General NVMe Drive Problems (Fatal)

[Bustycat]

This comment seems to contradict other posts here. I'm concerned with both the TRIM function and long boot times on Monterey, which seem to be related. On Big Sur 11.6.1, System Report says "Trim support: Yes" for both my 970 Pro SSDs. Boot time is 42 seconds from off, 50 secs from Restart. What will happen under Monterey?

Yours falls into the category ‘Working with TRIM broken’. You can also try to set SetApfsTrimTimeout to 4294967295 and see how broken the TRIM of 970 Pro is.

 

[FormerUser-400995]

Yours falls into the category ‘Working with TRIM broken’. You can also try to set SetApfsTrimTimeout to 4294967295 and see how broken the TRIM of 970 Pro is.

It might be useful for passers-by to know where that Working with TRIM broken category originated.

 

[wstrohm]

You can also try to set SetApfsTrimTimeout to 4294967295 and see how broken the TRIM of 970 Pro is.

Okay, I followed macntosh's link and ran a test per the instructions. Results on my computer at left:
Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB
Gigabyte Z390 I AORUS PRO WIFI and Intel i9 9900K CPU
Mac OS 11.6.1 (Build 20G224)

SetAPFSTrimTimeout at:
999 -- 22, 22, 21 secs
-1 -- 34, 32, 32 secs
4294967295 -- 59, 57, 58 secs

So, if I care more about the SSD life than boot times, should I leave the timeout at maximum to assure a complete TRIM operation? Definitely not replacing my SSDs.

[Edit: This computer uses the HFS+ file system, not APFS (which I forgot at the time).]

 

[FormerUser-400995]

So, if I care more about the SSD life than boot times, should I leave the timeout at maximum to assure a complete TRIM operation? Definitely not replacing my SSDs.

As I understand it, the issue with TRIM on those drives can have deeper ramifications than the slow boot observed. The longevity of affected NVMe drives may also be compromised, based on the few articles I've read. Any clarification is welcome.

In Big Sur, your boot times are only a little exaggerated (which probably wouldn't bother me much, either), while the rediculously long boot times indicated in various posts only seem apparent in Monterey.

The latest Samsung firmware for your particular 970 EVO (apparently) remedies the TRIM issue (or lessens the boot impact) in Monterey. The firmware is also referenced at Dortania's Anti-Hackintosh Buyers Guide under the heading SSDs to Avoid. That said, I've also seen posts claiming that the 'firmware update didn't work' but with the usual lack of any supporting information.

If the firmware update is a viable fix for the TRIM issue (and by extension the slow boot issue), then the nay-sayers may simply have not seen any difference in an already installed Monterey system. If that's true, then it could be that installing the Samsung firmware before updating to Monterey (in your case, while in Big Sur) could result in more-or-less expected boot times in Monterey. This would mean recreating volumes and APFS file systems on the intended drive, prior to installing Monterey.

Again, this is mostly guess-work. Any comments are welcome.

Update: Apparently the firmware update mentioned is unrelated, and does not resolve the TRIM issue.

 

[Bustycat]

It might be useful for passers-by to know where that Working with TRIM broken category originated.

The link is already on the first post so I didn’t want to re-post again.

 

[Bustycat]

Okay, I followed macntosh's link and ran a test per the instructions. Results on my computer at left:
Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB
Gigabyte Z390 I AORUS PRO WIFI and Intel i9 9900K CPU
Mac OS 11.6.1 (Build 20G224)

SetAPFSTrimTimeout at:
999 -- 22, 22, 21 secs
-1 -- 34, 32, 32 secs
4294967295 -- 59, 57, 58 secs

So, if I care more about the SSD life than boot times, should I leave the timeout at maximum to assure a complete TRIM operation? Definitely not replacing my SSDs.

Yes it could affect the lifespan. If you seriously care about that you may want to use 4294967295 to make Trim finish completely.

I set to the value too. For my SSDs booting macOS, that isn’t very different from -1 however.

 

[FormerUser-400995]

The link is already on the first post so I didn’t want to re-post again.

I might usually not, either, but in this instance it seemed in context.

 

[zipb]

Yes it could affect the lifespan. If you seriously care about that you may want to use 4294967295 to make Trim finish completely.

I set to the value too. For my SSDs booting macOS, that isn’t very different from -1 however.

I've done this too, set it to 4294967295. I don't notice much/any increase in boottime with my Samsung 980. I am still on Big Sur though/OC 0.7.4.

Setting the variable to 4294967295 via opencore config didn't work for me. The input validation of this field doesn't work, I think.

One could probably also skip trim(999?) on every boot so booting is fast and just run trim once a week or so.

 

[Bustycat]

I've done this too, set it to 4294967295. I don't notice much/any increase in boottime with my Samsung 980. I am still on Big Sur though/OC 0.7.4.

Setting the variable to 4294967295 via opencore config didn't work for me. The input validation of this field doesn't work, I think.

One could probably also skip trim(999?) on every boot so booting is fast and just run trim once a week or so.

980 uses a different controller so it’s unaffected.

 

[zipb]

980 uses a different controller so it’s unaffected.

I've read messages on this site that claim they(samsung 980) are affected. So I tried to test this myself.