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Hardware Why You Need TRIM For Your SSD

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Sifter3000, 4 Feb 2010.

  1. Sifter3000

    Sifter3000 I used to be somebody

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  2. yuusou

    yuusou Multimodder

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    So how exactly to I reduce performance degradation on my Eee's teeny SSD?
     
  3. DarkFear

    DarkFear What's a Dremel?

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    So this means I have to switch to Win 7 if I plan on getting a SSD in the not too distant future? Or is there any way to get Win 7 TRIM running in Vista?
     
  4. Aracos

    Aracos What's a Dremel?

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    I thought TRIM was supported in Linux kernal 2.6.28 and up as long as you're using a TRIM supported filesystem such as EXT4?

    EDIT: nvm but there is wiper.sh :thumb:

    EDIT AGAIN: How does trim work? Is it filesystem dependant? For example you have 2 NTFS partitions and one ext4 partition, would Windows 7 use the trim command and then the controller would trim the entire drive? Or is it just the partitions it see's? I have no idea how trim works ^_^
     
    Last edited: 4 Feb 2010
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  5. Jamie

    Jamie ex-Bit-Tech code junkie

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    I was going to ask a similar thing to storm20200. Does file system have any effect on TRIM or the degradation of the SSD performance? What about other Operating systems such as Linux / OSX?
     
  6. Baz

    Baz I work for Corsair

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    Trim is only supported in Win7 with NTFS atm to my knowledge - all other OS or file systems you're limited to the drive's onboard performance degradation algorithms - both the Indilinx and Samsung based drives now support this, although i've not done any significant testing using them - from what i've seen they're not as effective as trim. To my knowledge the Intel ones don't pack any garbage collection algorithms and are designed specifically for trim to keep them in shape.
     
  7. Baz

    Baz I work for Corsair

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    Trim works by telling the drive to discard the junk data once you've deleted it - it moves the contents of the cell into the cache, scrubs the junk data and then rewrites the contents with the junk space now allocated as free - think of it like permanently deleting the file. This also allows the now free space to be allocated to the drive's array of free blocks to be written to.

    SSDs shouldn't care about how they're partitioned as they wear level across all the free cells on the drive anyway to evenly distribute write cycles, and as the trim command is performed in the controller and not in the OS (which only triggers the trim command) I don't see why trim wouldn't work across multiple partitions on a drive - you'd need an NTFS partition running Windows 7 in order to trigger it though.
     
  8. Hugo

    Hugo Ex-TrustedReviews Staff

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    How does this work with the "Previous Versions" function in Windows? AFAIK that works precisely because data isn't actually deleted when you hit delete - presumably TRIM eliminates this capability?
     
  9. MeanGreeny

    MeanGreeny MeanGreeny

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    Can we roughly equate the Crucial M225 performance to any of the SSDs in this report ? [since it now also has TRIM support]

    The M225 prices have come down a lot recently and are at a more attractive price than the equivalent [in GB] OCZs
     
  10. Baz

    Baz I work for Corsair

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    Trim is triggered when you empty the recycle bin, which perma-deletes information anyway (well, unless you get some data recovery apps out)- just hitting delete won't trigger it, so won't bork your data. Once you've emptied the recycle bin though, the file is properly gone.
     
  11. phuzz

    phuzz This is a title

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    The Previous Versions functionality uses the Shadow Copy Service, which is making an actual copy of the data (well, everything that has changed). This copy is invisible to the user (and will show up as free space), but I'd assume that as far as the drive is concerned it's just more data.
    afaik as your drive starts to run out of space, windows will start to delete shadow copies to leave space for more data.
    Here is a good place to read a bit more on it, it's a pretty cool feature of windows imo.
     
  12. Aracos

    Aracos What's a Dremel?

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    So basically in theory if I was to have a NTFS patition with win7 on it then an ext4 partition and then a FAT32 partition, as long as I get windows 7 to trigger the trim command then it would trim they entire drive, that sounds alright :thumb:
     
  13. Omnituens

    Omnituens What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks for this, just in time, as about to buy 2 small vertex drives and raid them - I was not aware that TRIM does not work on raids.

    Is this a temporary thing, or will trim NEVER work on raided drives?
     
  14. Scootiep

    Scootiep Minimodder

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    I loved this review, thank you! I am currently coming away from this thinking (with the latest firmware updates) that the OCZ Vertex is the best bang for your buck drive for the average gamer out there. Does anyone feel otherwise or want to point me in the correct direction if I am wrong?
     
  15. Phil Rhodes

    Phil Rhodes Hypernobber

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    No solution at all for XP people, then?
     
  16. jrr

    jrr What's a Dremel?

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    Do any drives effectively clean themselves up passively, without the process being invoked by the OS?
     
  17. Baz

    Baz I work for Corsair

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    Crucial M225 IS an OCZ Vertex 120 - Inside they're exactly the same hardware, just a different casing. The crucial is running v1916, the OCZ V1.5 - it's the same firmware, just named differently between the different partners. Good news for M225 customers!
     
  18. Phil Rhodes

    Phil Rhodes Hypernobber

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    Well let me get this straight.

    If I buy two M225s and put them in a RAID-0, they will decrease and decrease in speed until effectively unusable.

    If I buy an M225 and use it under windows XP, it will decrease and decrease in speed until effectively unusable.

    If I buy an M225 and use it under Vista, it will decrease and decrease in speed until effectively unusable.

    If I buy an M225 and use it under Linux, unless I'm using the right combination of drivers, modules, configurations and other miscellaneous unix-style voodoo, it will decrease and decrease in speed until effectively unusable.

    In each of these cases the three hundred quid device is then perma-bricked. So let me ask.

    Are these things ever going to get fixed to the point where they actually work, in the general sense of work, which means they don't periodically require you stand on one leg in the rain performing a voodoo chant while casting bones and praying to the gods of technology? Can we have a simple bullet point list of the circumstances under which SSDs work, and circumstances under which they'll work for ten minutes then explode violently?

    My confidence in buying any SSD has never been lower.
     
  19. jrr

    jrr What's a Dremel?

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    Phil: I'm pretty sure none of the cases involves perma-bricking.

    I think we agree on the rest, though - I do not accept the new requirement of platform-specific maintenance software. I want these to work with an amount of upkeep similar to traditional hard drives - none at all. It seems like they could sacrifice a little bit of peak performance and make the drive keep itself clean *constantly* instead of performing it as a user-invoked software-controlled batch job.

    I expect they'll get there soon.
     
  20. Phil Rhodes

    Phil Rhodes Hypernobber

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    I don't think you can, at least with the approaches current TRIM commands seem to use. It relies on knowledge of what disk blocks represent data the OS might want, and what disk blocks contain true junk. The drive cannot ever know that; that's a filesystem thing, and that's the OS's job.

    Forcing the drive to take notice of things the OS should deal with on its own is dangerous for quite a number of reasons.

    P
     
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