Notebookcheck Logo

TRIM activated for all SSD's on Mac OS X 10.6.7

Teaser
After Apple released TRIM support for the new MacBook Pros, resourceful hackers have managed to unlock TRIM for any Solid State Drive

What is TRIM?

The TRIM command is a command used to notify Solid State Drives about memory areas that are not used anymore (after deleting a file). Traditional hard drives don’t need this information because they don’t experience any performance loss upon overwriting date. On the other hand, SSD’s are slowed down when writing over something since they have to erase the current block and then write over it. TRIM is an integrated controller that informs the SSD which memory blocks need to be erased and leads to better performance. You can find out more about TRIM in our first article about SSD’s.

TRIM support has always been a much desired feature for most users, but for the most part was only available in Windows 7 and Linux OS’s. However, Apple unlocked TRIM support for Mac OS X recently, but only in Built to Order (BTO) SSDs that come with the new MacBook Pro models.

Thankfully, certain resourceful developers have managed to find a way to activate TRIM on any SSD in your MacBook Pro. The first guide can be found at hardmac.com but is quite complex and involves a number of steps. However, thanks to Oskar Groth, a small tool has been released called “TRIM Enabler” that does the job for you. We should indicate that this tool is still experimental and is used with your own risk (a Time Machine backup before trying the tool should be done!).

One of the moderators on our Notebookcheck forums actually managed to use the tool with his 2010 15” MacBook Pro (Core i7-620M 2.66GHz) and an Intel X25-M G2 SSD. The process was smooth and easy and the benchmarks listed below show some very good results. It should also be noted that the moderator has yet to experience any restrictions on function (crashes, etc…) after completing the process.

Source(s)

Please share our article, every link counts!
Mail Logo
Klaus Hinum/Omar Qudsi, 2011-03-28 (Update: 2012-05-26)