Hardware Why You Need TRIM For Your SSD

Yep, works on all deleted data. When we deleted our huge chunk of files, the folder was much too big for the recycle bin so just straight deleted. Popped a spare file into the recycle bin, emptied, and it trimed like a charm on all three dires - so no fear there.

Also - Quad-post!

 

Thanks to Baz and bogie170.

Good news indeed.

64GB M225s are now back down to £143 at Crucial UK. Sounds like a good option for a Win7 + Photoshop CS4 [only] boot drive to me )

 

Thanks for this article...............very enlightening

 

I haven't noticed any comments regarding swapping. So, given the issues with SSDs, can they be used effectively as swap drives? It seems to me that this is the ideal usage.

Thanks

 

Yeah my plan was to get 2 small drives and raid them - but it seems like geting one bigger drive will net me the same performance and storage size AND have trim.

 

Yes! For ten minutes!

No, Baz, that means they're a mature technology, if there's been three generations. Or, possibly, it means that there's been at least two generations which were unusably awful.

Hogwash. Paying that much for something that will work so briefly is absolute balls. There are no excuses for this; it's an incompetent product. It costs a fortune and will very definitely break in very short order for most users.

I'm confident that the required setup even under Windows 7 is so alarmingly specific that there are a lot of people for whom it just won't work, and, what is this - they're expressly blocking the trim command, so not only have they made a product that requires special maintenance, they're making it impossible for anyone to write the software to perform that maintenance. From what you've told us, they've engineered a product to unavoidably destroy itself. How is this in any way defensible?

 

Been using my Crucial M225 with TRIM enabled for over a month now and still performs at same speed as when I put it in my rig.

 

Great article Harry, read it all and then upgrade my firmware....just to make sure ;-)
fsutil command was very useful in checking existing SSD installations.

My experience with SSDs has been a positive one, I've not really noticed any slow downs on my Vista (Vertex SSD) box which has been running it for over a year. This machine is a HTPC so not stressed too much but it runs quieter than a Sky+ box thanks to the SSD and would recommend SSDs for these applications.
Recently built a new Win7 i7 PC and I'm getting good quiet performance out of a Crucial SSD hitting a 7.1 index on the WEI. It's great for moving large video files around. However will keep an eye on that figure to see if it worsens over the coming months, although probably better to use one of the benchmarking tools you've used.
Cheers.

 

Phil, you do tend to go a bit overboard - try to be a bit more realistic. The drives we've seen with trim are second gen and now work great. No drive will ever get performance degraded to any significant factor inside of ten minutes - the results we produced here are the result of hours of continuous writes - OK, not perfect for a server environment by any means, but for home users, which is who these drives target, there's less of an issue, and even then that's correceds by something as simple as emptying the recycle bin now thanks to trim. Even for users without trim, both the Indilinx and Samsung drives have onboard garbage collection algorithms - the drive controller makers are looking to continually and actively improve the products (well,except Intel and the X25-M G1, for which Intel should get major stick).

The product will not as you say, definitely break - otherwise partners would be up poop creek on warranties - performance degrades over time following VERY heavy use, and then can be fixed with a secure erase (or in the case intel drives, something as simple as a quick format. Partners have been working to perfect a solution, and while it doesn't yet meet every single configuration, which is no fun for those excluded, trim is here and providing a great improvement for those who have taken the plunge.

I know you're pessimistic about SSDs (to put it lightly,) and considering the numerous stipulations in using them you've every right to. But there will always be early adopters for a new technology, those looking for that next performance boost, and perhaps they don't always get a fair deal - HDDVD, SLI or CrossFire and Nvidia 3D vision spring to mind. At least the drive controller companies here are working to make there products better, supporting drives getting on for a year old. Very few SSD owners who I've met have regretted their purchase and the benefits really are tangible. Are SSDs for everyone yet? Of course not. But if you're running Windows 7 and have a half decent knowledge of what you're doing they're a fantastic boost to performance that you just can't get from a RAID0 array of hard disk drives.

 

The whole 'Trim' situation seems like such a hackish workaround to me.
It's nice to see that it works, but I'd much rather see it implemented at a lower level than the OS and certainly at a lower level than the recycle bin.
I've always detested the recycle bin and I know I'm one of many who just disables it on every new system.

Unless I've misunderstood how (and where and when) TRIM commands are sent by the OS to the drive, being expected to use the recycle bin just so that an SSD doesn't lose a chunk of its performance seems like a total pain in the ass.

I had hoped that the current generation of SSDs would be free of these kinds of frustrating flaws, but it looks as though I'll be skipping a few more generations before investing in one for any purpose.

Nevertheless, this was a great article and the followup comments have been insightful. Kudos, Harry.

 

Vertex and M225, On XP or VIsta, you can run the Wiper tool that does an Trim on free space that works on XP and Vista drive does not need to be updated as any new or 6 month old vertex or M225 supports wiper tool (but it is recommended to update the firmware any way) so its not all doom and gloom but Win7 should be good to use now, been using RC for 4-5 months now working well (apart from Nvidia drivers but that's NV fault), Note you must not of updated the Chip-set driver or install the Intel Maxrix driver or use RAID, as the Wiper tool may not work

Vertex and M225, with windows 7 its transparent on updated SSDs that support TRIM, as long as Windows standard IDE driver or AHCI driver is used (do not install the Intel Matrix or Chipset driver or Set the Bios to RAID mode)

@Zurechial and Others (short version http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=2218828&postcount=41 )
if an File is deleted or an Full format is done (win7) both uses TRIM command Low level format is not needed as long as the host is Win7 when doing an full format (and driver notes look up), this full format Should work from the Windows 7 disk as well i beleave works (sure anandtech tested that)

does not have to goto the Bin first if you Press Shift and DEL (asks to delete the file skips the bin) the NTFS driver will tell the SSD to TRIM the LBA sectors where the Item was stored when the drive is idle (but i guess it does it on the fly as well from the tests that bit-tech did samsung drives seem to suffer an little)

as they Used ATTO that norm Program norm trashed SSDs and puts them into an degraded state, but when they used up to date firmware with TRIM support drives worked normally, so the NTFS.sys is properly sending the TRIM command for any thing that is deleted so if MS word deltets its temp files it be trimmed as well or PSP as well

Quite sure that's Quite low level SSD - mobo - kernel - NTFS.sys (the TRIM command is an ATA spec command that is sent to the SSD when Supported)

(i have an S128 drive so i stuck same was as Intel users are with FIrst gen SSDs No support for TRIM command guess i could sell it and get an M225, but it seems to work well needs an Low level format still as CCcleaner Free space erase noobed it)

 

That's something, then. Thanks for clearing that up.

It'd still be nice if it occurred at a lower level than the OS though!

 

the SSD can not know what is data or not if its not been told what's what, that's what the TRIM ATA command is for and it seems like it is an low level command, not sure if you can get any more lower then the NTFS driver as it Only knows what's deleted from the HDD (or Linux file system driver that does the same thing)

 

Now that is good information. Can anyone, such as Bit-Tech, confirm that this works?

Does it work on RAIDs?

Bear in mind "does it work on RAIDs" is a two pronged question: does it work on hardware RAIDs (probably not, as literal drive commands tend not to make it through the hardware), and does it work on drives that are part of a Windows soft RAID (possibly it will if it is smart enough to let you specify drive by controller string rather than just drive letter).

 

This sounds like a comment from someone that cannot afford to buy one and has never used one.

I recently purchased the intel 160GB G2 drive and I have Windows 7 installed on it and my former HD. And there is a noticeable different when I use windows on the HD compared to the SSD.

And for so called doubters such as yourself I have people comeover and use the machine on the ssd, reboot and then the HD and they now see the difference. So you can wait a few years and I will enjoy the speed right now!

As for those with Raid 0 you will have to wait alittle longer for support. However if you one of those Raid 0 noobs who looks at synthetic benchmarks scores all day best of luck to you. There is very little use for Raid O on a consumer desktop and it doesn't benefit much, unless you are into video editing, and or move around Multigigabyte files on a regular basis. For everything else is does nothing and just makes increases the chances of a drive failure.

Anyone who is serious about Raid will be using a Hardware raid controller anyways as motherboard Raid controllers are pretty crap!

 

Much as I agree with you in the main, there are a large number of exceptions to that.

 

Very good info, well presented, delved into an issue that's relevant and current, explained thoroughly without getting unreadable... This is bit-tech at it's best. Thanks a lot for this article Baz!

@ Phil and other people who utter words like "unacceptable" and "unusable" just because they don't want to stick to the usage model: please be more realistic. You have bought a set of Formula 1 tires and are complaining that it won't make your Beetle go much faster.
Lets drag out this metaphore a bit more, you haven't bought the tires yet, just proclaimed that you won't buy them at all, yet you are still complaining. Even worse (if torturing a metaphore is covered by the Geneva convention i think i'm in trouble by now), the tires will improve performance, although they wont stay as good as it was at the starting line, you'll still be crossing the finish at much greater sspeed then you would on your stock tires. Yet you still complain.

Ok, i'm done with that now, back OT.

I'm one of those zealots running RAID, and i actually find that i have good use for it. I often frequent LAN parties, and the guys running RAID setups generally seem to be able to keep gaming while files are being shared.
Apart from that i like the huge single volume it creates, and i also enjoy the cheesecake factor of it.

I have been using a Vertex 30GB for about two weeks now. I got it cheap with the intention of selling it, but i made the mistake of wanting to try it out first. I dont think i could miss it now... It's a 1.4, so you have me convinced to update Baz cheers!

 

Grrrr - wiper.exe is mentioned in the article numerous times - I'll have to make the next one a little more succinct. The problem with wiper.exe is it's a short term solution that needs to be manually run, and from my experience isn't as effective as fullly fledged TRIM. It's something, don't get me wrong, but it's only for Indilinx based drives and even then is a pain to have to regularly manually run.

Sorry Phil, the wiper.exe won't wont on raided drives, as it finds the raid controller and not the drive controller

 

as stated 3-4 times in my own post and some others as well, the Drivers on the system must be in IDE mode or AHCI native mode with {No chip set drivers install or no Intel matrix driver or BIOS set RAID mode} for the WIper tool or TRIM support to work

 

This should not technically need to apply to soft RAIDs built in Disk Manager; I wonder if it does.

If the syntax is something like "wiper.exe c:" then you're stuffed. If there's a way to give it "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)", which there technically could be if all they need to do is issue a command, then it should be OK.