Format SSD keeping write performance

ng93 · 10 Dec 2010 at 18:04

hi im wanting to re-format my 120gb corsair force ssd. What would be the best way to do this keeping the write performance and not damaging the ssd? Had a look at disk utility but it only marks the drive as empty, but leaves the data on there.

TIA
ng93

edit: after a lot of googling i found a guide on corsair's website which says to use parted magic to write zeroes to the entire drive. i thought this damaged the drive?

OzyOly · 10 Dec 2010 at 19:54

ng93 said:
hi im wanting to re-format my 120gb corsair force ssd. What would be the best way to do this keeping the write performance and not damaging the ssd? Had a look at disk utility but it only marks the drive as empty, but leaves the data on there.

TIA
ng93

edit: after a lot of googling i found a guide on corsair's website which says to use parted magic to write zeroes to the entire drive. i thought this damaged the drive?

Writing zeros the the drive can be done in disk utlity but don't do this.

You need to have each cell flagged as having no data on there by a secure erase (not the same as what's listed in disk utility), I'm not sure how you go about doing this on a mac though.

edit - https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

ng93 · 11 Dec 2010 at 12:38

cheers for the link worked great (i used a ubuntu live cd)

OzyOly · 12 Dec 2010 at 12:33

ng93 said:
cheers for the link worked great (i used a ubuntu live cd)

No worries, glad you've got it working.

OzyOly · 25 Dec 2010 at 22:15

Out of curiosity how did you unfreeze your drive?

ng93 · 1 Jun 2011 at 16:54

OzyOly said:
Out of curiosity how did you unfreeze your drive?

sorry didn't see this when you posted but for anyone else reading this i did it by closing the lid, waiting for it to go to sleep and then waking it up.

MacRS4 · 1 Jun 2011 at 20:49

There's an easier way to do this.

First, just just format and install as normal. Next, install the TRIM hack, and then use Disk Utility to erase free space.

Once you've done that, you can remove the hack using the same tool - restores your SSD back to non-TRIM supporting state, and yet TRIM will have done its good stuff.

Seems to work pretty well on the units I've done it - probably 5 or 6 now.