Replacing sata SSD with Nvme

madvinegar

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Hi!
My rig can be seen in my signature.
I will replace my sata samsung ssd with a samsung 980 Nvme.
Do I need to add any specific kext for the nvme to be recognized and work normally in Big Sur or there is no need for a specific kext?

Many thanks!
 

Aluveitie

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I'd advise against using a Samsung NVMe SSD, their TRIM implementation is broken. TRIM will not work properly on Big Sur, and on Monterey the timeout does not work anymore so it will cause long boot times (like 2-3 minutes).
 

madvinegar

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I'd advise against using a Samsung NVMe SSD, their TRIM implementation is broken. TRIM will not work properly on Big Sur, and on Monterey the timeout does not work anymore so it will cause long boot times (like 2-3 minutes).
Really...? It is the first time I hear this. So, this problem only occurs with Samsung nvme ssds or with all nvme ssds?

Fyi for the time being I will not upgrade to Monterey as when I tried to do so I had all shorts of problems like my ethernet and BT not working etc.
 

Edhawk

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You would be best served getting a WD Black SN750 NVME drive, they work great in macOS.

The WD Black SN850 is newer/more expensive than the SN750 drive. However, it will only provide the additional speeds if your motherboard M.2 connectors support PCIe Gen4.
 

Aluveitie

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@madvinegar The issue has been documented pretty well here: https://github.com/dortania/bugtracker/issues/192
It's an issue with most Samsung NVMe SSDs. On Big Sur you won't notice it (besides 8sec longer boot time than with other SSDs). Though since TRIM does not work correctly, your SSD might slow down with time once it fills up.

You can work around that by occasionally disabling the ApfsTrimTimeout and doing a long boot to completely TRIM, but upgrading to Monterey or newer, as long as the timeout does not work, will be painfully slow to boot. If you didn't buy it already, or can return it I would recommend another drive to avoid such issues.
 

madvinegar

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Thank you all for your advices. Just for testing purposes I have proceeded in cloning my sata SSD to the nvme. Everything seems to be working OK up to now and the speeds are fast.

As a note, I read on a relevant post that you need first to update the firmware of the Samsung nvme to the latest one in order to work properly with Macos/Hackintosh. So, as I am dual booting with win11, I downloaded the Samsung magician tools and downloaded/installed the latest available firmware to the Samsung 980.

Should I also install the nvmefix.kext or is this not needed?
 

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Edhawk

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The main issue with the Samsung NVME drives is usually seen during boot process. Where the Boot process would normally be completed within less than 1 minute, due to the Trim Firmware issue this can take 6+ minutes to complete.

The speed of the NVME drive during normal use is not affected. However, with Trim not working correctly there is no Garbage collection on the drive (deleted files are not removed), which can result in faster degradation of the drive's memory modules. In the short term this should not be an issue, longer use without Trim is likely to be problematic.

Here is a link to the latest release of the NvmeFix.kext, with an explanation of what it does - https://github.com/acidanthera/NVMeFix
 

madvinegar

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Up to now the boot time seems to be the same as before. I also installed the nvmefix.kext just for the sake of good order.

I will monitor the situation to see if I get any problem in the long run, and hope that the updated firmware of the nvme was indeed of assistance.

I would like to thank you all for your assistance and kind advice.
 
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