“Apple has, without warning, removed support for third-party SSDs in OS X 10.10 Yosemite, leaving anyone who uses one as a boot drive and has TRIM enabled with a Mac that won’t boot,” Adrian Kingsley-Hughes reports for ZDNet.
“While this is unlikely to be a problem for the average Mac user, for high-end Mac users such as filmmakers and videographers running customized systems it’s a serious problem,” Kingsley-Hughes reports. “Enabling TRIM is one of the best ways to maximize the life of a solid-state drive, but OS X doesn’t support it out-of-the-box except for Apple’s own drives, but until now it has been possible to enable it by altering drivers. ”
“The Trim Enabler software has been updated so that it can disable kext signing, but this is a global setting, and disables an otherwise useful security feature. However, if you rely on third-party SSDs, it’s your only hope,” Kingsley-Hughes reports. “Some SSD drives, such as those supplied by OWC, do not require TRIM to be enabled because they have the feature built into the drive, and are as such unaffected.”
Read more in the full article here.
As I have said before. Apple’s motto is now
“Apple, It’s just FUBAR.”
You guys seem to believe that it is a requirement of Apple as a computer maker to make things that allow you to build your own computer.
Hard drives, keyboards, mice, motherboards, cases, video cards, sound cards, network adapters.
If you want to build your own PC, go build one.
If you want the best components that work together and have someone build your computer for you, get a Mac.
Having said that, RAM and Hard Disks (or storage) is still considered a user serviceable part. Shame on you Apple for not supporting high end SSD users.
“Some SSD drives, such as those supplied by OWC, do not require TRIM to be enabled because they have the feature built into the drive, and are as such unaffected.”
That’s why mine works! Great!
Ditto! The headline had me asking, “Okay, so how am I reading this on my iMac (10.10 booted from SSD)?”
OWC rules!
What is really annoying about this story, is that TRIM is treated as a must have feature. It is not. The only time I saw TRIM benefit my SSD was when my free fell below 15%. Also some SSDs badly implement TRIM as instead of clear these unused sectors, can some sectors. This destroyed data. Linux keeps a blacklist of these. Apple chose not to.
Most I have seen from Trim is 5 or 10% gain. Don’t run out of drive space and you should be fine. If you do and cleanup, do a secure empty trash or clean free space in disk utility.
No having said that I use Chameleon SSD on my MBP with my Samsung 840. I just choose to disable KEXT signing. But this has been my livelihood for almost 20 years YMMV.
TRIM is a hotly debated thing on SSDs. My 2cents is Apple is making the right decision my signing KEXTs and not supporting unknown 3rd party SSDs. A 5% performance loss (at most) is better than destroyed data.
It sounds like, Apple did no such thing. They did not eliminate support that wasn’t there prior. If you hack your system, you need to be at the top of your game before you upgrade. Also boo hoo if you compromise your own security.
Best solution, use OWC SSDs or other like designed SSDs in the first place.
I don’t understand high end users or outfits that try to save a buck on the most important components of their livelihood. Lunacy.
Agreed. I think the title of the article is a bit misleading. Basically, if you’re using a standard SSD (as I am on my 13″ MBP) you are OK. Nothing will happen to your SSD when you update to 10.10.
Here’s a link (from within the with ZDNet article more specific info on the TRIM enabling process:
http://www.cindori.org/trim-enabler-and-yosemite/
Speaking as one such high end user, it’s not to save a buck. It’s to get the best performance. OWC drives don’t perform as well as the top SSD’s out there AND as an added benefit cost much more. Apple should just allow TRIM on 3rd party SSD’s like every other modern desktop OS in the world and stop making the lives of some of their most dedicated customers more difficult for diffcults sake. So Boohoo people want to use an SSD that Apple doesn’t offer in their computers from the factory. Apple is still getting paid handsomely for their computers so they should stop acting like a snot nosed brat who takes his ball and goes home just because someone chooses 1 little component over the stock one you provide.
It’s even more nonsensical because it’s not like Apple MAKES the SSD’s, they just rebrand others SSD’s (usually Samsung or Toshiba). So if the highest capacity SSD they offer is a Samsung or Toshiba 1TB SSD however you need more for your work so you install a 1.5 or 2TB Samsung/Toshiba SSD from the same exact model family as the one they themselves rebrand and ship, you STILL don’t get TRIM support. It’s absurd.
Mike, is that you???
I am pretty sure Apple does not stop things just to make a buck. That is NOT how they operate. However, they are always trying to prevent hacking and insecure changes to their computers. Remember the USB hack.
So my guess is that there is an issue with SSD that comes from the cheapest vendor, since OWC has their stuff built in, just a thought.
Or just hate Apple cause…… well cause. 🙂
Just saying.
Why don’t the SSD manufactures build TRIM in to their drives like OWC?
I am not trying to make light of the high end pro, but to complain over an unsupported hack, does sound a bit cry-babyish.
There must be a reason Apple does not support TRIM, from the OS. Has anyone asked them? It seems, these days, they are more responsive then ever to complaints.
What I find absurd is people assuming TRIM is critically important, when lots of people report that using SSDs in Macs without TRIM doesn’t cause perceptible performance degradation.
This article is highly misleading. Apple did not disable 3rd part SSD support in any way. It did prevent a $10 piece of unsigned software from running in Yosemite, a security thing. I have 3rd party SSD boot drives in 2 of our macs, and there was no issue at all with installing or running Yosemite.
And I think the ZDNet article was just some fodder for the Windoze trolls 😉
you have no problem because you don’t have TRIM enabled (unless you use OWC SSD’s which are slower than the competition but priced higher). Without TRIM you drive performance significantly degrades over time (pretty quickly too, within 4 months or so depending on your work load). Apple should just allow TRIM using 3rd party drives.
I got mine from Crucial. It’s a 1TB drive, and I’ve seen no degradation in performance. I did notice a little boost in performance after upgrading to Yosemite. I’ve had my drive for about exactly 1 year.
Michael, I doubt you have actually experienced performance degradation of an SSD in a Mac within this supposed 4 months time frame due to this supposedly critical lack of TRIM support. I’ve been using SSDs in Macs for *years* without enabling TRIM and see no degradation.
So, the usual misdirection and misinformation by overzealous MDN writers?
No, some 3rd party drives work, some do not. Read much?
You’re wrong. All third-party SSDs work just fine. There is nothing special you need to do to use an SSD with a Mac.
Just to clarify how misleading this article is…
If you’re going to get a new SSD, get one that doesn’t benefit from TRIM (because it’s built in). You’re better off this way anyway, and there are plenty of devices to choose from.
If you have an SSD that does benefit from TRIM, then choose to enable it (or not) by disabling kext signing. If you have reached this point and disable kext signing, you’re now exactly where you were prior to Yosemite.
Running a Mercury Pro 6G 480GB SSD from OWC through a buffalo ministation Thunderbolt enclosure. No problems whatsoever.
Here is a link to a video from Crucial that shows how their SSDs perform with and without TRIM enabled on a Mac.
http://forum.crucial.com/t5/The-Cru/THE-CRU-To-TRIM-or-Not-to-TRIM-on-a-Mac-SSD/ba-p/143989
The headline here is misleading. I have a third party SSD in my Mac mini and it works great. I paid for Trim Enabler, and it does a great job with keeping TRIM on. Why Apple would be such assholes about third party SSDs is a mystery.
Huh?
Bullsh!t—as if TRIM was absolutely necessary to use third-party SSDs…
(Currently using a Crucial MX100 in an Early 2011 MBP with great results.)
“Some SSD drives, such as those supplied by OWC, do not require TRIM to be enabled because they have the feature built into the drive, and are as such unaffected.”
OThankGawd. I love OWC. Saving up my money for such a one…
Running a Crucial SSD and have no problems using TrimEnabler….not sure why this article is so misleading….
Simple, don’t upgrade to OS x10.10.
TRIM is not nearly as crucial as the folks who are writing these articles suggest. SSDs are constantly evolving, and manufacturers are including built-in garbage collection functionality in their drives that supersedes TRIM. Some SSD manufacturers don’t even recommend enabling TRIM support (OWC, for instance). And even Crucial, a well-respected manufacturer, says the difference for most use cases is negligible and may not be noticeable by end users:
http://forum.crucial.com/t5/The-Cru/THE-CRU-To-TRIM-or-Not-to-TRIM-on-a-Mac-SSD/ba-p/143989
I’ve had multiple SSDs in Macs for years without TRIM enabled and haven’t seen any performance degradation at all. This “issue” is effectively much ado about nothing.