Enable TRIM on SSD's ?

As mentioned, you need to do your own research; I’ve only faced that decision once and the SSD was from OWC (macsales.com). They specifically told me not to enable it because of the way their garbage collection works. So, obviously, different manufacturers have different recommendations.

Cyberlicious wrote:

Hello.

When replacing a mechanical drive with a SSD, should one find out if the SSD supports trim before enabling trim?

The reason I ask, is because a few months ago, I cloned a Macbook's mechanical drive to an ssd, and it booted and ran fine until I enabled trim. Once trim was enabled, I got the dreaded question mark error upon reboot. I had to repeat the clone without enabling trim. I wish I could remember what the SSD's manufacturer was.

I found this on Crucial's site:

"Trim and Active Garbage Collection are useful tools that can benefit the speed, function, and longevity of your SSD. But if your operating system doesn't support Trim, it's not a disaster. All Crucial SSDs are designed and tested assuming that they will be used without Trim".

I found this comment from 2 years ago on another forum:

"For a recent third-party SSD/Flash memory drive, read very carefully whether the storage device vendor recommends, or discourages enabling external TRIM support on their drive. Many are now incorporating TRIM functionality into their drive controllers and enabling external TRIM may offer no advantage at all, and may actually harm the drive".

You will have to do your own research and come to your own conclusion.

TRIM is typicall advised.

If you had an issue with Crucial—contact their support.

What you do not want to do is switch TRIM on and then off in indecision— this can lead to data corruption.

I have never had an issue enabling TRIM on third party SSD, even when the manufactor states it is not needed with there controller.

Cyberlicious wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

In the last couple years, I've installed about 30 or 40 SSD's in Macbooks and i-Macs, and always enable trim. It was just that one time in which it seemingly caused the boot issue. That boot issue, along with the comment of TRIM possibly damaging the drive, had me a little concerned. However, I suspect I'm being paranoid, and will continue to enable TRIM.

Good computing Cyberlicious !

Cyberlicious wrote:

EDIT-

Babowa posted while I was typing in my last reply.

Now I'm back to being paranoid again. lol

I never had an issue enabling TRIM on OWC drives— independent of their recommendations.

From my take on Apple's policies: we are not allowed to discuss anything related to opening up and installing any part unless the Mac was user accessible (which is a thing of the past). You may need to go to one of the sites that do that kind of stuff (we are actually also not allowed to post a link to it).

Well, I'm not an expert on that, but from what I've learned is that an external drive or SSD in a proper enclosure will be more reliable and last longer than a small USB stick. Personally, I wouldn't trust my data to a stick unless I had another backup.