Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

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mikehalloran
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

I just installed the OS 10.10.5 update. TRIM is still enabled.

I did not have to re-run the Terminal Command:

sudo trimforce enable
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by bayswater »

That's great. But how do you find out that you don't need to run trimforce again? Where do you look?
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

bayswater wrote:That's great. But how do you find out that you don't need to run trimforce again? Where do you look?
Go to About This Mac, then SATA or PCIe (depending on your SSD) look for the correct drive and see if it says, TRIM Support: Yes (or something like that. I'm on my iPad at the airport waiting for my wife's plane to land).

If you are using Trim Enabler.app instead, you will need to turn it on again.
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by bayswater »

mikehalloran wrote:
bayswater wrote:That's great. But how do you find out that you don't need to run trimforce again? Where do you look?
Go to About This Mac, then SATA or PCIe (depending on your SSD) look for the correct drive and see if it says, TRIM Support: Yes
Thanks. That's it. It is on.
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by kgdrum »

A few questions........
I've been parked on 10.85 for a while,partly because of the trim stuff(Samsung 840 Pro with Trim Enabler).
I'm using the SSD for boot and there seemed to be lots of incompatibility issues with software and expensive upgrade costs for users initially when Apple moved to Mavericks......
Would most users say that the dust has settled and the Yosemite 10.10.5 update is pretty smooth now or does there seem to be any advantages of waiting to upgrade after the next OS get released and updated a bit?

Another thing I don't totally understand, if you're using Trim Enabler and it's switched on will it do the trim and garbage collection automatically?

I don't want to fall too far behind with the OS I'm running but I also don't want to screw up my MPro.
If I update does the recovery partition on the SSD get updated as well? Can I use the combo update to install Yosemite initially?
Thanks in advance.
KG
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

kgdrum wrote:A few questions........
1 I've been parked on 10.85 for a while,partly because of the trim stuff(Samsung 840 Pro with Trim Enabler).
2 I'm using the SSD for boot and there seemed to be lots of incompatibility issues with software and expensive associated upgrade issues initially when Apple moved to Mavericks......
3 Another thing I don't totally understand, if you're using Trim Enabler and it's switched on will it do the trim and garbage collection automatically?
4 Would most users say that the dust has settled and the Yosemite upgrade is pretty smooth now or does there seem to be any advantages of waiting to upgrade after the next OS get released and updated a bit?
5 I don't want to fall too far behind with the OS I'm running but I also don't want to screw up my MPro.
6 If I update does the recovery partition on the SSD get updated as well?
7 Can i use the combo update to install Yosemite initially?
Thanks in advance.
KG
1 That, by itself, makes little sense
2 Each app is different in that regard. Most do not have issues but you have to research what is on your Mac.
3 If there's enough free space and idle time, yes. Disable Put HD to Sleep Whenever Possible with SSDs.
4 Yes -- but each user is different.
5 You are two major OS revisions behind. Yosemite won't screw up your Mac Pro -- which has nothing to do with individual application compatibility.
6 When you do a major version install, it updates the Repair Partition. Incremental updates do not unless you do a fresh install by re-downloading the most recent version of the current OS.
7 No. Download the installer from the App Store.
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by bayswater »

I recall having to do upgrades to get to 10.8. I don't remember much if anything that I had to do to get to 10.10. Didn't apple say that pretty much anything that runs on 10.8 will run on 10.9, and then say that again for 10.9 to 10.10?

Whether 10.10.5 is smooth: I'd say it is. 10.10 in general has worked better for me than 10.9, and in with audio handling than 10.8, but its not more stable overall than 10.8. 10.10 appears to me to do things faster than 10.9, but maybe not faster than 10.8.

As you know 10.10.4 allows you to enable Trim without the fuss of 3rd party utilities.

I think the recent security updates were issued as well for 10.8. So despite all the above, I don't think there is a good reason to upgrade OS X for its own sake.

I have no direct evidence, but I think 10.10 is more demanding on RAM that 10.9. It might just be the Apple supplied apps, but even with 16G, I'm seeing RAM maxed out. Not by DP, but with dumb stuff like App Store and Caches. Right now for example, I've got Mail and Safari open. They're taking up 6G, and a further 5G is in caches. I don't recall numbers like that with 10.8.
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by kgdrum »

Thanks both for the info & perspectives, I have to decide whether to update now to 10.10 or wait for El Capitan and see if it's an improved OS.

@ Mike: I have computer set to sleep NEVER & hd(SSD) is now set to sleep whenever possible.
Can this hd sleep setting cause problems for the other internal and external hd's I have running besides the boot SSD off the Mac Pro? I also have 4 internal hd's and 4 external hd's via esata. Up until now I always had hd's set to never sleep so I want to make sure I actually understand this.lol
Thanks
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

Garbage collection and TRIM only work when a drive is awake and idle. Drives that go to sleep whenever possible might not have enough idle time for the OS to do its job. There is no indication that computers that sleep normally after 10 or 15 minutes of inactivity have any issue with this. I agree that unchecking the "Put Drive to sleep .." Box is sufficient.

The lack of idle time is the reason why SSDs are not ideal for many server bank applications.

Never, ever run iDefrag on an SSD. If you ever write to zeros for security reasons, immediately re-erase the drive with that option turned off so that TRIM and garbage collection know that those zeros are really supposed to be empty space. Don't erase free space on an SSD, it's not necessary.
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by bayswater »

mikehalloran wrote: I agree that unchecking the "Put Drive to sleep .." Box is sufficient.
How about "battery" mode? Is it ok to let the drive sleep then, and let Trim it do its work when the power supply is connected? What sort of power consumption does an SSD have? Is there much saved by putting it to sleep?
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

bayswater wrote:
mikehalloran wrote: I agree that unchecking the "Put Drive to sleep .." Box is sufficient.
How about "battery" mode? Is it ok to let the drive sleep then, and let Trim it do its work when the power supply is connected? What sort of power consumption does an SSD have? Is there much saved by putting it to sleep?
Power consumption is usually part of a drive's published spec so it depends -- certainly less than a spinner.

Letting the computer go to sleep after a period of inactivity is ok. Putting a drive to sleep "whenever possible" can cause an SSD to power down whenever idle, not what you want.

There is an energy savings when that setting is used with a laptop and a mechanical HD. SSDs use so little energy by comparison that it's false economy to check that box. I'm surprised that Apple hasn't disabled the setting for newer Macs that boot from native SSDs.
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

Now that Cindori has released two updates to Trim Enabler.app, I decided to check it out by running the upgrade, rebooting, then doing a Safe Boot and, finally, resetting the NV RAM.

My earlier reservation is gone and, having tested 3.4.2, I am pretty sure that it is safe for all builds of Yosemite. Oskar and others have tested it on El Capitan and it's good there, too.

I just don't see the need on OS 10.10.4 and later unless you pay the $10 and want the SMART Status and Temperature readout tools. Note that these monitor the internal temp of the drives, not the sensors in your Mac. Running sudo trimforce enable in Terminal works well in OS 10.10.4 and later so if enabling TRIM is all you want, there it is.

Having said that, Trim Enabler.app works from OS 10.7 through 10.9.x and is much easier than finding the various sets of Terminal Commands on the 'net and fiddling with them to see what works. Since the basic functionality of Trim Enabler is free, it should be run on all Macs booting from a on-Apple SSD. Pay the $10 to support Cindori and/or if you want the additional functionality.

When you install Trim Enabler, you will get the "opportunity" to purchase Disk Sensei instead at @ $19.95. Don't bother if you're on 10.7-10.8.x as Disk Sensei requires OS 10.9 or later.

https://www.cindori.org/software/disksensei/

Besides TRIM, Disk Sensei has all of the charts and graphs you could ever need– and even I don't need them. Anyway, It's a little confusing but you don't need both. Sure are lots of readouts and reports, though.

One feature is that you can use Disk Sensei to manually TRIM other drives. About that... If you have TRIM enabled on your boot drive, you can do this in Apple's Disk Utility. Run Repair Disk on the entire drive, not the mounted volume. You will see Trimming unused blocks in the list. Interestingly, you can do this from a mechanical HD to attached SSDs if you have Trim Enabler.app installed on your HD (weird but true).

I might pay the $9.95 upgrade to Disk Sensei but not today. If it was an inexpensive alternative to TechTool Pro, I would but TTP is an essential diagnostic tool in my world.

There's a note on the Cindori site that makes me cautious about running either tool in OS 10.10 – 10.10.2. I'm not sure if it is garbled info or if some of the .kext issues really aren't dealt with in the first three builds of Yosemite. If that's the case, the precautions that prompted me to start this thread are still viable. My recommendation: Upgrade Yosemite to 10.10.3 or later and then it's not an issue. 10.10.4 lets you run sudo trimforce enable anyway.

Bottom line? Naw... it's your Mac, do what you want. But the more you know, the better decisions you can make.

The $10 was well spent IMO and I'm glad to support companies like Cindori even if the core functionality has now been made redundant by Apple.
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

Although Trim Enabler has an uninstaller, Disk Sensei does not. To remove Sisk Sensei, find /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/org.cindori.SenseiTool and send that file to the Trash along with the app. If unable to empty the Trash, reboot and try again.
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by mikehalloran »

If you ran sudo trimforce enable in Yosemite 10.4 or 10.5, you do not have to run it again in El Capitán.

Check About This Mac and find your drive. It should look something like this:

Samsung SSD 850 EVO 2TB:

Capacity: 2 TB (2,000,398,934,016 bytes)
Model: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 2TB
Revision: EMT01B6Q
Serial Number: S2HDNWAG701016L
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Medium Type: Solid State
TRIM Support: Yes
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
EFI:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s1
Content: EFI
Volume UUID: 0E239BC6-F960-3107-89CF-1C97F78BB46B
Mac SSD:
Capacity: 2 TB (1,999,539,175,424 bytes)
Available: 831.35 GB (831,354,499,072 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /
Content: Apple_HFS
Volume UUID: 0B38F216-B8BB-33F7-AD5E-9B8A4F3226AE
Recovery HD:
Capacity: 650 MB (650,002,432 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s3
Content: Apple_Boot
Volume UUID: BD14015D-70FD-3DE7-8ED6-8317F4E92A89
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Re: Yosemite, Trim Enabler, NV RAM reset & Safe Boot etc.

Post by stratology »

When you look at the manpage for trimforce, you'll see:

"Use extreme caution when enabling TRIM, as some drives may not correctly handle the commands."


There have been multiple reports of data loss, because the firmware on some 3rd party SSDs (e.g. Samsung, Crucial) conflicts with TRIM.

I have yet to see a single report that shows a measurable performance improvement with TRIM enabled on OS X.

So enabling TRIM is risky, with questionable advantages.
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