In the past, I have mentioned that enabling TRIM in the OS should not be done if the SSD in question is from Crucial. I contacted Crucial support today to confirm this because I see a lot of articles on how to enable TRIM in a Linux OS and also configure several options to reduce the number of read-write cycles to an SSD. The purpose in reducing the read-write cycles to increase the life span of the SSD.
Recent articles on read-write cycles of an SSD have given rise to a concern that the way Apple has implemented SSDs in computers is going to substantially reduce the life span of the SSD. The culmination of all the articles seems to allay the concerns somewhat by indicating that even under heavy use an SSD will outlast the usable life of the computer.
Here are two short articles provided to me by Crucial:
https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/trim-and-os-x-operating-systems
https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/trim-and-ssd-performance-importance
What must be kept in mind regarding SSDs installed in any computer is that in order for either TRIM or Crucial’s Active Garbage Collection to work at all, the computer must be turned on and be left idle for enough time to allow the operation to actually complete the task of garbage collection. The suggestion is to leave the computer turned on and not allowed to go to sleep, either overnight or during the day for several hours. Using the computer and then turning it off or putting it to sleep right away actually prevents garbage collection from happening. Sitting idle for a few minutes at a time might not help either. There is no data on how long a computer must be left idle for garbage collection to work since the factors include computer speed, the size of the SSD, and how much data has to be managed. And herein lies the importance of leaving a minimum of 20% free space in an SSD - to allow garbage collection to properly manage the storage.
With the advent of the M1 (Apple Silicon on a Chip), memory is now embedded in the same chip as the CPU. That memory operates in the same manner as a solid state drive. TRIM is enabled by default. Here’s a system report of my M1 found under NVMExpress:
APPLE SSD AP0512Q:
Capacity: 500.28 GB (500,277,792,768 bytes) TRIM Support: Yes Model: APPLE SSD AP0512Q
For any external SSD, be sure to find one that has garbage collection built in, like the Crucial SSD. If you install an SSD that doesn’t have an internal garbage collection routine, you will need to enable TRIM in the OS (“sudo trimforce enable” which is a command executed in Terminal). Enabling TRIM in the OS does not affect any garbage collection routine built into an SSD.
John R. Carter, Sr.