Opinion on Samsung 830/840 pro ssd 256gb? Trim?

You MUST have TRIM or an equivalent storage strategy with an SSD. Else performance will go down over time and after awhile won't be any better than an HDD. Some makers have the controller do the TRIM by itself, others incorporate alternate strategies. For the rest, it is up to you, cause OS X only enables TRIM on drives it reads to have Apple-supplied firmware on the controller.

http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322

That specialist is correct that TRIM does not need to be enabled, and he correctly identified the process as idle garbage collection, which is NOT the same as the actual TRIM command. Garbage collection is not as fast or effective as TRIM, but works well enough for the vast majority of end users.

Just as a heads up, unless you have a Windows machine handy, you're not going to be able to update the firmware for your SSD on a Mac. While Samsung makes good drives, I'm loathe to recommend them to Mac users for this reason. You shouldn't have any trouble, but firmware updates can provide important bug fixes and/or performance improvements.

I have a Mac Pro with the Samsung 840 Pro. Trim by default is NOT enabled for 3rd party SSD's.

I went to this page to enable TRIM.

http://digitaldj.net/2011/07/21/trim-enabler-for-lion/

There was no need to install other software package just to enable TRIM.

You should know how to use TERMINAL and some basic UNIX commands...

(actually as long as you read it and copy/paste it...you should be okay)

I bought an 840 to install in my MacBook Pro Mid-2009. Samsung Tech Support told me yesterday that if you have access to a Windows machine, you can use the Samsung Magician software to update your firmware while the drive is in your Mac.

BTW - he told me the new Magician software (v4.0) has problems and to use the older (v3.2) to do this.

You need a USB drive (prob at least 4GB). The Magician software will create a bootable disk with the firmware update files. You'd then shut down your mac, insert the USB, and boot to it (I think you do this by holding the option key down as you press the power button and until you see a screen with an option to choose your boot disk. Obviously choose the USB.)

For those who cringe at making the patches themselves, TRIM Enabler from groths bundles that patching and a simple TRIM Status program, along with backing up the patched kernel extension, into a nice GUI-friendly package.

Apple does not endorse these changes, and as always, your mileage may vary.

I've noticed that my drive is actually a bit slower with Trim Enabler switched on (particularly on shut-down where w/out TRIM it takes 4 seconds, and with TRIM it takes about 12). Maybe that's because it's doing work?

Not sure, but I'd still love to know if I should keep it on. Maybe because in the long run it will work better? Maybe because we wiped out Samsung's garbage collection when we reformatted for MAC? (although I guess it could be in the firmware). Just not sure.

Questions, questions, questions... 🙂

Because of the way that file systems typically handle delete operations, storage media (SSDs, but also traditional hard drives) generally do not know which sectors/pages are truly in use and which can be considered free space.

Delete operations are typically limited to flagging data blocks as "not in use" in the file system.^[6][7] Contrary to, for example, an overwrite operation, a delete will therefore not involve a physical write to the sectors that contain the data. Since a common SSD has no access to the file system structures, including the list of unused clusters, the storage medium remains unaware that the blocks have become available.

above from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM

You can't do Garbage collection adequately if you don't know what is Garbage. TRIM passes that information along. 10 seconds more shutdown time for smooth fast operation is a tiny price to pay.

.

I installed an 500 GB 840 series a couple of weeks ago.

I downloaded chameleon ssd optimizer and enabled TRIM.

I have not had a single issue.

Boots up in 10 seconds, shuts down almost immediately.

1 Vote for Trim Enabled.

2011 - 17" Macbook Pro; 10.9 - Samsung 840 Pro - 256GB.

I've used about 220GB so far. (35GB free)

Today I notices things were getting slow. Decided to test. On about 10 or 15 tests,

doing things like clearing SMC & PRAM; Checking perms; Verifying disk;

BlackMagic Disk speed test consistently gave:

22 MB/s Write 150 MB/s read

Set-up a win7 dual boot. Booted to Win7 and updated firmware.

Samsung Magician Utility ( windows) gave:

20 MB/s Write 90 MB/s read

Used Samsung's Magician to Optimize Performance for OS's that don't support TRIM.

Samsung's speed test went to: 100 MB/s write 140 MB/s read

Rebooted to osx.

Used a script (below) to enable TRIM in 10.9.

Rebooted.

Ran BM Speed Test again. came up with 492MB/S WRITE 498 MB/S READ

Seems better to me.

Hope it helps!

Script stuff. This is what I used. There are others.

Disclaimer: This could result in killing your SDD; Setting your computer on fire, and making your dog run away. That said it worked for me.

I got the trim script from:

https://gist.github.com/return1/4058659

Step-by-step Directions for trim script:

select text of script below; menu-> edit ->copy

start Terminal

in terminal type: cd ~/Desktop <enter>

in terminal type: pico trimenabler.sh <enter>

in terminal-> edit->paste

in terminal type: CTRL-O then CTRL-X

in terminal type: chmod a+x trimenabler.sh <enter>

in terminal type: ./trimenabler.sh <enter>

(it should ask for your password)

(reboot)

Trim Script Below:

# Trim Enabler Script

sudo cp /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorag e.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorag e.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage.original

# for Mountain Lion 10.8.3 - 10.9

sudo perl -pi -e 's|(\x52\x6F\x74\x61\x74\x69\x6F\x6E\x61\x6C\x00{1,20})[^\x00]{9}(\x00{1,20}\x5 4)|$1\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00$2|sg' /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorag e.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage

# for Mountain Lion 10.8.1-10.8.2 and Lion 10.7.5

#sudo perl -pi -e 's|(\x52\x6F\x74\x61\x74\x69\x6F\x6E\x61\x6C\x00{1,20})[^\x00]{9}(\x00{1,20}\x4 D)|$1\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00$2|sg' /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorag e.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage

# for Mountain Lion 10.8.0 and Lion 10.7.4 BELOW

#sudo perl -pi -e 's|(\x52\x6F\x74\x61\x74\x69\x6F\x6E\x61\x6C\x00{1,20})[^\x00]{9}(\x00{1,20}\x5 1)|$1\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00$2|sg' /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorag e.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/

# now reboot!

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