Does Samsung SSD 470 or Intel 320 work out of the box in Mac OS without TRIM?

[ejosepha]

I currently have an OWC 128 Mercury Extreme Pro. Thinking about installing the new Samsung 470 SSD as boot drive in my MacPro 2010. I don't use Windows at all. I have looked at the threads and it isn't clear to me whether the GC or provisioning of either the Intel or Samsung will keep the SSD performance up to initial levels over time. I'd rather not hack a TRIM enabler into the Mac system, if possible.
I purchased the OWC because it works out of the box and promised to keep performance levels high on its own.
I would like to buy one of the above, but not if it's going to take too much fiddling around or a secure erase from time to time.
Anybody just use either of these two and are happy with them performance and stability-wise out of the box?
I know that the MacPro is not Sata III, so these two look like top performers.
Second question is whether there would be an appreciable bump up in buying either of them from the OWC?
thanks

 

[Cindori]

TRIM or GC is just ways of keeping performance over time (we're talking years).

It is not required to use the drive.

 

[ejosepha]

From reading numerous threads it's difficult to tell if people are using these particular drives mainly with TRIM enabled or on Windows paritions or that there is some form of buult in internal system for maintaining performance levels, like Sandforce for the Mac OSX, which is all that I have or want.
For example, does the Samsung 470 have an internal system for keeping up performance on its own or eventually one will have to secure erase down the line to regain performance? Same question for the Intel?
I originally bought the OWC SSD because of the promise of level performance over time.
Also, would there be a performance boost with either of these drives over the Mercury Pro Extreme that I currently have? The numbers look promising, even though we are limited to Sata II.
Thanks

 

[drewyboy]

As far as I know sand force controller based ssd's are the only ones with trim built in and work without any problems. As far as I'm concerned trim should never have been implemented on the software side to begin with.

 

[VirtualRain]

All the modern SSD drives (including the Intel and Samsung) have built in garbage collection that will maintain performance to some extent over time, without TRIM. They all also support TRIM. However, if you're not using TRIM, it wouldn't hurt, and might help to run a secure erase on your SSD once a year or so, just to restore it to factory fresh condition.

 

[ejosepha]

All the modern SSD drives (including the Intel and Samsung) have built in garbage collection that will maintain performance to some extent over time, without TRIM. They all also support TRIM. However, if you're not using TRIM, it wouldn't hurt, and might help to run a secure erase on your SSD once a year or so, just to restore it to factory fresh condition.

Would there be a significant performance bump from the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro that I currently have to the Samsung 470 128gb? Or the Intel 320? I presume that the Intel 510 would be an ill fit because the MacPros don't have Sata III.
thanks

 

[philipma1957]

No speed bump the biggest gain would be size if the new ssd is bigger. Also both the samsung and the intel are more reliable. At least in theory that is the case.

 

[ejosepha]

No speed bump the biggest gain would be size if the new ssd is bigger. Also both the samsung and the intel are more reliable. At least in theory that is the case.

Is there an SSD on the market that would be a significant performance bump for the Mac Pro, given the Sata II ceiling?

 

[handheldgames]

Is there an SSD on the market that would be a significant performance bump for the Mac Pro, given the Sata II ceiling?

Ssd x2 in raid 0.

 

[VirtualRain]

Would there be a significant performance bump from the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro that I currently have to the Samsung 470 128gb? Or the Intel 320? I presume that the Intel 510 would be an ill fit because the MacPros don't have Sata III.
thanks

No. SSDs are so fast now the performance difference between various SSD models in every day tasks is largely going to be imperceptible in all but the most extreme situations... Even those with SATA III interfaces.

Running SSDs in RAID0 will improve sequential reads and writes, but for an OS/Apps drive, that has little benefit. Access patterns on OS/Apps drives are primarily small random reads/writes which will benefit only marginally from striping.

Having said that, adding a second drive of the same model you already have in RAID0 is a great way to double capacity and improve performance somewhat without losing any of your initial investment.

 

[ejosepha]

No. SSDs are so fast now the performance difference between various SSD models in every day tasks is largely going to be imperceptible in all but the most extreme situations... Even those with SATA III interfaces.

Running SSDs in RAID0 will improve sequential reads and writes, but for an OS/Apps drive, that has little benefit. Access patterns on OS/Apps drives are primarily small random reads/writes which will benefit only marginally from striping.

Having said that, adding a second drive of the same model you already have in RAID0 is a great way to double capacity and improve performance somewhat without losing any of your initial investment.

Thank you for the info.
Would I need to purchase the same OWC 128 gb ssd that I currently am using, or could I buy the Samsung 470 128GB to create a Raid0 with the original OWC?
Also to create a RAID O between the two SSD drives I presume I would have to use the Install DVD to boot system, then in disk utility erase and format both old and newly added SSD, then create the RAID 0 (Striped set) with the two SSDs.
Does this seem correct?
I suppose that I could then either use my Time Machine backup to migrate the 55GB that I have on my OS SSD today back onto the newly RAID0 drives.
I have two empty WD drives in 2 other bays. I suppose I could carbon copy clone the original SSD drive onto one of the WD drives, and then copy that back onto the new Raid0 drives after performing the above.
I firstly wonder if the two different brands of SSDs would be compatible together or whether I would be looking for trouble here. Also this might not net me much except I'd have double the capacity on SSDs, which would be nice but not absolutely necessary since I download files, mkvs, etc. always onto the WD drives in the other bays.
Any improvements or tips and the best way to do this would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[VirtualRain]

Hmm... I'm not sure what trouble you could run into with two different SSDs in RAID0. Theoretically there is no reason why you can't use any similar sized drive. You will get double the formatted capacity of the smaller drive. It may work just fine.

Your thoughts on options for how to do it, are bang on.

 

[derbothaus]

Why do you want to do this? Is it for capacity? Your SSD is most likely saturating your SATA connection right now anyway. You can't get any more speed except maybe a few bit's of random access here and there outside of RAID which would effectively double your bandwidth. Best bet is to RAID 2 of the same capacity. Buy a 2nd 120 or get 2x240GB. You can get a SATAIII drive and run it on SATAII. I did. The OWC's do not have a performance penalty when doing it and are top performers in that regard as well. OWC has retroactive 5 year warranty now so you could put the 6G in a new Mac when you get one and double your performance without buying anything new later.

 

[ejosepha]

It sounds as if this might not be the appropriate move right now. I take the advice above to mean that there could be a problem mixing two different drive types and that any performance benefit would be negligible at best, especially with the Mac OS, which is all that I use.

I do wonder if eventually there will be a way to convert to or use a Sata III SSD or HD in the current MacPro line at the Sata III native speeds. If eventually we are able to add a Thunderbolt card to these computers, I presume this wouldn't help with the individual internal Bays.
Again, thanks everyone for the sound advice.

 

[VirtualRain]

Can you not get another OWC Mercury Extreme Pro? If you can get one for a decent price, doing a RAID0 is a no brainer... and easy way to double capacity without losing your initial investment. This is essentially what I did... I started with 2x80GB Intel drives in RAID0 and later added a third that I found for a good price on Craigslist for a total of 240GB of capacity.

 

[derbothaus]

It sounds as if this might not be the appropriate move right now. I take the advice above to mean that there could be a problem mixing two different drive types and that any performance benefit would be negligible at best, especially with the Mac OS, which is all that I use.

I do wonder if eventually there will be a way to convert to or use a Sata III SSD or HD in the current MacPro line at the Sata III native speeds. If eventually we are able to add a Thunderbolt card to these computers, I presume this wouldn't help with the individual internal Bays.
Again, thanks everyone for the sound advice.

OK, real quick. If you get a 2nd 120GB OWC (proffered choice) and RAID0 it you will have twice the bandwidth and twice the size. Probably get 400+MB/s (280MB/s X2). Differing drive types depends. I would not mix controllers nor size as you loose out to the smaller of the 2.
You can install a SATAIII pci card now but you can't boot (drivers needed) off it so it is relegated to storage right now (pretty sure). You will not be able to "convert" anything. You'll need to get a new motherboard if you want internal SATAIII. No TB card yet or even possible. Not my area of expertise, don't care right now. But the card, if ever created, will not be able to hook into your internal drive sleds.

 

[nanofrog]

No. SSDs are so fast now the performance difference between various SSD models in every day tasks is largely going to be imperceptible in all but the most extreme situations... Even those with SATA III interfaces.

Running SSDs in RAID0 will improve sequential reads and writes, but for an OS/Apps drive, that has little benefit. Access patterns on OS/Apps drives are primarily small random reads/writes which will benefit only marginally from striping.

Having said that, adding a second drive of the same model you already have in RAID0 is a great way to double capacity and improve performance somewhat without losing any of your initial investment.

As per SSD's, just don't presume the budget models will run at the same level as the performance units (i.e. compare an Intel Value Edition to say a G2 or 320).

Hmm... I'm not sure what trouble you could run into with two different SSDs in RAID0. Theoretically there is no reason why you can't use any similar sized drive. You will get double the formatted capacity of the smaller drive. It may work just fine.

The testing I'm aware of all used the same SSD's in a RAID configuration, so I can't say for certain. But as you mention, it should work (testing would be nice to prove it though, due to SSD's having less latency than mechanical disks).

I do wonder if eventually there will be a way to convert to or use a Sata III SSD or HD in the current MacPro line at the Sata III native speeds.

It would require the use of a PCIe SATA III card (most are eSATA right now; the internal models I'm aware of are enterprise grade, as they're 16 ports + and use MiniSAS connectors = ~$400 USD range).

If eventually we are able to add a Thunderbolt card to these computers, I presume this wouldn't help with the individual internal Bays.

Unfortunately, No. Thunderbolt won't help you with internal storage as it's made for external use.

Besides, if it's performance you're after, PCIe slots can best Thunderbolt by a wide margin (requires the right card, and that will mean RAID in order to use the parallelism of the disks to exceed 800MB/s in either direction <800MB/s = TB's throughput limit up or down, but it can do this simultaneously>). Of course this sort of configuration requires a notable sum of money (fast storage can easily exceed the cost of the base system ).