OCZ Vertex/Agility SSD "auto-TRIM"

[b4u]

Hi,

I'm looking into buying a new drive. My first SSD.

I want to boot into a Windows XP, so that I can have a rig exclusive for gaming, and to be able to install my force feedback wheel, that only has drivers for this OS (so it seems, by searching and going into many forums around).

Latter, this SSD will probably serve a silent, energy-efficient, XBMC media center box I plan to build, or just be reused in this rig, but with Windows 7.


Anyway, I'm looking into:

OCZ SSD AGILITY 4 128GB SATA III (Ref: AGT4-25SAT3-128G) 101,40 €
(420MB/300MB/58000)
http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-agility-4-sata-iii-2-5-ssd.html#overview

OCZ SSD VERTEX 4 128GB SATA III (Ref: VTX4-25SAT3-128G) 111.7€
(560MB/430MB/85000)
http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-vertex-4-sata-iii-2-5-ssd.html#overview

My build is a Sandy-bridge i5 2500K with 8Gb RAM.


At this time, I would go for the VERTEX one, but I have a question regarding TRIM support:

I heard that TRIM support is now built into the drive, so no messing with drivers in OS, which is important since Windows XP doesn't have anything about TRIM for itself.

Is it true? So the drive will optimize itself up while idle-ing in Windows XP?


I also found some disturbing info on some forum:

"The TRIM command has the potential of messing with the wear leveling algorithm, which will reduce the life of the drive.

When enough cells wear off, you will need a firmware update to restructure the drive and get it usable again."

What? Wear level? Cells wear off and a firmware to re-enable them? Something like giving a shock to the SSD to bring it to life again? What is this, or is this just some urban-myth info?



Thanks

 

[dmoney1980]

I would double check the interwebs regarding TRIM support in Win XP. Question for you though- you plan on using XP as your primary gaming OS, may I ask why? Win XP does not support the latest DirectX...If you insist on using XP, get a SSD that has good garbage collection

 

[mfenn]

There is no such thing as auto-TRIM. TRIM is a command that the OS sends to the drive to let it know that it no longer needs a certain block and the drive can erase it when it pleases.

What you're referring to is "background garbage collection" where the drive reorganizes its data during idle periods. This is necessary because during heavy writes, the drive is putting data anywhere and everywhere that it can to keep performance high. However, this is not necessarily efficient over the long term, so the drive takes advantage of idle time to clean things up.

Windows XP does not and will never support the TRIM command. There is no replacement that the drive can do itself because it doesn't know the inner workings of the file system. Some drives have better garbage collection than others, but in the end, they will all perform worse over time in a TRIM-less environment than they would in an environment with TRIM. Whether or not this actually matters depends on your exact usage pattern.

Also, no TRIM does not mess with any wear-leveling algorithm. TRIM is a suggestion to the SSD that it can erase the block whenever it wants, NOT that it must erase the block right then. In general, I would tend to disregard information whose pedigree is "I heard it on some forum".

Either one of those drives would be OK, but a TRIM-less environment is one of the few cases where I recommend a Sandforce drive. Due to the rather unique way that the Sandforce controller handles data, basically by writing less when at all possible, you don't need TRIM as much.

 

[b4u]

Well, the main reason I was looking into a WinXP build is because of drivers available to my wheel. Also I believe it would be a lighter OS for gaming, but that is just my thought generating another advantage, because I don't think I would notice any difference in gaming.

So the advantage is for me not having to buy another wheel for replacing my current one.

Another option would be to use the SSD for the working Windows 7 64bit partition, but I would prefer to clone the HDD current disk image to the SSD, and I don't know it it would work well. Would it? Or do I have to use any special precaution to make an HDD-to-SSD disk image?


And yes, "I heard it on some forum" most often equals to "some uneducated and most probably false info".

That's why I like anandtech forums so much, because people here make an effort to answer the questions and explain things. And that's great.

Thanks