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ogs

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 26, 2012
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So, i just installed lion onto my crucial m4, and set the mac pro up so that it boots from that drive. just wondering.. do i need that trim stuff?
 
Some SSD drives need it less than others, but technically all should benefit from it. The Crucial M4, for example, basically needs it. On the other hand, OWC says you shouldn't enable it for their SSDs due to it not being necessary (they don't give a good argument for that statement) but many people who have enabled it for the OWC SSDs have encountered various problems.

Technically speaking, TRIM is a very good feature for SSDs to enjoy. It is never left out from the Apple-provided SSDs (as far as I am aware).
 
I've had a pair of OCZ SSD's for about the same amount of time. The one in my wife's computer has trim enabled mine does not. I don't user her computer much but I haven't noticed a difference between the two.
 
I've had a pair of OCZ SSD's for about the same amount of time. The one in my wife's computer has trim enabled mine does not. I don't user her computer much but I haven't noticed a difference between the two.

You would only really notice it if you fill up your SSD on a regular basis.
 
You would only really notice it if you fill up your SSD on a regular basis.
That is not necessarily true. While I won't speak specifically to the OWC SSDs (though they have no technical attribute I am aware of which would explain a complete exemption from using TRIM), the value of TRIM can come to light over time due to frequent deletion without necessarily filling the hard drive.

Though it should be stated that it is not necessarily a life or death matter for a SSD. Some SSDs can perform perfectly well for a reasonable lifetime, without TRIM, under a range of use patterns.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/inside-the-ssd-revolution-how-solid-state-disks-really-work/
 
I think it's really something you just need to try; I enabled for an OCZ Vertex 2 120gb drive and personally I found it worse with TRIM enabled, in particular I found that Safari stuttered a lot until I turned TRIM back off.

I never did figure out why it did it though, as it never did make any sense, but the change to TRIM was definitely the cause in my case, so keep an eye out for any performance oddities and make up your own mind, would be my advice :)


Also, I'm not sure if SSD's with garbage collection need TRIM enabled? It shouldn't have any real effect, though since the controller can just ignore TRIM requests if it has some other mechanism enabled.
 
Also, I'm not sure if SSD's with garbage collection need TRIM enabled? It shouldn't have any real effect, though since the controller can just ignore TRIM requests if it has some other mechanism enabled.
TRIM enables the garbage collection process to remove data from deleted files, reducing the amount of read/write operations involved in freeing up pages. So TRIM makes garbage collection more efficient and reduces the strain it places on the SSD in the long run. (This is an oversimplification, and there are other factors to consider between controllers, but hopefully it makes sense).

And yeah, many people have had problems with TRIM enabled on OWC SSDs. This doesn't mean those drives wouldn't have benefited from TRIM, however, and by design it should be less important on those drives than, say, on the Crucial M4. But a cynical person could observe less than sincere reasons why OWC might be inclined to say it is completely unnecessary.
 
I've had my Crucial M4 boot drive going now for six months or so without trim, and it still gets the same speeds during tests as before I cloned my OS on it. I only use 98GB out of the 256GB available, and frequently drag large files on the desktop before relocating them to other drives, but other than that I never "fill it up" or anything.

That said, I haven't had any issues, either. Apps boot quick, nothing hangs or gets glitchy... nothing. (Knock on wood, right?) If something were to start screwing up on my M4, I'd try it then. Until then, I subscribe to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
 
I've had my Crucial M4 boot drive going now for six months or so without trim, and it still gets the same speeds during tests as before I cloned my OS on it. I only use 98GB out of the 256GB available, and frequently drag large files on the desktop before relocating them to other drives, but other than that I never "fill it up" or anything.

That said, I haven't had any issues, either. Apps boot quick, nothing hangs or gets glitchy... nothing. (Knock on wood, right?) If something were to start screwing up on my M4, I'd try it then. Until then, I subscribe to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

i would agree if it ain't broke don't fix it.

how do i check the speed of the drive?
 
I use AJA System Test. But it does not work in Lion thanks to Apple's new filesystem issues. You can partition and run the test on that blank partition though.
 
I clean-installed Lion on an Vertex 3... is TRIM automatically enabled in Lion or do I need to manually enable it?
TRIM is only auto-enabled on Apple-provided SSDs. You basically have to use a hack to enable it on third-party SSDs.
 
Thats why I got a drive that has the sandforce chipset in it. Fixes that problem.

So the question was do you need trim?

Not does the sandforce controller that comes in most SSD's better than all the rest....

By the way just about every modern SSD has garbage collection, and sandforce based SSD's don't play all that well with Mac's. To update the firmware on OCZ, OWC and most other SF based drives require a linux distro and patience. Crucial has Mac Firmware updates..
 
So the question was do you need trim?

Not does the sandforce controller that comes in most SSD's better than all the rest....

By the way just about every modern SSD has garbage collection, and sandforce based SSD's don't play all that well with Mac's. To update the firmware on OCZ, OWC and most other SF based drives require a linux distro and patience. Crucial has Mac Firmware updates..

OWC has mac firmware updates. When I did the research to buy my SSD I read several places that the OWC with sand force was the way to go on a mac.

TRIM enables the garbage collection process to remove data from deleted files, reducing the amount of read/write operations involved in freeing up pages. So TRIM makes garbage collection more efficient and reduces the strain it places on the SSD in the long run. (This is an oversimplification, and there are other factors to consider between controllers, but hopefully it makes sense).

Here is a question. What would be the effect of secure emptying trash? Doesn't that write 0s over the deleted files?
 
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Not sure what research you did - but based on my experience the OWC ssd with Sandforce does NOT play well with the Mac Pro.

It is a poor choice.
 
OWC has mac firmware updates. When I did the research to buy my SSD I read several places that the OWC with sand force was the way to go on a mac.



Here is a question. What would be the effect of secure emptying trash? Doesn't that write 0s over the deleted files?

They involve booting into Linux with a live CD. What they've done is package the solution that has always been out there.
 
I didn't know about TRIM until a few days ago and I really don't know much about it. All I know is that it is good to have. I have a mid-2010 MBP with a crucial m4. It constantly would act up and report wrong freespace after I delete big files or a lot of files. To reclaim the space, I would need to go into recovery and repair it. I figured TRIM would be good and may save me from this, since it will just be writing over the same area. But, who knows. Enabling it was simple, it took <2 mins. I downloaded TrimEnabler, switched it on, restarted. Done. System Info now says TRIM is enabled.
 
SSDs with a Sandforce Controller (OCZ, OWC, Corsair) don't need TRIM because they do the garbage collection themselves.

Others, you'll want to enable it.
 
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