# What's the latest with TRIM on OS X for SSDs?



## Soundhound (Mar 24, 2016)

My dreaded Samsung 840 EVOs were slowing down and I got in touch with Samsung. I had sent them in a year or so ago for the firmware update, but was told that the update I had gotten didn't fix the problem but rather just delayed it, and there has been a newer update that fixed the problem properly. 

So I've sent them off for that upgrade and they're coming back now all fixed (fingers crossed) and I'm wondering about what people's experience is with using TRIM for their streaming sample SSDs? I read a few articles that say it's not necessary, but the guy I spoke to at Samsung said it is a good idea, something about garbage collection... OS X now apparently takes care of part of the problem, but TRIM still helps with other parts of it. My info is sketchy at very best. 

Anyone have an idea here of whether it's necessary/a good idea/unecessary/a bad idea?

Thanks!


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## JohnG (Mar 24, 2016)

This question seems to attract many vehement opinions, some of which are opposed to one another.

For better or worse, I downloaded and applied Trim Enabler from cindori.org on my older Lion OS.


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## Soundhound (Mar 24, 2016)

Uh oh.


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## Soundhound (Mar 24, 2016)

Can you enable TRIM/does it make a difference, if you enable it after loading up your SSDs? I'm about to copy all my libraries back to my SSDs but wondering if I decide to enable TRIM I should do it before copying all the data, or I can always do it later and that won't matter?


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## dgburns (Mar 24, 2016)

http://www.howtogeek.com/222077/how-to-enable-trim-for-third-party-ssds-on-mac-os-x/


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## Soundhound (Mar 24, 2016)

thanks!


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## gpax (Mar 25, 2016)

But isn't the above article specific to trim-enabling a third-party SSD running the OS? I read this article before, and stopped short of running the command prompt when I realized it was global, meaning, all my connected SSDs would be altered (and my internal SSD drive is already Apple). As John indicated, there's still disparate advice about the benefits of trim-enabling non-OS SSDs used primarily for streaming (read only) samples.

I have four Crucials which perform their own garbage collection process if left powered for extended periods while not being accessed. Or so they say. Ive not had these long enough to note performance changes. But i just added an Evo 850, to replace my 840 which I did see slow down, also having performed the ineffective firmware update a while back.

Not trying dissuade you, but I keep reading of very minimal gains and even advice to the contrary. I wish there was a more definitive answer where SSDs used for samples is concerned.


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## dgburns (Mar 25, 2016)

gpax said:


> But isn't the above article specific to trim-enabling a third-party SSD running the OS? I read this article before, and stopped short of running the command prompt when I realized it was global, meaning, all my connected SSDs would be altered (and my internal SSD drive is already Apple). As John indicated, there's still disparate advice about the benefits of trim-enabling non-OS SSDs used primarily for streaming (read only) samples.
> 
> I have four Crucials which perform their own garbage collection process if left powered for extended periods while not being accessed. Or so they say. Ive not had these long enough to note performance changes. But i just added an Evo 850, to replace my 840 which I did see slow down, also having performed the ineffective firmware update a while back.
> 
> Not trying dissuade you, but I keep reading of very minimal gains and even advice to the contrary. I wish there was a more definitive answer where SSDs used for samples is concerned.



Thought the whole point was to trim enable third party drives,maybe I misread the initial post???

Imho,trim isn't really that big a deal IF you are using the drives to read back samples only.The idea being that you write to those drives very infrequently.Where it gets a bit muddy is if you are using one to record audio or stuff that gets written and erased frequently.Trim only frees up the sectors that are free to be used again-Samsung firmware issues aside,which might be confusing the issue.An ssd drive should be able to maintain it's speed if you are only reading back samples.There is the question of the benefit of "refreshing"the data every once in a while,and I've seen apps that just read all the data on the drive to "refresh" the data.Again,not sure of the value of all that.Keep backups of everything elsewhere as drives will go down,so I see it as part of the life cycle of the gear myself.
Also checkout OWC for the mac products.They seem to know the in's and out's.


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## JohnG (Mar 25, 2016)

dgburns said:


> trim isn't really that big a deal IF you are using the drives to read back samples only.The idea being that you write to those drives very infrequently.



I am no expert; however, dg's point, that TRIM is very important for disks (like the OS disk) that have lots of writing, but less important for pure streaming disks, seems intuitively sensible to me as well. 

Nevertheless since I know so little and because on my Pro Tools mac I'm using an SSD for the OS / boot drive, I downloaded this routine and am using it. You can check TRIM status in, I think, the "About this Mac" system report.


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## gpax (Mar 25, 2016)

dgburns said:


> Thought the whole point was to trim enable third party drives,maybe I misread the initial post???



I did not take you as misreading the post, but rather, when Soundhound mentioned SSDs for sample streaming specially, I realized that was perhaps a different consideration than the benefits of trim for drives running the OS or with a lot of reads and writes. But you've gone on to essentially state as much as well, which is the same conclusion I came to sifting through various sources this past year.


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## Soundhound (Mar 30, 2016)

Bottom line, I'm wondering whether I should enable TRIM on my setup. As I said, I tend to put libraries on my SSDs and that's the end of it, just read from them all day and all night.  But occasionally, very occasionally (as in once so far in about two years, just recently in fact) I do a pretty big reorganization, which is a lot of erasing and writing to the SSDs. I imagine that schedule would keep as I go along, every couple of years or so I would do a reorg like that.


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## gpax (Mar 30, 2016)

@Soundhound - I personally did not set up TRIM enabling for my five sample SSDs. Like you, I do infrequently reorganize things - especially as I add libraries. And, my SSDs do benefit from powered inactivity for managing internal garbage collection. My Understanding is that it's the constant read/write activity which degrades more over time. 

But with prices down, and still falling, I'm less inclined to feel like I have to stretch out that investment, more recently regarding the replacement of my sample SSDs as changing tires with signs of wear. I think it's been the cost of SSDs that has informed aspects of preserving longevity for years, and understandably so. But even as I now ponder a RAID array, the lower prices make that seem much more accessible as a means to keep the samples smoothly streaming.


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## Soundhound (Mar 30, 2016)

Thanks gpax. I'd been thinking about setting up a RAID as well. I've got 4 of the drives in a Blackmagic Multidock, and realize that the drives need to be empty and striped as a RAID array while still empty. Whoops, I just filled them back up after getting them back from Samsung. Ack. I have two other SSDs in little Inateck USB 3.0 enclosures and have been looking at options for those. Seems like a 4 bay makes sense, for future library purchases (always, can't seem to stop) and perhaps having one SSD for work files (currently have the work files on a Drobo). A few companies make 4 bay SSD devices that are less $ than the Blackmagic, Alitio and OWC. That way I'd have 2 RAID arrays. 

What benefits are getting you to think about RAID?


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## Simon Ravn (Mar 31, 2016)

I haven't bothered with TRIM on any of my SSD's. I use them for everything on my Mac Pro, also OS - no problems. TRIM is nice to have but not needed, and I don't think you're going to see any difference whether you use it or not. Especially not for sample streaming, as you are not doing heavy write work on the disk. Personally, if I don't experience any performance degradation (I haven't), I would not experiment with TRIM on OS X.

Oh and BTW the Samsung 840 EVO problem has nothing to do with trim. It won't help you there, Samsung just screwed up royally. I bought two of those disks myself. Prolonged the life of them a bit by copying off and back everything to them, and actually been using one of them as my project/recording disk, but I am definitely getting rid of them as soon as it makes sense.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...garbage-collection-so-i-dont-need-trim-right/


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## gpax (Mar 31, 2016)

Simon Ravn said:


> Oh and BTW the Samsung 840 EVO problem has nothing to do with trim. It won't help you there, Samsung just screwed up royally. I bought two of those disks myself. Prolonged the life of them a bit by copying off and back everything to them, and actually been using one of them as my project/recording disk, but I am definitely getting rid of them as soon as it makes sense.


Yes - I think this is worth stressing, as dgburns also indicated. The 840 EVO was my first SSD as well, btw, and I went through the drama of the supposed firmware update etc., only to see it continue to degrade. Even using it for lesser tasks as an external in my new setup, I finally replaced it entirely a couple of weeks ago.


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## gpax (Mar 31, 2016)

Soundhound said:


> Thanks gpax. I'd been thinking about setting up a RAID as well. I've got 4 of the drives in a Blackmagic Multidock, and realize that the drives need to be empty and striped as a RAID array while still empty. Whoops, I just filled them back up after getting them back from Samsung. Ack. I have two other SSDs in little Inateck USB 3.0 enclosures and have been looking at options for those. Seems like a 4 bay makes sense, for future library purchases (always, can't seem to stop) and perhaps having one SSD for work files (currently have the work files on a Drobo). A few companies make 4 bay SSD devices that are less $ than the Blackmagic, Alitio and OWC. That way I'd have 2 RAID arrays.
> 
> What benefits are getting you to think about RAID?


Re-reading the entire thread, I am reminded that you are still entertaining the use of 840 EVO SSDs, with it's known issues, but which is a separate discussion with respect to TRIM. You might want to consider replacing the 840 EVOs, unfortunately. I'm not saying Samsung did not rectify this for you (and they may have), but what I detailed above was the DYI approach which never remedied the manufacturing flaws.


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## Soundhound (Mar 31, 2016)

I'm starting to wonder about that for sure, yikes that's $ I didn't think I was going to spend, but if necessary, absolutely. The Samsung guy I spoke with regarding the firmware I just had done said the first firmware upgrade didn't actually solve the problem, and that this one does. (but, fool me once... etc.) Anyone here get the second firmware upgrade?



gpax said:


> Re-reading the entire thread, I am reminded that you are still entertaining the use of 840 EVO SSDs, with it's known issues, but which is a separate discussion with respect to TRIM. You might want to consider replacing the 840 EVOs, unfortunately. I'm not saying Samsung did not rectify this for you (and they may have), but what I detailed above was the DYI approach which never remedied the manufacturing flaws.


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## Shubus (May 8, 2016)

I'm running the Blacklight Multi-Dock with Samsung 850 EVO PRO SSD's in striped RAID....and this is one speedy system. I have one problem: TRIM doesn't work. Yes TRIM is enabled in Mac OSX as shown in the System Report but deleted files never get their space returned to "free" storage....the only solution I've come up with is to delete everything on the Multi-Dock, delete the RAID array and start over again. All this gets quite time consuming when big sample libraries need to be updated. The model 850 is NOT one of the SSD's with the firmware issues....but I'm wondering if I have a Mac issues or a Samsung issue which is preventing TRIM from doing its job.


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