Current SSDs, built-in GC, and TRIM?

Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
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How does garbage collection work on the latest generation(s) of SSDs? Does their firmware handle it OK on their own, or do they still rely (entirely) on TRIM or a standalone utility to trigger it?

When I got my current SSD back in 2011, self-sufficient GC in firmware was the (unusual) exception rather than the rule, so I got a Kingston V+100 that was expressly designed for OSes without TRIM (presumably more for XP with its large still-installed base at that point, than for Vista, though apparently it was good for Macs back then, too.) At this point, I'm still using Vista (and have no intention of "upgrading" the OS on this machine), but no one's specifically marketing to older-OS users anymore. Which leaves me unsure whether it's worth getting a larger SSD to use with this machine until I build/buy a newer one. (At that point I might swap back the one I have now and use the new one on the new machine or just get another one, depending on the state of my finances when I do get around to upgrading.)

My current drive is "adequate" for my usage at 96GB, but given today's low prices, I certainly wouldn't mind the extra elbow room of a 240-50 GB or even 480-500 GB drive.
 
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Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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With most drives, in the last few years, TRIM will slightly improve performance, but is not really needed. There are always exceptions, of course.

The Samsung 850s, and basically any Sandisk or Micron/Crucial, will not need TRIM on TRIMless OSes, just enough non-sleep idle time to do magic in the background.

Always align the partitions, though. Some drives today are just terrible with unaligned partitions (which annoys me most when upgrading Dells, since their images use unaligned partitions).
 
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Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
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With most drives, in the least few years, TRIM will slightly improve performance, but is not really needed. There are always exceptions, of course.


Always align the partitions, though. Some drives today are just terrible with unaligned partitions (which annoys me most when upgrading Dells, since their images use unaligned partitions).

Many modern SSDs have utilities were you can manually trim your drive (Samsung Magician, Intel, for example) if your system can't handle it by itself.

Cerb, what kind of characteristics do misaligned partitions show? I've got a SSD I installed (in a Dell, BTW...) for a friend that is behaving kind of wonky. What is the best way to check for proper alignment? ...or prepare a drive for proper alignment prior to cloning? I use Acronis.
 

Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
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With most drives, in the least few years, TRIM will slightly improve performance, but is not really needed. There are always exceptions, of course.

The Samsung 850s, and basically any Sandisk or Micron/Crucial, will not need TRIM on TRIMless OSes, just enough non-sleep idle time to do magic in the background.
Perfect! Thanks, that's what I was hoping to hear.
 

Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
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what kind of characteristics do misaligned partitions show? I've got a SSD I installed (in a Dell, BTW...) for a friend that is behaving kind of wonky. What is the best way to check for proper alignment? ...or prepare a drive for proper alignment prior to cloning? I use Acronis.
I can't speak from personal experience, but take a look at The Impact of Misalignment on StorageReview.com.
 

Elixer

Lifer
May 7, 2002
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Cerb, what kind of characteristics do misaligned partitions show? I've got a SSD I installed (in a Dell, BTW...) for a friend that is behaving kind of wonky. What is the best way to check for proper alignment? ...or prepare a drive for proper alignment prior to cloning? I use Acronis.
You would see performance issues mainly.
 

hojnikb

Senior member
Sep 18, 2014
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With most drives, in the least few years, TRIM will slightly improve performance, but is not really needed. There are always exceptions, of course.

The Samsung 850s, and basically any Sandisk or Micron/Crucial, will not need TRIM on TRIMless OSes, just enough non-sleep idle time to do magic in the background.

Always align the partitions, though. Some drives today are just terrible with unaligned partitions (which annoys me most when upgrading Dells, since their images use unaligned partitions).

They can't do magic, if they can't tell valid data from invalid. So TRIM is still quite vital for keeping write speeds at maxium. :thumbsup:
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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Many modern SSDs have utilities were you can manually trim your drive (Samsung Magician, Intel, for example) if your system can't handle it by itself.

Cerb, what kind of characteristics do misaligned partitions show? I've got a SSD I installed (in a Dell, BTW...) for a friend that is behaving kind of wonky. What is the best way to check for proper alignment? ...or prepare a drive for proper alignment prior to cloning? I use Acronis.
Just being significantly slower at random writes, enough that it doesn't feel as snappy as the same drive on an aligned partition. Unaligned partitions end up requiring the SSD to perform read-modify-write operations, which won't be much of a problem on larger writes (only one "end" of the data has to have it done), but can make small ones take a good bit longer.
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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They can't do magic, if they can't tell valid data from invalid. So TRIM is still quite vital for keeping write speeds at maxium. :thumbsup:
They don't have to tell valid data from invalid. They just to have to organize it better than when it was initially written. Like so, only you should be giving it more time, and a lot less stressful writing.

Do recall that in 2011, many non-TRIMed SSDs could end up slower than notebook HDDs, over time. That kind of thing is long gone, and most SSDs today will maintain enough performance w/o TRIM to not be worth worrying about, including all models that are well-liked by enthusiasts (IE, you might want to avoid a V300, but a BX200 will be fine).
 
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Hellhammer

AnandTech Emeritus
Apr 25, 2011
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They don't have to tell valid data from invalid. They just to have to organize it better than when it was initially written. Like so, only you should be giving it more time, and a lot less stressful writing.

The drive isn't organizing data, it's simply deleting invalid data. A 240GB drive can only contain 240GB of valid data, but during a continuous write operation the drive will also write to the over-provisioned NAND space. However, whenever the host writes to an LBA that already contains data the drive knows that the old data is now invalid. What happens during idle time is that the drive deletes all invalid data, leaving only 240GB of valid data. As new write IOs come in, they will be written to the over-provisioned space again full speed. The slow down occurs when both the user capacity and over-provisioned space are filled, at which point the drive has to do read-modify-write cycles in order to write new data.
 

dlerious

Platinum Member
Mar 4, 2004
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Many modern SSDs have utilities were you can manually trim your drive (Samsung Magician, Intel, for example) if your system can't handle it by itself.

Cerb, what kind of characteristics do misaligned partitions show? I've got a SSD I installed (in a Dell, BTW...) for a friend that is behaving kind of wonky. What is the best way to check for proper alignment? ...or prepare a drive for proper alignment prior to cloning? I use Acronis.

For aligning partitions, I used MiniTool Partition Wizard http://www.partitionwizard.com/ . Don't remember if I could check alignment. AS-SSD will show whether alignment is good.

Edit: I always make sure I have a backup before using even though I've never had any problems. Better safe than sorry.
 
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Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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The drive isn't organizing data, it's simply deleting invalid data.
It's moving still-good data to new locations as part of that process of freeing up OP space; hence, "organizing."
 
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