Trim on USB3 attached SSD

[whs]

Does anybody know whether Trim would work on an USB3 attached SSD?

 

[Mashed1316]

Hey, Wolfgang, how do you have it attached to the USB3? some kind of adapter?

This is what i've found (USB3 SSD)

128GB OCZ Enyo USB3.0 Portable SSD Solid State Disk

 

[whs]

Hey, Wolfgang, how do you have it attached to the USB3? some kind of adapter?

This is what i've found (USB3 SSD)

128GB OCZ Enyo USB3.0 Portable SSD Solid State Disk

Right, it is a USB3 enclosure.

 

[Mashed1316]

Hmm.. i'm not completely sure, i haven't found anything about TRIM support for USB3 other than the link i posted but that's another story :huh:

 

[thehappyman]

Does anybody know whether Trim would work on an USB3 attached SSD?

Hi whs - USB 3.0 and SATA are both "serial data" protocols although they are electrically quite different (SATA = "Serial Advanced Technology Attachment"). So I believe they would both be transferring the same commands and data.

My guess is it will work just fine. Pretty sure about that.

 

[whs]

Does anybody know whether Trim would work on an USB3 attached SSD?

Hi whs - USB 3.0 and SATA are both "serial data" protocols although they are electrically quite different (SATA = "Serial Advanced Technology Attachment"). So I believe they would both be transferring the same commands and data.

My guess is it will work just fine. Pretty sure about that.

happyman, Thanks for the answer. I was contemplating to put a SSD into my external USB3 enclosure - mainly as workspace for video editing. But if the thing got "clogged", it would not be worth it.

 

[James Colbert]

I'd be interested in hearing how this turns out. Will SSD on a USB connection be any faster or more responsive than a mechanical drive? Will it have trim problems (a possibility you have anticipated), will there be any issues? All interesting questions. Let us know, if you don't mind.

Thanks,
James

 

[whs]

I'd be interested in hearing how this turns out. Will SSD on a USB connection be any faster or more responsive than a mechanical drive? Will it have trim problems (a possibility you have anticipated), will there be any issues? All interesting questions. Let us know, if you don't mind.

Thanks,
James

James, these are all intersting questions. I hope my finance minister approves the expense for the "experiment" - she wants to buy more crafting supplies. Can a SSD compete against that?

I was looking at this one. At least it does not cost a fortune. Before I bought Vertex and Intel, but they are more expensive. But the Agility has good specs.

 

[Phone Man]

I know that OCZ SSD's have what they call Garbage Collection which does the same job as Trim. It keeps a log of "dirty" pages and zeros them when idle. On SATA interface Trim only works with ACHI mode and not IDE mode. Don't have a clue if it works on USB or not. More research is needed.

Jim

 

[James Colbert]

I'd be interested in hearing how this turns out. Will SSD on a USB connection be any faster or more responsive than a mechanical drive? Will it have trim problems (a possibility you have anticipated), will there be any issues? All interesting questions. Let us know, if you don't mind.

Thanks,
James

James, these are all intersting questions. I hope my finance minister approves the expense for the "experiment" - she wants to buy more crafting supplies. Can a SSD compete against that?

I was looking at this one. At least it does not cost a fortune. Before I bought Vertex and Intel, but they are more expensive. But the Agility has good specs.

I hear good things about OCZ. I have yet to try SSD (I have so many satas I am using them as bare drive backups).

Plus, I am renovating my office space now, so I must be selective with my expenses. Perhaps your Finance Minister would care to make a donation...it's a much more worthy cause than yet another computer component for you.

James

 

[whs]

No way James. She is sitting on the purse - all her 95 pounds.

 

[thehappyman]

OCZ does support TRIM, at least on the Drives they have now. I have a 240 GB Vertex 2 and it does indeed support TRIM. It's also quite fast (270 - 280 Mb/sec read and write times according to the ATTO disk benchmarking utility). Windows gave it a WEI of 7.8 when it was brand new. Now 6 months later after heavy use the WEI has dropped down to 7.7

But whats especially important are the seek times - they are very, very fast. Try .1 msec - yes thats a seek time of 100 microseconds !!!!!! Puts any hard drive to shame (the data transfer rate does too).

And all the SSD features should work whether its attached via SATA or USB. The SATA and USB 3.0 differ a bit on the speed but they are both serial protocols so the commands (ie - TRIM) and the data passed along the serial link should still be the same (logically, not electrically).

We indeed live in exciting times.

Now I hear OCZ has come out with a Vertex 3 with even faster read/write times
WoW

 

[Cr00zng]

The TRIM is an ATA specification and dependent on the operating system, the latest versions of Linux and Win 7 support TRIM natively. Once the OS recognizes the SSD drive, it'll issue the the TRIM command to the device and the chances are that it'll do so on the USB based SSD as well.

The USB 3.0 SSD, like the OCZ Enyo, is better off with garbage collection (GC) in the firmware and making it independent from the operating system. Will the TRIM also work for the Enyo when it is plugged in a USB 3.0 port on Windows 7? That's a good question and my guess is that the answer is yes.

Windows 7 issuing the TRIM command to an SSD drive is a one-way communication, the OS does not care if the device is acting upon the command. For example the Marvell chipset based SATA 3.0 ports do not support the TRIM command. As such, my SSD drive never actually receives the command. The drive does have GC on the other hand, which works just fine.

Both the SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 utilizes the 8b/10b encoding for transferring data between the device and host. Since it is the same encoding, the chances are that electronically they are probably the same. Keep in mind that the USB 3.0 does not use hub based communication like the USB 2.0 devices did, at least in high speed mode. While the USB 3.0 does have a pair of non-high speed wires for backward comparability hub/broadcast, the high speed requires two pairs of wires that uses direct protocol to host.