The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
The Wiper Tool
The only Microsoft OS with TRIM support is Windows 7. Windows XP and Vista users are out of luck when it comes to TRIM, even if your drive supports it, the OS will never send it the command. Luckily there’s a workaround, one first popularized by Indilinx - not Intel. Kudos to the Indilinx guys.
It’s called the Indilinx Wiper Tool.
The tool asks the OS for all available LBAs (free space as far as the OS is concerned), then feeds the list to the SSD and tells the drive to TRIM those LBAs - prioritizing them for cleaning. It shouldn’t touch valid data, the key word being shouldn’t. Once cleaned, with no existing data in those blocks, performance goes back to its new state.
It’s a very simple solution actually. TRIM works because the OS knows when a file is deleted and it uses the TRIM command to inform the SSD of the deletion. Don’t have OS level TRIM support? Well, just run a tool that asks the OS what locations aren’t in use any longer. You get the same result, it just takes one extra step: running the wiper tool.
See wiper.dat? It's eating up all available LBAs then telling the controller to TRIM those blocks. Clever.
I tested the Wiper Tool to make sure it worked as promised and indeed it did, I actually showed you the results at the beginning of this story. One pass of the tool and the drive went from used to new performance:
| PCMark Vantage HDD Score | New | "Used" | After TRIM/Idle GC | % of New Perf |
| OCZ Vertex Turbo (Indilinx MLC) | 26157 | 25035 | 26038 | 99.5% |
You’ll need to get the tool from your drive vendor and it currently works under both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows OSes (XP through 7). I found that it works best in IDE mode; with your controller set to RAID or AHCI I’ve seen issues where the manual trim process can easily take more than several hours. When running properly it takes a couple of minutes to trim an entire drive.
You don’t need to run the tool that often (Indilinx drives don’t drop significantly in real world performance anyway) and once we get official TRIM support, Windows 7 users won’t need to do anything at all. But until then it does provide a nice way to keep your drive fresh.
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jengeek - Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - link
As of 09-02-09 from Toshiba Direct:80GB = $243
160GB = $473
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=4...">http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=4...
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=4...">http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=4...
gfody - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
nice thank you, ordered mine from herescrew Newegg! :D
jengeek - Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - link
Both are G2, in stock and ship the next dayBoth are retail box including the installation kit
Best price I've found
ARoyalF - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link
Thank you posting that!I was going to wait out that awful price hike over at the egg.
You rock
ElderTech - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
It's difficult to imagine the amount of time and effort that went into this article, Anand. Just the clean installs of Win7 took a fair amount of extra effort, let alone the other detailed diagrams and testing involved. From an old technology advocate over many years of working to keep pace with Moore's Law in a variety of research environments, your site provides the most satisfying learning experience of all. A sincere thank you!PS: As for the availability of the G2, it pops in and out of stock at a variety of online retailers, including Newegg, of course, as well as MWave. Both had it available for a short while at $249, Newegg on Friday and MWave today, Monday. However, it's out of stock presently as of midnight, EST 9-1-09 at both, with MWave still at $249 but Newegg going from there to $279 over the weekend and now at an amazing $499! OUCH. Sounds like supply and demand gouging if the price holds when they are next available! There is also some stock available in the distributor channel from small Intel Partners, as I confirmed by calling around the Chicago area. You might give this a try tomorrow. Good luck!
blyndy - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
You really got performance anxiety because some high-profile people/sites liked your article and linked to it? It's hardly like it got printed in some prestigious science journal and the publishers are waiting on a follow-up.It was just the first time that SDD operation had been detailed in plain english from a reputable website.
Enough of this 'anthology' nonsense, I don't care if it's 1 page or 20, just tell me how some of the new SSDs perform (eg OCZ, Western Digital). You've already detailed how they work so now I want to know which ones do/will support TRIM and some details on the controller. Nothing to get anxious about.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Indeed I did get performance anxiety after the last one, I even got it after the first X25-M. It's not so much the linkage, but the feedback from all of you guys. I received more positive feedback to the last SSD article than any one prior. More than anything I don't want to let you all down and I want to make sure I live up to everyone's expectations.As far as your interests go, all three manufacturers (Indilinx, Intel and Samsung) have confirmed support for TRIM. When? I'd say all three before December.
Take care,
Anand
cacca - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
Dear Anand i really thank you for your SSD articles, the improvements in this area seem tangible.Can I ask you to test Fusion-IO & ioXtreme, i am really curious to see how this other approach performs.
I know that isn't a perfect apple to apple comparison but at least we could compare the per $ performance.
Best regards
Ca
vol7ron - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Good article.I have a follow-up question regarding your size suggestion.
In more words you say, "get the size you need," but don't these drives perform that much better in a RAIDed system?
The cost per GB isn't that much more if you're looking at getting a 160GB Intel drive, to get the 2x 80GB instead.
SSDs are more reliable than HDs and you have the benefit of more RAM. 2x 32MB for an SSD in RAID0.
Curious to hear your thoughts,
vol7ron
StraightPipe - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Since RAID cards aren't going to support TRIM commands for a while, I'd stick with a large, single SSD.Anybody ahve any experience running these cards in RAID? I'd love to put some of these in my server, but i'm terrified of lossing data through the complexities of RAID combined with SSD.
I'd love to do a simple RAID1 setup, but it looks like i may be better of waiting too.
In the mean time, these look like a mean machine for an OS disk.