This Week's Sponsor:

Kolide

Ensure that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps.  It’s Device Trust for Okta.


OS X Lion Adds TRIM Support for SSDs

Here’s some great news for SSD owners like me (on a 2008 unibody MacBook Pro) or people that bought a new shiny MacBook Air with integrated Flash storage earlier this year: the developer beta of Mac OS X Lion adds support for the TRIM command on SSD. As you can see in the screenshot above captured by MacGeneration, there’s a “Oui” (yes) next to TRIM command info.

What’s the big deal with TRIM support? To put it simply, operating systems like Snow Leopard that don’t have TRIM support will treat solid state drives as regular, spinning drives when writing and deleting blocks of data. Snow Leopard doesn’t exactly know it’s dealing with an SSD, and while you’ll notice incredible performance improvements in daily usage, the same performances will slowly degrade over time without TRIM support. TRIM correctly tells the operating system which blocks of data are no longer in use in the solid state unit, and the OS passes the information along to the SSD controller so it can wipe blocks internally.

Basically: this is great news for SSD aficionados and, looking forward, a smart move from Apple as the move to solid state drives in all Mac computers seems inevitable.

Unlock More with Club MacStories

Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for over six years.

In that time, members have enjoyed nearly 400 weekly and monthly newsletters packed with more of your favorite MacStories writing as well as Club-only podcasts, eBooks, discounts on apps, icons, and services. Join today, and you’ll get everything new that we publish every week, plus access to our entire archive of back issues and downloadable perks.

The Club expanded in 2021 with Club MacStories+ and Club Premier. Club MacStories+ members enjoy even more exclusive stories, a vibrant Discord community, a rotating roster of app discounts, and more. And, with Club Premier, you get everything we offer at every Club level plus an extended, ad-free version of our podcast AppStories that is delivered early each week in high-bitrate audio.

Choose the Club plan that’s right for you:

  • Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with app collections, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, a Club-only podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
  • Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus exclusive content like Federico’s Automation Academy and John’s Macintosh Desktop Experience, a powerful web app for searching and exploring over 6 years of content and creating custom RSS feeds of Club content, an active Discord community, and a rotating collection of discounts, and more;
  • Club Premier: Everything in from our other plans and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.