# Easy Way To Set noatime On El Capitan?



## RickyRozay (Dec 31, 2016)

Hi,

I've been googling how to set noatime on Mac OSX. Basically this stops the system from writing the last access time of every file (prolonging the life of your SSD), which effectively turns every read operation into a write as well.

It all seems quite complex with .plist files and XML editors, it's all a bit over my head.

Does anybody know a simpler way to do it, or could upload the .plist file?

Thanks ^_^


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## Solaris17 (Dec 31, 2016)

I honestly wouldnt worry about it. What I would worry about is if you are using an aftermarket SSD. By default SSDs with non-apple firmware do not get TRIM enabled. You must open terminal and force it.

sudo trimforce enable


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## RickyRozay (Dec 31, 2016)

Thank you, I've enabled TRIM 

It's just I have a 500GB SSD and as such it was very expensive, so I want to do my absolute best to extend it's lifespan as much as possible!


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## Frick (Dec 31, 2016)

RickyRozay said:


> Thank you, I've enabled TRIM
> 
> It's just I have a 500GB SSD and as such it was very expensive, so I want to do my absolute best to extend it's lifespan as much as possible!



Which model? The way I use my 250GB BX200 it will last +10 years (72TB).


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## RickyRozay (Dec 31, 2016)

Frick said:


> Which model? The way I use my 250GB BX200 it will last +10 years (72TB).



MacBook Pro Mid 2009


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## Frick (Dec 31, 2016)

RickyRozay said:


> MacBook Pro Mid 2009



I meant what SSD.


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## RickyRozay (Dec 31, 2016)

Frick said:


> I meant what SSD.



Ohhhhh

Crucial MX300 500GB


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## Easy Rhino (Dec 31, 2016)

Solaris17 said:


> I honestly wouldnt worry about it. What I would worry about is if you are using an aftermarket SSD. By default SSDs with non-apple firmware do not get TRIM enabled. You must open terminal and force it.
> 
> sudo trimforce enable



Oh wow I had no idea. Interesting.


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## Frick (Dec 31, 2016)

RickyRozay said:


> Ohhhhh
> 
> Crucial MX300 500GB



220TB of writes then, which is alot. It obviously depends on how you use it, but I definitely wouldn't worry about it.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 31, 2016)

Easy Rhino said:


> Oh wow I had no idea. Interesting.



I was a bit surprised myself when I checked after I repalced my macbooks HDD, thats when I looked it up and sure enough. only "Authorized" drives enable TRIM by default. On OSX you can check by looking here. This is mine as an example.

Before you force it via terminal TRIM Support will be set to "Disabled"







On actual Apple SSDs this function is automatically turned on.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 1, 2017)

Frick said:


> 220TB of writes then, which is alot. It obviously depends on how you use it, but I definitely wouldn't worry about it.



And over a 5 year period that equals out to about 123GB written per day.  It really isn't anything to worry about.  And the extremely small writes that OSX does on each file access might add up to maybe 10MB per day on a heavily used system.

People really worry way too much about the life of SSDs.  Any drive bought today will way out live its usefulness, even under heavy load.


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