Problems installing mac os on ssd. How to speed up your Mac or move to an SSD

Many users have already appreciated the advantages of SSD drives over conventional hard drives. First of all, this is a much higher speed of reading information from the disk and writing to it, which allows you to quickly load the operating system and run "heavy" programs. But, SSD drives have a limited number of write cycles to memory cells, and in order for this type of drive to please you with its work for as long as possible, it is recommended to configure the operating system to work with it.

Tuning the operating system is to reduce the load that it puts on the disk subsystem. In order to optimize Mac OS X for using SSD drives, you need to take the following steps.

1. Disable hibernation. Hibernation mode is designed to write the entire contents of RAM to disk, which allows, after a sudden power outage, to continue unexpectedly interrupted work as if no shutdown had occurred. On Apple laptops, this mode is always enabled when computers are running on battery power.

   It is strongly recommended to disable hibernation, because during its operation a file is created on the disk with a size equal to the amount of RAM. Memory today is inexpensive and it has already become the norm to expand its volume to 8 or even 16 GB. But with SSD drives, it's just the opposite. They are quite expensive for their small volume. Frequent writes of several gigabytes of RAM will significantly reduce the life of the disk. Therefore, hibernation is the number one candidate for shutdown.

   You can check the set hibernation mode with the command in the terminal:

   sudo pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

   
   The result of this command should be 0, 1, 3 or 7. On my MacBook Pro 13 (mid 2010) this command did not show anything for some reason.
   Therefore, the command to disable hibernation was immediately entered:
   

   sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

   And the command to delete the file left from the hibernation mode on the disk:
   

   sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage

2. Disable caching in your browsers. Caches of modern browsers when actively using the Internet and visiting a large number sites can be up to a couple of gigabytes in size and contain many small files. If you have high-speed Internet (from 5Mb / s), then disabling the cache for you will practically not affect the speed of work, and the load on the disk will decrease significantly. Thus, caches in browsers are candidate number two for disabling.

   Here it should be noted that complete shutdown I managed to achieve caches only in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. For some reason, after each reboot, Safari decides that it simply needs the cache and turns it back on.
   

   
   To temporarily disable the cache in Safari, you need to running browser click on "Safari" in the top menu and then "Settings". After that, go to the "Add-ons" tab, enable the "Development" section at the bottom, ticking it.
   

   

   In the "Development" section that appears in the top menu, check the "Disable Caches" item.

   
   

   
   
3. Disable Spotlight. The system search function is brilliantly implemented by Apple in its operating system. Compared to the same function in operating systems Oh Windows families, Spotlight does its job quickly, accurately and discreetly. However, for its work, it writes an impressive search index to disk, and if you do not use Spotlight very often, then it is better to turn it off.

   You can do this by opening System settings”, by going to the “Spotlight” setting and opening the “Privacy” tab in it.

   

   
   In this tab, add an SSD drive to the search exclusion window with a plus and, upon request, confirm that you really want to disable search on this drive.

   

   
   
4. Disable Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS). This sensor is integral part head parking systems hard drive during unexpected movements of the laptop (bumps and falls), which eliminates the contact of the head with the magnetic disk and its damage. There are no moving parts on SSD drives and, accordingly, there is no need for this function either. To control its operation from the terminal, you can use the following commands:

   Verify:
   Disable:

   sudo pmset -a sms 0

   
   Turn on:

   sudo pmset -a sms 1

   
   
5. Disable the Noatime feature. Noatime is a function that records the last access to a particular file. That is, after each access to the file, the system fixes the date and saves a record of this to disk. To save the SSD disk from unnecessary recorded information, this function can also be disabled. Essentially, it won't affect anything.

   To deactivate this function, you must in a suitable text editor create a file named com.my.noatime.plist with the following content:

   label com.nullvision.noatime ProgramArguments mount -vuwo noatime / RunAtLoad

   cd ~/desktop
   sudo chown root:wheel com.my.noatime.plist
   sudo mv com.my.noatime.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/
   sudo shutdown -r now

   
   
6. Disable SWAP. SWAP, or as it is also called the swap file, is used by the system in case of lack of RAM to upload part of its data to the hard drive. Since the speed of working with the disk subsystem is much lower than the speed of working with RAM, this slows down the entire system, but allows you to avoid critical errors in its work. If SWAP is disabled and all the RAM is used up, the computer will freeze until it is impossible to continue working without rebooting. Therefore, it makes sense to disable SWAP only when a large amount of RAM is installed in the computer - from 4 GB or more. You can see if you are using swap or not in "Utilities" by running "System Monitor".

   

   
   The operation of the page file can also be controlled from the terminal.
   To disable SWAP, use the command:
   

   sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

   To delete files created by swap:
   

   sudo rm /private/var/vm/swapfile*

   To re-enable swap (if required):
   

   sudo launchctl load -wF /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

   
   
7. Disable disk sleep. This mode involves putting the disk into sleep mode if it is not used for a certain user-selected period of time. Intel 320 series SSDs had a whole series of drive problems where they would lose their capacity to 8MB due to a sudden power outage. Yes, and most of the failures of electronics occur at the moments of its inclusion and deactivation, and much less during the period of stable operation. To turn off sleep mode, you need to enter "System Settings", go to the "Energy Saving" section, in which open on the "Battery" and "Network Adapter" tabs, uncheck the box "Put disk(s) to sleep whenever possible".

   

   
   
8. Clear boot cache. If, after installing an SSD drive, you do not experience a reduction in the boot time of the operating system, which should boot with solid state drives in an average of 20 seconds, then try clearing the boot cache. To do this, in the terminal type:
   

   sudo chown root:admin
   sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel
   sudo kextcache -system-caches

   
   
9. Enable TRIM. TRIM is an operating system command specifically designed to work with SSD drives that changes the file space management logic. Those who are engaged in the recovery of information from hard drives know that the operation of deleting files in them does not lead to their real deletion. They are simply marked as no longer used and continue to be stored on the disk in a state invisible to the operating system, as long as there is free space on the disk. When space runs out, new data is overwritten on top of this marked data.
   For SSD disks, this mode of operation is unacceptable, since when they are full, their write performance is significantly reduced. The memory structure in solid-state drives is such that writing occurs quickly only to clean cells. If they need to be pre-cleaned, this significantly reduces performance.

   The TRIM command was devised to clean up deletion-marked information from a disk before it needs to be written to. This maintains the high performance of SSD drives.

   The TRIM command is supported in Mac OS X since version 10.6.8, but is only automatically run for original flash drives from Apple itself. Fortunately, third-party developers have released a special program that bypasses this limitation. That's what she's called. The program is very easy to use. Download, install, run, turn on the TRIM mode with the slider.
   

After all the described procedures, you can download and install the Blackmagic Disk Speed ​​Test utility from the AppStore on your computer to evaluate the read and write speed of the new SSD drive and test it. On our laptop and disk, this program showed the following read and write speeds.

Unfortunately, we do not have a screenshot of reading and writing speed measurements on the old disk. But according to our records, a 250 MB Seagate Momentus 5400 rpm hard drive read and wrote the same speed of 33 MB/s. Thus, with the installation of a solid state drive, the read speed increased by eight times, and the write speed by five times. The results could have been even better, but our laptop has an outdated SATA controller that limits the data transfer rate.

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All Mac users have a period when they want to upgrade to a newer model of computer. However, there may be several reasons for this, and not all of them may be significant. Since there are almost no games on the Mac, and those that are available even on the most ancient computers, and there are no significant advantages for the new models either, buying a new Mac is usually associated with brakes in the work of the existing one and / or ordinary “Wishlist”. Today we will tell you how to solve this issue.

So, we have iMac 27-inch 2012 in the top configuration. Everything in it is good and there are no real reasons for switching to a newer model, except for the fact that the system is very slow. The computer turns on for 15 minutes, launching Photoshop takes 2-3 minutes, Excel and other office applications - 1-2 minutes each, and so on.

Purchasing a new Mac just to increase the speed of the system is highly questionable, so the decision was made to look for other solutions, and they were found. SSD!

There are two ways to approach this - installing an SSD instead of or along with a standard HDD inside the computer. It was decided to abandon this method, for the following reasons:

• Slims (thin iMacs after 2012) are quite difficult to disassemble. It is necessary to peel off the screen and it is not clear how this will be done in the services, and the computer is old and it is not clear how it will survive such interventions.
• Putting an SSD instead of an HDD didn’t work either, since you need 1TB, and such SSDs cost from 20,000 rubles.
• Work on installing an HDD + SSD inside costs ~ 3000 rubles.
• We had to take the computer somewhere, but there was no way to part with it.
• You can’t turn back what has been done and you will have to sell the computer with an SSD inside.

My task was to do everything quickly, cheaply and painlessly for the computer. Therefore, the choice fell on an external SSD.

Choosing an SSD

Well, everything is relatively simple. To begin with, there was a search for an SSD in a case or with a Thunderbolt connector. They are expensive, the selection is very small and… they are expensive. Therefore, we select any SSD for the desired volume. Consider the volume as a system plus all the software and a supply of 20-30 gigs. I settled on 240GB. Such SSDs cost ~ 5-6 tr. You can see the options (the parameters are already set). I settled on OCZ TRN150-25SAT3-240G. Half the job is done.

Connection

Everything is simple here. Since we do not climb inside, we need a regular adapter from SATA to USB. The bandwidth of USB 3.0 is 640 megabytes / sec, this is enough for an entry-level SSD. My iMac has USB 3.0 ports and this is important. If you have USB 2.0, then these are “fats” (thick old iMacs with a “combine”) that can be easily disassembled and it is better to put an SSD inside.

Since there is always a choice, you can buy a regular adapter like this one. Or you can buy a nice case like this or that. I settled on a regular adapter. Moreover, the purchase can be even more profitable with LetyShops, which will return you 6.5% of the purchase to your account.

Installation

• We format the SSD with "Disk Utility" in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition scheme.
• Let's go to Mac App Store and download current version macOS.
• Install macOS and SSD.
• Go to "Settings" - "Boot volume", select your SSD and reboot.
• Installing software.

Outcome

That's all. With expenses of ~ 5500 rubles. I got a lightning fast computer that can always be returned to the standard state simply by unhooking the SSD. Sample measurements:

• Launching Photoshop CC 2017 takes 2.6 seconds.
• Launching Final Cut Pro 10.3.3 takes 2.7 seconds.
• launch Microsoft Word Version 15.33 - 1.4 sec.
• Safari, iTunes, Firefox and others - 0.4 sec.
• Turning on the computer now takes 20 seconds and this is the best.

You can continue to store files, movies, etc. on your HDD. Folders for quick access can be placed there in the dock or put tags. You can even force a torrent to download movies to the HDD, so that later you don’t transfer them back and forth. In general, no cons found. We highly recommend.

Not all Macs come with an SSD from the factory, some even today have a regular HDD installed (iMac, Mac mini). Advantage of SSD- speed of work, but with constant recording of information, the performance of the drive drops, in order to avoid this, the TRIM command was invented.

What is TRIM?

TRIM (English to trim - trim) is an ATA interface command that allows the operating system to notify the solid state drive about which data blocks are no longer contained in file system and can be used by the drive for physical deletion. The TRIM function allows you to significantly reduce the access time to data on the disk and prevent the process of deterioration in the performance of SSD drives, all this happens due to the optimal distribution of free space across the drive

Why all this foreword? If your Mac has an original SSD (installed from the factory), then TRIM support is automatically enabled on it, and if you decide to upgrade yourself old computer(iMac, MacBook, Mac mini) or replace your existing drive with a larger one, then TRIM function in the operating system will be disabled.

How to enable TRIM support for third-party SSD drives in macOS (OS X) Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, Mojave

Previously, activating the TRIM command for third-party SSDs took a lot of time and did not always end in success, but starting with OS X 10.10.4, everything has changed. In new versions of macOS operating systems, starting with Yosemite, Apple has added the ability to enable TRIM support on non-original, non-Mac SSDs.

So, to enable TRIM support for the installed drive, you need to launch the Terminal application ( Programs → Utilities) and enter the command:

The program will ask you for an administrator password, inform you that the command may not be compatible with some SSDs, and prompt you to restart your computer. Take the required action.

After the reboot, open the program "System Information" (Programs → Utilities), go to SATA / SATA Express and select the SSD drive, in the line "TRIM Support" you should see Yes

Pay attention! You will need to complete the TRIM activation procedure every time you install a new macOS operating system.

For older versions of OS X, use the TRIM Enabler program, although the program is paid ($10), but very convenient. The convenience of the program is that to enable TRIM support, you need to move the slider to the ON position, enter your password and restart the Mac.

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Hello! Came out not too long ago new mac OS called Sierra and to keep up with the times I decided to update my iMac to the latest version 10.12. Previously, I purchased an external SSD from Samsung, the speed of which has always pleased me insanely. Also in previous version Mac OS manually I had to activate the TRIM mode. In this article, I would like to share with you how to do this in new version(and probably in all subsequent because everything has become utterly simple).

It is not difficult to guess that we are now talking about a thing called TRIM. What it is?

TRIM is an ATA command that allows the operating system to notify the SSD of unused blocks, the information on which can be deleted or rewritten. Because write/rewrite operations on SSDs are very different at a low level from those on HDDs, conventional operating system methods for deleting, formatting, or overwriting information have resulted in progressive degradation of write performance on SSDs. The introduction of TRIM command support allowed the operating system to clean up unused cells before information is written to them. This allowed to significantly reduce the data access time and prevent the process of deterioration in the performance of SSD drives.

In other words, on a system where TRIM does not work, the SSD will eventually (approximately after a full recording cycle of the entire volume) will run much slower. On the Mac computers, which originally came with an SSD drive, TRIM works straight out of the box. But for users who themselves installed an SSD drive from some other brand in their Mac, the situation is slightly different. In view of Apple's "strange" policy, it turned out to be not so easy to "start" TRIM in OS X for third-party SSDs. To do this, it was necessary to patch the system KEXT (kernel extension, in the common people - driver), and had to do this almost after every system update. With the release of OS X Yosemite, the situation worsened a little more, since in OS X 10.10 system extensions and utilities began to be digitally signed, which was violated when KEXT was patched. Without a digital signature, the operating system kernel refused to load the driver; without the driver, the drive would not start, and the system would stop booting. But for this, a solution was found in the form of a special parameter that was written to NVRAM and indicated to the OS kernel that unsigned drivers still need to be loaded. All in all, it was a headache. But the Captain changed everything.

Starting from version OS X 10.11 (i.e. with El Capitan) to activate TRIM on all SSD drives, it is enough to execute one single command, after which TRIM will work normally and always, without any patching and manipulations with the system. Launch the Terminal and run the command:

sudo trimforce enable

The command must be confirmed with the system administrator password, after which a warning will be issued that, they say, enabling this option may be unsafe and blah, blah, blah:

This tool force-enables TRIM for all relevant attached devices, even though they have not been validated for data integrity while using that functionality. By using this tool to enable TRIM, you agree that Apple is not liable for any consequences that may result, including but not limited to data loss or corruption.

With 99.999% certainty, you can ignore the warning and press Y and Enter . After that, the system will reboot. As a result, after a reboot, TRIM will be activated and you will never need to get into the system again to activate it again:

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Relatively recently, Macs began to be produced (mainly in mobile version) using SSD drives instead of a regular HDD. Advantages solid state drives(this is how you can translate the abbreviation SSD into Russian) quite a lot, but at the same time, there are disadvantages that can and should be dealt with in order to extend the life of the drive. We will not be able to completely remove the shortcomings that SSDs have due to existing technology, but we are quite capable of optimizing the operating system in order to minimize the negative consequences. Actually, we will deal with this in the framework of the current article.

For starters, a little history. Back in 1978, StorageTek developed the first solid-state drive based on RAM memory. RAM drives are drives based on the use of volatile memory, similar to that used in computer RAM. The main advantages of RAM drives are ultra-fast reading, writing and information retrieval, and the disadvantage is a very high cost (from $ 80 for 1 GB). In 1995, M-Systems introduced the first solid-state storage Flash memory. Flash (NAND) drives are drives based on non-volatile memory, it is this type of drives that are used for installation in mobile computers from Apple. These drives differ from conventional ones, first of all, by the high speed of information retrieval (comparable to the speed of searching in the Mac's RAM). The read / write speed indicators, since recently, have become comparable to those of traditional hard drives, and in some cases significantly exceed them. As for the cost of NAND drives, it is significantly lower than the cost of RAM drives (from $2 per 1GB). Modern SSD drives installed in desktops and laptops just belong to this type of memory.

Other advantages of SSDs over traditional HDDs include:

• No moving parts
• Wide operating temperature range
• Complete absence of noise due to the absence of moving parts
• Read and write speeds are mainly limited only by the bandwidth of the interface used (for example, SATA III - up to 6 GB / s)
• Low power consumption
• High mechanical resistance

The most important and, perhaps, the most critical disadvantage of SSD drives is limited number of rewrite cycles(depending on the type of flash memory used). For example, SSD drives using MLC flash memory allow for approximately 10 thousand rewrite cycles data, and disks based on more expensive SLC flash memory are significantly larger - over 100 thousand cycles. In principle, it will take a long time until the SSD drive runs out of its resource, but you always want this to happen as late as possible. The first drawback is closely intertwined with the second, which is the problem of compatibility of existing SSDs with many operating systems, including Mac OS X. The problem is that many existing OSes do not take into account the specifics of SSDs and additionally wear them out (paging files , various caches, etc.) .

If the first drawback cannot be solved yet - technology is technology, then the second one can be overcome.

The most important thing for an SSD drive in Mac OS X is the activation of TRIM technology. On native SSDs in Mac OS X 10.6.8 and older, this technology will work initially, but for non-native SSDs you need . We have already written about TRIM before, we only recall that the use of this technology allows you to avoid slowing down SSD work due to clogging of memory cells.

The rest of the tips are:

1. DISABLE CACHE IN THE WEB BROWSER

As a rule, any web browser uses a certain amount of disk space to cache temporary files when browsing the web and other operations. Accordingly, the more the user visits web pages and other web services, the more actively work is being done with the cache in the web browser, which will adversely affect the life of the SSD drive. Therefore, in order to neutralize the negative consequences of web surfing, we go to the settings of the default web browser used in the system and disable caching. As an example, we will tell you how to disable the cache in the Safari 5.0.5 web browser.

• Including an additional section Development in the program menu. To do this, in the Safari settings menu, go to the tab Add-ons and mark the point there Show Develop menu in menu bar.

We go to the section that appears Development and mark the menu item Disable caches. Safari will now load graphics, pages, and other resources from the web in real time instead of using cached resources.

2. DISABLE HIBERNATION MODE

Hibernation mode allows you to write all the contents of RAM to the computer when you turn off the computer. HDD, and then, when you turn on the computer again, continue the interrupted work, as if there was no shutdown. The MacBook always uses this mode when running on battery power to avoid data loss when the battery runs out of power. Undoubtedly, this is very convenient, but the thing is that when the hibernation mode is active, a file equal to the amount of RAM installed in the computer is always created on the MacBook's disk. Considering that the volumes of existing SSDs are not so large and in order to save money you have to fight for every megabyte, losing at least 2 GB of disk space will be an unaffordable luxury.

To carry out the operation, launch the Terminal and enter three simple commands.

• Checking the current hibernation mode:

sudo pmset -g | grep hibernatemode > ~/Desktop/current_mode.txt

The required numbers will be saved to a file on the Desktop (these numbers will need to be used if necessary to restore the disabled mode). Also don't forget that when executing a command starting with sudo, you will be required to blindly enter your account password).

• Disable hibernation:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

The reverse switching on of the mode is carried out by re-entering the command with the replacement of the digit «0» on the "3" or at "7" (when using protected virtual memory).

• Delete the file left after disabling the mode:

sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage

After completing all the operations, restart the MacBook.

3. DISABLE SPOTLIGHT

The wonderful system search feature, which is a key technology of Mac OS X, makes heavy use of disk indexing data caching in its operation and is therefore the next candidate to be disabled. To disable caching go to System Preferences/Spotlight/Privacy and add the SSD disk or partitions on it to the exclusion list.

4. DISABLE SLEEPING THE SSD

This mode serves to save power and puts the hard drive into sleep mode when idle for a certain time. When using an SSD drive with its low power consumption, the benefits of using this mode questionable. To disable putting the disk into sleep mode, go to System Settings/Energy Saver uncheck the item Put disk(s) to sleep whenever possible.

5. DISABLE THE FUNCTION OF LAST ACCESS TO THE FILE

abbreviated given function called noatime. Every time the system accesses a file on the disk, this function also writes to the disk. To avoid reducing the use of overwrite cycles on an SSD, the function noatime can be turned off, especially since it does not threaten any serious consequences.

To disable this feature, create a file named com.my.noatime.plist and put it in a folder /Library/LaunchDaemons. The content of the file should be as follows:

"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

label
com.nullvision.noatime
ProgramArguments

mount
-vuwo
noatime
/

RunAtLoad

Then in the Terminal window enter the following commands:

cd ~/desktop
sudo chown root:wheel com.my.noatime.plist
sudo mv com.my.noatime.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/
sudo shutdown -r now

We restart the computer.

6. DISABLE SWAP FILE (PAGE FILE)

A feature of Mac OS X (and many other operating systems) is that when there is not enough free RAM, it starts dumping some of the data from it onto the hard drive, into the so-called paging file. This allows you to free up the necessary amount of memory for more important purposes than storing unused data, but the most interesting thing is that Mac OS X begins to think that there is not enough memory already when in fact free memory still quite enough. If, in the course of work, the user wants to return to the data that the system has already dumped on the hard disk, then the system may begin to “freeze” for a while, while accessing the hard disk increases noticeably. Needless to say, the speeds of access to RAM and the drive differ by hundreds, or even thousands of times, and the user, with the active use of the paging file, noticeably loses the speed of the Mac. Therefore, if you have a sufficiently large amount of RAM (from 4 GB and above), it makes sense to disable the paging file, thereby winning in the overall speed of the system, and in the case of using an SSD drive, reducing the resource of rewriting cycles of the latter. In order to completely disable the use of the paging file, open the Terminal and enter the following command:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

Then we delete the existing paging files (as a rule, there are several of them):

sudo rm /private/var/vm/swapfile*

In order to return everything back, use the following command:

sudo launchctl load -wF /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

NOT RECOMMENDED disabling the paging file for those users who have less than 4 GB installed on their computer or if they work in resource-intensive applications (for example, in Adobe Photoshop process images of several tens of megapixels in size). Determining the amount of memory sufficient for comfortable user work is quite simple - you just need to run the utility System monitoring and, having loaded the computer with the applications most often used at work, look at the value of the parameter Using swap. If there is a number «0» , then you can safely disable the paging file, in otherwise if there is not enough memory, the system may simply hang.

7. CLEAR THE BOOT CACHE

Another small advantage of SSD drives is a fast reboot (about 15 seconds). If this is not observed on your macbook left with an SSD, then perhaps you just need to clear the boot cache. To do this, open the Terminal and enter the following commands:

sudo chown root:admin
sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel
sudo kextcache -system-caches

Well, the most advanced way to protect an SSD from writing various temporary files is to create a virtual dedicated disk (RAM Disk) in RAM and transfer folders of temporary files and caches to it. We will talk about this method in the near future.