General NVMe Drive Problems (Fatal)

[SAC12345]

Back in early 2019 the new 970 EVO Plus drives had problems (freezing, crashing etc.) with macOS High Sierra and Mojave. As you know, APFS started with macOS High Sierra. Was it a coincidence problems started then ?

<< Solved >> - Do the Samsung 970 EVO Plus drives work ? New Firmware Available 2B2QEXM7

Hi all, Some weeks ago Samsung introduced some new M2 NVM SSDs. I wanted to purchase the older 970 Evo model to create a dual boot system for my Intel Skull Canyon . The new drive is only slightly more expensive and I don't mind the additional 1000 MB/s write speeds. Are there any users that...

www.tonymacx86.com

It was only possible to use these drives with macOS after a firmware update fixed the issues. Since no other NVMe drives, at least that I know of, had problems like this, it's obvious that Samsung was at fault then. That was the first incident that told us of compatibility problems with macOS and a specific Samsung NVMe drive.

No appears not why anyone would expect them to work let alone rely on know problem drives is beyond me. That was years ago plenty of time to have had a fair warning in advance of purchase. Last and only time I had to update the firmware on a drive it was mechanical piece of junk Seagate. Every one of them things died I still have some of the drives that replaced them working fine, Western Digital, the others were sold off when I upgraded to larger sizes. Never have bought another Seagate that was over decade ago.

 

[killacam7478]

At the suggestion of this thread, I am buying a WD Black Gen3 NVMe to replace my Samsung EVO 970. I mistakenly bought the Gen4 SE version, so I'm returning it. However, I did use CCC to copy my boot drive to the one I received, copied the EFI, and when I boot (OpenCore), it doesn't give me an option to select the WD drive, just my normal EVO one. Is there another step I need to take to replace a boot drive other than copying everything? Thanks.

 

[FormerUser-400995]

At the suggestion of this thread, I am buying a WD Black Gen3 NVMe to replace my Samsung EVO 970. I mistakenly bought the Gen4 SE version, so I'm returning it. However, I did use CCC to copy my boot drive to the one I received, copied the EFI, and when I boot (OpenCore), it doesn't give me an option to select the WD drive, just my normal EVO one. Is there another step I need to take to replace a boot drive other than copying everything? Thanks.

1. Remove the old drive, and shutdown your system.
2. Boot to BIOS, and make sure your WD drive is detected.
3. If not, shutdown, and check/replace the respective cables.
4. Boot to BIOS, and select the WD as default boot drive.
5. Reboot.

Cheers.

 

[GoodBoris]

I have an alternative way I want to try. There are some third-party trim drivers authorized by Apple on the internet. The question is: "How to disable the native Apple trim feature?" After that, I want to try other drivers and measure the booting time. Thanks in advance.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I have an alternative way I want to try. There are some third-party trim drivers authorized by Apple on the internet. The question is: "How to disable the native Apple trim feature?" After that, I want to try other drivers and measure the booting time. Thanks in advance.

To disable Apple's native "trim" feature use Terminal:

sudo trimforce disable

To reinstate it just use:

sudo trimforce enable

 

[Rajkhand]

I have found this tool for Linux which gives in depth detail about you nvme drive
NVME CLI

My question is should I upgrade to the new firmware for my Samsung 970 EVO NVME drive? What it is suppose to improve?

 

[GoodBoris]

To disable Apple's native "trim" feature use Terminal:

sudo trimforce disable

To reinstate it just use:

sudo trimforce enable

I've already tried that command. But the boot time is still long (no changes actually). Why? My assumption is that instruction from the terminal doesn't work really. Am I wrong?

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Am I wrong?

Probably not. We don't know what you have done etc.

As the thread states though, Monterey has thrown-up serious boot-lag issues with Samsung EVO SSDs, especially the latest models. Yes, you want the best performance over other brands like WD, but ... it is what it is.

We are running macOS on a platform it was not intended to be run on, so from time to time we see these problems. The solution - so far - is to either turn-off Trim or change SSDs. If one does not work and you do not wish to try the other, fair enough.

 

[GoodBoris]

Probably not. We don't know what you have done etc.

As the thread states though, Monterey has thrown-up serious boot-lag issues with Samsung EVO SSDs, especially the latest models. Yes, you want the best performance over other brands like WD, but ... it is what it is.

We are running macOS on a platform it was not intended to be run on, so from time to time we see these problems. The solution - so far - is to either turn-off Trim or change SSDs. If one does not work and you do not wish to try the other, fair enough.

I disabled TRIM using

sudo trimforce disable

command.
After that, I rebooted my PC several times, but the boot time is still long. Expected result: the boot time became fast due to the inactive trim feature.
Thanks in advance!

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I disabled TRIM using

sudo trimforce disable

command.
After that, I rebooted my PC several times, but the boot time is still long. Expected result: the boot time became fast due to the inactive trim feature.
Thanks in advance!

That's good then. In post #137 you stated boot times were still too long.

Sounds like you are where you need to be now.