Disabling TRIM in El Capitan

[Ethosik]

It depend of your definition of "a necessity".

Trim isn't a necessity for your SSD to work as a storage device. (read/write data)

However, Trim is a necessity if you want to have your SSD to keep the write speed it had in the beginning for all it's usable life (especially if you want to use most of it, and not just like a third of the storage space).

Without TRIM, especially if you want to use most of your storage space on your SSD, you need TRIM to keep performance. That's a "necessity" in that sense.

But yeah, it will still work without TRIM.

Not true. If your SSD gets extremely slow you can always issue a ATA secure erase which brings the performance back to normal.

I have been using SSDs in my Macs WITHOUT trim for a long time now. I have never had any severe slowdowns. How much does it slow it down? How often are you guys hitting the 500 MB/s limit anyway?

There are still people out there that get so paranoid with SSDs. Disable this, enable this, move your temp files to a standard HDD. You cannot have one unnecessary write to the drive or it will die!!!! Just get a SSD and let it be. Have backups of files, and if your drive dies before it reaches the warranty, get it RMA. It takes terabytes before the write cycles are used up. People need to stop being so paranoid.

Guess what? I have had a 1TB HDD die on me ONE MONTH after I bought it. I had to RMA that drive.

 

[dyn]

TRIM is a good thing and that seems to be what most in here are saying.

That's the exact problem. The discussion doesn't go any further then the repeating "but TRIM is a good thing" which, btw, is against the forum rules. Nobody explains why it is a good thing, nobody explains why it is better than GC, nobody explains why you'd want it over GC and nobody explains why it is a necessity while in fact the SSD is already doing the same thing. The arguments people are bringing is nothing more then hear-say and repeating. There simply is no discussion because the only argument here is "but TRIM is a good thing".

Btw, I thought I saw the drive being just a Samsung 840.

Not true. If your SSD gets extremely slow you can always issue a ATA secure erase which brings the performance back to normal.

Guess what the ATA secure erase does...it sends the TRIM command....if it is supported.

There are still people out there that get so paranoid with SSDs. Disable this, enable this, move your temp files to a standard HDD. You cannot have one unnecessary write to the drive or it will die!!!! Just get a SSD and let it be.

And that was my entire point. You don't need to enable TRIM or any other special tweaks for things to work. It'll work out of the box and if it doesn't then you have to apply the default troubleshooting methods: make sure the OS is up to date, make sure the SSD has the latest firmware, check Console for the logs and so on.

 

[Weaselboy]

That's the exact problem. The discussion doesn't go any further then the repeating "but TRIM is a good thing" which, btw, is against the forum rules. Nobody explains why it is a good thing, nobody explains why it is better than GC, nobody explains why you'd want it over GC and nobody explains why it is a necessity while in fact the SSD is already doing the same thing. The arguments people are bringing is nothing more then hear-say and repeating. There simply is no discussion because the only argument here is "but TRIM is a good thing".

Honestly, I think the benefits have been explained pretty well in this thread. Now it just sounds like you want to argue about what "necessary" means and I don't see the point, so I'm done.

 

[dyn]

If "but TRIM is a good thing" is considered as such then we have to draw the conclusion that any discussion on this matter is impossible and this thread should be closed. Thank you for derailing another thread.

 

[Ethosik]

Guess what the ATA secure erase does...it sends the TRIM command....if it is supported.

No it doesn't. It sends a voltage spike marking all cells as available. Also, if the drive has it, the encryption key is thrown away.

 

[Tubamajuba]

If "but TRIM is a good thing" is considered as such then we have to draw the conclusion that any discussion on this matter is impossible and this thread should be closed. Thank you for derailing another thread.

I'm curious to know why someone with an SSD that can properly handle TRIM shouldn't enable it. You've yet to explain that without insisting that TRIM is basically useless (which is false), so I fail to understand why it isn't you making discussion on this matter impossible.

 

[Ethosik]

I'm curious to know why someone with an SSD that can properly handle TRIM shouldn't enable it. You've yet to explain that without insisting that TRIM is basically useless (which is false), so I fail to understand why it isn't you making discussion on this matter impossible.

Because some of us are on older OS versions that require disabling security options to get TRIM enabled.

And sometimes TrimEnabler causes a stop sign when you boot up. It is really not worth the effort enabling TRIM when you have the potential for issues.

 

[Tubamajuba]

Because some of us are on older OS versions that require disabling security options to get TRIM enabled.

And sometimes TrimEnabler causes a stop sign when you boot up. It is really not worth the effort enabling TRIM when you have the potential for issues.

Sorry, I should have said "someone with an SSD using 10.11 or 10.10.4". That's a good reason to not enable TRIM.

 

[dyn]

I'm curious to know why someone with an SSD that can properly handle TRIM shouldn't enable it. You've yet to explain that without insisting that TRIM is basically useless (which is false), so I fail to understand why it isn't you making discussion on this matter impossible.

Dunno what topic you are reading but I've explained it numerous times here and since repeating is against the forum rules....start with the topic start and continue from there. The keywords you are looking for are GC and RAID.

 

[Tubamajuba]

Dunno what topic you are reading but I've explained it numerous times here and since repeating is against the forum rules....start with the topic start and continue from there. The keywords you are looking for are GC and RAID.

GC is not a substitute for TRIM, and most people don't use RAID.

 

[dyn]

Do explain why and do it properly this time so no "but TRIM is a good thing" version like all the others have done here.

 

[crjackson2134]

GC is not a substitute for TRIM, and most people don't use RAID.

FYI, Trim works on OS X software RAID AFAIK, but I haven't tried it personally. Information comes from the Cindori TE webpage. and various other posts.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...aid-0-or-concatenation.1537025/#post-16792386

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...aid-0-or-concatenation.1537025/#post-16836287

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...aid-0-or-concatenation.1537025/#post-16843856

softRAID says it specifically supports 3rd party SSD Raid0 with Trim on Yosemite (Cappy untested), but it comes with the same warnings about startup issues to versions of Yosemite that require turning off kext signing.

It seems to work for many users, but I guess you need to do your own testing. I haven't tried it, but obviously there are those having success with this.

 

[dyn]

User temptin disagrees with you on that. The issue seems to be with the RAID driver being from 2009 and not having been rewritten to include TRIM support. Haven't checked it out further though.

 

[Tubamajuba]

Do explain why and do it properly this time so no "but TRIM is a good thing" version like all the others have done here.

I'm just going to say this now- if you're going to cite the obscure forum rule against repeating things, then I don't see why I need to re-explain anything either. That said, here's a great write-up from Lee Hutchinson at Ars Technica:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...garbage-collection-so-i-dont-need-trim-right/

In summary:

So, always use TRIM if you can. It will make your SSD’s garbage collection work a lot better. But if you find yourself in a situation where TRIM isn’t available, don’t panic—it’s nice to have, but it isn’t a requirement.

 

[/V\acpower]

No you don't because if you did you wouldn't disagree with me.

That would be because it never was a debate. The exaggeration of TRIM being THE solution is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Nobody said that TRIM is the single answer to every potential problem with an SSD performance, you are arguing against a strawman you created.

Also, the OP is trying to find a way to remove TRIM since he doesn't see any gain in "speed", and it's exactly why I said that he want to remove TRIM for a reason that make no sense at all since it isn't what TRIM do.

I always mentioned too that the gains were from Write, not from Read.

Also, you mention that all SSD get slower when they get filled, GC/TRIM or not.

It is obviously true.

However without TRIM, if the user decide to do a clean up and clear some space it won't really affect the slowdown in "writes" and GC alone won't do any good. TRIM however will solve this problem.

Also from a long term perspective (considering that cells have a limited amount of rewrite available, even though I admit that it will still last a very long time even without TRIM), TRIM prevent GC from copying and moving around useless data.

Anyway, the important thing is, TRIM is a good thing to enable, that's it. It's not vital in any way.

Of course, if like before you had to compromise security to enable it in OS X, it wasn't really worth it, but under normal condition, why not.

Also, you argue like TRIM is totally unreliable, which isn't true. It seems to work well for most folks, even if some SSD have problems with it. I admit that it isn't perfect and that there is a little "risk" to using it. However, since it's already essential to do backups of your data for a lot of different reason not even related to TRIM, it seems to me that the risk is then irrelevant for the vast majority of users who also have a backup.

---

Also, last point : TRIM doesn't work with RAID, we get it. However it doesn't change that TRIM is a good thing overall.

 

[Ethosik]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Nobody said that TRIM is the single answer to every potential problem with an SSD performance, you are arguing against a strawman you created.

Also, the OP is trying to find a way to remove TRIM since he doesn't see any gain in "speed", and it's exactly why I said that he want to remove TRIM for a reason that make no sense at all since it isn't what TRIM do.

I always mentioned too that the gains were from Write, not from Read.

Also, you mention that all SSD get slower when they get filled, GC/TRIM or not.

It is obviously true.

However without TRIM, if the user decide to do a clean up and clear some space it won't really affect the slowdown in "writes" and GC alone won't do any good. TRIM however will solve this problem.

Also from a long term perspective (considering that cells have a limited amount of rewrite available, even though I admit that it will still last a very long time even without TRIM), TRIM prevent GC from copying and moving around useless data.

Anyway, the important thing is, TRIM is a good thing to enable, that's it. It's not vital in any way.

Of course, if like before you had to compromise security to enable it in OS X, it wasn't really worth it, but under normal condition, why not.

Also, you argue like TRIM is totally unreliable, which isn't true. It seems to work well for most folks, even if some SSD have problems with it. I admit that it isn't perfect and that there is a little "risk" to using it. However, since it's already essential to do backups of your data for a lot of different reason not even related to TRIM, it seems to me that the risk is then irrelevant for the vast majority of users who also have a backup.

---

Also, last point : TRIM doesn't work with RAID, we get it. However it doesn't change that TRIM is a good thing overall.

Actually he is right. I have seen a lot of people on here in the past couple of years saying you absolutely should enable TRIM. Even before when it required disabling security features.

TRIM is NOT necessary. Do not go out of your way to enable it. So what, your drive might slow down a little bit. But as I have said before, are you guys reaching the 500 MB/s limit 24/7? Outside of benchmarks, is the slowdown from no TRIM THAT noticeable? I highly doubt it.

There are people here that act like TRIM is absolutely needed for an SSD to operate. He is right about that. Just like in the past, there have been people that STILL say "move temp files to a standard HDD", "disable paging", "enable this", "disable that" ...

Just get a SSD and let it go. Even if it does slow down over time, it will still be faster than a standard HDD. And all I have seen is only a decrease in about 50 MB/s in benchmarks. Even the TRIM enabler site shows that.

It is NOT THAT MUCH of a performance hit that people make it out to be here.

 

[dyn]

I'm just going to say this now- if you're going to cite the obscure forum rule against repeating things, then I don't see why I need to re-explain anything either. That said, here's a great write-up from Lee Hutchinson at Ars Technica:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...garbage-collection-so-i-dont-need-trim-right/

In summary:

So, always use TRIM if you can. It will make your SSD’s garbage collection work a lot better. But if you find yourself in a situation where TRIM isn’t available, don’t panic—it’s nice to have, but it isn’t a requirement.

What you've just did is show that I'm right and you're not. Next time do read what you are linking to and especially what you are quoting (check the bold part). You are not the first we hasn't read that article or misinterprets it completely. A few more quotes:

TRIM is never a requirement, but it always helps, and you’re always better off with it than without it. In this (relatively) short article, I'm going to explain why.

With TRIM, an SSD is no longer forced to save pages belonging to deleted files. TRIM doesn’t obviate the need for garbage collection—it works with garbage collection to more properly mark pages as stale. And you don’t need TRIM for garbage collection to work—but TRIM makes an SSD’s garbage collection more efficient.

TRIM isn’t magical, and you don’t have to have it. Modern SSDs with garbage collection will work fine without it...

The article explains what both GC and TRIM are and why it isn't the end of the world if you don't have TRIM. You know, what I've been saying all along...

Nobody said that TRIM is the single answer to every potential problem with an SSD performance, you are arguing against a strawman you created.

Actually they do because they go on and on about you should most definitely enable TRIM because the SSD will perform better. Or as you put it in a previous post:

However, Trim is a necessity if you want to have your SSD to keep the write speed it had in the beginning for all it's usable life (especially if you want to use most of it, and not just like a third of the storage space).

Also, the OP is trying to find a way to remove TRIM since he doesn't see any gain in "speed", and it's exactly why I said that he want to remove TRIM for a reason that make no sense at all since it isn't what TRIM do.

Then why did you say that TRIM was a necessity? The reason he didn't see a gain in performance is because GC and TRIM are similar in what they do. TRIM is only a bit more efficient so you may get a bit more performance but it is not going to be a huge difference. The difference might be noticeable in a benchmark but not in normal use of the machine.

Also, when you are having performance problems you should investigate further as there are many other things that cause issues like that.

However without TRIM, if the user decide to do a clean up and clear some space it won't really affect the slowdown in "writes" and GC alone won't do any good. TRIM however will solve this problem.

TRIM nor GC solves the problem as they are workarounds. They both lessen the problem. It highly depends on how TRIM is implemented in the SSD. TRIM alone is just a command going down the ATA tube. The firmware on the SSD might decide to go ahead and delete the contents of the cells, it might pass it off to the GC part or it might simply trigger the GC (GC usually runs when the drive is idle).

Also from a long term perspective (considering that cells have a limited amount of rewrite available, even though I admit that it will still last a very long time even without TRIM), TRIM prevent GC from copying and moving around useless data.

That is purely theoretical and requires that when using TRIM the GC of the SSD is disabled. Since TRIM being just an ATA command it is not that likely that GC will be disabled. In that case the only thing TRIM does is clean out the proper cells and do that immediately. And also that depends on how it is implemented.

Anyway, the important thing is, TRIM is a good thing to enable, that's it. It's not vital in any way.

Exactly, it is a nice to have feature but most definitely not a necessity so the entire discussion about the OP disabling TRIM because he doesn't see a difference in performance is moot.

Also, you argue like TRIM is totally unreliable, which isn't true.

It is indeed untrue that I'm arguing that TRIM is totally unreliable. We've had it since 2009 and seen that some SSDs are unreliable when using TRIM in certain circumstances but most have no issue with it whatsoever. The problem was with folks blindly enabling a feature that gives a big fat warning because Apple and everybody else has no idea how well the TRIM implementation in OS X will work out for 3rd party SSDs. As with upgrading to new OS X versions you may want to hold off a bit and wait for some experiences from others. Ultimately it is about educating others properly and letting them decide if it is worth the risk or not. What I've seen here is people deciding for others and not accepting a different take on it at all. It is their way and only their way.

However, since it's already essential to do backups of your data for a lot of different reason not even related to TRIM, it seems to me that the risk is then irrelevant for the vast majority of users who also have a backup.

The problem with backups is that it isn't a simple matter of backing up. When messing about with disk features you can run into so called soft fails. That means that things will go corrupt silently and thus transfer to the backup. Instead of just creating a backup make sure that the most important data in that backup is still intact. You should always do this but in this case it is a little bit more important to do (and quite easy, just open the file, if it opens then you're good).

 

[flowrider]

Recent Testing from MACNN with Samsung 840 and 850 SSDs. NO ISSUES!!!!!!!!!

http://www.macnn.com/articles/15/07...ail&utm_term=0_9d2654d74e-414517a898-70445813

The test article ends with:

So, we're not seeing any problems, and we've put years of use on the entire line in just a few weeks. We theorize that most of the complaints about drive corruption on the Linux side of the fence is more about queued Trim, which is not implemented in OS X. This isn't a guarantee, as it is a heavily time-compressed test, but we here at MacNN feel safe about using the highly regarded Samsung offerings without qualm.

Lou

 

[dyn]

Thus far no issues with OCZ Vertex (the one with the Barefoot controller from Indilinx, not the crap from Sandforce that came after it) and TRIM in 10.11.

 

[iBroke Canada]

Very good conversation here .. although my experience with trim is a bit unusual.
I have a mid 2010 MBP running an Evo 850 SSD (not pro) and 16GB of RAM. Call me crazy, but since installing the SSD and activating trim, my computer seems to take a long time "thinking about" loading web pages or going from one site to another ... there is a lag that even my non SSD machines (windows and mac) do not display.

My MBP is my daily use machine, and I have invested a lot into maximizing the RAM and adding a SSD to get the best performance out of it as I can ... I also have 120mbps cable internet, and a 5 GHz 802,11ac router, so I do not think this lag is internet related. I am really scratching my head on this one, and would love some 'expert' take on this??

I would also like to add, because it might be related, that shutdown takes usually a couple minutes if I use the Apple Menu >> Shutdown

TIA

 

[chrfr]

have a mid 2010 MBP running an Evo 850 SSD (not pro) and 16GB of RAM. Call me crazy, but since installing the SSD and activating trim, my computer seems to take a long time "thinking about" loading web pages or going from one site to another ... there is a lag that even my non SSD machines (windows and mac) do not display.

This isn't something that Trim would affect at all.

 

[iBroke Canada]

This isn't something that Trim would affect at all.

Initially that was my conclusion as well… But I cannot ignore the timeline. My machine ran great until I started messing with trim. Would you like to take a stab in the dark at what I may have messed up?? I’m scratching my head and pulling my hair out!

 

[chrfr]

Initially that was my conclusion as well… But I cannot ignore the timeline. My machine ran great until I started messing with trim. Would you like to take a stab in the dark at what I may have messed up?? I’m scratching my head and pulling my hair out!

Turn trim back off and test again.

 

[iBroke Canada]

Turn trim back off and test again.

I’m a little bit scared, as I have read that disabling trim… As well as enabling trim… Runs the risk of data corruption or complete loss?

 

[cobracnvt]

I've been run-in TRIM on an Samsung 850 EVO in a 2012 MacBook Pro for several years with no issues.