I want to add an SSD to my MacPro 1,1 - can I use any brand, specs?

The difference in speed between the two will not be seen on your Mac.

But the last time I ventured an opinion on this subject, Readers pointed out that the difference in price was really small.

Good to know in case I ever decide to put it in a different machine I suppose

Do I need to enable TRIM if I get an SSD? I am on 10.6.8. I have no idea what that is or how to do it, it is just something I have seen mentioned.

Also, if my other internal drives are not SSDs, would I still get a performance boost if I move the home folder to a separate drive?

would I still get a performance boost if I move the home folder to a separate drive?

That topic was beaten to death in the posts above, especially with John Galt.

Traditional spinning magnetic drives do not actually overwrite freed-up data blocks, but only add them the the "free list" for re-use. Later, the drive over-writes those blocks with new data.

SSD in the same Operating System does not usually know that data has been "freed". And since SSDs read and write really big blocks, writing a block may entail reading a really big SSD block partially filled with old data you don't care about, modifying part of it, and re-writting it.

TRIM is supposed to help this by notifying the drive when blocks are deleted, but it is not known whether just turning it on is effective, especially in older Mac OS X.

Keeping the free space consolidated and Zeroed is another approach that can be used, but no one really knows if that is any more or less effective. The ultimate answer will be when Mac OS X fully supports TRIM in aftermarket drives.

What is known is that when drives get low on free, zeroed blocks, they tend to slow way down and get into trouble.

So it sounds like TRIM is something I should do probably. Is that all command line stuff? I eventually plan on installing Lion, which I believe is the most recent OS my 1,1 will support (I have the USB install). Would I need to adjust anything once Lion is invloved?

MacRumorspost:

Is a great tutorial - TRIM makes BGC work better, OS X does not support TRIM on just any and every SSD.

How Trim Works -

The OS sends a TRIM command at the point of file deletionThe SSD marks the indicated locations as invalid dataTRIM Features:► Prevents GC on invalid data► Increases the free space known to the SSD controllerTRIM Benefits:► Higher throughput – Faster host write speeds because less time writing for GC► Improved endurance – Reduced writes to the flash

http://www.groths.org

Trim Enabler issues

OK, so OWC has this whole page on why one should not install Trim Enabler on their drives as it slows them down, yet lots of people are saying OWC doesn't know what they are talking about and that it speeds them up. I don't know either way which is the better way. I have 10.6.8 and plan on updating to Lion, but have not done it yet.

If I did use it, would I have to use the older version (1.0) as my Mac Pro is a 1,1 and therefore 32-bit kernal?

Are OWC the most-Mac-friendly SSDs? I know there are lots of them out there, all with different controllers, etc.

Welcome to new technology's "bleeding edge"

Yeah, really...

It honestly doesn't matter to me which way is better, it's just hard finding a concensus one way or another

No, OWC is not, they do offer a mac utility to upgrade firmware.

Intel 520, Samsung 830 or later (Apple uses Samsungs), I have been using and happy with Corsair for two years. Crucual m4's have all needed firmware to work properly. I trust Intel at this point in time to know what they are doing.

TRIM Enabler... how well it is tested as 3rd party and works is something I leave to you.

Even the 2008s have buggy EFI64 firmware or I'd recommend the SATA3 controller for SSD on today's Barefeats $99 PCIE that I plan to install.

So if I am reading this right, the drives OWC has available right now are not good firmware wise for the Mac and the Intel and Samsung models you mention are? Would The Intel 520 and Samsung 830 need something like TRIM Enabler or is is already enabled? or not necessary (as OWC claims is the case with theirs?)

When OWC first started doing SSDs in a big way, theirs were the best, and the most Mac-friendly. Others had a lot of rough edges.

I read what The hatter is saying right above as

"What OWC offers is not magic. Look around. Be skeptical."

... followed by the informed choices he has made for himself.

I am not married to the idea of one brand over another - I really don't know which is best - and from doing a lot of reading, not just here, but elsewhere, there seems to be a lot of differing opinions. I guess I am looking for reliable and good with minimal tweaking if possible. As for TRIM, with the OWC drives, they claim they don't need TRIM, but others say they do. from what I have read, Apple only supports it on Apple-branded drives, so I'd need to do something to enable it I assume.

I think I may have found the reason for the many weasel-words regarding TRIM, especially its being called "inappropriate" for use with RAID.

I added TRIM-enabler on my very old 30GB SSD, and am now occasionally seeing the colored beachball for the first time ever.

So my theory is this:

On certain older SSDs, the use of TRIM causes the SSD to do an IMMEDIATE Erase of the TRIM-ed data blocks. This appears to cause a delay until the blocks are Erased. Erasing is one of the slowest operations, so the delay may be substantial.

If enabled for a RAID, any gains from the RAID would be messed up bad by having to wait for the drive to do the freed-block Erase.

Possible solution: I expect the "correct" way to implement this would be for SSD drive makers to maintain a blocks-to-be-TRIMed List, return control to the System immediately, and do the actual freed block Erase as part of Background Garbage Collection later. This level of abstraction and complexity may be more than most drive makers are currently willing/able to undertake at this time.