SSD hall of fame needs new entries

[vit9696]

Guide Anti-Hackintosh Buyers Guide (link)

After our discovery of a severe bug in the TRIM implementation of practically all Samsung SSDs we spent time investigating which SSDs are affected by all kinds of issues, and so far came with several names worth mentioning.

Working with TRIM broken (can be used with TRIM disabled, at slower boot times, or as a data storage):

• Samsung 950 Pro
• Samsung 960 Evo/Pro
• Samsung 970 Evo/Pro

Working fine with TRIM:

• Western Digital Blue SN550
• Western Digital Black SN700
• Western Digital Black SN720
• Western Digital Black SN750 (aka SanDisk Extreme PRO)
• Western Digital Black SN850
• Intel 760p (including OEM models, e.g. SSDPEMKF512G8)
• Crucial P1 1TB NVME (SM2263EN) (need more tests)

Working fine with TRIM (SATA):

• SATA PLEXTOR M5Pro
• SATA Samsung 850 PRO (need more tests)
• SATA Samsung 870 EVO (need more tests)

Working fine with TRIM (Unbranded SSDs):

• KingDian S280
• Kingchuxing 512GB

Incompatible with IONVMeFamily (die under heavy load):

• GIGABYTE 512 GB M.2 PCIe SSD (e.g. GP-GSM2NE8512GNTD) (need more tests)
• ADATA Swordfish 2 TB M.2-2280
• SK Hynix HFS001TD9TNG-L5B0B
• SK Hynix P31
• Samsung PM981 models
• Micron 2200V MTFDHBA512TCK
• Asgard AN3+ (STAR1000P)
• Netac NVME SSD 480

---

There are several very good comparison charts containing various SSDs and their controllers: one, two. Since SSD compatibility usually is controller-based, picking up an SSD with a known to be compatible controller has a high compatibility chance as well.

---

In addition to that, I would like more people to run tests on their platforms to determine whether their SSD TRIM implementation is broken or not.

Preconditions:

• Tested SSD is the boot SSD (i.e. macOS is installed on it).
• Tested SSD is APFS-formatted.
• Tested SSD must be actively used with macOS installation being at least a month old.
• OpenCore 0.6.7 or newer is used.

The idea is to measure the boot time either between motherboard logo and macOS login screen or between Apple logo and macOS login screen. The former is strongly recommended due to possible GOP issues. All the measurements needs to be done with different SetApfsTrimTimeout values set in OpenCore. Each measurement must be made at least 2 or 3 three times to ensure no sporadic results. The values to test are as follows:

1. 0 (means TRIM is disabled)
2. -1 (standard timeout, equals roughly 10 seconds, means TRIM is enabled and runs up 10 seconds during boot)
3. 4294967295 (maximum timeout, TRIM is enabled and runs as long as needed)

• An SSD with a decent TRIM implementation should behave as follows. Value 1 will be negligibly the fastest. Value 2 might be slightly slower than 2 (way less than by 10 seconds, maybe 2-5). Value 3 should be equal to value 2.
• An SSD with a broken TRIM implementation, like Samsung, will have value 2 slower than value 1 by 10 seconds, and value 3 will be noticeably slower than value 2, usually by 30-60 seconds.

Please write include the following information in the report:

• SSD type (NVMe or SATA), model, and storage size
• Motherboard and CPU used
• macOS version used
• Test results grouped in 3 sections (a total of 6 or 9 values).

Note: If you use FileVault 2, you can use sudo fdesetup authrestart command to skip UEFI login. AuthRestart must of course be enabled. I would also advise to disable the OpenCore Picker (ShowPicker = NO).

[Romanychev]

Gigabyte Z490i Aorus Ultra + 10900k
11.3 Beta (20E5229a)
Samsung 970 Evo NVME:

1. 18, 17, 18.
2. 29, 30, 30.
3. 97, 85, 86

[Bustycat]

Crucial BX500 120GB SATA 2.5-inch
GA-H61M-S2PV + i5-2500K
11.3.1 (20E241)

1. 31 30 30
2. 39 44 40
3. 46 42 41

(sudo trimforce enable)

From the motherboard logo to macOS system, pressing Enter immediately at OpenCore menu.

[Bustycat]

WD Blue SN550 1TB NVMe
Z370 AORUS Gaming 3 + i5-9600K
11.3.1 (20E241)

1. 20 20 20
2. 34 33 32
3. 36 37 37

From Apple logo to macOS system.

[Bustycat]

Crucial MX500 500GB SATA 2.5-inch
MacBookPro9,2 + i5-3210M
11.3.1 (20E241)

1. 39 37 39
2. 41 42 45
3. 45 46 46

(sudo trimforce enable)

From Apple logo to macOS system.

[Edhawk64]

Samsung SM951 256GB NVME (MZVPV256HDGL-00000)
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H, +i7-4790K, iMac 15,1
10.15.7 (19H1030)

1. 22.90, 22.82, 23.29
2. 27.46, 26.77, 26.43
3. 27.10, 26.62, 26.33

From gigabyte splash screen to macOS Login screen (used stopwatch on iPhone to time each run)
Pressing Enter immediately at OC GUI.

[thomas22122212]

Samsung 830 256GB SATA SSD

Asus P9X79WS + Xeon E5-2667v2 + 64GB ECC + MacPro6,1 SMBIOS
macOS 11.3.1 + OpenCore 0.6.9

Time in seconds from pressing enter in OC-Picker to login screen:

sudo trimforce disable:

1. 23, 21, 22

sudo trimforce enable (SetApfsTrimTimeout={999, -1, 4294967295}):

1. 32, 31, 32
2. 42, 42, 41
3. 45, 44, 44

I expected 'trimforce disable' and 'trimforce enable' with 'SetApfsTrimTimeout:999' to be approximately equal. Why isn't that the case? 🤔

[telepati]

HideAuxiliary Enabled, ShowPicker, and Timeout Disabled. (I always use it this way.)

ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB NVMe
ASUS TUF Z390-Plus Gaming + Intel 9900K
11.4 Beta (20F5055c) iMac 19,1

1. (43, 45, 46)
2. (46, 47, 48)
3. (53, 54, 55)

It is always slow in any case. There is only one OS in this Build.

[th0u]

Samsung 870 EVO 1TB SATA
Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro / i7-9700K
11.3.1 / iMac 19,1

Times taken between Apple Logo and Login Screen

1. 15, 15, 15
2. 18, 19, 19
3. 18, 18, 18

[aluveitie]

Corsair MP600 1TB NVMe
Asus ROG Strix X570-I / Ryzen 9 3950X
11.4 Beta / MacPro7,1

1. 23 24 24
2. 28 27 27
3. 27 27 28

[dreamwhite]

I don't know if you'll ever consider the following, but apparently many models of Phison E12 (like Sabrent Rocket NVMe 3.0 TLC 64 layers NAND) have a broken trim support and are going to failure of the disk.
In less than 1 year, I wrote just 5.2 TB of data for my 512GB model and the drive estimated life was 94%.
According to Sabrent TBW warranty, the 500GB 3.0 TLC model should have 800TBW of life which is a joke.

Please avoid buying NVMes with Phison E12 controller.
I opted for a WD Black SN750 and it works flawlessly both with and without TRIM ^^

[antoniomcr96]

Crucial P2 CT500P2SSD8
Lenovo L390 Yoga with i5-8265U / Big Sur 11.4 / MacBookPro 15,2

1. 22 22,3 21,5
2. 30,9 31 31,3
3. 32,1 31,9 32,20

About 10 seconds more with trim enabled

[naveenkrdy]

DELL XPS 7590 FHD | i7 9750-H | HP SSD EX920 512GB
macOS BigSur 11.4 | MacBookPro16,1 | OpenCore 0.6.9

1. 24 25
2. 27 27
3. 27 27

Testing done from POST logo to macOS login screen

[ickc]

Intel 660p

SSD:
    Model: INTEL SSDPEKNW010T8
    type: NVMe
    size: 1TB
motherboard: LattePanda Alpha 800s
CPU: m3-8100Y
macOS: macOS 11.4 (20F71)

SetApfsTrimTimeout	time (s)
999	44.84
999	49.88
999	47.36
-1	53.05
-1	52.27
4294967295	56.26
4294967295	56.47

Samsung 860 EVO

SSD:
    Model: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB
    type: SATA
    size: 500GB
motherboard: GA–Z77–HD4
CPU: i7–3770K
macOS: macOS 11.4 (20F71)

SetApfsTrimTimeout	time (s)
999	35.62
999	35.38
-1	39.75
-1	39.81
4294967295	39.61
4294967295	39.63

Samsung 970 EVO Plus

SSD:
    Model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB
    type: NVMe
    size: 1TB
motherboard: GA–X299–UD4
CPU: i9 7900X
macOS: macOS 10.15.7 (19H1217)

SetApfsTrimTimeout	time (s)
999	41.30
999	42.39
-1	51.43
-1	51.62
4294967295	1:46.87
4294967295	1:45.62

[valueimagery]

Samsung NVME 970 Pro 512GB

Big Sur 11.4
Z490 Vision D + 5700 XT
OC 0.7.1 iMac20,2
NVMEFixup.kext enabled

VALUE | POST>OC | OC>OSX | TOTAL BOOT
999 | 11 | 25 | 36
-1 | 11 | 36 | 47
4294967295 | 11 | 90 | 100

Confirms your findings about Samsung

[cdduarte2]

Hi! I’m using a Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB, but I’m on Clover. Is there anyway to test or implement this without OC? Thanks!

[ickc]

Samsung SSD 960 PRO 512GB

SSD:
    Model: Samsung SSD 960 PRO 512GB
    type: NVMe
    size: 512GB
motherboard: GA–X299–UD4
CPU: i9 7900X
macOS: macOS 11.4 (20F71)

SetApfsTrimTimeout	time (s)
999	34.32
999	33.34
-1	42.25
-1	42.83
4294967295	1:27.75
4294967295	1:28.21

c.f. #192 (comment) for similar reports.

[AlexKusnezov]

Western Digital Black SN850 500gb (in PCIe Gen3 Environment):

motherboard: Asus x299 TUF Mark1
CPU: i7 7800X
macOS: macOS 11.5.2 (20G95)

999: 25.57 | 25.10 | 22.80

-1: 23.54 | 25.19 | 24.38

4294967295: 25.39 | 24.65 | 24.74

From Apple logo to macOS system.

[sh0umik]

Mine is Gigabite 240 GB M.2 PCIe SSD (GP-GSM2NE3256GNTD) and it hangs randomly.

[beefon]

FWIW, I’ve tried Plextor M10P with Innogrit controller, and it does not work with macOS. Read operations cause disk I/O freeze, resulting in loss of the device from the macOS device tree (!) until a system reboot.
Writes, however, work fine.
Windows works fine.
Just wanted to warn about this case.

[perez987]

WD Black SN 750 NVMe 500 GB
Z390 Aorus Elite + i7-9700
Monterey beta 10
MacPro7,1

Since motherboard beep to desktop active.

999: 20 | 22 | 22

-1: 19 | 18 | 18

4294967295: 19 | 22 | 20

[blodt]

WD Black SN 750 NVMe 500 GB Z390 Aorus Elite + i7-9700 Monterey beta 10 MacPro7,1

Since motherboard beep to desktop active.

999: 20 | 22 | 22

-1: 19 | 18 | 18

4294967295: 19 | 22 | 20

Hi - May I ask you what settings you've implemented for your SN750? I can't seem to get away from NVMe kernel panics happening eventually with my SN750 2TB -- thank you!

[qin9125]

thank you wd sn550 works fine

[lengwangye]

威刚S70避坑，不能用

[osy]

I went on kind of a shopping spree for new NVMe this holiday and have some data points. (Sorry I didn't follow the template)

My machine is a Intel NUC i7-8809G running macOS 12.6.1 with FileVault enabled.

1. Samsung 860 EVO M.2 SATA 1TB This was the drive I originally had and it worked fine for years. TRIM was enabled.
2. HP EX920 M.2 NVME 1TB Two year ago, I bought this with the intention of replacing the SATA drive but I had random panics. Probably due to high loads. Didn't do too much testing so I didn't know what the issue was or what the TRIM status was.
3. Mushkin Enhanced Helix-L M.2 NVME 1TB I bought this a year ago again with the intension of replacing the SATA drive. Also had random panics and actually managed to kill the drive probably do to extreme IO loads. Returned it a week later. Do not ever buy this brand.
4. Samsung 980 PRO w/ Heatsink M.2 NVME 2TB I bought this before reading the first post. Had slow boot times that were NOT solved by SetApfsTrimTimeout. In fact, I was not able to boot my primary partition (FileVault enabled) at all. It just got stuck at the loading screen for maybe half an hour before rebooting with a panic. I can boot into my second install (unencrypted) but it would quickly panic when under load.
5. Kingston NV2 M.2 NVME 2TB I bought this last week because there was a TechPowerUp review that gave a really good score and said the NV2 had a Phison controller. Turns out, after reading some Amazon reviews, either Kingston sent reviewers a different sample or the 1TB model uses a different controller. The 2TB version has a Silicon Motion controller and panics on high loads.
6. Western Digital Black SN850X M.2 NVME 2TB This worked perfectly (two weeks so far without any panics). This was expected from the first post, but I can confirm the X model didn't change anything drastically.

Some other thoughts:

I think having FileVault enabled really exacerbates the issue. With any NVME that panics with a heavy IO load, it will also instantly panic when booting into my FileVault enabled installation.

I don't see enough people talk about HMB and DRAMless SSDs which are the majority of "cheap" NVMEs. macOS does not support HMB and so will get worse random I/O throughput. The performance on sequential reads shouldn't be affected and that's what everyone seems to run on benchmarks. I found that "low throughput" seems to be one of the factors that cause macOS to panic. For example, here is a benchmark run on the Kingston NV2 on macOS:

As you can see the write speeds are terrible and way under the rated speed of 2500MB/s. I'm not sure why the numbers are this bad, but I tried to also run a benchmark on my Windows install with the same drive put into a TB3 enclosure in order to simulate the lack of HMB and you see similar numbers for random writes.

Compare that with the same drive installed internally (note that TB3 overhead probably contributes to the difference in peak read speeds)

Moral of the story: go with WD if you are building a hackintosh.

[4tl4sh]

Haven't taken exact measures because I'm running debug verbose mode and could be misleading but I can confirm that my Samsung 980 (non Pro) loads in -1 as fast as in 4294967295. Probably around 20 to 30 seconds tops.

I'm running this hackintosh since August in a 256gb partition out of 1 TB of space. I'm using the other partition in Windows as an expansion disk (not OS) for games. Health level remains at 100%, no wear detected (I purchased the disk around May / June). No slowdowns or slow boot times.

[phrfpeixoto]

Has anyone tested the WD SN770? I'm currently running a Samsung 970 Pro and considering the SN770 for replacement.

[yanisalbert]

Has anyone tested the WD SN770? I'm currently running a Samsung 970 Pro and considering the SN770 for replacement.

Hi, i have this one, 2Tb, no issues so far.
I bought also the SN850 2Tb, it works fine too.

[kocoman1]

is there shorter 2260, 2242 smaller 128/250gb ok that works without this panic/nvme problem? thx

[Kaisar870]

WD SN850x will work? I've an Asus Z390E with i9900k. SN750 is out of market and high price too.

[osy]

@Kaisar870 read a couple posts up: #192 (comment)

[Kaisar870]

@Kaisar870 read a couple posts up: #192 (comment)

Thank you 😊 my concern is now does it work with z390 ? I mean PCI gen 3x4

[osy]

Yes, I also had PCI gen 3x4. However, after months of usage, I did notice that there are some times (maybe 1-2 times a week) where the storage would cause macOS to freeze up for 10-15 seconds. I don't know if it has to do with this specific NVMe or if it is an issue with every NVMe. I only used SATA before and never had that issue.

[Kaisar870]

Yes, I also had PCI gen 3x4. However, after months of usage, I did notice that there are some times (maybe 1-2 times a week) where the storage would cause macOS to freeze up for 10-15 seconds. I don't know if it has to do with this specific NVMe or if it is an issue with every NVMe. I only used SATA before and never had that issue.

Yes, I also had PCI gen 3x4. However, after months of usage, I did notice that there are some times (maybe 1-2 times a week) where the storage would cause macOS to freeze up for 10-15 seconds. I don't know if it has to do with this specific NVMe or if it is an issue with every NVMe. I only used SATA before and never had that issue.

Thank you for your patience 😊 do you think this issues cause by SN850X? I've already 970 Evo plus and boot time 1 minute 30 sec. Some apps Open take long time specific Ms office. Also glitch the screen and freeze Evey week even multiple times a day. I've previously installed 850 sata SSD and this was incredibly fast both boot and opening apps.

[osy]

My advice: stick with the 850 SATA. I had a 860 SATA before and had 0 issues for years. You won't notice any speed increase in day to day use, especially since it's PCIe 3x4.

[arekhn]

Samsung SSD 980 500GB NVME (Non-Pro)

motherboard: GA - Z490 Aorus Elite
CPU: i3-10100F
macOS: Ventura 13.4.1
Opencore 0.9.3
HideAuxiliary Enabled, Showpicker and Timeout to 0.

From Apple logo to Login Screen:

1 : 15 15 15
2 : 42 40 40
3: 40 40 40

I can only assume the Trim is either working slowly or failing, I am unsure if I should leave it on -1 or 0 for day to day use until I can buy a more compatible SSD, any tips are welcome.

[TCB13]

How is Kingston KC3000? It has Phison E18. I can get it pretty cheap but want to be sure that it will not be effected. Thank you.

Maybe not that great? https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/general-nvme-drive-problems-fatal.316546/post-2324146

[Menelkir]

Is there a way to manually trigger the trim or some tool to do that? Because I rather trigger manually when I'm idle than waiting an infinite amount of time at boot.

[vmadhavan15]

Hi All... am using the Dortania help guide to install the Ventura on my Dell G3 3579 laptop... I have the NVMe WDC SN550 M.2 NVMe drive and I have followed the NVMefix and Set the TRIM support to 3 value but still am getting the bellow error even after very long hours...

https://preview.redd.it/ug9qyde0duib1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=41d295dd17f5dcb3f8ef9d38e2e58e9d8024e0ae

Please help me out to fix this problem I have the attached EFI folder here...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-AVP18hBMWWi6Pr5z-3q_THtqh81N7xY/view?usp=sharing

Current Config of my Laptop

Model : Dell G3 3579 Processor Intel Core i5-8300H @ 2.30Ghz

Memory : 16GB DDR4 2666Mhz ✅

SSD 1TB Samsung 860EVO ✅

NVMe M.2 Slot Western Digital Blue SN550 1TB ✅

iGPU Intel UHD Graphics 630 ✅

Sound Card Realtek ALC236 ✅

Ethernet Card Realtek RTL8111 ✅

[sujayxaradhya]

@qin9125 > thank you wd sn550 works fine

Bro I'm also using SN550 but I don't know why I'm getting this and stuck in this line onlyCouldn't alloc "AppleKeyStoreTest".
And for more information, how it happened?
Here's the story->
My elec went out after upgrading to ventura latest version successfully and was running the latest version on the latest updated opencore version and config both. After when elec came back, I tried to open my pc and then logged in opencore boot menu then logged in again for the user access.
Also last time, after updating to the latest version when I logged into my desktop. One popup showed up at the time and in that it is showing "Some updates cannot be installed".
After that again elec went out and then came backs, and then again I tried to open my pc and from that time it is continuously stuck on this couldn't alloc "AppleKeyStoreTest".
Please help me bro!
I'm also on discord and my username - youngmoguler.
Please tell yours, so that I can reach you there.

Thanks in advance.

[polve93]

Hi, i have used samsung 970 EVO with no issues on big sur in the last years, now i want to upgrade to a newer version of osx.
Since all samsung nvme are affected by trim issues, am i forced to switch to another ssd? I already own a sandisk extreme pro, should i clone my data to this disk before upgrading?

[alexok]

Hi, i have used samsung 970 EVO with no issues on big sur in the last years, now i want to upgrade to a newer version of osx. Since all samsung nvme are affected by trim issues, am i forced to switch to another ssd? I already own a sandisk extreme pro, should i clone my data to this disk before upgrading?

Best thing to do is switch to WD

[polve93]

Best thing to do is switch to WD

OK, but 1st post says:

Working fine with TRIM:
Western Digital Black SN750 (aka SanDisk Extreme PRO)

and found some reviews like this
"The WD Black SN750 is equipped with the same controller and NAND parts as last year's WD Black and SanDisk Extreme Pro, and the only differences in chip markings appear to be date codes or lot numbers."

So should i give it a try?

[alexok]

Best thing to do is switch to WD

OK, but 1st post says:

Working fine with TRIM: Western Digital Black SN750 (aka SanDisk Extreme PRO)

and found some reviews like this "The WD Black SN750 is equipped with the same controller and NAND parts as last year's WD Black and SanDisk Extreme Pro, and the only differences in chip markings appear to be date codes or lot numbers."

So should i give it a try?

I looked at techpowerup.com and they agree on the controller and memory with sn 750/770, there is a high chance that it will work

[polve93]

I looked at techpowerup.com and they agree on the controller and memory with sn 750/770, there is a high chance that it will work

edit:
after cloning my old 970 evo to my new sandisk extreme pro everything works fine.

[Kaoapple]

Hi i recently built my hackintosh i don't know how you do those test.. i checked and my APFSTrim is set to -1

ASUS TUF Z690 D5
2 Samsung NVME 990 (1 windows - 1 ventura)
RTX 4070
RX 580

on my macos ventura with AmorphousDiskMark i got this result:

Except the slow boot i don't see any issue or trouble... but if you can suggest the correct test to do .. i would be happy to do...