Does Intel SSDSA2MH160G2R5 Have TRIM enabled yet?

[TheBeagle]

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I've invested in a new Intel SSDSA2MH160G2R5 drive and presently I am running Win7 x64 Ultimate RTM on a Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 board. The onboard disk controller is set for RAID, and there are a pair of 2TB Western Digital drives attached to that controller in a RAID 1 array, plus three (3) other drives that are NOT designated as part of any array. The new SSD is also NOT part of the RAID array, but is attached through the onboard controller. I am using the SSD as the primary system drive.

I know that Win7 automatically supports TRIM. However, it is at best unclear as to whether or not this new 2nd Generation Intel SSD already has firmware which takes advantage of TRIM, or do I need to flash the firmware in order to get that functioning. Additionally, it is equally unclear as to whether or not the TRIM commands will function in a situation where the SSD is attached to the onboard SATA controller, which controller is set to RAID, but the SSD is not designated as a RAID drive.

If anyone has some solid (and reliable) information on all of this, I'd appreciate if you'd share it with me. I read all of Anand's postings on SSDs to date, but I don't think he addressed this exact scenario.

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle :beer:

 

[Cavicchi]

Intel has not made TRIM available for updating your firmware as of this writing. TRIM firmware update for Gen.2 SSD is expected around the release of Windows 7 or perhaps a bit later.

From reading Anand's last article on SSD, Trim will not work with Intel Matrix Storage Control driver until that has been fixed, and I assume that means by an updated driver or updated Matrix Storage Control, not sure which way Anand meant. I believe that issue with Intel's Matrix Storage driver is only for RAID either non-member or member.

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Afternoon Mr. Cavicchi,

Thanks for the comments. I suspected that might be the case, but Intel has been rather vague about all of that. Hopefully Anand or Gary will obtain some further information concerning firmware and driver updates.

Best regards. TheBeagle :beer:

 

[monkeydust]

How do you update firmware on an SSD anyway once it is available? I hope there would be no impact on data integrity of what's already on there...

 

[dfedders]

I thought Anand's article said TRIM worked today if you used the Microsoft driver instead of the Intel drivers. Maybe I read it wrong. My drive hasn't arrived up yet, so I can't test.

Edit: "Currently the Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers won?t pass the TRIM command through from Windows 7 to the drive?s controller. If you want TRIM to work at this point you need to use Microsoft?s drivers that come with Windows 7 (note that if you set Intel?s ICH to RAID, Windows 7 loads Intel?s MSM driver so that won?t work)."

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3625

 

[Mihixson]

Originally posted by: dfedders
I thought Anand's article said TRIM worked today if you used the Microsoft driver instead of the Intel drivers. Maybe I read it wrong. My drive hasn't arrived up yet, so I can't test.

Edit: "Currently the Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers won?t pass the TRIM command through from Windows 7 to the drive?s controller. If you want TRIM to work at this point you need to use Microsoft?s drivers that come with Windows 7 (note that if you set Intel?s ICH to RAID, Windows 7 loads Intel?s MSM driver so that won?t work)."

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3625

I believe even if you use the Windows 7 drivers, the drive itself will simply discard the TRIM command passed to it by the controller because it doesn't know what to do with it. Once the new firmware is released by Intel, the drive will actually process the TRIM command instead of throwing it away.

 

[Cavicchi]

Originally posted by: Mihixson

Originally posted by: dfedders
I thought Anand's article said TRIM worked today if you used the Microsoft driver instead of the Intel drivers. Maybe I read it wrong. My drive hasn't arrived up yet, so I can't test.

Edit: "Currently the Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers won?t pass the TRIM command through from Windows 7 to the drive?s controller. If you want TRIM to work at this point you need to use Microsoft?s drivers that come with Windows 7 (note that if you set Intel?s ICH to RAID, Windows 7 loads Intel?s MSM driver so that won?t work)."

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3625

I believe even if you use the Windows 7 drivers, the drive itself will simply discard the TRIM command passed to it by the controller because it doesn't know what to do with it. Once the new firmware is released by Intel, the drive will actually process the TRIM command instead of throwing it away.

Correct, the drive needs new firmware to have TRIM.

As to how the firmware will be updated, I can't say for certain, but I imagine burning ISO image to CD as with their current firmware updates.

 

[shabby]

Originally posted by: monkeydust
How do you update firmware on an SSD anyway once it is available? I hope there would be no impact on data integrity of what's already on there...

For the intel drives you burn a cd and boot from it and the drive gets flashed, data stays intact.

 

[monkeydust]

Originally posted by: shabby

Originally posted by: monkeydust
How do you update firmware on an SSD anyway once it is available? I hope there would be no impact on data integrity of what's already on there...

For the intel drives you burn a cd and boot from it and the drive gets flashed, data stays intact.

Thanks!