Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Upgrading with official Apple SSD - will TRIM be enabled?

B

BlackFalcon448

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 8, 2011
43
0
So I've been thinking of adding an SSD to my mini, and it makes sense to use an official apple SSD (made by toshiba) to reduce headaches trying to enable TRIM.

Let's say I purchased this drive:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/APPLE-MACBOOK-PRO-13-15-17-OEM-256GB-SSD-SOLID-STATE-LAPTOP-HARD-DRIVE-2-5-/261383188301?pt=US_Solid_State_Drives&hash=item3cdba6ef4d

If i installed this drive and reinstalled OSX, would it automatically detect that the drive is apple branded and enable TRIM? I'm almost certain that this is the same drive apple offers as a build to order option, and I doubt they do anything special to each BTO computer other then imaging whatever type of drive the customer asked for.

My mini is the Late 2012 model, so the most current one.
 
OEM SSD's from the 2012 mini's are Samsung 830's with custom firmware. Looks like you linked to a Toshiba drive. I'm not sure if the mini would recognize it as an apple drive and automatically support TRIM.

I put my own SSD in my mini and have been using the free version of Trim Enabler http://www.groths.org/software/trimenabler/ with good success.
 
COrocket said:
OEM SSD's from the 2012 mini's are Samsung 830's with custom firmware. Looks like you linked to a Toshiba drive. I'm not sure if the mini would recognize it as an apple drive and automatically support TRIM.

I put my own SSD in my mini and have been using the free version of Trim Enabler http://www.groths.org/software/trimenabler/ with good success.
Click to expand...


I guess I could get the apple one and see what happens. If it doesn't end up working I could use that tool to force trim to activate. Thanks for the link.
 
You might want to hold off on that drive. That is a very old drive and was first used in the 200 and 2011 macbook pros. It is a sata 2 drive. Speeds average 200 read and 180 write! I know I still have some in my macbooks at my business.

Yes the firmware will work on the old Toshiba drives.

You are much better off with a new toshiba 3 sata drive. They are enterprise class drives for the consumer market. Or a Samsung 840 Pro. Also a good drive.

Add trim enabler and you are good to go.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2070...d-delivers-top-performance-at-a-discount.html

They both can be had for $180 or less.

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HDTS2...F8&qid=1391150008&sr=8-4&keywords=toshiba+ssd

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Elect...id=1391150548&sr=8-3&keywords=samsung+840+evo
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
+1 to get a new drive, not that old OEM.
Don't worry about Trim, in a new drive like the 840 pro or EVO, is not going to be mandatory.
Probably your drive will degrade after your computer is no longer usable.
 
dollystereo said:
+1 to get a new drive, not that old OEM.
Don't worry about Trim, in a new drive like the 840 pro or EVO, is not going to be mandatory.
Probably your drive will degrade after your computer is no longer usable.
Click to expand...

Alright, thanks for the input. I'll probably end up getting a samsung drive and I'll use trim enabler to manage it.
 
simonsi said:
Choose a more modern drive and Trim Enabler if needed - now that makes sense!
Click to expand...
Is there any list of which drives will see the best benefit from enabling TRIM? Before I used my SSD to create a Fusion Drive I had it running as a purely OS and apps drive, but when I tried TRIM enabler I actually find the performance worse overall; it had slightly better performance some of the time, but sometimes had odd latency issues.

In my case the SSD is an OCZ Vertex II, so getting pretty old by SSD standards now, but I'm still not sure if enabling TRIM is automatically better. Some drives may not even need it at all.
 
dollystereo said:
+1 to get a new drive, not that old OEM.
Don't worry about Trim, in a new drive like the 840 pro or EVO, is not going to be mandatory.
Probably your drive will degrade after your computer is no longer usable.
Click to expand...

Where are you getting that info from? TRIM is extremely beneficial on any SSD so I highly recommend using it on whatever SSD you end up with. New or old, TRIM = good!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6328/samsung-ssd-840-pro-256gb-review/6
 
From a proper source. Nearly any ssd has proper garbage collection (GC) which does the same job as TRIM and they both are equally good at it. The only difference is the way they do it. In reality it doesn't matter which of the two you use. Since tools like TRIM Enabler are more like hacks you add risks of dataloss to the machine while you really do not have to. In some cases it will wreak havoc and cause slowdowns (like the person before you is seeing). If you want to use then be very precise about your backups.
 
dyn said:
From a proper source. Nearly any ssd has proper garbage collection (GC) which does the same job as TRIM and they both are equally good at it. The only difference is the way they do it. In reality it doesn't matter which of the two you use. Since tools like TRIM Enabler are more like hacks you add risks of dataloss to the machine while you really do not have to. In some cases it will wreak havoc and cause slowdowns (like the person before you is seeing). If you want to use then be very precise about your backups.
Click to expand...

Do not listen to this guy. This is not true. GC and TRIM are not the same thing. TRIM usually happens during garbage collection, but they are not one and the same. GC is done by the drive itself whereas the TRIM command is issued from the OS. TRIM should always be enable on drive that supports it.

Anyways, I just bought this drive for my Mac mini...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820248016

and it rips! Was just on sale for $140. Not quite as fast as the Samsung 840 Pro, but it was like almost $100 cheaper. For me, it just wasn't worth spending the extra money. Now if you were building a monster rig it would probably be worth it.
 
interconnect said:
Do not listen to this guy. This is not true. GC and TRIM are not the same thing. TRIM usually happens during garbage collection, but they are not one and the same. GC is done by the drive itself whereas the TRIM command is issued from the OS. TRIM should always be enable on drive that supports it.

Anyways, I just bought this drive for my Mac mini...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820248016

and it rips! Was just on sale for $140. Not quite as fast as the Samsung 840 Pro, but it was like almost $100 cheaper. For me, it just wasn't worth spending the extra money. Now if you were building a monster rig it would probably be worth it.
Click to expand...

Your are correct, GC and TRIM are not the same. Instead they are complimentary. GC is a function internal to the drive itself that consolidates pages (containing valid or invalid data) from partially used blocks so it can pre-delete entire blocks in order to make space available for future writes. The drive only knows if a page contains data or not, the OS knows whether or not the data is valid or invalid.

TRIM is a command issued from the OS to coordinate pages that have been released (invalidated) in order to improve the efficiency of the drives GC process. Without TRIM, the GC may waste time moving invalid data pages, not knowing the OS previously gave up those pages in a file delete or rewrite operation.

The only reason GC and TRIM are even needed is due to the nature of current flash technology. A page of memory cannot be re-written or over-written without being erased first, and individual pages aren't erased but rather blocks of pages. Hopefully, non-volatile memory technology will evolve soon such that memory can be over-written without needing to be erased first.
 
interconnect said:
Do not listen to this guy. This is not true. GC and TRIM are not the same thing. TRIM usually happens during garbage collection, but they are not one and the same. GC is done by the drive itself whereas the TRIM command is issued from the OS. TRIM should always be enable on drive that supports it.
Click to expand...
With "this guy" he means himself (interconnect) because he only knows parts of the story and clearly doesn't understand what I'm saying. Do yourself a favor and try to keep "function" (aka "what does it do?") and "technique" ("how does it do it?") separately as I am doing here. TRIM and GC are the same in function but completely different in technique.

Both GC and TRIM do the same thing: clear out NAND cells that are not used any more in order to prevent the ssd from slowing down (function). The way they do it is quite differently (technique). GC does this by using an algorithm, TRIM is something that sits between drive and OS and enables the OS to tell the drive what to delete exactly There are both pros and cons to those techniques (so you can not state that enabling one or the other is THE solution for anybody and anything) but in the end these differences are very small and most people will not notice them. If you want to know the details then do check the Wikipedia article.

A lot of people have had experience with drives only doing GC for years now and they see no difference. Also, some sites have tested it and they could not confirm that TRIM is the better one (nor that it was worse). So there is real world experience/evidence about this. Unfortunately most people have little understanding about the technology and think TRIM is a silver bullet (they are TRIM-fanboys).

In the end it is up to you if you want to use a hack with the potential for dataloss or not. It is good to know that GC and TRIM will only work when deleting data. If you fill a drive without deleting any stuff the drive will be slow and GC/TRIM won't do a thing at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back