Apple Disables Trim Support On 3rd Party SSDs In OS X 327
MojoKid (1002251) writes One of the disadvantages to buying an Apple system is that it generally means less upgrade flexibility than a system from a traditional PC OEM. Over the last few years, Apple has introduced features and adopted standards that made using third-party hardware progressively more difficult. Now, with OS X 10.10 Yosemite, the company has taken another step down the path towards total vendor lock-in and effectively disabled support for third-party SSDs. We say "effectively" because while third-party SSDs will still work, they'll no longer perform the TRIM garbage collection command. Being able to perform TRIM and clean the SSD when it's sitting idle is vital to keeping the drive at maximum performance. Without it, an SSD's real world performance will steadily degrade over time. What Apple did with OS X 10.10 is introduce KEXT (Kernel EXTension) driver signing. KEXT signing means that at boot, the OS checks to ensure that all drivers are approved and enabled by Apple. It's conceptually similar to the device driver checks that Windows performs at boot. However, with OS X, if a third-party SSD is detected, the OS will detect that a non-approved SSD is in use, and Yosemite will refuse to load the appropriate TRIM-enabled driver.
Summary is misleading, you can work around (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the rest of the article, you find that you can simply disable the driver loading security to have it working again.
The article paints this as a huge security issue, but why? Anyone putting in a custom SSD is also probably technically astute enough not to download a KEXT that ostensibly puts a cat following your cursor or what have you.
Cn anyone reasonably argue that having a system highly secure for non-technical users with easy workarounds for actually technical users is a bad compromise? The people who are not technical need all the help they can get.
Also - couldn't you actually just sign the drivers that are needed for trim? What prevents that?
Also - couldn't you actually just sign the drivers (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, you couldn't, since they are Apple's drivers not yours. Apple's driver takes over handling of external drives, but it refuses to TRIM them. Previously, people worked around that by patching the driver, but signing prevents that.
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No, you couldn't, since they are Apple's drivers not yours. Apple's driver takes over handling of external drives, but it refuses to TRIM them. Previously, people worked around that by patching the driver, but signing prevents that.
Yes, you can. People are already making kext-modification scripts and other tools that get around the signing. [cindori.org]
This is pretty much a non-issue.
Re:Summary is misleading, you can work around (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do they even need a special driver for a third party SSD? It's a SATA device, and most operating system have a generic SATA storage device driver that they use for everything.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Generic SATA storage devices don't support TRIM. That said, TRIM is a hack for consumer SSD's of a few generations ago that allows getting reasonable performance without overprovisioning sectors. Enterprise SSDs have never depended on that. They use more overprovisioning so don't need TRIM. SSD has gotten cheap enough that this approach can also be used in consumer drives these days.
Generic SATA storage devices don't support TRIM (Score:2)
Do you know if this applies to the Samsung 840 EVO series?
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I'm wondering about that myself. Early benchmarks showed that the 840 EVO benefits from TRIM, but that drive also had wonky firmware [anandtech.com] that was causing read degradation. Could the old firmware have accounted for some of the benchmark problems?
Side note: I applied the firmware upgrade myself last week and it went through without a hitch. YMMV, but I had an easy time of it.
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That's not what TRIM is for.
They do in Windows (Score:3)
The generic MS drivers know how to see if the drive supports TRIM and send the commands if it does. That's the point of TRIM: It is an ATA standard command, so special software isn't needed.
In fact, in Windows all you use is the generic drivers. I mean you may install drivers for your SATA controller, but not for your drive. My laptop has a Samsung 840 Pro in it, with Samsung's Magician installed. However the drivers in use are disk.sys, partmgr.sys (both Microsoft files) and iastorf.sys (Intel's file). No
Re:Summary is misleading, you can work around (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you cannot simply add your own key, but you have to disable all driver signing in order to use one non-approved driver?
Yes. See every argument ever about UEFI secure boot on PCs intended to run Windows 8.
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Can't you run TRIM manually as well? Back when Linux TRIM support sucked you just ran it as a CRON job every once and a while.
Re:Summary is misleading, you can work around (Score:5, Informative)
Also - couldn't you actually just sign the drivers that are needed for trim? What prevents that?
As the author of the popular "trim enabler" software (which patches the original apple drivers and so causes the original drivers to fail the kext signing check) puts it:
"all of Apple’s AHCI SATA drivers are closed source and undocumented, which makes it impossible for me to create my own Trim driver and get it signed."
Which is also the reason why there are no trim drivers available from hardware manufacturers like Samsung, etc. No access to Apple's driver documentation - no signed trim drivers.
Re: (Score:2)
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c... [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]
The problem seems to be that Apple's driver takes over handling of these drives while at the same time refusing to TRIM them. If a third party could circumvent
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The article paints this as a huge security issue, but why?
Because loading kernel extensions is one of the easiest ways of turning a user-mode code-execution exploit into a kernel-mode code-execution exploit. Those are serious business.
People like to treat exploits in a vacuum and handwave around the other components of a full-stack exploit. Vulnerability in Safari that enables an attacker to make you silently download and run a native executable? No problem, it's only running in user mode. Vulnerability in system configuration that enables loading of unsigned kext
unknown kernel drivers (Score:2, Troll)
Hard drives preloaded with malware would be a problem, but that's not what this is about. Hardware drivers run as part of the operating system kernel. If you get malware (or just buga) in your kernel, you're screwed. There's no way for any anti-malware system to detect or remove it because the security software has to get it's information from the kernel. So it is very important to protect the kernel.
In order to protect the kernel from malicious or crappy code, it won't load any untrusted modules as pa
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This is not a feature that adds to that security though. Apple benefits from it's underlying Unixness and not doing the stupid things in Apple apps that get done in MIcrosoft apps.
This extra bit of "security" is entirely unecessary. It's just more of the usual Apple style nonsense where crippling a device is confused with making it better.
It's the kind of propaganda that plays well to idiots that are proud of the fact that they don't know how anything works.
enable trim on yosemite (Score:5, Informative)
It can be done if you're willing to disable kext security check
see http://www.cindori.org/trim-en... [cindori.org]
Re:enable trim on yosemite (Score:5, Insightful)
Could we mod up parent, or similar posts at least? I came in here with righteous anger at Apple and find it's just a simple procedure to reenable this thing if you have one of those. This is Apple actually being more security conscious. My fucking iPhone has a goddamned gray bar overlay because my background is too pretty so it nerfs it, and I have to use buggy Fleksy for Dvorak (which works as of this week), so could we save shitting on Apple for the things it actually does wrong, and not for legit security boosts that are user bypassable without hackery?
The shenanigans that are possible to put in a driver, or in firmware, are hard to over emphasize. Any step towards being able to prevent a cleverly written hardware attack or up the cost of devel have merit, and while that's not worth losing user power over, this certainly isn't that.
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You should not have to choose between using 3rd party hardware and having a secure system.
Ancient news (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has never enabled TRIM on non-OEM SSDs, which is probably the conservative and correct thing to do. If you're clever enough to install a new SSD, you're clever enough to enable it on your own (and presumably to know whether you should enable it, and whether it's even a benefit for your particular drive).
The current workaround involved a single software vendor [cindori.org] who didn't sign their kexts. Apple's new security policy won't let you load random unsigned kernel modules unless you explicitly turn off the signature checking. While this is inconvenient for me personally - because I have a 3rd-party SSD and I used that software myself - on whole, I'd rather have a more secure OS than the dubious benefit of a possibly slightly faster SSD.
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Apple should find a way to sign these
They did [apple.com], at WWDC 2013. More to the point, I wonder why the Trim Enabler dev isn't signing his kext? Are there legitimate reasons, like he needs a special kind of thing that can't be signed using the provided tools, or is it because he doesn't want to pay for a dev license to sign the software he's selling? In a vacuum of information, there's not much point in speculating.
People replace HDDs in macs, they need to support it.
Why? Is TRIM empirically faster on your drive, or is this something you think you need?
Re: (Score:3)
Your question has already been answered [slashdot.org], so you can stop wondering. No speculation is necessary.
Hint: Trim Enabler is not a driver which has been "developed", it is something that applies a binary patch to the existing driver to remove the gratuitous checking for the string "APPLE SSD" [slashdot.org].
So are you really asking what could be wrong with Apple categorically refusing to implement a standard ATA command that is essential to good SSD performance?
Re: (Score:3)
So are you really asking what could be wrong with Apple categorically refusing to implement a standard ATA command that is essential to good SSD performance?
There have been a lot of references to various devices that do not actually follow that ATA command in a way that results in data integrety. There have also been a few references to refute the claim that TRIM support is essential to good SSD performance. Good "garbage collection" code in the SSD and sufficient overprovisioning can match system performance compared to systems with TRIM support.
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You can always sign the kext yourself. You don't need an apple signature even, you just need a certificate chain thats in the system keychain.
If done correctly, you maintain security completely.
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Have you done this? Is it really possible? We await more detailed instructions.
Depends on the SSD (Score:5, Interesting)
See http://blog.macsales.com/21641... [macsales.com] for an example of a properly designed SSD.
kext signing is a GoodThing for security. Making the system less secure so that lazy implementors are protected isn't a good trade off.
Apple *should* have provided a better upgrade experience so that users wouldn't be surprised, or end up with unbootable systems. Users that don't want to have kext protection CAN turn it off see http://www.cindori.org/trim-en... [cindori.org]
To me this is akin to Apple's desupport of WPS ages ago. It took everyone else a while to figure out that WPS was a major security hole (indeed, its still there for most consumers).
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Overprovisioning and data compression are in no way a real substitute for TRIM. Anyone who thinks so is not thinking clearly.
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...
You have no idea how SSDs work do you? TRIM is an absolutely shitty hack.
The compression portion is just a free performance enhancement, send the drive entirely random, incompressible data and it will still perform great and that has no affect on trim like properties at all. Its stupid NOT to do compression. You can compress with an optimized controller a few orders of magnitude faster than you can write that same data to disk. Again, its stupid NOT to do compression.
Your SSD controller ALREADY has t
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See http://blog.macsales.com/21641 [macsales.com]... for an example of a properly designed SSD.
Some would argue that a "properly designed" SSD is one which permits me to control the amount of over-provisioning, which is the primary reason you don't need to TRIM one of those drives. Other drives have controllers which do the same job.
Users that don't want to have kext protection CAN turn it off see
The problem there is that disabling kext signing is global. Apple should provide a facility to disable it for a single kext.
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Apple *should* have provided a better upgrade experience so that users wouldn't be surprised, or end up with unbootable systems
Users weren't surprised by unbeatable systems ... the upgrade overwrites the original hacked driver with a proper factory fresh one. It isn't until you reapply the hack, which modifies a signed driver without resigning it ... (dumb fuck move there) that you run into problems.
So in reality, its working EXACTLY as its supposed to.
If you're fucking with your drivers by making binary edits to them, you should know what you're doing and not be surprised when it blows up in your face.
Just to be clear... (Score:4, Informative)
Apple, for whatever dumb reason, has _never_ enabled Trim on non-Apple branded SSDs. I do not know of any HDD manufacturers that ever provided any kernel extensions that would enable Trim for their drives, so effectively, third-party SSDs have never had any official trim support on OS X.
Before Yosemite this has never been an issue. Any user who was able to install their own SSD could also download the handy TRIM Enabler [cindori.org] software that forced Trim on for non-Apple SSDs. One toggle switch, one reboot, piece of cake. I've been running multiple Macs since OS 10.6 with multiple brands of SSDs (OCZ, Samsung, Intel, etc) with absolutely no issues and no signs of performance degradation.
The difference in Yosemite is, as the summary says, non-signed Kernel extensions cannot be loaded by default. Since non-signed kexts are blocked, software like Trim Enabler cannot load. You CAN override this behavior, but there are potential issues (see the Trim Enabler site for more information [cindori.org]).
There is absolutely no reason to believe that the decision to make Yosemite require signed kexts has anything to do with the status of trim on non-Apple SSDs. I doubt trim even crossed anybody's minds during the decision-making process. Trim Enabler is just an unfortunate casualty of kext signing (which itself is probably not a bad thing!).
tl;dr -- a rather hysterical take on an issue that DOES display some Apple stupidity. Just let us enable trim on non-Apple drives natively and there's no problem!
Re:Just to be clear... (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple, for whatever dumb reason, has _never_ enabled Trim on non-Apple branded SSDs.
I don't work for Apple, but... Older MacBook Pros came with instructions for replacing the RAM and hard drive. This was considered a normal thing to do and didn't void warranties. For example, my 2011 MBP has normal Phillips screws on the bottom, and it takes me about two minutes to have the back panel off and the RAM and HDD snap right out.
SSDs have a history of notoriously horrible firmware. SandForce, anyone? Someone goes to Best Buy and comes home with a new SSD, pops it into their MBP, uses it for a month, and the thing asplodes and eats their data. They call Apple support to scream at them for writing a terrible OS that loses their data, and Apple loses money and reputation.
I can imagine perfectly non-nefarious reasons why Apple would disable TRIM by default and only enable it for drives that have been explicitly tested for compatibility. Even today, you can still turn TRIM on for yourself as you described, at the price of reverting to pre-Yosemite security. I haven't done so on the 840 EVO I swapped into my MBP because I've judged that it's not worth the tradeoff for me, but it's an option. Trim Enabler even has a GUI to do it for you.
I'd be hard pressed to come up with more of a manufactured controversy.
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It's not just Apple. I just got a new Asus laptop for a family member. It needed full disk encryption software installed (Windows 8 Home edition disables bitlocker), and in anticipation of screwing up the boot process I naturally wanted to image the drive first. The bottom comes off with a few screws, but what did I find inside? not only is the RAM soldered to the mainboard, but the hard drive has a 'warranty void if removed' sticker placed atop one of the retaining screws. Fortunately I don't care about wa
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I haven't done so on the 840 EVO I swapped into my MBP because I've judged that it's not worth the tradeoff for me, but it's an option.
That's where I am right now. I'm running Yosemite on my 2007 3,1 mbp with SSD. I have not, so far, used Trim Enabler to disable kext signing. We'll see if it ever comes to that.
I'd be hard pressed to come up with more of a manufactured controversy.
Well, I think there is a legitimate complaint in that there is no official Apple-approved mechanism for enabling trim on a non-Apple installed drive, but yes, this is a manufactured scandal.
Re:Just to be clear... (Score:4, Interesting)
Lack of TRIM support guarantees that most SSDs will perform badly after some time. By your reasoning Apple will be blamed for writing crappy software that performs badly, which in this instance is correct.
There is absolutely no reason not to enable TRIM on all SSDs. Apart from a small number with bad firmware a few years ago they all benefit from it. Whitelisting because of bugs in a few specific models is dumb; if they really cared they would just blacklist the known bad ones.
Face it, Apple are just trying to make people buy their extremely overpriced SSD upgrades.
If only history (Score:3)
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Broken hardware is no excuse for refusing to implement a standard ATA command. Broken hardware is dealt with by caveat emptor and warranty. You don't try to design your product so that it can work around any kind of broken hardware which has been randomly swapped into it.
Easier solution (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't really true that SSD performance goes down by a whole lot if TRIM is not enabled. SSD performance and firmware has undergone radical improvements every year and people have come to the mistaken belief that enabling TRIM is responsible for most of the performance and wear leveling improvements.
TRIM has numerous problems, not the least of which being drives and/or filesystems which do not implement it properly. Because its use and effects can be seriously non-deterministic (even in a proper implementation), any bug in the drive firmware OR the filesystem in the use of TRIM can create serious corruption issues down the line when the drive actually decides to blow away some of the trimmed sectors. The TRIM command was badly conceived from the get-go.
The easiest and safest solution to getting 95% of the benefit of TRIM without actually using TRIM is to simply partition a factory fresh drive to leave a bit of unused space at the end... say another 5-10%. As long as it isn't written to, the drive will use that space as part of its dynamic wear leveling mechanic. As long as the drive also does static wear leveling (which nearly all will do these days), you wind up with nearly all the benefit of TRIM without having to actually use TRIM. TRIM was more important in the days where static wear leveling was not well implemented (or implemented at all). It is less useful these days.
-Matt
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SSDs are best considered as filesystems internally -- they have to do block allocation and mapping, and they have to run consistency checks (and repairs!) at startup. Right now, I think most (if not all) of the vendors use a synchronous garbage-collection scheme, which shows up as random spikes i
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Most operating systems prefer to erase a block (of memory, or disk) when it is requested the first time after being unallocated; this is done for several reasons, the most notable being some significant performance improvement.
Even with an SSD, writing zeroes to a block to indicate it is now free would cost performance. Nowhere near as much as with a spinning disk, but it'd be there. (Remember, while that I/O operation is being done, that's going to mean some other I/O operation isn't.)
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That is definitely incorrect. TRIM issuance is a filesystem-level operation or a disk partitioning level operation, not an OS-level operation. Due to ordering constraints, the OS cannot safely manage TRIM in the manner you suggest. A filesystem can, but honestly I don't know any filesystems which use TRIM that way. Smart SSD firmware can also delay TRIM in that matter but I don't know any that actually do. The filesystem will either issue the TRIM semi-synchronously or it will issue the TRIM as part of
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Overprovisioning and TRIM are orthogonal solutions to the problems of decreasing performance and limited device life. Only a fool leaves his seatbelt unattached because he has an airbag.
"Adopted standards"? (Score:2)
Apple has introduced features and adopted standards that made using third-party hardware progressively more difficult.
If they're adopting standards, then shouldn't that make using third-party hardware easier, since that hardware merely has to be standard-compliant?
ATP (Score:2)
The latest episode of ATP (www.atp.fm), they heard from an Apple Engineer that Apple disables it because most makes of SSD are very inconsistent on how the TRIM command is executed. And Apple being Apple, they don't particularly want to try every SSD known to man to "support" them.
Best bet is to use a drive with a controller than does it for you. I'm sporting SSDs from OWC and I haven't had any issues in speed and I've had them for over two years now.
Time to turn the coin... (Score:2)
Maby I can even move non apple users up the queue. That'd be fun!
OS X doesn't even support Apple SSDs in some cases (Score:3)
I have a 2009 Macbook running Yosemite. Note this machine was not available with SSD at the time it was sold. A year ago I decided to put an SSD in it, and being aware of the TRIM issue, I made a point to buy a secondhand *Apple* SSD from a Macbook Pro. Neither Mavericks nor Yosemite will enable TRIM on this machine.
So apparently, not only will OS X not enable TRIM on a non-Apple SSD, but the machine *must* be a model for which there was an SSD option at purchase.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it's a flat out lie.
TRIM support has been baked into Windows and OS X for long enough that new SSDs aren't typically tested to evaluate the impact of not running TRIM has on the drive.
Apple has long had a history of only enabling TRIM for Apple drives by default.
Read TFA. They enable trim by default for preinstalled SSDs and disable it for everyone else.
Re: This isn't new (Score:2)
I think you might "literally" be "retarded".
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When you qualify it by saying, "always on third party SSDs", then it's not the same as "always" (unqualified).
But he did:
Apple has always disabled TRIM on those
So, what's your point?
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Sandforce controllers ... that don't need trim in the first place due to their intelligent way of doing garbage collection and keeping a portion of the drive reserved for this purpose.
Seriously? I'd love to hear how you imagine that works.
Without TRIM, the SSD eventually considers all user-visible sectors to be in use. As a result, a sector is never just empty ready to be written. Even with reserved space, it still has to copy the entire much larger erase block in order to insert one sector.
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Re:This isn't new (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes... the demented world of Apple where daring to buy a 3rd party peripheral is only for "power users" or "cheapskates" or some other class of person that will be denigrated by the hive mind.
THIS here is the biggest reason to avoid Apple products. Not the price. Not the novelty form factors that cook your machine. Not the fact that nothing is maintainable.
It's THIS attitude here that anyone that's using this "platform for creatives" in a remotely creative way will get shouted down by the hive mind.
Re:This isn't new (Score:5, Informative)
The reason that Apple disabled this is that a lot of SSDs have really buggy TRIM implementations. This observation wasn't unique to Apple: Microsoft and the Linux kernel defaulted to TRIM being off until quite recently. Apple could afford to turn it on for their own SSDs because they did extensive compatibility testing of those before shipping them.
Now, it doesn't really make sense, but enabling it automatically would likely burn some users, and bug reports about data loss lead to a lot more anger than bug reports about lower performance.
Re:This isn't new (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem here, as I see it, is that the developer of the TRIM enabler is writing bug reports that request a ridiculously complex solution that doesn't make much sense, rather than a very trivial solution that does.
The right way to solve this problem would be for Apple to add a single line of code that checks for a magic value in the device tree, and enables TRIM support if it finds it. Then, the TRIM enabler could write a codeless kext for any devices whose TRIM support seems to work, whose sole purpose is to add that magic value into the device tree, that matches at a higher priority than the Apple driver, modifies the device tree, and walks away from the table, allowing the Apple driver to attach, see the flag, and use TRIM support.
Heck, there's probably a flag like that in there already. Just looking at the device tree for my Apple-branded drive in 10.9, I see something pretty glaring:
"IOStorageFeatures" = {"Unmap"=Yes}
and thirty seconds later, found the documentation for that key here [apple.com]. Chances are, if you write a codeless kext that modifies the device tree to add this property to the device, and if you get your matching correct, the unmodified Apple driver will magically enable TRIM support. If so, then you just need to get a proper signing key from Apple, sign the codeless kext, and you're done. If not, file a bug asking for that approach (or a similar approach with a different key) to work.
If that approach doesn't work, then and only then should you even think about writing an actual chunk of kernel code.
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Re:This isn't new (Score:4)
That's nice. Except there's no such thing as an Intel-Platform-SSD and an OSX-Platform-SSD.
Yes, there are SSDs manufactured by Intel. But that's irrrelevant.
Basically this is a stupid driver+firmware hack by the Cupertino Turtleneck Crew so that if someone wants to buy a third party SSD and put it into their system, Apple can penalize them by eventually destroying the performance of the drive, simply by preventing it from doing what is now a common housekeeping function on all modern drives.
And this happens whether you buy a quality drive OR NOT.
So it has nothing to do with drive cheapness.
It has to do with Apple being giant, flaming schlongs.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Another opinion) (Score:5, Informative)
I've been primarily a Mac user since 1999 or 2000, and I've watched the serviceability of Apple's machines go back and forth over the years. Before they moved to the Intel processor, you often had very limited options to do anything with the configuration you purchased, even when the machine in question was a tower type desktop computer. RAM was generally not an issue, although Apple sometimes required very specific timing for the DIMM modules - limiting what you could put in. But certainly, upgraded video was a problem (very limited in which cards could be used as upgrades - including cases like the G4 Cube where some cards were physically too long to fit, even if they'd work otherwise). Laptops like the iBook G4 were notoriously difficult to take apart for service. I remember replacing a bad hard drive in one for a guy I used to work for, and it was at least a 2 hour long job for me with screws all over the place. After that, I understood why repair shops would quote such high labor rates when you asked about an iBook repair.
Then I watched things go the opposite direction. The newer Macbooks and Pros became increasingly easy to work on, so you could unscrew the bottom plate and have instant access to everything -- or just remove a small plate to get to the RAM slots. Batteries became removable from the bottom by just sliding an unlock switch. Even the iMac was easy to upgrade at one point (hard drive right there once you took the back cover off, and no need to do more than unscrew a couple screws on the bottom to get to the SO-DIMM memory).
But it's now swinging back to the "non serviceable" mode again, with the pentalobe screws trying to keep people out, soldered RAM on the motherboards, and having to take the whole glass and LCD screens out of iMacs to work on them.
Truthfully, I don't think the TRIM support for non-Apple branded SSDs is that big of a deal. It's been known for quite a while now that Apple wasn't including TRIM support for 3rd. party drives -- and there's even one 3rd. party SSD coming out now with TRIM functionality built into its firmware, so OS X doesn't need to have support to do it. You can turn off the feature in OS X that verifies you're only using signed KEXTs and get the custom ones to work for TRIM support too.
But sure, it's annoying .... and I'm not going to make apologies for Apple about any of this. We still use their products where I work and none of this will make us stop. (As long as you have a warranty, you just hand it back to Apple when it breaks and it's their problem. If you still need it and the warranty is up? Fine... you pay up and let Apple service it and hand it back to you again. Their repair prices have actually gone down in recent years, as they've made more products reliant on them to service them.) Home users are the ones who get the short end of the deal though, as money is more of a problem for us and we tend to buy lesser configurations of machines to save money up front -- intending to add to it later. With Apple, that's becoming a poor decision.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, mac laptops cost 20% more and last twice as long as alternative PC laptop manufacturers. That doesn't seem like a bad deal to me.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why pay more for Apple to preinstall an SSD for you when you can buy the SAME BRAND if not identical model number they use and install it for usually HALF the cost or less than what they charge for the upgrade? Answer THAT.
So that if the Mac ever stops working, I can tell my Mom to just take it to the Apple store and they will fix it for her.
If the Mac contains a 3rd-party drive and it breaks, the Apple store will likely hand it right back to her and say "we can't support 3rd-party products". (At least, that's what happened last time I tried to save money by putting 3rd-party RAM into her Mac Mini) Then I will have to fly out and fix it myself, or temporarily remove the 3rd-party drive and replace it with the original Apple
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
In my experience, mac laptops cost 20% more and last twice as long as alternative PC laptop manufacturers. That doesn't seem like a bad deal to me.
That is an interesting point, however I have owned 5 Mac laptops over the years. A G3 PowerBook, A G4, PowerBook, 2 Core Duos and 1 Core 2 Duo. I have owned about the same number of PC laptops. I have not seen any improvement in reliability over the macs except in the case of ultra cheap netbooks that Apple doesn't directly compete with anyway. Neither of our points matter much as they are totally anecdotal. Also, the 20% figure you list is arbitrary and varies over the years. The point I was trying to make you ignore. Why pay more for Apple to preinstall an SSD for you when you can buy the SAME BRAND if not identical model number they use and install it for usually HALF the cost or less than what they charge for the upgrade? Answer THAT. That is what the article is about after all.
About TRIM: I upgraded my MacBook with a 480Gb OCW SSD module [macsales.com] myself. In the two years since I did that I have not given TRIM a second thought and I have not noticed the SSD performance taking a nosedive either. According to OCW the built in garbage collector on their drives is so efficient that there is no marked improvement in running TRIM on the drive and from what I have been able to find out this built in garbage collector actually seems to work pretty well. I suppose I lucked out when I bought that drive.
About the cost of storage: The price of preinstalled Apple SSDs is pretty outrageous although I'm not sure that your claim of equivalent PC drives costing half or less is quite accurate. Do you have any accurate information on what the spare parts prices of Apple brand SSDs are? I'd be interested to know. While I draw the line at paying for an Apple brand SSD a price that is 2-3 times that of an equivalent PC SSD like you are suggesting I'm still not going to skimp on storage. My MSc project advisor wrote a paper on the efficiency of SSD controllers and one of the things that came out of that research was that in many cases the onboard memory management system on these SSD drives is crap but generally you also get what you pay for which only confirmed what experience had taught me. Buying a budget SSD is like buying budget brake pads for your car on Alibaba, direct from China...
And that concludes my rant.
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and last twice as long as alternative PC laptop manufacturers
This simply is not true. There is a new class action lawsuit against Apple for all the defective 2011 macbooks out there. We've had to replace the motherboard 4 times already in one of our macbooks, and now that it's out of warranty Apple wants $1200 to replace the motherboard again, with the same defective crap. 2008 Macbooks and iMacs have similar problems.
The problem comes down to heat dissipation - there is no room for proper cooling inside these computers that Apple designs, because they believe in
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Bullshit. Any pre-64 bit Intel laptop from Apple had a lifespan of 5 years before it was forced into obsolescence by an arbitrary OS X cut-off. These days, support go all the way back to the first 64 bit laptops (2008), but it's still far too early to tell whether they last twice as long as alternatives.
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> In my experience, mac laptops cost 20% more and last twice as long as alternative PC laptop manufacturers. That doesn't seem like a bad deal to me.
In my experience PC hardware in general is not nearly as failure prone as Apple fanboys would make you believe. On the other hand, PC hardware in general is not restricted to the "cook your components" form factors that Apple fixates on. So a PC will actually be more durable.
This is why my PC IONs are still chugging along long after the Apple equivalent coo
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If someone was happy to pay her $20 for it, what's the problem? Willing seller, willing buyer, free market. AC didn't say she held a gun to the buyer's head and forced him to buy it. She also didn't say that she misrepresented the machine's age or capabilities. Maybe the buyer just wanted something to sit in his workshop to look something up occasionally or do some quick calculations and this machine met his needs 100% and, at $20, he wouldn't care if he dropped it and it broke into two.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some SSDs' TRIM support is so broken that its use can actually lead to corruption and other issues. Maybe Apple simply prefers to have users complain about speed than about data loss, IOW it could be cheap but safe workaround.
The Linux kernel, for instance, keeps a blacklist for this issue instead — but one that (commonly) only grows when the devs get reports from somebody who already suffered data loss, and then it takes ages for the new kernel to be used widely in the wild.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Linux kernel, for instance, keeps a blacklist for this issue instead
This is true. The blacklist is contained in drivers/ata/libata-core.c [github.com] for anyone who wants to take a look at it.
To find it, in that file search for: static const struct ata_blacklist_entry ata_device_blacklist []
For SSDs with (queued) TRIM problems, that list seems to contain only Crucial/Micron M500/M550. There is a lot of other devices blacklisted for various reasons. Of course they aren't blacklisted completely but just some features are disabled in them.
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The whole point of Apple hardware is that it's tested to work with everything that is compatible with it, and isn't compatible with anything that hasn't been tested. Going with a TRIM whitelist instead of a TRIM blacklist is part and parcel of this strategy.
For those who want OSX without the OSX philosophy, you can disable driver signing and install the same hacked-up kexts you normally do to get TRIM working. In fact, the existing TRIM enablers already do this.
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Huh. Otherworld Computers (OWC) seems to be doing a reasonable business as a third party Apple peripherals / memory / support partner. There are others. No, the field isn't as big as for Windows stuff but it's big enough to get the job done. I haven't found the need to run Windows hardware for any reason for quite some time except for some weirdass stuff (and this week I'm looking at you, Yamaha) that are basically DOS programs that nobody has bothered to touch in decades.
Queue the Apple apologists (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, look at this fellow's posts. Doesn't matter what Apples does, it is not their fault, or it is their fault but it's Apple, so there is a good and just reason.
I just understand this mindset. TRIM has been around for a long time now and it works. Plain and simple. It has worked perfectly on my mac after I enabled with a 3rd party hack.
No, this is only a clamp down in order for force you to buy their SSD for double the price.
I am 100% positive if MS sold SDDs and suddenly blocked TRIM, this turkey would be screaming at the top of his lung about power grabs and anti-competitive actions. But, since we are talking about Apple....
Re:Queue the Apple apologists (Score:5, Insightful)
Turn off the driver signing requirement in Yosemite, problem solved, your hack still works and you're in the same condition you were in Mavericks.
They didn't 'block trim' they blocked your hack to make the driver do something it wasn't intended to do.
The only thing needed for your random SSD to have trim support in OS X is for the manufacture to release a driver for their drives, with trim support ... and considering the Apple driver for AHCI isn't exactly hard to find the source for, its not even much more than compile and distribute.
We could debate why Apple doesn't support trim outside of their own drives, but its hard to argue that its their fault for not supplying a driver for your third party hardware.
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Yep. And you can find a whole lot more about how to do what you are suggesting by someone who really knows about the issue and makes a TRIM enabling tool here [cindori.org].
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but its hard to argue that its their fault for not supplying a driver for your third party hardware.
Yeah it is.
How about if they didn't provide support for even the basic SATA support for non Apple drives.
And no support for non-apple keyboards, mice, UVC webcams, network cables, power plugs etc etc.
The thing is TRIM is standardised and Apple had to go to extra effort to actively not support it on third party drives. That's a massive dick move.
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I recently watched the documentary The Prince of Sugar in which a rabble-rousing priest fights for the rights of illegal Haitian aliens the Dominican Republic can't do without (sound familiar?) while the least fortunate among the Dominicans burn giant tires in protest ag
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When I went into information technology long ago, the great joy for me was getting away from these cryptic smoke signals of thin public account.
How is that working for you? IT is just as opaque, confusing, contradictory as anything out there. If you really want to get away from 'cryptic signals of thin public account' you should probably pick up Tarot cards. Everything is right there.
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Given the teething issues of SSDs, I don't doubt that an example could be provided of some drives where 'TRIM support' means 'the intern tested it all day on his win7 box and nothing bad happened' and It Would Be Bad if OSX tried to interact with the feature. Aside from that, though, you don't make profits like Apple does without providing a little encouragement to buy
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's the commercial-ubiquitous approach. This is Microsoft's approach. Try to support (or to get manufacturers to support) as much hardware as possible. Be the default solution. Things generally look good (I can't fault Microsoft over their years for most of their UI decisions), stability may not always be terribly good though, and that's the sacrifice, ubiquity over stability, but the gain is to run on just about all hardware in existence. Android is also mostly falling into this category too now.
There's the commercial-restricted approach. Sell your hardware and your software, and only allow a select-few others to sell hardware or software that is compatible with your products. The upside is that the platforms are highly stable, but the downsides are that users will sometimes find they simply can't do something because it's disallowed. It also requires the company to be ever-vigilant about pushing more features and capabilities, as stagnation will mean death. Apple currently leads this community, but SGI, Sun, NeXT, Commodore, and a whole bunch of computer companies throughout the years have tried it and ultimately closed up shop.
The Open-Source method is the third approach, and it's both leading edge (ie, research projects by major universities) and completely behind (many user applications simply don't exist or are only partially functional).
I use Windows, OSX, and Linux daily as desktop environments. Linux is stable and fast, but often not compatible with developments out of Redmond and with a lot of work to make some features function. OSX is very smooth, very stable, and awkwardly locked-down to where some things simply aren't options. Windows is compatible with just about everything and requires weekly reboots to keep it running.
They all suck. All of them.
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There's the commercial-restricted approach. Sell your hardware and your software, and only allow a select-few others to sell hardware or software that is compatible with your products. The upside is that the platforms are highly stable, but the downsides are that users will sometimes find they simply can't do something because it's disallowed. It also requires the company to be ever-vigilant about pushing more features and capabilities, as stagnation will mean death. Apple currently leads this community, but SGI, Sun, NeXT, Commodore, and a whole bunch of computer companies throughout the years have tried it and ultimately closed up shop.
NeXT didn't close up shop, they were bought by Apple. Then they replaced several of Apple's top execs (including the CEO) with their own and used NeXTSTEP as the foundation for the new MacOS. In essence, NeXT bought Apple for minus 400 million Dollars.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
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I can't agree with your reasoning. The many computer companies that have lived and died over the years have primarily died because they were producing hardware that could not keep pace with developments in the industry.
Commodore .. which I was a developer for the Amiga (and a machine language programmer in my PET days), commodore died because AmigaOS was 100% dependent on Motorola and Motorola couldn't keep up with Intel, period.
NeXT died for the same reason. NeXT couldn't keep up with Intel and by the ti
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Yeah, well... I'm gonna go code my own operating system, with blackjack and hookers.
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Uh, no. We're mostly bashing Microsoft for the bad things they're doing today, like Window 8 and 'Windows Boot'. This is little different to the crap Microsoft have been pulling, because everyone wants to lock users into their hardware and OS to maximize $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters. Screw you, Slashdot.
Re:Apple is what MS always wanted to be (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is choice.
In the Apple model, yes, they have built that walled garden. Yes, they are generally sealed units with limited upgrade options. But with Apple in 2014, they're just one vendor among many viable alternatives. Depending on who you ask, they're somewhere between 8% and 15% of the market. That leaves a huge selection of alternate vendors from which to choose.
Microsoft, lest anyone forget, is a convicted (unfortunately never punished) monopolist. Is the late '90s they had something like 98% marketshare. In MS' world, you have no choice but to submit to his will and his ecosystem. You would not be free to leave and switch vendors because there would be no alternatives available. And while Gates may have recently been able to buy them a better reputation with his so-called charity work [theregister.co.uk]; you're a damn fool if you think he is anything but a viciously ruthless businessman who wanted nothing less than complete dominance over you.
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The difference is choice.
In the Apple model, yes, they have built that walled garden. Yes, they are generally sealed units with limited upgrade options. But with Apple in 2014, they're just one vendor among many viable alternatives. Depending on who you ask, they're somewhere between 8% and 15% of the market. That leaves a huge selection of alternate vendors from which to choose.
Microsoft, lest anyone forget, is a convicted (unfortunately never punished) monopolist. Is the late '90s they had something like 98% marketshare. In MS' world, you have no choice but to submit to his will and his ecosystem. You would not be free to leave and switch vendors because there would be no alternatives available. And while Gates may have recently been able to buy them a better reputation with his so-called charity work [theregister.co.uk]; you're a damn fool if you think he is anything but a viciously ruthless businessman who wanted nothing less than complete dominance over you.
Hmm.. I kind of hate defending Microsoft after having spent so much effort supporting the MS boycott. However, locking you into hardware vendors was never a MS thing. MS generally did their evil by forcing companies to sell MS and no alternative OS based products. They also did their thing buy stealing competing software outright. In the 90's there were thousands of examples on the now defunct vcnet.com (the url was vcnet.com/bms but no more) boycott site where the evil was being documented.
Bash MS, y
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lol...Apple is nothing like Microsoft and you clearly have no understanding what they were in so much trouble for in the 90's.
Re:Apple is what MS always wanted to be (Score:4, Interesting)
It always amazes me that people still try to bash Microsoft over the (bad) things they did in the 90s.
Let me state this yet again for the business concepts challenged. Apple is NOT A MONOPOLY. When Apple gets to the point that 90% of all devices run their OS, then we can talk. Until then, there is no comparison.
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At least for the MacBook Pro's there is [conscius.de]. As far as the MacPro's themselves, the fans are so quiet and unobtrusive and the system runs so cool I haven't found any particular need for them.
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Signed by whom? (Score:2)
Get your driver signed
By whom? Can the owner of a Mac choose which code signing certificate authorities to trust? If not, how does that inability benefit the computer's users?
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By whom?
For applications, a developer signs up with Apple (for $99/year) and part of what they get out of that is a private key that allows them to sign their applications. I don't know if the signing system for drivers is similar, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't be.
Can the owner of a Mac choose which code signing certificate authorities to trust? If not, how does that inability benefit the computer's users?
It benefits the user by allowing Apple to (largely) ensure that signed code on the user's machine is code that was written by a developer that isn't a known malware source. If the user could choose a different certificate authority, then ev