to 0.

The only special thing with OSX and sleep is that it shuts the notebook down after some time of standby period but it definitely does not wake up to write the image before it shuts down.
 
My take on the optimization list:

1. Trim - I don't know. I thought most modern SSDs have similar functionality implemented in the firmware.

2. I like my local snapshots. It might be annoying if you move and copy huge files a lot (e.g. video encoding), but for my work use it is great to have this additional safety net, e.g. when you accidentally delete a file. Only deactivate this if it really bothers you!

3. I enabled this again after I upgraded to 256 GB SSD storage. I sometimes work my MBP down to zero battery, and it is nice to know that I never loose my work state.

4. Don't know.

5. Totally depends on your usage. I would never do this. With SSDs slowly increasing in size there should be less and less need for this. It can make sense to store e.g. videos on a HDD, since they take up a lot of space.

6. Doesn't make sense to me. Might lead to data loss in desktop computers.

7, 8. Seem unnecessary
9-11. Not really SSD related


Summary: Only do any of the steps when you (a) understand exactly what you are doing and (b) are sure that you don't need the features you are turning off.
 
thundersteele said:
My take on the optimization list:


6. Doesn't make sense to me. Might lead to data loss in desktop computers.
Click to expand...

Why do you say a RAM disk might lead to data loss? I understand you may not understand RAM disks but if you have something like 16gb's of ram it can be very helpful for the things stated in the tweaks post :)
 
My comments on that:

1. I had nothing but troubles with TrimEnabler (Vertex2 SSD)
2. Local snapshots are a great feature, why would you want to turn it off? :confused:
3. I want hibernation - because I want my data to be preserved should the laptop run out of juice while in sleep mode
4. I use atime all the time to detect file changes
6. Ramdisk for temporary files... I hardly see the point, but whatever, this won't hurt (but also won't improve anything)

All in all, these suggestions are aimed to reduce writes to the SSD at the expense of user convenience. I see no point in that. So yes, your SSD will live 6 years instead of 5.5 years :rolleyes: Who cares? After 3 to 4 years you will want a new computer anyway.
 
Weaselboy said:
We were discussing this in another thread, and the consensus is that is not correct. The sleep image only writes if you let a Mac portable's battery run down to near dead, then and only then does the sleep image write form RAM to the drive to prevent data loss if the battery dies completely and shuts down the system. Just normal sleep does not write a sleep image at all.

There was another thread I can't find at the moment, but the user manually deleted the sleep image then recreated it and slept the computer several times and the image size stayed ay zero.

No offense to anybody in the "SSD tweaks" thread, but other than optionally running TRIM if you like, everything else there is unnecessary.
Click to expand...

I take offense! Jk

I only run a few tweaks myself. Some power uses like to go all our though.
 
leman said:
You shouldn't, you did a very good tweak compilation. Its not your fault most of them are unnecessary ;)



To be honest, I would't call them 'power users'. More like 'people that feel good over needlessly complicated stuff'.
Click to expand...

That's true lol.
 
johnnnw said:
Why do you say a RAM disk might lead to data loss? I understand you may not understand RAM disks but if you have something like 16gb's of ram it can be very helpful for the things stated in the tweaks post :)
Click to expand...

I don't understand RAM disks :)

I know that RAM looses its information when the power goes out. So things that are stored there might get lost, while they would survive on the SSD. I guess that since only temp files are stored there, nothing would actually happen - I had missed this piece of information earlier.
 
thundersteele said:
I don't understand RAM disks :)

I know that RAM looses its information when the power goes out. So things that are stored there might get lost, while they would survive on the SSD. I guess that since only temp files are stored there, nothing would actually happen - I had missed this piece of information earlier.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I was saying pretty much, if they're temp files when they are lost it won't really matter.

I don't even have enough RAM right now to do one, but I'm considering it when I do get 16gb
 
Orlandoech.com said:
I have a rMBP, so I use;
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1505922/

2. Turn off local Time Machine snapshots [laptops only] (I have no use for this personally)

3. Turn off hibernation [laptops only] (I like to save that 16ishGB space (I have 16GB RAM).

If I had a 3rd Party SSD, I would run the TRIM commands too.
Click to expand...

Okay thank you.

I have a 3rd party one and decided after reading the tweaks I liked

1)Use Trim Enabler [3rd Party SSD's only]
2)Turn off local Time Machine snapshots [laptops only]
3)Turn off hibernation [laptops only]
4)Set noatime flag
8.Turn off hard drive sleep [no HDD only]

No problems with having them on so far. Makes me feel better knowing I'm not burning up my SSD's limited life, even though I'm sure I'll never hit the write limit, why not do them I guess in my opinion.

----------
jianghb said:
How can I make sure it's SSD?
Image
Click to expand...

Utilities > System Information > Serial ATA (in the left panel)

then check what it says on the panel on the right.

Or just just run a speed test with Blackmagic :) If it's over like 200 in either one it's an SSD as that exceeds hard drive speeds.
 
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