New
#481
I'm rather curious as to why my speeds have fallen off a steep hill. I'm logging what are essentially 3G speeds when I know it's connected to a 6G port (with the accompanying cable). Is that normal? I mean, the drive is about 70-something percent full but does the remaining space really affect speed?
There's a firmware update available but doing so isn't an option as this is a boot drive and I really don't feel like reacquiring files and moving game saves and what have you.
Mike, do you leave your PC on so it can idle and allow TRIM to do its job daily?
With Crucial the firmware update worked fine on a drive with the OS on it, I don't know about OCZ though. If the new firmware doesn't address an issue you have, I'd skip it.
For TRIM to function the system needs to:
1. Idle on the desktop
or
2. Stay at the logon screen
for two hours or so. It cleans up the deleted files from NAND cells so they can be written to again.
Don't run too many benchmarks, they do a lot of writes to the SSD.
TRIM is a oddball function, there is actually no way to be sure its actually working, all one can do is check if the windows TRIM command is enabled and make sure AHCI is on and the drive is on a intel controller (which seem to be the requirements), there is debates whether 3rd party controllers it works or not and the reason these debates exist is because its guess work if TRIM is working. Reviewers try to guess by filling up the drive, deleting all files and then testing quickly afterwards which means in their eyes TRIM works quickly after deletion.
When I toggled the windows TRIM command on and off I havent noticed any performance differences, I think on modern drives the built in GC algorithms mean more than TRIM, also intel and samsung owners can manually TRIM their drives whenever they want using tools provided by intel and samsung. So aside from reliability I consider that the 2nd main reason to get samsung or intel.
An Intel controler is not needed for TRIM, GC is not the same and can cause Write Amplification.
GC will cause some write amplification but is necessary on SSD's designed to use it.
Without it more blocks will become used or partially used slowing write speed and eventually there is no place to write new info.
GC allows the blocks to be consolidated and others to be deleted available to be TRIM'ed when the TRIM function occurs.
Write amplification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If you look at the table in the section just above the GC at the above link marked Factors affecting the value you will note GC is a "Good" value.
The two major bad values for WA are Wear Leveling (though necessary) and Random Writes.
Random Writes are the reason running too many Benchmarks are counter productive to SSD life.
My take on things.![]()
![]()
yes he posted a link which didnt prove his point
my point was not saying TRIM was bad but more that I had no real way of knowing if the drive was actually carrying out TRIM commands, and that even if automated TRIM doesnt work samsung and intel allow manual TRIM runs that can be scheduled as well.
TRIM as I understand it just allows an SSD to know earlier which pages are invalid.
With no TRIM at all a ssd would only know a page is invalid when it gets a request to write new data to those pages, then there is a performance loss because at that point it has to the erase at the same time as the write is occuring. If TRIM works then this can be done when the drive is idle so the blocks are pre erased. According to that wiki page a drive would need some kind of GC for TRIM to be effective.
Here is some literature that might be useful for the discussion: Garbage Collection and TRIM in SSDs Explained - An SSD Primer - The SSD Review The SSD Review