What SSD for Yosemite? (late 2011 MacBook Pro)

[paragonj]

I want to swap out my HDD on a late 2011 MBP for an SSD but have just read about the issues with enabling Trim on Yosemite. I've decided that I'm not willing to take the risk of enabling it and screwing up my system.

Based on that can anybody tell me if using an SSD without Trim enabled would be a bad idea? It sounds like it could seriously hamper performance as the drive fills up.

Alternatively, is there an SSD I can buy that is officially supported by Apple and therefore would properly enable Trim?

Thanks to anyone who can help.

 

[venom600]

Unless you are going to get an Apple SSD, the issue will exist with any other brand SSD. My only hope is that by booting into Windows every now and then, it will be able to run the TRIM command and maintain performance.

 

[paragonj]

Thanks for the reply. I don't have Windows installed so booting into it isn't an option for me. Is there even a place to buy an "Apple SSD"? I thought they just used a variety of manufacturers and was hoping there was a particular model I could buy that would work. Is that not the case?

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks for the reply. I don't have Windows installed so booting into it isn't an option for me. Is there even a place to buy an "Apple SSD"? I thought they just used a variety of manufacturers and was hoping there was a particular model I could buy that would work. Is that not the case?

Only the Apple OEM SSD is going to have native TRIM. You may be able to find one of eBay somebody pulled out of the same model so they could upgrade.

 

[ABC5S]

What ^ he said, since Apple sadly does not sell an Apple SSD.

 

[paragonj]

Thanks for the replies guys...I'm not really comfortable with idea of buying something as critical as my primary computer's storage drive off of eBay so I guess that leaves me with one question. Would it be a bad idea to use a 3rd party SSD without Trim enabled?

 

[meson]

Running without Trim may eventually cause a slow down. For what it's worth, many of us are using Trim Enabler (available for free) just fine on Yosemite.

Here is an article from Crucial that will tell you what you need to know a bout Trim and garbage collection, at least with Crucial's SSDs.

 

[paragonj]

Meson, thanks for the reply. From the trim enabler page, it looks like you have to disable a kext security feature and then mess around with it every time you want to do a OS update. Is that accurate? If so, I'm a bit wary. In a past life I wouldn't have blinked an eye, but now I don't want to worry about things like that every time Apple releases an update, but more importantly, my wife uses this computer too and I don't want to put it into a state where she could do something routine like apply an update and have it hose our system.

 

[meson]

paragonj,

Running Trim Enabler on Yosemite Betas and then installing the release version didn't result in stop sign. Leaving the Trim Enabler daemon running to check for Trim compatibility has resulted in the application opening to flip the switch again. So, no, you don't need to fiddle with the kext signing on each update, but you do need to modify the bit of info that fools the system into thinking an Apple OEM SSD is installed.

I believe the only time you run into issues is with NVRAM resets (whether intentional or accidental).

It's certainly frustrating that such a basic functionality is not made available to hardware/software developers.

For day to day use, I doubt you will run into any major issues running without trim, particularly if you tell the OS not to put the drive to sleep, so it has time to run garbage collection. If you do run into issue, boot into an idle state, such as recovery mode, or, I imagine, if you have FileVault turned on the initial login screen will likely work as well so the drive will run garbage collection.

 

[2984839]

Thanks for the replies guys...I'm not really comfortable with idea of buying something as critical as my primary computer's storage drive off of eBay so I guess that leaves me with one question. Would it be a bad idea to use a 3rd party SSD without Trim enabled?

It will be fine. I have several SSDs that have been running for 2-3 years now without TRIM and have exactly the same real world perofrmance as when they were new.

 

[Conutz]

I've just installed an MX-100 on my 2011 iMac and in my 2012 MBP. I don't like disabling OS settings like the kext requirements and having read the Crucial article mentioned above, I'm happy to run without trim. Give your Mac some idle time periodically and the SSD should take care of itself.

 

[alex0002]

Unless you are going to get an Apple SSD, the issue will exist with any other brand SSD. My only hope is that by booting into Windows every now and then, it will be able to run the TRIM command and maintain performance.

I'm not sure how much that will help. Windows is only going to be able to send Trim commands for those logical blocks that belong to the Windows partition.

There are a number of options here:

1. Use a non-Apple branded SSD (without Trim) and make sure your workload is light enough so that garbage collection alone is enough.
2. Select an SSD based on proven performance in a non Trim environment. Large amounts of over-provisioning can help, or consider using an SSD designed for enterprise workloads.
3. Purchase an Apple OEM SSD from ebay or some other source. Trim will be active with the unmodified IOAHCIBlockStorage kext.
4. Use the modified kext to activate Trim and understand what you need to do to recover from a situation such as an NVRAM reset.
5. Stick with Mavericks unless there is a compelling reason to upgrade.