Clean Install Yosemite onto new SSD (Also, what is TRIM?)

Hi sorciuch

It worked!

I'm also not the best with computers. I just followed your instructions to install a Samsung 850-EVO (500GB) SSD on my late-2008 Macbook Pro and it is now working fine. So I say many thanks to you for your help. I should mention a few things that were not strictly as per your instructions:

1. I couldn't work out how to disable the sudden motion sensor or reset the SMC & PRAM/VRAM - but all seems fine anyway.

2. I didn't do anything on the topic of Partition Disk. I went to that tab on the Disk Utility and concluded that everything you mention in your instructions (one partition and GUID partition table) was already the case.

For the physical exercise of changing over hard drives, I did also find the following CNET video quite helpful. See: http://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/upgrade-your-macbook-install-ssd-hard-drive/

I got the following tool kit (£2.95 delivered) for the required screwdrivers. See: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NMITMJW?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_de tailpage_o01_s00

I hope others can benefit from your instructions (and my own experience with them).

Thanks again.

Oh yes - I nearly forgot. I did previously upgrade my memory from 4GB to 8GB. So both the SSD and new memory have really boosted my macbook pro's performance.

Some SSDs depending on the controller they use actually recommend that Trim not be enabled. So you really should not say that Trim is important for all SSD. It is important for those that have a controller that requires the use of Trim.

I agree absolutely as already the remark of Allan about Trim, as someone already posted in this thread.

I feel compelled to say, that all modern SSD of a good brand are having controllers that do gain little or nothing by installing the Trim command (a serious hack), especially when you have enough (>25GB) or more free space.

In Yosemite even an important security layer must be disrobed to make the Trim hack possible.

Lex

Hi everyone:

Admittedly, I'm probably the least tech savvy person on this thread, so please bear with me. But I'm about to do almost the exact same thing as the OP, but want to clarify a couple of things. I have a mid-2010 13" Macbook Pro 7,1 (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB Memory, 1067 MHz DDR3, 500GB HDD) & recently decided to upgrade to a 1TB SSD and 8GB of memory. The SSD I ordered is a 1TB Crucial BX100 and should be arriving tomorrow. It wasn't until I went to download an app tonight that I realized I have to upgrade from Snow Leopard (10.6.8) to a 10.9.0 OS or higher in order to do this. 😕 It looks like I have no choice if I want to get newer apps. And in reading reviews on Yosemite, I started seeing all of the problems it had with 3rd party SSD's and performance complaints. Now I have the following questions:

• Since I've read (and people here have stated) the Crucial's garbage collection should be sufficient, should I stick with that OR should I purchase a OWC Mercury Electra instead that I've read has a TRIM-type function built in?
• I haven't read a ton of positive reviews regarding performance after upgrading to Yosemite on older Macbooks - any opinions from this group on that? Should I (and can I?) upgrade to an older version like Maverick and not deal with the SSD TRIM issue at all? If Maverick got better reviews I wouldn't care at all, I'm just concerned with making all of these upgrades just to have a new OS drag me down.
• The OP mentioned a "partitioning" step - is this a necessary part of the install or is this a more advanced step I may not need?
• Does it matter when I do the memory upgrade?

Sorry for all of the questions - any help is greatly appreciated!! 🙂

-Stephanie

Stephanie:

SSD's do not have Trim built in: Trim is an OS command. All modern SSDs are "TrimEnabled", which means that a Trim command is being read and used in the SSD. I wrote this about Trim in one of the other threads:

I use SSD already for 5 years in many computers, no slowdown, and as far as I can tell no wear. They all run still at the same speed (sata2 or sata3) depending on the system.

You do not have to disable "native Trim": it does not do anything to a non-apple SSD. Nothing to do with antitrust, use trim when you want to.

My point is that it is more critical in the latest OSX: it "disrobes" a system wide security layer, and I strongly suggest that trim is not worth that.

Trim is just an info sent from the OS to the disk controller. Nothing else. OS does not care if it is used or not.

As long as there is enough overprovisioning there will not be a slowdown: the (modern) SSD does continuous wear-levelling and garbage-control at the same time, trim or not. Theoretically the garbage-control can be a bit faster with trim but I have never been able to measure a difference. In the time of "crude" SSD controllers I used to install Trim, the older OSX were not very critical about manipulating kexts and the SSD controller could be helped. Since Crucial and others cam with the Marvell controller, I did not do it anymore, and now even the Sandforce based SSD controllers do not really need it anymore.

When I see need for many disk operations in heavily used systems I use the Pro SSDs that have more overprovisioning, or I leave about 20GB unformatted on the non-pro SSDs.

Lex

Thanks, Lex! No matter which SSD I use, I am not planning on enabling TRIM b/c of the reasons you mentioned (not being worth the security layer being disrobed). I just wasn't sure that when it comes to internal garbage collection if there was a big difference between the Crucial BX100 that I have being delivered or the OWC Mercury Electra. I haven't installed yet, so want to get whichever is better. 🙂

Any advice on the OS upgrade? I have read so many negative reviews from people with my Macbook going from Snow Leopard to Mavericks or Yosemite, but downloading new apps seems to require it. 😟 So since it looks like I'll have to - do you have an opinion on which of the two runs better?

-Stephanie

Stephanie,

both SSDs are good. When you have a server running try getting a pro version, when you are doing personal computing only (even if heavy) you do not need a Pro ssd.

OWC do NOT have Trim built in, the SSDs are capable of handling trim commands from the OS. OWC have good garbage control in the SSDs and as they say, Trim is not necessary. Read my earlier post about Trim.

I note you say that there was only 1 partition - does this mean that you don't have a recovery partition? Without that, you can't use FindMyMac?

Yes, one Partition, for the users. There are however two more parts on the disk: the Recovery "Partition" and the EFI "partition"; order of magnitude 800MB for Recovery and 200 for EFI; you can not use these for your work on the computer.

Lex

Thanks sorciuch!

I've followed your instructions and it works perfectly.

I've install SSD samsung evo 850 1TB in my macbook pro 13" early 2011 and upgrade to 8gb ram. It's way faster than before!

Thanks for the guide, it seems very thorough and well done, but I have a question about the partitioning in step 2.

Is this necessary, and what is the reasoning behind doing this? Are you creating this partition to act as a possible recovery partition, or what was your thinking behind this?

If anyone has any other thoughts on why sorciuch might have done this I'd love to hear your thoughts also.

Thanks again for the guide.