Maintaining TRIM compatibility with dual boot

[skyblaster]

With Ubuntu 10.10 just around the corner (Kernel 2.6.35 supporting TRIM), I'm about the pull the trigger on a Vertex 2 120GB. The plan is to partition 1/3 for Windows 7 Pro 64bit and the other 2/3 for Ubuntu.

There is plenty of documentation here to aid in verifying TRIM in Windows, but what about Linux? Am I to just assume it's working because of the newer kernel, or are there any benchmarking utilities available? I'm not too worried because of the GC features of this particular drive, but I'm curious non the less.

I was going to wait for Intel's 25nm drives to show up, but I've been waiting long enough to make the switch from spindle and can't wait any longer. Especially with the current $/GB of the Vertex 2!

EDIT: Also if anyone here is running on a P5W DH Deluxe, could you please tell me which bios works best for AHCI settings. I'm not at home, so I don't know what I'm running or what the options are. Cheers!

 

[skyblaster]

I didn't realize there was a benchmark tool built into the Disk Utility. Sweet!
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1564937&page=2

 

[Fallen Kell]

I honestly don't know how you will keep trim working under dual boot. Unlike HDD, I do not believe that partitions are actually set aside specific chunks of space (i.e. in a HDD, the partition consists of cylinders 1 to X), but they are more like a quota (i.e. doesn't care where the data is stored, it just keeps a size count and once that is reached, it says no more space available). Since the data would be anywhere on the disk, I don't know how the OS will be able to keep track of which data is its own and which data is the other OS's, so it wouldn't know what it can mark to trim....

 

[skyblaster]

Thanks Fallen Kell!

I just picked up a 120GB Patriot Inferno for a steal ($199CDN + $30MIR), so if this is true I guess I'll just partition the full 120GB for Ubuntu and throw Windows 7 on a platter drive.