TRIM solution for OS X and non-Apple SSD

So, OS X offers TRIM on only Apple certified gear, which we know is overpriced and slow. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there a reason why this wouldn't work:

Boot to your Windows partition, force a TRIM command on your entire SSD, including OS X partition. Carry on with your life. Repeat in a month.

Or is there a better way?

 

No better way until OS/X fully supports TRIM for all drives.

Booting to your Win7 partition would not solve any issues on the Mac side. It can/should only TRIM the NTFS portion 'properly'.

Better way?

ThinkPAD.

 

are you looking for this?

Activate TRIM On Any SSD On Mac OS X 10.6.7

TRIM is already enabled since 10.6.6 custom built for 2011 macbook pros

 

Experimental, Beta, 'coming' soon is not exactly 'here' yet.

YMMV.

 

Yeah, the comments section seems to suggest that we should steer clear for now.

But, again. What about just idling on a Windows boot? Or does something in bootcamp interfere?

 

i don't think apple would ship 2011 SSD equipped MBPs with an 'experimental' support for TRIM?

as a company they have to make sure the SSD equipped in 2011 MBPs would perform flawlessly ain't it?

 

Hahahahahahha...

Not shipped yet... (at least not 'Lion', right?).

 

sorry , i don't quite understand ... can you elaborate?

as what i know . new 2011 macbook pros comes with 10.6.6 built 10J3210

which is different from normal 10.6.6

http://www.nerdyapple.com/tag/ssd/

 

sugarkang,

You are confusing SSD Garbage Collection with the TRIM command.

With TRIM, when you delete a file, the operating system sends the delete command with TRIM which then allows a drive (if it wants) to clear the blocks within the NAND flash. This contrasts the old platter based HDDs, where a file deletion merely marked the blocks available, but did not physically change what was set on the disk itself.

When you talk about idle time at the login screen, there is a Garbage Collection (GC) routine in which an SSD drive walks through its disk, looking for deleted files in the NAND flash blocks which can also be reset.

In the end, GC tries to do the same thing as TRIM (clear blocks of deleted file data), but it is a matter of "when" this is executed.

Regardless of booting to Win 7 or OSX, I would think when the SSD is idle, it will kick into any kind of GC routine as that is a hardware function, not anything triggered by the OS. So, GC would work either in OSX or Win7 when there is 0 disk activity. Then again, this is just a guess.

 

Not to put words in tiller's mouth, but by "shipping" he probably means general availability to ALL.

Look at TRIM for the OSX user. OSX 10.7 won't ship until the summer. Out of the entire Macs on our globe running SSDs, a mere fraction will have 10.6.6 build 10J3210 (those who bought a MBP in the last couple of months). What about iMac, Mac-min, Mac books, or Mac Pro purchases in 2011?

In this case, shipping means availability to the general population of Mac users.

 

Dammit. That's right. I got fuzzy on the details because being on Win 7, it doesn't matter. But since I moved my Vertex 2 over to my MacBook Pro, I'm starting to worry. Since GC is an Indilinx affair (right?) that means I don't have anything in my MacBook right now. I guess SandForce has wear leveling, but seriously, that's not protecting me, is it?

Wasn't there something called "Tony Trim" or something where I could force a TRIM command within Windows. So let me amend my question. If I have a dual boot MacBook, can I load Windows and run a manual TRIM on my OS X partition?

EDIT: I see Tiller answered my question in the first post. SIGH.

 

well ... OSX 10.6.7 update had been introduced and it has TRIM on it
just that for some reasons the feature is not activated
but i'm sure the feature is indeed brought to 10.6.7 from 10.6.6 built 10J3210
so the TRIM in 10.6.7 is indeed fully working

 

Remember, we're talking about the term "shipping" here. To me, I think adding the word "supported" would help as well. Shipping software is released to all and is supported by the vendor, in this case Apple.

So, yes, while there is some code in OS X for TRIM for people who update to Snow Leopard 10.6.7, it is not yet active nor supported by Apple. Not a feature of OSX. Perhaps there is a change coming from Apple on a future update once Lion has been released. Also note, for those that do activate Trim Enabler, they do so at their own risks. For example, there are some reports that it breaks some kind of hardware video acceleration for both Flash and HTML5/H.264

 

No need to worry. Unless you're some kind of extreme user you won't notice performance degradation on your Sandforce drive.

If you want to make sure run a benchmark like ATTO in Windows.

 

No you can't. Windows doesn't understand OS X file system(unless you find some odd ball driver).

If you can have linux/OS X dual boot(not sure if that is allowed on Mac), you may be able to find some utility that that find the free sectors of the Mac parititon then issue the proper ATA TRIM command(via hdparm) to the SSD. Intel's SSD toolbox under XP/Vista(both doesn't have integrated TRIM support) actually does the same thing.

Unfortunately, Steve Jobs doesn't like to give you hdparm under OS X. Well may be just because BSD's architecture doesn't allow that.

 

I just found an Anand article saying that Sandforce is the one to use for anything non-Win 7. So, that eases my mind a bit. There isn't a proper benchmark util for OS X, though, so I can't tell how my drive is doing. In addition, I wonder if I've got a damn 32nm Hynix in my machine.

On the TRIM topic, one other thing that might work, though, is shrink the OS X partition as small as possible, make the Win partition as large as possible. TRIM. Then resize back. How bout that?

 

Xbench could work as a quick gauge

If you run some benchmarks in Windows you could find out.

A screwdriver would also work but that would void warranty as far as I know.

I have another suggestion: Stop worrying about TRIM

You don't have to do anything.

 

Already did. And that's the problem. My numbers are unacceptably low.

Yeah, not for the Vertex. But, I have a 160GB X25-M on the way.

 

But OS X 10.7 is just around the corner. Perhaps you could use it lightly (or put it on hold) until its release. Also, you could try the 10.6.7 Trim Enabler mentioned above.

 

If you've read the comments thread on that, I would hold off.

 

Agreed. Sounds a bit dicey using a hack discovered by a German or Russion Mac user instead of something directly from Apple. But if you do run into problems, it looks like you can turn it off.

I would wait as well until an Apple supported TRIM is shipping with OS X.

 

and it doesn't mean all germans and russians are hackers , you got to put some trust on those developers .

EDIT: here's the original link for the TRIM Enabler
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1125400

 

Is that posting on TRIM in Lion final? TRIM only on Apple branded SSD? Special controller on the SSD?

 

not sure what controller apple uses , but i guess its not what the OS uses to distinguish apple SSDs with others

 

Just a point of clarification... I didn't say Trim Enabler was written by German and/or Russian hackers. What I did say was Trim Enabler is a hack (see #7) uncovered by a German or Russian Mac user.