SAMSUNG 970 Evo (2018 version) and TRIM

[alexbixio]

Hi Hackintoshers,

I have recently put a SAMSUNG 970 Evo 500GB PCI3.0-NVMe SSD that I bought in 2018 into my Hackintosh and I use it as the main OS drive.

I am very confused on whether using this disk is safe or not.

I read several threads on possible issues related to a bad TRIM support in Mac OS for the SAMSUNG NVMe drives, however many of these threads are old, or refer to the newer EVO Plus models.

My configuration is the following:

• Opencore 0.6.1 with NVMEfix.kext
• Gigabyte B360N Wifi
• i3-8100
• MacOS Catalina 10.5.7 + Security update 2022-001

In the system profiler, TRIM is ON ("Sì=Yes" in the attached picture)
The disk seems to work perfectly. It is as fast as expected on DiskSpeedTest and I have not experienced any sort of glitches over the couple of weeks I have been using it.

Can someone please advice if I am fine with the 970 Evo (2018) or if it'd be better that I buy a different NVMe drive?

Thank you very much!
Alessandro

 

[Feartech]

Hi Hackintoshers,

I have recently put a SAMSUNG 970 Evo 500GB PCI3.0-NVMe SSD that I bought in 2018 into my Hackintosh and I use it as the main OS drive.

I am very confused on whether using this disk is safe or not.

I read several threads on possible issues related to a bad TRIM support in Mac OS for the SAMSUNG NVMe drives, however many of these threads are old, or refer to the newer EVO Plus models.

My configuration is the following:

• Opencore 0.6.1 with NVMEfix.kext
• Gigabyte B360N Wifi
• i3-8100
• MacOS Catalina 10.5.7 + Security update 2022-001

In the system profiler, TRIM is ON ("Sì=Yes" in the attached picture)
The disk seems to work perfectly. It is as fast as expected on DiskSpeedTest and I have not experienced any sort of glitches over the couple of weeks I have been using it.

Can someone please advice if I am fine with the 970 Evo (2018) or if it'd be better that I buy a different NVMe drive?

Thank you very much!
Alessandro

should be fine in Catalina, it is Monterey that is causing issues

 

[alexbixio]

Thanks for the quick reply, Feartech.

Given that Apple is almost certainly going to drop support to Catalina in November 2022, I will likely need to update the OS by the end of the year.

Does Big Sur also have issues with the Samsung 970 Evo 2018?
Or are there other ways to fix that?

I often read that a firmware update to the drive would solve the TRIM issue, but again, I have not found direct reference to my own model.

Thank you again for all the help.

Cheers,
Alex

 

[Feartech]

Thanks for the quick reply, Feartech.

Given that Apple is almost certainly going to drop support to Catalina in November 2022, I will likely need to update the OS by the end of the year.

Does Big Sur also have issues with the Samsung 970 Evo 2018?
Or are there other ways to fix that?

I often read that a firmware update to the drive would solve the TRIM issue, but again, I have not found direct reference to my own model.

Thank you again for all the help.

Cheers,
Alex

there is no real reason to update if you don't/need/want to

you should be fine with Big Sur

and a firmware update can help

 

[atl285]

@alexbixio, no worries, the SAMSUNG 970 EVO will work under macOS Monterey:

But as you read in other threads, the SAMSUNG SSDs have some trouble with TRIM. For me it seems, that the TRIM on SAMSUNG SSDs take only more time. For example on my system on boot the TRIM of the SAMSUNG 970 EVO takes around 33 seconds:

admin@Power-Mac-G5 atl % log show --debug --last boot --predicate "processID == 0" | grep spaceman | grep took | grep disk1
2022-02-19 12:21:44.011203+0100 0xe4       Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (apfs) spaceman_scan_free_blocks:3171: disk1 scan took 0.026816 s (no trims)
2022-02-19 12:22:17.590117+0100 0x48d      Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (apfs) spaceman_scan_free_blocks:3153: disk1 scan took 33.578890 s, trims took 33.494365 s

Im comparisation to Catalina my system shows the following times:

	Catalina	Monterey
system start (from power on to login screen)	50 seconds	75 seconds
macOS start (from boot picker to login screen)	25 seconds	50 seconds

As you can see the boot process is 25 seconds longer than on Catalina. I can't say, if it is related only to the TRIM of SAMSUNG 970 EVO or if system related things are also relevant. Most actions will be done in parallel on system start.
I've never experienced other problems than the longer boot time with SAMSUNG 970 EVO and Monterey. So for me it's okay and I can live with the longer boot times.

 

[alexbixio]

Thank you atl285!

That's good news, indeed.

To be honest, I also have longish boot times, but they are the same as what I used to have when I was using my previous boot drive, a SATA SanDisk Plus 480 SSD.

Out of curiosity, I ran the same code as you pasted (thanks, I did not know that command!) and here is my output:

alex@rigel:~$  log show --debug --last boot --predicate "processID == 0" | grep trim
2022-02-19 10:13:19.428273+0100 0x95d2     Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (apfs) spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3326: scan took 0.006604 s, trims took 0.000000 s
2022-02-19 10:13:22.356076+0100 0x962b     Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (apfs) spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3326: scan took 1.421129 s, trims took 0.000000 s

I am concerned about the "trims took 0.000000" part.

Is TRIM really enabled?

Sorry for my somewhat noob questions, I am not a Pro Hackintosher, just an "amateur" one.

 

[atl285]

@alexbixio, what does systeminformation shows?

If I boot my Catalina, which is installed on a Samsung SSD 860 EVO mSATA 500GB, the Systeminformation under SATA/SATA Express shows TRIM: yes for my Catalina SSD and the command shows the following output:

➜  ~ log show --debug --last boot --predicate "processID == 0" | grep spaceman | grep trim
2022-02-19 18:22:01.166609+0100 0x6a3      Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (apfs) spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3326: scan took 5.203070 s, trims took 4.674374 s
2022-02-19 18:22:01.166612+0100 0x6a3      Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (apfs) spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3334: 61214613 blocks free in 38178 extents
2022-02-19 18:22:01.166615+0100 0x6a3      Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (apfs) spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3342: 61214613 blocks trimmed in 38178 extents (122 us/trim, 8167 trims/s)
2022-02-19 18:22:01.166618+0100 0x6a3      Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (apfs) spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3345: trim distribution 1:8502 2+:6087 4+:11084 16+:4789 64+:3810 256+:3906

Maybe, TRIM is not enabled for your drive. I'm not sure, how the option is called on OpenCore 0.6.1. I'm using 0.7.8 and since long it is called Kernel > Quirks > ThirdPartyDrives and I set it to YES/TRUE. I'm also not using NVMEfix.kext or nvmexpressdxe.efi.

 

[Dahmouz]

For fixing that slow boot issue you can follow the following steps:
my boot now only takes 12 to 14 seconds maximum with Samsung NVME 970 EVO Plus Or 980 Pro

1. Update OC to 0.7.9 (Oc 0.7.8 or lowers does not work with the fix) You Can Downliad Last beta here
2. In config.plist go to kernel > Quirks > SetApfsTrimTimeout
3. set the value from -1 to 0
4. Save
5. Reboot and reset Nvram.

 

[atl285]

@Dahmouz, yes you're right. But this disables TRIM (from OpenCore configuration.pdf):

1. On macOS 12+, it is no longer possible to set trim timeout for APFS filesystems. However, trim can be disabled when the timeout value is set to 0.

So for me it's not an option and I can live with the 25 seconds waiting for TRIM.

 

[Deleted member 188658]

@atl285,

Somewhere on this forum - maybe under Golden Builds - I read about a fix for Samsung SSD Trim and slow boot. Basically the fix requires one to create a partition that is 'free' of 10% or more of the size of your SSD. Once done, boot on Monterey is fixed, i.e. fast, and Trim remains enabled. I'm sorry I can't find the reference post in my searches, but it is out here on the forum somewhere.