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General NVMe Drive Problems (Fatal)

Based on the results I related in post #39, I'm not convinced there is anything wrong with the Samsung 970 PRO other than an incompatibility between it and MacOS 11.6.x and probably MacOS 12.x.x. If Apple has done something that invalidates usage of this SSD in its latest versions of MacOS, that's on Apple, not Samsung. The 970 PRO in my computer running High Sierra finishes TRIM in 22 seconds, using APFSTrimTimeout set to 4294967295 ("TRIM is enabled and runs as long as needed"). If it can do that in High Sierra, IMHO it is a good SSD... YMMV.
You are using an SSD that Apple is never supposed to support, and Apple has stopped supporting High Sierra last year.
 
What did Samsung have to say, if anything, when you returned those drives? (Assuming you returned them under warranty). Just curious.
I have not looked into getting the 970 plus replaced yet. The 980 pro was returned, as I purchased it only as an immediate replacement for my 970 plus and I was within the return policy. I would imagine that it would just get replaced under warranty though.

I also need to look into getting a new time machine drive, though I'm sure Sandisk will replace the drive as well. I'm still running off of my backup and I have no other backups at the moment.

Not sure what I'll do. All of my NVME drives are Samsungs, so I might have to look into getting something else for the time being..
 
I do understand not wanting to replace those drives.
Having read the highlighted area in your link (and others) thoroughly, IMHO the fact that TRIM on the Samsung drives is slower than on other NVMe SSDs (on MacOS 11.6.1 et al) is not a "bug," just a fact. The workaround is completely acceptable to me, i.e. setting the argument of "SetAPFSTrimTimeout" to "4294967295" and living with the ~58 second boot time. That is in contrast to (1) completely tearing apart my computer down to removing the motherboard to access my second M.2 Samsung SSD on the bottom side of the board, (2) replacing both 970 PRO SSDs ($749 originally) with a new, different brand, and (3) essentially rebuilding my Elite 130 computer (at left).

I have tested the NVMe 970 PRO (result posted here) in my Coffeelake computer which runs MacOS 10.13.6 per vit9696's instructions, but it uses the HFS+ file system. As seen in my post #39, the boot time from the AMI initial display to desktop was 22 seconds max. That was with the "4294967295" argument set into "SetAPFSTrimTimeout" in my OC 0.7.5 config.plist. Where is the Samsung "bug?"

If the Pope would make the suggested changes in my hardware for me, and also pay for two new NVMe SSDs, that is what more I would need.

[Edit: I apologize, my High Sierra computer uses the HFS+ file system... I remembered wrong. I edited the above paragraph to correct that. Another reason I never liked APFS, I guess.]
 
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Having read the highlighted area in your link (and others) thoroughly, IMHO the fact that TRIM on the Samsung drives is slower than on other NVMe SSDs (on MacOS 11.6.1 et al) is not a "bug," just a fact. The workaround is completely acceptable to me, i.e. setting the argument of "SetAPFSTrimTimeout" to "4294967295" and living with the ~58 second boot time. That is in contrast to (1) completely tearing apart my computer down to removing the motherboard to access my second M.2 Samsung SSD on the bottom side of the board, (2) replacing both 970 PRO SSDs ($749 originally) with a new, different brand, and (3) essentially rebuilding my Elite 130 computer (at left).

I also disagree that an incompatibility between the SSD's TRIM function and the APFS file system is the issue. I have tested the NVMe 970 PRO (result posted here) in my Coffeelake computer which runs MacOS 10.13.6 per vit9696's instructions, and it also uses the APFS file system. As seen in my post #39, the boot time from the AMI initial display to desktop was 22 seconds max. That was with the "4294967295" argument set into "SetAPFSTrimTimeout" in my OC 0.7.5 config.plist. Where is the Samsung "bug?" The difference, again IMHO, is between High Sierra and Big Sur. And that is Apple's doing, not Samsung's.

If the Pope would make the suggested changes in my hardware for me, and also pay for two new NVMe SSDs, that is what more I would need.


@macntosh & @wstrohm --

I can relate to both sides. I simply don't understand the technology enough to go with the workaround or not. The way Dortania describes the problem, they make it sound like it is a major problem. On one hand, the fact that the Samsungs aren't performing properly with the TRIM function is concerning. I don't know if it will eventually lead to data loss, or unneeded wear on the drive, etc. I just don't understand the technology that well.

But on the other hand, if the workaround is effective the I certainly don't mind a few more minutes at boot time. I rarely reboot my system anyway. The longest process during boot is loading the 6900XT drivers anyway. So when I reboot, I usually walk away and come back. Added on top of that, the friction of opening up my rig wasn't something I was looking forward to either.

In the end, I bit the bullet. I think I want to update to Windows 11 anyway, so that will entail removing the MacOS NVMe anyway, so in I went.

After this, I'm looking forward to be updating my BIOS so I can play with this "RBAR" feature. I've had problems in the past with updating the BIOS, so it will probably take an afternoon to get this done.

All this constant tweaking -- that's what we're here for, isn't it? Otherwise, we'd just buy a Apple branded Mac!
 
I have not looked into getting the 970 plus replaced yet. The 980 pro was returned, as I purchased it only as an immediate replacement for my 970 plus and I was within the return policy. I would imagine that it would just get replaced under warranty though.

I also need to look into getting a new time machine drive, though I'm sure Sandisk will replace the drive as well. I'm still running off of my backup and I have no other backups at the moment.

Not sure what I'll do. All of my NVME drives are Samsungs, so I might have to look into getting something else for the time being..
A wise move. If you look at the Buyer's Guide, you'll notice that the Solid State Drives section has been updated with only those known to be working without issue. That's probably a good place to start.
 
Can I ask a complete noob question. How do I know/test/check if my drive is affected by any potential incompatibility or problem? I have a PCIe 3.0 M.2 ADATA XPG Spectrix S40G NVMe SSD 4TB with a Realtek RTS5762 controller.

I believe that the drive is problematic, but how do I test this? On macOS Monterey trim takes about 30 seconds (remember this is a 4TB drive).
 
Can I ask a complete noob question. How do I know/test/check if my drive is affected by any potential incompatibility or problem? I have a PCIe 3.0 M.2 ADATA XPG Spectrix S40G NVMe SSD 4TB with a Realtek RTS5762 controller.

I believe that the drive is problematic, but how do I test this? On macOS Monterey trim takes about 30 seconds (remember this is a 4TB drive).
@root2


In the OpenCore config.plist, under Kernel > Quirks > SetApfsTrimTimeout you can experiment with the different values. The Dortania guide gives an idea of what to expect if the TRIM is not functioning properly. When you set it to maximum timeout, the boot process will take extra long.

Keep in mind that people have reported that, with fresh installs, the boot process is fast, but with drives that have TRIM problems, eventually the boot process slows down.

Let us know! And better yet, add your data to the thread! I don't think there are many reports of ADATA drives.
 
My problem is, this is not my boot drive, just my home folder.
 
My problem is, this is not my boot drive, just my home folder.

The TRIM problem only affects the boot process.
 
Yeah, if this is the case, I wonder what else my cause the spontaneous lacks that sometimes last up to 30 seconds.
 
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