Improvement performance of SSD previously full

[Cheeky3]

Have you guys ever installed Windows boot camp, only to notice that the Macbook partition of the SSD is incredibly slow? My macbook partition was almost full tbf and it’s a known issue that SSDs slow down when almost full. I uninstalled windows but the situation never reverted itself. I have TRIM enabled as is by default.

Question... are the effects of damage to a SSD from being almost full reversible ??

All of you have proven yourselves to me with good advice in the past, and so has @Raz0rEdge with programming questions so I thought I’d add him in

Thanks guys

 

[Cheeky3]

Any suggestions?

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Question... are the effects of damage to a SSD from being almost full reversible ??

I have good news, and really bad news.

YES, the effects are nominally reversible. An SSD such as yours can be sped up by doing a secure erase on it (not just writing zeros to the drive):

How to Restore SSD to Peak Performance in a Few Minutes

To restore SSD performance to factory condition, you can perform SSD Secure Erase.

www.diskpart.com

Unfortunately, while there are several tools for Windows that you can use to do a secure erase on your SSD, I've yet to find one for the Macintosh. In fact, Disk Utility very notoriously has had all secure erase type of features removed from it by Apple just so that you won't try and use them on an SSD.

I wish that I had a good suggestion for a tool to do what needs to be done, but I've looked, and I haven't found any.

 

[MacInWin]

Have you guys ever installed Windows boot camp, only to notice that the Macbook partition of the SSD is incredibly slow? My macbook partition was almost full tbf and it’s a known issue that SSDs slow down when almost full. I uninstalled windows but the situation never reverted itself. I have TRIM enabled as is by default.

Question... are the effects of damage to a SSD from being almost full reversible ??

All of you have proven yourselves to me with good advice in the past, and so has @Raz0rEdge with programming questions so I thought I’d add him in

Thanks guys

I am slightly confused by your post. You said the drive was over full and performing poorly. That is logical, as an overly full drive, even an SSD, will slow down. You then said you uninstalled Windows, but the problem remains. Is the problem that 1) you didn't recover the space Windows was using, so the drive is still overly full, or 2) you DID recover but even with the space free, the drive is slow?

When you uninstalled boot camp, did it restore the partitioning to give macOS that space? What does Disk Utility show? Can you post a screenshot of Disk Utility so we can see how the drive is structured?

 

[Cheeky3]

I am slightly confused by your post. You said the drive was over full and performing poorly. That is logical, as an overly full drive, even an SSD, will slow down. You then said you uninstalled Windows, but the problem remains. Is the problem that 1) you didn't recover the space Windows was using, so the drive is still overly full, or 2) you DID recover but even with the space free, the drive is slow?

When you uninstalled boot camp, did it restore the partitioning to give macOS that space? What does Disk Utility show? Can you post a screenshot of Disk Utility so we can see how the drive is structured?

It restored the partitioning so the Mac portion is no longer full

 

[MacInWin]

OK, but it's still performing poorly? If so, then what Randy suggested may help. Otherwise, you can wait a bit to see if the drive software reorganizes the drive with that new free space.

 

[Cheeky3]

It has been a while.

 

[Cheeky3]

Sorry for the lack of updates. Been super busy.

I’d rather not do a secure erase - is there any other way?

I have TRIM enabled btw so not sure if that would make a difference.

When you repartition a drive and then remove the partition would the TRIM command be issued? i.e. when I uninstalled windows. That is my question.

Thanks everyone for your replies

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Sorry for the lack of updates. Been super busy.

I’d rather not do a secure erase - is there any other way?

No. Not to restore performance. However, I've since found that you can do a secure erase of a Mac SSD using the command line:

How to restore your SSD to peak performance

SSDs slow down with use, but a secure-erase utility could work wonders for it.

www.pcworld.com

A Step by Step Guide to How to Wipe a Mac Clean

From the article that I cited earlier in this thread:

"...simply deleting files and repartitioning and formatting your drive won’t do the trick as it will with a hard drive. Those operations take place at levels above where true garbage collection occurs in an SSD. In fact, due to the total absence of utilities that force complete garbage collection, there’s only one way to return a heavily used SSD to pristine, like-new condition immediately—the ATA secure-erase command."

 

[Cheeky3]

Is that the case even with TRIM enabled on both partitions? (Windows partition now removed)

I was under the impression secure erase essentially issues the TRIM command?

 

[ferrarr]

What specific device model, year and OS are you using? Also, third party SSDs may work differently with macOS.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I was under the impression secure erase essentially issues the TRIM command?

No, secure erase and TRIM are two very different things.

Trim (computing) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Write amplification - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Cheeky3]

How to Securely Erase Your SSD Without Destroying It

SSDs can only be written to a limited number of times. Then how can you securely erase your SSD? Here's what you need to know!

www.google.com

My bad - what I meant was the behaviour of secure erase is what the TRIM command except for all blocks - set them to an erase state which as a aide effect also makes it impossible to retrieve the data.

 

[Cheeky3]

What specific device model, year and OS are you using? Also, third party SSDs may work differently with macOS.

I’m using the factory SSD