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That is incorrect and not at all what the Anandtech article says.

Not sure if we are reading the same article here? Sure thing, it is not the topic of the article, but the last test on the first page shows the difference of running with and without trim.

-KJ
 
The shock protection you get from a SSD is far more substantial than that of a HDD and so the SSD is better suited for mobile usage IMO. The 350 (occasionally up to 400) running and 1000 not is the maximum of all HDDs. However, SSDs are in the 1500 range, running or not. Most people put their computer to sleep when going from class to class or job site to job site, and so the hard disk may still be running at the time in which a fall is most likely to happen. I do agree that in order to kill a modern hard drive, it would have to be a pretty nasty fall (and not a train ride or anything like that), but my point is that for the best overall protection, a SSD is, hands down, the best way to go if money permits.
Sure SSD is better but the fragility of HDDs is massively overhyped. No amount of moving it would ever hurt it. No person can accelerate his notebook with 350G. Only deceleration onto a hard surface can do the trick and 350G is enough that the hdd should survive a fall from 1 meter height onto concrete.
I once let fall my old notebook down stairs. Didn't sound good but besides some scratches there was no harm. Some people on this forum seem to think that the movement of picking up the notebook from the table and placing it in the bag is potentially hazardous if the notebook still hasn't fully entered standby (the hdd still not off).
It is a misconception.
 
Crucial explicitly says not to enable TRIM and that the M4 does its own garbage collection when it is idle.

Do you have a link to this info? I have read a few warnings about using the application "Trim enabler" to enable trim on Crucials user forums, but nothing from Crucial themselves .

-KJ
 
Do you have a link to this info? I have read a few warnings about using the application "Trim enabler" to enable trim on Crucials user forums, but nothing from Crucial themselves .

-KJ

It may be on their forum, but I was told this via an email.

Me: "I purchased a 256 GB M4 for my Apple MBP. I have OS X Lion 10.7 and was curious as to if I should enable TRIM to keep it running consistently, or if your integrated firmware did the same thing. Thanks."

Crucial Customer Support: "Thank you for contacting us. Unfortunately, TRIM is not supported in Apple machines, due to proprietary restrictions from Apple. However, garbage collection is utilized instead. The difference is that TRIM is an 'on the fly' operation, and garbage collection is when the system is idle."

Me: (I asked about the TRIM Enabler and potential kernal mods to force TRIM).

Crucial Customer Support: "It is true that it is possible to force TRIM on non-Apple SSDs by making the OS kernel changes that you mention. Since this is not an official Apple solution or a Crucial solution, we are unable to support it, and we do not recommend modifying kernel files. The m4 SSD has active Garbage Collection in the firmware, which fills the same function as TRIM. Garbage Collection activates and runs whenever the SSD is idle but still has power, and will take care of maintaining the drive's performance."
 
Of course they cannot recommend that you tinker with kernel extensions. Think about what would happen if they told customers to do this and then the customer did something that would make his system nonfunctional. I can already see the headlines including lawsuit and lawyer here...

If you have an SSD that supports trim and enable trim by patching the kernel extensions to make OS X use it, it will in most cases lead to better performance if you use your SSD a lot (saving and deleting data). Some of the newer controllers claim to have garbage collection that is superior to trim, but so far I've not seen any tests that conclusively shows this.

I run SSDs in all my Apple systems, and all have trim enabled. Probably overkill on my least used systems, but still.

-KJ
 
So I'm satisfied with putting the HDD in the optical bay, but just concerned about it constantly spinning, which will probably be very annoying. Is this a problem without a fix?
 
I have a 470 also and it is working fine. Did you enable trim on your drive?

I did.

----------

So I'm satisfied with putting the HDD in the optical bay, but just concerned about it constantly spinning, which will probably be very annoying. Is this a problem without a fix?

There is an AppleScript floating around here which, when run, will automatically mount or unmount your disc drive based on its current status. If you cannot find it, PM me and I will send you the info.

That said, I only ever unmount the drives when I'm on battery power.
 
Not sure if we are reading the same article here? Sure thing, it is not the topic of the article, but the last test on the first page shows the difference of running with and without trim.

-KJ

Read the whole article. He writes to the entire disk for twenty minutes and this does cause the drive to stumble without OS TRIM. Keep on reading and you will see given some idle time, the drive fully recovers due to its built in garbage collection.
 
Of course they cannot recommend that you tinker with kernel extensions. Think about what would happen if they told customers to do this and then the customer did something that would make his system nonfunctional. I can already see the headlines including lawsuit and lawyer here...

If you have an SSD that supports trim and enable trim by patching the kernel extensions to make OS X use it, it will in most cases lead to better performance if you use your SSD a lot (saving and deleting data). Some of the newer controllers claim to have garbage collection that is superior to trim, but so far I've not seen any tests that conclusively shows this.

I run SSDs in all my Apple systems, and all have trim enabled. Probably overkill on my least used systems, but still.

-KJ

I run SSDs in all my Apples as well, including SandForce and Micron driven ones. Personally, I am yet to see any significant reduction in speed on any of them without TRIM. For that matter, I am yet to see a noticeable reduction in speed on my original MBA with the 64 GB SSD. My older C300 and SF1200 models are fine as well. I am not saying that TRIM doesn't work nor that it is necessarily a bad thing to enable it, but I am saying that to date I have not had any indications that it is needed. Obviously, I will continue to follow my drives' performance given the possibility of a performance loss and people, such as yourself, having good experiences with enabling TRIM, but until there is a need to enable TRIM on my systems, I really can't bring myself to do it. Now 4 months from now I'll see if I say the same thing :p
 
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