Mac-Sierra Users: A Hidden Optimizing Trick

[Robert Lane]

Let's assume you know what "trim" is for on SSD's. And technically Apple-supplied SSD's get native TRIM commands directly from the OS as-needed. But what's not obvious and as far as I can tell not documented anywhere is that a FULL trim doesn't get done on a regular basis, but I found a way to make it happen and its easy.

1. Boot into the recovery partition
2. Select Disk Utility
3. Highlight your main Macintosh HD (or whatever you named it, in this case "Main" is mine).
4. Run the First Aid command and let it finish.

That's it.

Notice in the dialog-running box you'll see a line item for "trimming unused blocks". This trimming operation is deeper than what can be done while you're booted from your primary drive - which makes sense since it's locked and in-use.

I noticed the first time I did this that rebooting back into normal mode was snappier and so was overall operation. So now it's part of my normal system-tuneup routine.

Cheers.