I mean their ssds have been old news since day one, but the on board garbage collection should be adequate barring extreme read/write scenarios.
My understanding is like this.
The SSD is functioning properly without TRIM, but just at much lower writing performance.
GC cannot replace TRIM, in fact, GC cannot work effectively without TRIM.
TRIM is just to allow the SSD's controller to sync with the OS. So that, the free space in OS (garbage) can be effectively collected, and turned into over provision by GC.
Without TRIM, the controller can't see those free space, and GC cannot collect and garbage. Because it doesn't know which bit is "garbage". It only know that's not zero.
OWC didn't lie. Their SSD can workout TRIM, just like any other SSD. But what they did't tell you is that their SSD will work much worse without TRIM, just like and other SSD.
Unless their SSD has super large build in over provision (which they don't). There is no room (free space) for GC to work effectively. And without pre-emptied cell, writing performance will be greatly affected.
What GC does is grouping all unused bit together, and zero them out.
e.g. cell 1 has 1 bit useful data stored, and cell 2 also has 1 bit useful data stored. All other bits was used, but now belongs to the "deleted" files (garbage).
If TRIM available, then the controller will know that only 1 bit in each cell is used, all other bits are actually "free space". Therefore, GC can group all the "garbage" into cell 2 (move the useful bit from cell 2 to cell 1), and allow the controller to zero out the whole cell 2. So that, on the next write operation, the SSD can write data onto the pre-emptied cell 2 in order to deliver high writing speed.
Without TRIM. In the controller's point of view. Cell 1 is used, and cell 2 is used. GC cannot move any data, because no empty space for data move.
When a new writing operation demanded. The controller has to move the useful data from cell 2 to cell 1 + zero out cell 2 + writing new data into cell 2. This "full process" is much much slower than just writing new data in.
The black magic test is slow on my drives whether TRIM enabled or not.
I can't remember which way around it writes data, but it is either compressed or uncompressed. Most ssds are slow at writing whatever the black magic app tests with.
I've seen speeds like yours on my OWC, Samsung and Sandisk drives. I wouldn't worry about it.
Some OWC SSD used compression to increase the writing speed (on paper), therefore, incompressible data will write at a much slower rate (usually somewhere around 100-200MB/s). However, for 43MB/s, it's clearly not just because of incompressible data, but due to lack of TRIM.
As the others pointed out, purely enable TRIM won't get the performance back straight away, you have actually TRIM the empty space before running the benchmark. I don't know which Samsung SSD you are talking about, but my TRIMed 840 Evo obviously can stay at around 500MB/s in black magic. Flowrider occasionally post his SSD's
black magic result. I never ever see any SSD write at 43MB/s range (when everything working properly). In fact, most of them has very good writing speed in black magic test.
