Early TRIM Support on Indilinx Drives

As I already briefly mentioned, Indilinx has added support for the TRIM instruction in an early firmware for OCZ and Super Talent drives. OCZ calls this firmware 1.42 while Super Talent sticks with the Indilinx label: 1711. Unfortunately, the firmware caused data loss if you put your machine to sleep and has since been pulled from both OCZ and Super Talent's websites.

When it was available, the firmware did work:

SuperTalent UltraDrive GX 1711 4KB Random Write IOPS
Clean Drive 13.1 MB/s
Used Drive 6.93 MB/s
Used Drive After TRIM 12.9 MB/s

 

TRIM is triggered by two things it seems. Either deleting a file and emptying the recycle bin (to truly delete it) or formatting the drive. Simply deleting a partition doesn't TRIM the entire drive as I found out the hard way. During normal use, TRIM should deliver somewhere in the upper 90s in terms of percent of new performance.

There are significant limitations to TRIM at this point. The instruction only works in a supported OS (Windows 7 and some Linux builds) and only with supported drivers. Under Windows 7 that means you have to use a Microsoft made IDE or AHCI driver (you can't install chipset drivers from anyone else).

Unfortunately if you’re running an Intel controller in RAID mode (whether non-member RAID or not), Windows 7 loads Intel’s Matrix Storage Manager driver, which presently does not pass the TRIM command. Intel is working on a solution to this and I'd expect that it'll get fixed after the release of Intel's 34nm TRIM firmware in Q4 of this year.

Impact of Idle Garbage Collection OCZ Gets Clever: Agility vs. Vertex, Even Cheaper Indilinx SSDs
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  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    Intel insists it's not an artificial cap and I tend to believe the source that fed me that information.

    That being said, if it's not an artificial cap it's either:

    1) Designed that way and can't be changed without a new controller
    2) A bug and can be fixed with firmware
    3) A bug and can't be fixed without a new controller

    Or some combination of those items. We'll see :)

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Adul - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    Another fine article anand :). Keep up the good work.
  • CurseTheSky - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    This is absolutely the best article I've read in a very long time - not just from Anandtech - from anywhere.

    I've been collecting information and comparing benchmarks / testimonials for over a month, trying to help myself decide between Intel, Indilinx, and Samsung-based drives. While it was easy to see that one of the three trails the pack, it was difficult to decide if the Intel G2 or Indilinx drives were the best bang for the buck.

    This article made it all apparent: The Intel G2 drives have better random read / write performance, but worse sequential write performance. Regardless, both drives are perfectly acceptable for every day use, and the real world difference would be hardly noticeable. Now if only the Intel drives would come back in stock, close to MSRP.

    Thank you for taking the time to write the article.
  • deputc26 - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    been waiting months for this one.
  • therealnickdanger - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    Ditto! Thanks Anand! Now the big question... Intel G2 or Vertex Turbo? :) It's nice to have options!
  • Hank Scorpion - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    Anand,

    YOU ARE A LEGEND!!! go and get some good sleep, thanks for answering and allaying my fears... i appreciate all your hard work!!!!

    256GB OCZ Vertex is on the top of my list as soon as a validated Windows 7 TRIM firmware that doesnt need any work by me is organized....

    once a firmware is organised then my new machine is born.... MUHAHAHAHAHAHA
  • AbRASiON - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    Vertex Turbo is a complete rip off, Anand clearly held back saying it from offending the guy at OCZ.
    Now the other OCZ models however, could be a different story.
  • MikeZZZZ - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    I too love my Vertex. Running these things in RAID0 will blow your mind. I'm just waiting for some affordable enterprise-class drives for our servers.

    Mike
    http://solidstatedrivehome.com">http://solidstatedrivehome.com
  • JPS - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    I loved the first draft of the Anthology and this is a great follow-up. I have been running a Vertex in workstation and laptop for months know and continue to be amazed at the difference when I boot up a comparable system still running standard HDDs.
  • gigahertz20 - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link

    Another great article from Anand, now where can I get my Intel X-25M G2 :)

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