iMac SSD Upgrade
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I have acquired a iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) to start playing with MacOS.
Has anyone ever installed an SSD in this model? Is it hard? I heard the Macs do not support 3rd part SSD TRIM? But then I read the newest updates do.
So, any advice/info/anything anyone could give would be awesome.
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Also 50% got this so my girls can learn the Mac.
They get PC in school. Figured I'd broaden their horizons.
Next up ... Linux?
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@BRRABill said:
I have acquired a iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) to start playing with MacOS.
Has anyone ever installed an SSD in this model? Is it hard? I heard the Macs do not support 3rd part SSD TRIM? But then I read the newest updates do.
So, any advice/info/anything anyone could give would be awesome.
OS X did not support TRIM on third party SSD. It is still not supported, but there is now an option to turn it on anyway.
That said, if you buy a quality SSD, you don't need OS TRIM enabled anyway as the drives themselves now do it.
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@JaredBusch said:
OS X did not support TRIM on third party SSD. It is still not supported, but there is now an option to turn it on anyway.
What does turning it on mean if it is not supported?
That said, if you buy a quality SSD, you don't need OS TRIM enabled anyway as the drives themselves now do it.
Can you give examples of this? Brands?
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I don't feel like spoon feeding you tonight.
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@JaredBusch said:
I don't feel like spoon feeding you tonight.
Uh, OK.
Off to Google until someone else grabs the spoon.
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@JaredBusch said:
OS X did not support TRIM on third party SSD. It is still not supported, but there is now an option to turn it on anyway.
So from what I can ascertain, there is an option, but it is not recommended to use for security reasons. I did find a third party software (Trim Enabler by Cindori) that seems to enable it, however.
That said, if you buy a quality SSD, you don't need OS TRIM enabled anyway as the drives themselves now do it.
Also from what I read, it seems though this theory is not necessarily true. Some SSDs do "garbage collection" natively, but that is not the same as TRIM.
So as I asked previously, any information anyone could shed on this would be greatly appreciated.
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It is not hard to do, follow the guide on ifixit.com for dissassembly and you should be good to go.
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@brianlittlejohn said:
It is not hard to do, follow the guide on ifixit.com for dissassembly and you should be good to go.
I guess my "concern" is now more for TRIM support, and if that concern is warranted.
As everything on the Internet, there are two sides to the story.
I always thought if you bought certain SSD drives (such as Samsung), you could run their program manually if your OS doesn't support TRIM to do the garbage collection, but a lot of the research I saw said this is not the same as TRIM. Some SSDs also seem to do this on their own, without software.
There is also the AngelBird option, though it is significantly more cost than the other 3rd party SSDs due to it's native Apple support.
As I posted earlier, there is an app that enables TRIM on 3rd party SSDs. I am just curious if any here had ever used it.
But that's what I have been relying on ML for since I have been here. Setting me straight down the path of which side is right of the TRIM debate.
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I used several in that old of an iMac with no issues at all.
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OS X 10.10.4 supports 3rd party trim support.
"sudo trimforce enable" from terminal.
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Here is the best article I ever read on TRIM/GC
tl;dr version
With TRIM, an SSD is no longer forced to save pages belonging to deleted files. TRIM doesn’t obviate the need for garbage collection—it works with garbage collection to more properly mark pages as stale. And you don’t need TRIM for garbage collection to work—but TRIM makes an SSD’s garbage collection more efficient.
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I did see that article last night. After reading it last night, I felt that it was more ambiguous than it really was today after a second reading.
I think the final line gives me exactly the answer I am looking for.
"But if you find yourself in a situation where TRIM isn’t available, don’t panic—it’s nice to have, but it isn’t a requirement."Thanks!
Sorry if I seemed if I was just looking answers with no work last night. I have a habit of just typing and posting, without really thinking out the proper way of asking stuff. One this site it matters, so I need to be more specific as to exactly what I am asking, and what I am looking for.
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@brianlittlejohn said:
OS X 10.10.4 supports 3rd party trim support.
"sudo trimforce enable" from terminal.
I saw that, but a few articles were warning against it, for various reasons.
That's why I don't look up medical advice online. Can go from "you're going to die" to "you are perfectly OK" and everything in between.
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I wouldnt enable it... I've had no issue with the Intel SSDs i put in the macs i owned.
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I've replaced optical drive with SSD in 27 inch 2009 iMac. It required a conversion tray, iFixit has it for sale. They also have guides how to do it, step by step with pictures. And since yours doesn't have display fused with glass (2012 models and newer), it's fairly easy.
I never bothered to enable TRIM, and I saw no side effects. -
@marcinozga said:
I've replaced optical drive with SSD in 27 inch 2009 iMac. It required a conversion tray, iFixit has it for sale. They also have guides how to do it, step by step with pictures. And since yours doesn't have display fused with glass (2012 models and newer), it's fairly easy.
I never bothered to enable TRIM, and I saw no side effects.The optical drive bay is 3GB/s ... did you keep your original hard drive?
I'm debating doing a full swap to get the full 6GB/s.
