Trim enabler alternative6/13/2023 ![]() Today, most current operating systems and SSDs support TRIM, and all SandForce Driven member SSDs have always supported TRIM. Another benefit of the TRIM command is that more space is available for dynamic OP. It also reduces the number of write cycles on the flash, increasing the SSDs endurance. ![]() With this information, the SSD no longer moves that invalid data during the GC process, eliminating wasted time rewriting invalid data to new flash pages. The SSD takes those addresses and updates its own internal map of its flash memory to mark those locations as invalid. Actually the TRIM command can be thought of as a message from the OS about what previously used addresses on the SSD are no longer holding valid data. It is not a command that forces the SSD to immediately erase data like some people believe. So unlike HDDs, SSDs need to know what data is invalid in order to provide optimum performance and endurance.Ī number of years ago, the storage industry got together and developed a solution between the OS and the SSD by creating a new SATA command called TRIM. The result would be the lowest possible performance at that factory OP level. Without a delete command, every SSD will eventually fill up with data, both valid and invalid, eliminating any dynamic OP. The problem I alluded to earlier is caused by the lack of a delete command. When less data is stored by the user, the amount of dynamic OP increases, further improving performance and endurance. In addition, any user space not consumed by the user becomes what we call dynamic over provisioning - dynamic because it changes as the amount of stored data changes. I further describe how the SSD uses non-user space in the flash memory (over provisioning or OP) to improve performance and longevity of the SSD. ![]() In my blog, Gassing up your SSD, I explain how NAND flash memory pages cannot be directly overwritten with new data, but must first be erased at the block level through a process called garbage collection (GC). However, with the advent of NAND flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) a new problem emerged. It is simple and efficient, and no delete command is required. When the OS is ready to store new data in that location, it just sends the data to the HDD and tells it to write to that spot, directly overwriting the prior data. The HDD is told nothing about this change, and it does not need to know since it would not do anything with that information. When the OS or a user deletes a file from the system, the OS simply marks the corresponding spot in the table as free, making it available to store new data. This table tells the OS which spots on the HDD are used and which are free. The operating system (OS) uses a reference table to track the locations (addresses) of all data on the HDD. Now we all know HDDs have a fixed capacity, so over time the older data must somehow get removed, right? Actually it is not removed, but overwritten. ![]() All of the earlier versions of OS X didn't have the kext signing feature but somehow we managed and the rest of the OS X security features are still in place.It may sound crazy, but hard disk drives (HDDs) do not have a delete command. I'm using both an OWC SSD, which refuses to make use of TRIM because OS X sees it as a "rotational" drive (internally, it's a RAID configuration which doesn't support TRIM), and a Crucial M500, which works fine with TRIM, and which has shown no loss of performance during a year of use, perhaps because of assistance from TRIM.Īs to "sacrificing the security features on mac," keep in mind that the TRIM Enabler/Yosemite conflict started with Yosemite and only the security feature introduced with Yosemite is affected. As to the Adata, here's a review of that which is of special interest because of the apparent similarity to the Crucial M550. If your research hasn't included this article, it's worth a read because it gets into, among other things, how SSD's differ from HD's, and how TRIM helps compensate for that difference. Although I am not sure what is the difference in life of SSD between a TRIM enabled and TRIM disabled system. I am not an expert but definitely do a lot of online research and this is what I have learnt so far. But I have read a lot of articles which say not using TRIM enabler affects SSDs life & efficiency and slows down the system in long run. Now is that a good brand? Yes, I was thinking of updating to yosemite and not use TRIM enabler at all and I am sure it will work fine. ![]()
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