SSD - Risks of using an OS that doesn't support TRIM

Hi,

I just got an SSD !
Blazing fast, I like it.

Installed Windows 7 on it, and will install Linux really soon; I did the required optimizations for Windows 7, TRIM was enabled like it should. Disabled defrag, disabled indexation, this stuff - I decided to keep the Pagefile on the SSD, I noticed there was debate on this.

I was wondering about something... Don't ask me why, I once had Windows 2000 installed on this laptop. :P That was when I only had a HDD, and was purely a challenge thing, I wanted to see if I could get the OS to install at all on this 2011 laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad E420). I had to apply a patch and a SATA driver to the installer.
That did worked!

I however, never got any further than getting the CD-ROM to work. I have VGA 640x480, no sound, no USB, no network. I was hoping that using the Windows XP drivers *might* work, but they didn't. I did not attempted this again since a while. That was just a challenge thing...

So today I cloned Windows 2000 to my SSD, knowing the risk I'm taking, as this OS does not support TRIM, of course. I don't have much experience with SSDs, but it goes with the way files are deleted, according to what I read. TRIM would report to an SSD that files get deleted, in fact.

But what happen when Windows 2000 don't have TRIM. :P First thing I wonder, Win2K is in a small 1.5GB partition (So filled at 50% of capacity). If I play around the OS a while (Which I probably won't), and notice the absence of TRIM cause severe slowdown when the partition get close to full (Which is the same if we used Windows 7 with TRIM off?) - does this slowdown affect just the Win2K partition, or the whole disk ? In that case, could I just delete the Win2K partition, and restore it there (Guess not, not that simple) ?

Is there a way I could mimimize these effects, and avoid the slowdown to occur on my other partitions as well? I try not to boot in Win2K (Why would I, I can't do anything with no drivers.), but wanted to see the speed increase first. I was impressed, because on a HDD, startup with login would take 2 MINUTES. :O Which is ridiculously long for a blank Win2K install, while on the SDD, I jumped from 2 minutes to 10 seconds, faster than Windows 7. O__o I was thinking that the SSD would have a login delay like the HDD had, if that was a bug with the too new hardware. Anyways.

What are your thoughts on these risks? Could Windows 7, when it's loaded, be able to fix the Windows 2000 partition on his own ? :/ I just wonder about this, that could also be informative. Or, I could just put it back on the HDD, and deal with that awful 2 minutes login. :P

Thanks for the info!

essenbe said:

How about a suggestion? Install Windows 7 on the SSD and install win2K and Linux in a VM? That way you get the best of both worlds and don't have to be concerned about messing up your boot sector, which either one will do. I think you will find they both will work good. Here is a tutorial on installing Zorin (a Linux Distro) in VMware player (free for personal use). Any OS, Linux or Windows, can be installed the exact same way. Just create a folder for each OS. To back up the VM, just copy the folder, to get rid of the VM, just delete the folder.
VMware Player - Install and Setup Zorin

Thanks for your answer.

I have experience with Linux, and was using it on HDD for a long time, so I will install it on the SDD, being aware of the MBR replacement. I also have a Windows 2K image that I can just restore to a partition, so boot sector is not a issue (I can fix it, I did it multiple times).
(Once, I did a wrong manipulation, and destroyed/wiped the Windows 7 bootloader so badly that I had to perform a "nuclear holocaust" here, and restore it from scratch, because nothing else worked. https://neosmart.net/wiki/recovering...ws-bootloader/ As a consequence, I ended up with the Vista boot screen, and despite my resseaches, I found fixes to bring back the 7 bootscreen, that did not even worked on my setup. I kept the Vista bootscreen until I reinstalled 7 from scratch on SSD (Cleaner install, faster). Still, that was my fault, a stupid attempt, but glad I fixed it myself. :P )

That a was a challenge thing, so VM was not what I was looking for in this case (While it would be the best way to use Win2K, if it wasn't just for the challenge). I was curious if Win2K would simply install, it did after patching. Don't know if there would be any way to limit the SSD wear on Win2K, but I hardly ever boot on it anyway.

I wanted to ask a second question about VMs as well:
According to your reply, it sound like using VMs on the SSD is not much of an issue, I was wondering about that (I use VMware Workstation, also used to virtualisation). Sure VMs do a lot of Input/Output so that's a lot of writing for the SSD, that's a fact.

But does running an OS that doesn't support TRIM, like Win2K on VMware, cause wear to the SSD, or negligeable? I would assume it doesn't, since VMware write to a single VMDK file, is this correct (And if I'm right, the VM size will always increase, and won't drop unless you compact it with the required VMware option. So I would assume deleting files in Win2K won't cause a single problem, but I wanted to be sure about it) ?


Thanks

Good, thanks for all the informations.

I never used Linux before on a SSD, I just finished the installation and it's blazing fast too. I've read that Linux support TRIM from Kernel 2.6.33, althought it's not activated by default, and a command should be ran. Another option would be to run a scheduled TRIM with cron, which can also be activated by a simple command.

Enable TRIM On SSD (Solid-State Drives) In Ubuntu For Better Performance ~ Web Upd8: Ubuntu / Linux blog
Ubuntu Doesn?t TRIM SSDs By Default: Why Not and How To Enable It Yourself

It seems like Ubuntu 14.04, the latest version, brought TRIM by default - Actually, it "was" planned. I have 14.04, but I don't know yet if it's already activated, I'll have to check.

I remember the Dynamic VS Fixed size for virtual hard disk, I believe only VirtualBox support both dynamic and fixed. VMware would offer dynamic by default, and you can shrink the disk manually by using the "Compact" option.
I might be wrong, maybe VMware offer fixed size disks, but I haven't found this.

I would think Win2K would work better in a VM since you won't have some of the issues as you have had, I certainly can attest that XP sure does.

Yes, I have ran Windows 2000 on a VM as well, it run as it should, without a single problem. On my system with a native installation, I have VGA 640x480, no sound, no network, no USB, no VGA port. Just the CD-ROM work and I never got any further. :P Additionally, I encounter that weird issue of getting a BSOD (DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE) at shutdown... Weird. :P

Regarding your second question (no Trim). I have 2 Vista systems that run from SSDs and Vista does not support Trim. They run well, although theoretically there should be a gradual slowdown of write operations. But I did not really notice any significant slowdown of any sort. Those systems run since 2008 and 2010 - the older one on a first generation Intel that did not have Trim to start with. They are in any case way faster than when they were on the HDDs.

Thanks, that's good to know. I'll take that in consideration, while I never boot in Win2K, this "find-working-drivers" games is just too long for a simple challenge of "will-it-work". XD

On a side note, people performed a test (2008, a while ago), and noticed Windows 2000 get the most performance out of an SSD, more than any OS. Surprising. However, I realise Windows 7-8 were not out at this moment.
https://www.computerworld.com/s/arti..._state_drives_