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SSD in a non-AHCI capable laptop

mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
OS: Win7

As I understand it, booting a laptop in IDE mode with an SSD means you won't get TRIM support, however the SSD will continue to do its own garbage collection routines when it is idle, however the SSD won't know that a file that has been marked as deleted by the OS equals an area to be regarded as garbage, which causes some write amplification because it will end up re-writing data that ought to be garbage transferring an old page's data (which contains both 'live' and deleted - 'ought to be garbage' - data). Hopefully I'm correct this far.

Questions:

1 - I'm used to Win7 detecting a boot SSD in AHCI mode and therefore switching off features like defragging for that drive, SuperFetch, etc. Will it do this in IDE mode?

2 - Should the laptop be treated any differently as a result of using a boot SSD in IDE mode (rather than a HDD), for example should the laptop be left on for longer to ensure that it gets to run garbage collection?

3 - Would the SSD ever figure out that 'ought to be garbage' data and process it as such at some point? Under what conditions?

I think I had thought of more questions to ask while driving home, but I can't remember what they were now 🙂
 
First off, if you are using Windows 7, and the default MSIDE.SYS disk drivers for IDE mode, you WILL get TRIM.

Second, if you re-write (over-write) a sector on the SSD, then the old data gets marked for deletion. TRIM simply marks data for deletion, without over-writing it first. So it's slightly more efficient.
 
mikeymikec said:
2 - Should the laptop be treated any differently as a result of using a boot SSD in IDE mode (rather than a HDD), for example should the laptop be left on for longer to ensure that it gets to run garbage collection?
Click to expand...
I would make sure the drive has additional provisioning. But I expect the systems you are thinking of will not see many writes on average. (office/browsing)

mikeymikec said:
3 - Would the SSD ever figure out that 'ought to be garbage' data and process it as such at some point? Under what conditions?
Click to expand...
Yes, when system tries to write data on the same location.

mikeymikec said:
I think I had thought of more questions to ask while driving home, but I can't remember what they were now 🙂
Click to expand...
It seems you are running some very aggressive garbage collection yourself 😉.
 
Just out of curiosity -- what make, model and especially processor generation is in that laptop? Would it even be possible that the CPU is dual-core?

I bought a used, refurb laptop that was released in 2007, but the controller was definitely AHCI-compliant. SATA-II, but AHCI nevertheless.
 
Vista era Pentium dual-core, however I've been through the BIOS twice, the option really isn't there.

Toshiba Equium P200. I considered checking for a BIOS upgrade, but I don't ever remember seeing AHCI appear as a result of one.
 
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mikeymikec said:
Vista era Pentium dual-core, however I've been through the BIOS twice, the option really isn't there.

Toshiba Equium P200. I considered checking for a BIOS upgrade, but I don't ever remember seeing AHCI appear as a result of one.
Click to expand...

I suppose that makes sense; my Gateway E-475M "executive class" monster-laptop was released at the end of the VISTA era.

Some folks may recall my many references to my WHS-2011 server: I built it with an old 680i nForce mobo, offering a predicament to me similar to yours, in that I definitely wanted AHCI-compliant drive configurations. I'd even discovered that formatting a disk under the nForce (NTFS) would lead to problems with my AHCI-connected drive-pool.

But in your case, if the other posters are correct, there should be no problem with using an IDE-mode-configured SSD.
 
I was a bit surprised to discover that the laptop can only do SATA 1.5Gbps 🙂

Speed Demon!

It still boots up pretty quickly with an SSD though.
 
If it's got an NVidia system chipset, then it won't support AHCI, and attempting to utilize a SATA6G SandForce Gen2-based SSD, will cause it to downshift to SATA 1 (150), rather than SATA 2 (300).
 
mikeymikec said:
BonzaiDuck was talking about his nvidia system, this one however is completely Intel.
Click to expand...

Yes . . . I digress, I suppose.

But the theme is "frustration in matching old technology to new devices."

The old NVidia-Intel feud "back in the day" is just another complication to that frustration, as the industry develops their "working groups" and "gangs-of-four" to develop cross-industry standards like AHCI. And SATA . . . 150, II and III . . .

If the OP can get TRIM with an SSD in "IDE-mode," go for it, I say!
 
I wasn't faulting you for digression btw, I was just wanting to ensure that VirtualLarry wasn't mixing up the two scenarios.
 
mikeymikec said:
I wasn't faulting you for digression btw, I was just wanting to ensure that VirtualLarry wasn't mixing up the two scenarios.
Click to expand...

Sure, but everybody knows what happens here when my fingertips meet the keyswitches. My fellow members are so very forgiving! :'(

How would he mix it up, if it weren't for my babble?
 
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