TRIM and OS X Lion?

[freddy1765]

Hi,
I'm thinking of buying a 13'' MBP within a week's time, mainly for school, but also for listening to music on my stereosystem.
I've been reading a bit about SSDs for a while, but I'd appreciate some last-minute clarification, since it appears I'll be the owner of one imminently!

Does Mac OS X 10.7 Lion support TRIM for 3rd party SSDs or not?
If not, is it completely safe to use something like TRIM Enabler?
Is TRIM even that important, or are there other functions on the drive that clean it up instead?

I was considering the Intel 320 120GB or 160GB, due to the fact that it's more reliable (?), and speed really isn't a priority on a notebook for school.
Other suggestions are welcome though!

Hopefully I didn't omit any crucial details, if so please ask and I'll try and fill in the blanks

Thanks in advance,
-Freddy

 

[JustSomeJoe]

The current build of Lion only supports TRIM for Apple branded SSD's, TRIM Enabler replaces kernel modules so personaly I wouldn't recomend using it until Lion is a bit more mature.
I'm using a 256Gig Crucial M4 (with the latest firmware) in a MacBook Pro, IMHO the built-in garbage collection makes-up for the lack of TRIM (specially on OSX); the speed has to be seen to be believed!

 

[freddy1765]

Do you know of any articles that outline the efficiency of garbagecollection vs. TRIM?
I'm very curious to see if it's something I can do without.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

OWC just released another new solid state drive for MBP:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/

TRIM is a Microsoft Windows 7 Function. It is simply a message notifying the ssd that a user has deleted data. At the time it was developed there were no other operating systems with the TRIM function.

Garbage collection is an ssd function that is used to free up space. It was designed to work independently of the Windows TRIM function. Modern versions can be quite aggressive and work very well without TRIM.

Windows TRIM can enhance garbage collection since it identifies what files a user has deleted. Although TRIM complements garbage collection, it is not something that is absolutely necessary.

 

[JustSomeJoe]

I've never seen anything written down, I just go by personal experience; there are some good WikiPedia articles (useful as a background) just be aware the technology is developing so fast, written articles are often out of date before they are published.

 

[freddy1765]

Alright, I wont worry about trim then. guess its limited how much Ill be writing to the drive anyway, since its just for school. the Samsung 470 looks nice, think Ill go for that.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Is your pc SATA 2 3Gb/s or SATA 3 6Gb/s capable? It makes a bit of a difference in ssd selection.

Here is a link to the ssd database:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html

You can scroll down to the Samsung section and click on the links to the technical reviews.