High Sierra SSD Upgrade on iMac 2013 27"

[sckennedy]

Hello,

I have upgraded my old hard drive on my iMac 2013 to a Crucial MX500 (500 GB SSD).

I did a clean install of High Sierra, (after formatting the SSD to APFS using Disk Utility).

I have enabled TRIM in Terminal.

The iMac is now painfully slow - read/write speeds to the SSD are around 150-200, all processes slow.

Any pointers appreciated.

Thanks,

Simon, UK



iMac 27 Inch, late 2013

3.4GHz i5

16GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2 GB

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

You might try to reinstall without converting to APFS. I’ve read in a few places that APFS isn’t well documented and currently seems to be aimed at the SSDs that Apple formally supports. Avoiding APFS conversion involves a few terminal commands, but I’ve done it before and it’s not too hard. Speeds seemed better for me when using a Crucual SSD, TRIM enabled.

http://osxdaily.com/2017/10/17/how-skip-apfs-macos-high-sierra/

 

[sckennedy]

You might try to reinstall without converting to APFS. I’ve read in a few places that APFS isn’t well documented and currently seems to be aimed at the SSDs that Apple formally supports. Avoiding APFS conversion involves a few terminal commands, but I’ve done it before and it’s not too hard. Speeds seemed better for me when using a Crucual SSD, TRIM enabled.

http://osxdaily.com/2017/10/17/how-skip-apfs-macos-high-sierra/

Thanks Darmok.
I've performed a clean reinstall of Sierra after formatting the SSD HFS+ and all appears well.
I'll run with Sierra for a few days and then give the High Sierra fix a go. Is it safe to enable TRIM on a Mac?

Simon

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Thanks Darmok.
I've performed a clean reinstall of Sierra after formatting the SSD HFS+ and all appears well.
I'll run with Sierra for a few days and then give the High Sierra fix a go. Is it safe to enable TRIM on a Mac?

Simon

Yes, definitely enable TRIM. It's only APFS that I'd avoid on third-party SSDs.

 

[RedTomato]

To be honest, I've done lots of SSD upgrades, and I only ever use Samsung 850 / 860 EVO drives. They seem better supported. I don't bother enabling TRIM, and all seems to go well, both APFS and HFS+.

I would consider returning the Crucial and getting a Samsung. They cost a bit more, but worth it.

 

[amaze1499]

From my experience, if you start from scratch its best to format new SSDs in HFS+. The installer will automatically convert the volume during installation. I never touched the trim command, never had to.

@RedTomato

Evo series are indeed some of the best in the consumer market. It needs to be mentioned, they are more expensive due to MLC technology rather than the cheaper 3D nand. However, why not going for a cheap small SSD to start with, as due to moores law, we will see SSDs in a few years in the TB range as entry model.

 

[sckennedy]

Update - Sierra on the HFS formatted SSD is now more stable but, still extremely slow read/write speeds (200Mbs).
This is with TRIM enabled/disabled.
Is it worth mentioning that when the new drive was installed, the original cables were used to connect the SSD?
Thanks,
Simon

 

[amaze1499]

Just wondering, does Sierra already contain the latest driver versions? Same issue with HighSierra?

 

[sckennedy]

Just wondering, does Sierra already contain the latest driver versions? Same issue with HighSierra?

I initially installed High Sierra on a APFS formatted SSD, very sluggish OS and read/write speed.
After installing Sierra I updated the OS via the App store.
Thanks,
Simon

 

[amaze1499]

I had the same issue. When I started over, I formatted the SSD in HFS+ reinstalled the system using internet recovery, let the installer handle the rest, never had any problems eversince.

 

[sckennedy]

I had the same issue. When I started over, I formatted the SSD in HFS+ reinstalled the system using internet recovery, let the installer handle the rest, never had any problems eversince.

Hi, was that with Sierra or High Sierra?
I've been booting from from an external drive with the installer on the drive.
The clean install is also taking around 70 minutes every time - seems a little long?
Simon

 

[amaze1499]

high sierra

 

[RedTomato]

I may be mis-understanding, but 200MB/s for real-world use seems about right according to this review

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12263/the-crucial-mx500-500gb-review/

 

[sckennedy]

I initially installed "Macs Fan Control" as the fan was spinning at maximum RPM.
Could that have contributed to the slow performance?
I've attached an Etre report/pdf file of the report.
Thanks,
Simon