My 860 SSD (1TB - on a PCIe card) has been running with two containers for years - currently one has Catalina and one has Monterey (upgraded from Big Sur). I moved my Mojave off the 860 to another drive when I installed Big Sur.
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Caution! Troubles with 870 evo drives on cMP 5,1 !
- Thread starter wrianwolfsn
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OK - thanks!
The questions were targeted to the following topics in particular:
- using SATA drives (860/850 EVO) with Mojave and Apple's "new" Filesystem APFS whether there are troubles expected when TRIM is enabled? I read some rumors about that... (unfortunatelly I have to use SATA SSDs as my PCIe slots are used for other cards)
- basically, if TRIM is disabled (with the above-mentioned configuration) premature failure of the drives or low performance is typically expected?
- thus, if it will be better anywey to run Mojave with HFS and TRIM enabled?
The questions were targeted to the following topics in particular:
- using SATA drives (860/850 EVO) with Mojave and Apple's "new" Filesystem APFS whether there are troubles expected when TRIM is enabled? I read some rumors about that... (unfortunatelly I have to use SATA SSDs as my PCIe slots are used for other cards)
- basically, if TRIM is disabled (with the above-mentioned configuration) premature failure of the drives or low performance is typically expected?
- thus, if it will be better anywey to run Mojave with HFS and TRIM enabled?
I apologize as I forgot to mention that my 860 is APFS and I have TRIM enabled. I don't pretend to understand the subtleties of TRIM being enabled or not but prefer to have it enabled.
I haven't had any issues with my 860 so I assume that TRIM being enabled with APFS on that drive is fine. I do use mine in a PCIe slot but other than speed I don't see why it would be different in one of the internal drive slots. I do have an old Crucial M4 SSD in one of my CD slots as all my internal SATA slots are taken by spinning drives.
Sorry yes, Mac Sata bay, Mojave, APFS, Trim enabled.
Both drives are Mojave (one is a clone).
What are the specific issues you have read about...?
Been running a TRIM enabled 850 1TB (APFS) for years w/out problems, albeit in an 5,3 MBP with Catalina. The 870 2TB was a complete disaster though and I had to return the drive after exhausting all options with fault finding.
BLEH got this drive on sale at Microcenter to use as a bootable clone for my 5,1. Obviously running into the same issues as everyone on here. I just reformatted the 870 QVO to be Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and I am just going to run it as a backup with CCC (HOPEFULLY)
Great news. Thanks for all those comments!
There's a great article about the interaction of APFS und TRIM : Caring for SSDs: TRIM, wear levelling and APFS
I decided not to enable TRIM (on Mojave/APFS). It seems to be unlikely that issues will come up with recent SSDs, as they manage wear leveling by them self good enough and the implementation of the TRIM command under APFS/macOS is not very well known.
Regarding the "870-disappeard-after-warm-boot" issue I contacted the Samsung support and they concluded as follows: "860 EVO and 870 EVO has different controller, what shouldn't be the issue, because Samsung 870 EVO is compatible with SATA III, II and I.
Today we tested the 870 EVO on SATA for a warm boot and it works fine on our system. Unfortunately we don't have the same system as you, in which case we can't verify if the problem is with the older generation Intel Core or with the SATA connector."
Not very helpful, but thought to share it here.
If I get new findings I will post it here.
It's mostly about slow boot times. I found also a report of a SATA drive having this issue. But it seems to happen or not- depending the particular configuration.
There's a great article about the interaction of APFS und TRIM : Caring for SSDs: TRIM, wear levelling and APFS
I decided not to enable TRIM (on Mojave/APFS). It seems to be unlikely that issues will come up with recent SSDs, as they manage wear leveling by them self good enough and the implementation of the TRIM command under APFS/macOS is not very well known.
Regarding the "870-disappeard-after-warm-boot" issue I contacted the Samsung support and they concluded as follows: "860 EVO and 870 EVO has different controller, what shouldn't be the issue, because Samsung 870 EVO is compatible with SATA III, II and I.
Today we tested the 870 EVO on SATA for a warm boot and it works fine on our system. Unfortunately we don't have the same system as you, in which case we can't verify if the problem is with the older generation Intel Core or with the SATA connector."
Not very helpful, but thought to share it here.
If I get new findings I will post it here.
Revisiting this for anyone else who might try the firmware update:
For the Mac Pro 5,1 - the firmware update for the 870 Evo works easily enough using the instructions provided but warm boots / restart still gives the forbidden symbol so it's not really any use. The firmware updated fine but doesn't fix the issue.
I used the Mac ISO SVT02B6Q on a 1TB SSD 870 EVO.
So probably use a different brand of SSD on the 5,1 for boot purposes.
Hi!
Never heard of these problems mentioned here before.
I've owned a 5,1 until last week with one 860 Pro and one 870 Evo Samsung SSD.
The 4TB 870 Evo is my data-drive and I've installed it in my "new" Mac Pro 7,1.
The 870 Evo doesn't show up after restarts, which seems to be a known issue.
Should I just connect it via USB-adapter that came with my SONNET Fusion Flex J3i?
Is there a big difference speed-wise? (SATA vs. USB)
Second question:
The Evo is APFS fomatted. System profiler says TRIM is disabled.
Is TRIM still neccesary? Should I enable it?
x Lucas
Never heard of these problems mentioned here before.
I've owned a 5,1 until last week with one 860 Pro and one 870 Evo Samsung SSD.
The 4TB 870 Evo is my data-drive and I've installed it in my "new" Mac Pro 7,1.
The 870 Evo doesn't show up after restarts, which seems to be a known issue.
Should I just connect it via USB-adapter that came with my SONNET Fusion Flex J3i?
Is there a big difference speed-wise? (SATA vs. USB)
Second question:
The Evo is APFS fomatted. System profiler says TRIM is disabled.
Is TRIM still neccesary? Should I enable it?
x Lucas
Last edited:
I've sortet out problem #1, just switched the SATA-port from 2 to 1 on motherboard.
Now the Evo 870 also shows up on reboot.
Last and important question:
Should I enable TRIM or not? I'm reading different things here and there.
It's obviously not a boot-drive, just for storage.
Would like to know it from you Alex, since you've helped me out multiple times for the last decade
Thank you!
Now the Evo 870 also shows up on reboot.
Last and important question:
Should I enable TRIM or not? I'm reading different things here and there.
It's obviously not a boot-drive, just for storage.
Would like to know it from you Alex, since you've helped me out multiple times for the last decade
Thank you!
I've sortet out problem #1, just switched the SATA-port from 2 to 1 on motherboard.
Now the Evo 870 also shows up on reboot.
Last and important question:
Should I enable TRIM or not? I'm reading different things here and there.
It's obviously not a boot-drive, just for storage.
Would like to know it from you Alex, since you've helped me out multiple times for the last decade
Thank you!
870 EVO is not exactly perfect with Macs and there are some reports suggesting that TRIM should be off with 870 series, but you should test and see if works for your config. If boot times suddenly become much greater, disable it.
I've found that, problems with older Macs. Couple years ago tried to install a 2TB 870 EVO into a mid 2009 MBP as a secondary internal drive, even as primary internal and had all sorts issues, mainly higher memory pressure just idling. In my case think the EVO firmware just didn't support such an old Mac. That or it didn't like the Catalina patch but that SSD got returned after all the hassle but the 850 EVO in it still going strong.
the 870 series have problems even in PC boxes. Low quality is another issue, they seem to just die. its better to get another brand or older samsung like 860 or older.
For sure 870 QVOs die like flies when people use it as a non-archival disk. Can't say that is a quality issue, probably more a wrong tool for the job.