To TRIM or not to TRIM

[Spinland]

I have a 17" MacBook Pro 6,1 running the latest public build of Mavericks. I've replaced the original hard drive with a 512GB Crucial M4 SSD, which is partitioned for OSX and Win7/64 under Boot Camp.

I have Trim Enabler installed, and understand well how to use it to turn TRIM support on, but I am a little uncertain: should I do so? On one hand, will TRIM be something beneficial to use in my case and, on the other hand, could enabling it with this third party tool actually cause problems down the road?

Thanks in advance for your informed insight, O tech gurus.

 

[priitv8]

To TRIM.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4918981

 

[Spinland]

To TRIM.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4918981

Excellent. Thank you, and for the link. I did a little preliminary searching but there was an awful lot of chaff in the results so I decided someone here would surely already know.

Thanks again.

 

[Weaselboy]

On one hand, will TRIM be something beneficial to use in my case and...

I don't think you will get much disagreement from anyone on this part of your question. In an ideal world an SSD with a properly implemented TRIM function at the OS level is a good thing.

...could enabling it with this third party tool actually cause problems down the road?

This is the real question. The timing of file reads and writes to the SSD at the OS level is very critical. We can assume Apple tested this with the SSD/flash storage devices they are using. We don't know for certain what is happening here with after market flash storage devices with TRIM "hacked". Many users have no trouble at all with the hacked TRIM implementation and some users here report they do have problems. There is no clear answer to this part of the question IMO.

 

[priitv8]

The timing of file reads and writes to the SSD at the OS level is very critical. We can assume Apple tested this with the SSD/flash storage devices they are using. We don't know for certain what is happening here with after market flash storage devices with TRIM "hacked".

As I understand it, TRIM is just another (albeit added just 2009) ATA command.
So the net effect is dependent on the implementation of this command in drive's firmware.
White Paper: The TRIM Command

 

[Gav Mack]

For trim on the Windows 7 side you will have to edit the registry, patch the mbr using a utility in OSX then reboot into windows. Install the intel rst and you have AHCI working at full SATA 2 speed and trim enabled instead of the inadequate ata-133 from a factory setup with no trim.

Usually the patch breaks the bootcamp control panel permanently with a startup disk error but I did a clean 7 install on mine the other week and shock horror it worked!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/760482/

My post with how I got the clean install and the control panel plus the enabler dmg are at the end of the thread.

 

[Freyqq]

This is the real question. The timing of file reads and writes to the SSD at the OS level is very critical. We can assume Apple tested this with the SSD/flash storage devices they are using. We don't know for certain what is happening here with after market flash storage devices with TRIM "hacked". Many users have no trouble at all with the hacked TRIM implementation and some users here report they do have problems. There is no clear answer to this part of the question IMO.

If it concerns you, simply get an SSD that apple uses in their systems...like a samsung.

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For trim on the Windows 7 side you will have to edit the registry, patch the mbr using a utility in OSX then reboot into windows. Install the intel rst and you have AHCI working at full SATA 2 speed and trim enabled instead of the inadequate ata-133 from a factory setup with no trim.

Usually the patch breaks the bootcamp control panel permanently with a startup disk error but I did a clean 7 install on mine the other week and shock horror it worked!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/760482/

My post with how I got the clean install and the control panel plus the enabler dmg are at the end of the thread.

Windows 7 and 8 have trim built in automatically. It should work by default.

 

[Gav Mack]

If it concerns you, simply get an SSD that apple uses in their systems...like a samsung.

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Windows 7 and 8 have trim built in automatically. It should work by default.

The OS does absolutely, but if it boots in legacy mode into windows for bootcamp it will run in PATA emulation running ata-133. You can check in device manager if you don't have an AHCI SATA controller in the controller section you will have to patch the mbr in OSX to enable it as explained in the thread. I've done dozens of them for practically the whole mac range!

 

[Weaselboy]

If it concerns you, simply get an SSD that apple uses in their systems...like a samsung.

I don't think we have enough information to know if that helps. We have no idea what is in the firmware of a Samsung OEM sourced Apple flash storage device versus a retail market Samsung SSD drive.

 

[Qaanol]

Did the issue with SandForce and TRIM ever get resolved?

 

[Watabou]

Did the issue with SandForce and TRIM ever get resolved?

That's for OWC SSDs, which use their own Sandforce command and TRIM should not be enabled for OWC SSDs.

The OP was asking about a Crucial SSD.

 

[Freyqq]

I don't think we have enough information to know if that helps. We have no idea what is in the firmware of a Samsung OEM sourced Apple flash storage device versus a retail market Samsung SSD drive.

Point taken, but even if the firmware differs slightly, it is likely that most of the code remains the same. Also, the controller and hardware is going the be the same.

 

[priitv8]

Did the issue with SandForce and TRIM ever get resolved?

Why would anyone want a SF-based drive anyway?

 

[dusk007]

They still have great IO and longetivity, even though that matters more for server workloads.
There is a next generation on its way too. SF2X00 was built for SATA 3 and quite a while ago.
SF3000 supports PCIe and is supposed to reach 1800MB/s or somewhere close to that number.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7520/lsi-announces-sandforce-sf3700-sata-and-pcie-in-one-silicon

There was some time for the rest of constroller makers to catch up given how long SF 2000 has been out already but once these are out they will get the preformance crown again. Same as they did when SF-2000 was released.

Those Apple Samsung drives look great in sequential performance but they are actually no better in all the other metrics than all the standard SATA 3 drives out today. In many of the practical test on computerbase.de the PCIe Plextor SSD (700MB/s reads) is outperformed by some SATA 3 drives because sequential performance isn't all that important for boot times ie.