TRIM for an external usb ssd

[MikeFromMesa]

I use external usb sold state drives to add fast memory to my Macs. I have a 500GB usb 3 solid state drive (an internal ssd added to a ssd-optimized enclosure) that I use to store the digital camera images I am working on attached to my Mac Mini and a 240GB usb 3 solid state drive for general storage for my MacBook Air. I do not know if TRIM is activated on either of them nor if TRIM can or should be actived on either of them.

I did some online checking and found the OS X trimforce command, but that seems to enable or disable TRIM on all of the drives on any machine it is running on. I worry that if I issue that on my MBA and find that the external ssd does handle TRIM well, then my only choice would be to disable TRIM on all of the drives and thus lose it on my main (but small) internal ssd. I checked a fair number of google pages (and the App Store) but could not find any apps that enable TRIM on an external usb drive; hence this post.

Are there any apps that enable/disable TRIM on external usb drives? Is there any way to find out if my current external ssds support TRIM? Are there any dangers if I enable TRIM on the external drives and they do not support TRIM? I am sure there are other questions that I am not knowledgeable enough to ask.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[RadDave]

I use external usb sold state drives to add fast memory to my Macs..........

I did some online checking and found the OS X trimforce command.............

Are there any apps that enable/disable TRIM on external usb drives? Is there any way to find out if my current external ssds support TRIM? Are there any dangers if I enable TRIM on the external drives and they do not support TRIM? I am sure there are other questions that I am not knowledgeable enough to ask.

Hi Mike - Not sure if I can help, but if not already read, THIS ARTICLE from a few years ago is a good one on TRIM - on my MBAir at the moment (128 GB SSD) and did a 'System Report' and selected 'SATA/SATA Express' which shows that TRIM support is activated (first pic below) - I then plugged in 2 external BU drives, one a LaCie SSD and selected the drive and then looked at both 'Storage' & 'SATA/...', TRIM was not mentioned (second pic).

Now, the 'terminal' is discussed in the link above but I would be reluctant to go this route - you may be braver? Also mentioned is an app name TRIM Enabler - from the quote below appears that both internal & external SSDs are supported - NOW, I've not used this app and cannot vouch for its reliability and function - maybe others will 'chime in' w/ personal experience. Dave

FAQ: Is my SSD supported?

Any SSD (internal or external) with Trim support should work with Trim Enabler. Please make sure your drive has the necessary firmware version in order to support Trim.

ADDENDUM: In newer macOS versions, there is a new terminal command called Trimforce explained HERE - not sure if the age/firmware of your SSDs will make a difference (maybe not from the contents of that article?) - sorry if you've already seen this read.
.

 

[harryb2448]

Mike have a read of this. Using OS X.10.4 and later, TRIM is automatically enabled on Apple fitted SSDs, and a Terminal Command is used for third party SSDs:-


http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/29/use-trimforce-trim-ssd-mac-os-x/

 

[MikeFromMesa]

RadDave:

Thanks for the System Report info. I ran it on my system and, like you, did not find it mentioned on my external ssd. The external ssd is one of those very small pny drives (which I actually taped to the top of my MBA so it was always available) and I have no idea if it supports TRIM or if there is any driver to enable it for the drive.

I contacted pny technical support (ha, ha) 3 times. Once with an email, once with a submitted form on their website and once via voice mail, but never got a response to any of the contacts, so I don't think that asking them if they support TRIM would be a worthwhile exercise.

I will try TRIM Enabler. Thank you for the link.

harryb2448:

I had already read about the TRIMforce command, but my concern was that if I ran it on my machine and it caused problems on my external drive I would then have to run it again to turn TRIM off. Then the command might turn TRIM off on both the external and internal drives and I did not want it turned off for the internal drive.

It is is automatically turned on for the Apple internal drive then perhaps using TRIMforce to turn TRIM off will not also turn it off on my internal drive. Perhaps a call to Apple Care is warranted here since I did actually pay for it ...

Thank you for the info.