Apple appears ready to allow third-party solid state drives (SSDs) to use TRIM, an OS-level tool for reclaiming unused space, as a new report claims that an at-your-own risk TRIM tool will debut in either OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 or OS X El Capitan 10.11. TRIM keeps SSDs running quickly as they get filled up with and purged of content, automatically reallocating deleted file space to be used by new files.
According to the report, MacRumors forum users experimenting with El Capitan’s new Rootless security system have discovered a new built-in tool called “Trimforce,” which force-enables TRIM for SSDs even if they weren’t “validated for data integrity while using that functionality.” The tool’s language suggests that the feature can be enabled at the user’s own risk: “By using this tool to enable TRIM, you agree that Apple is not liable for any consequences that may result, including but not limited to data loss or corruption.” Users of excellent third-party SSDs haven’t reported any issues with data loss or corruption under OS X.
Although a third-party app from Cindori called TRIM Enabler has enabled third-party SSDs to work properly under OS X, Apple partially blocked the app last year, forcing users to disable a new Yosemite security feature if they wanted TRIM support. In El Capitan, Trimforce can apparently be enabled without permanently disabling Rootless security. Cindori notes that “Apple has done a full 180 and opened up parts of their driver that allows you to access Trim functionality,” so updates will be coming soon to TRIM Enabler “to take advantage of the Apple sanctioned way of enabling Trim.”
There is some debate as to whether the Trimforce tool will make it into a late version of Yosemite or arrive first in El Capitan. A reader tip suggested that Trimforce is also found in the beta version of OS X Yosemite 10.10.4, but the aforementioned report claims that it is not yet in the beta code. In either case, easier third-party TRIM support is coming soon, a boon for Mac users interested in replacing their old iMac hard drives with SSDs for up to 5X speed increases.
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This is good news! I’m tired of having to re-enable the TRIM hack after every OS X update. Plus I don’t have to deactivate kext signing to do it.
Finally, OS X fully supports modern storage technology!
What about Microsoft Surface, Lenovo X1…. please…
Apple has always supported TRIM in Apple SSD drives.
In some early (non-Apple) SSDs, the TRIM feature was defective, corrupting sectors containing valid data. Therefore, Apple did not enable TRIM on third party drives, which they had not tested and certified.
Three years later, Apple is still being derided because their Maps application had errors on some maps. What do you think would have happened if Apple had enabled TRIM on third party drives, resulting in reports of data loss/corruption?
Third party SSDs could always be used in OSX, even without TRIM. TRIM is simply a standard used to ensure proper garbage collection and filesystem management. By not supporting TRIM on third party devices, Apple was just causing massive data corruption and in devices people were using anyway. The worst part is that since there was no indication that TRIM wasn’t supported, people would go about using their third party devices without realizing the massive damage they were causing.
Please stop making excuses for Apple.
PS Your reference to the Apple maps debacle was the first time is the first time I’ve heard anyone mention it in over a year. And I don’t live under a rock
@Tyler Casper According to Larry O’Connor founder of OWC, “Today it’s fair to say that all drives have better internal garbage collection capabilities and that reduces dependence on OS side TRIM” — http://www.zdnet.com/article/os-x-yosemite-and-third-party-ssds-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
Yes! If this is true, I’m considering upgrading my 128GB SSD. It’s way too small, should’ve gone with at least 512GB when I bought my MBP 13″ Retina.
Yes, finally!
Let’s see if they do the same for MacBooks and Continuity – many Macs have the hardware to support it, but since it’s disabled on those MacBooks and MacBook pros like mine, which I’ve swapped the card Tia BT4 enabled card, we need a third party tool to enable it. Same with USB BT4 cards, third party tool.
Not sure, but with rootless, we may not have access to modify those drivers.
Bluetooth is pretty “universal” as in it really shouldn’t matter what the chipset is as long as it supports the standards and so forth. If Continuity is not supported on the older MB’s I would have to think that they did it on purpose and it’s not due to hardware restrictions :\
Wow, only took them like 5+ years lol. A lot of the modern drives don’t even need TRIM anymore, but this is still pretty great.
Which drives do not need Trim? OWC? If so, it’s a bogus claim on their part.
Any SSDs that run behind a RAID don’t get TRIM support due to the nature of the RAID driver (at least for 99.9% of RAID implementations out there); I’ve seen quite a few drives still perform great after months / years in those kind of configs; from what I remember, Samsungs were my first choice, but Microns and Intels also did very well.
Finally. But what to do with my mid 2010 MacBooks custom fusion drives ssd, that has been untrimmed since Yosemite? (i disabled trim enabler after a complete reinstall; my Mac was accidentally kext-bricked because of an update with trim still enabled…) Is there some sort of “defrag” tool that could clean the ssd up before trim gets reenabled? Or do I have to deep format the whole fusion drive? Or only the ssd?
I’m using a custom Fusion Drive too. Once you enable TRIM, OS X will take care of everything. No need to reinstall or format.
Thanks for listening to your users Apple!
God I hope they enable trim support! This has been rediculous!! Ppl should be raising hell over this since Yosemite. I know I have.
I have the EXACT same brand SSD that comes in Mac’s (Samsung) but bc I bought my 750gb Samsung EVO from MicroCenter it does not have trim support in Yosemite. Sound like money grabbing bs to you? Apple has basically been saying “We won’t enable trim support for ANY SSD if u don’t buy it from us”. What a racket.
I’m still using Mavericks by the way using the hack terminal command to enable trim support. When I found out u couldn’t even do that in Yosemite I lost it.
I just find all of this completely unacceptable. Apple better fix this or I know a lot of ppl who will bolt from using Mac’s in the future. God forbid the stock SSD fails out of warranty on a Yosemite Mac computer. Guess your up ish creek as of right now.
It finally happened! Thank god!
I have a Kingston SSD V300 and it doesn’t make any difference if i have enable or disable TRIM the performance is damn slow. Any suggestion to solve this problem? i already make a clean install, buy a new SSD, firmware update, reset PRAM, SMC… etc im losing hope u.u
Same problem! =/ ..