Status of TRIM on Linux?

[VirtualLarry]

I heard that Linux only enables TRIM on certain whitelisted drives, instead of any drive that reports that it is supported.

 

[F1shF4t]

I just run fstrim every month, but would be interesting to know for sure.

 

[Jodell88]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives#TRIM

 

[Essence_of_War]

I heard that Linux only enables TRIM on certain whitelisted drives, instead of any drive that reports that it is supported.

On the most recent distros, I think TRIM is enabled by default on drives that support it. You can check your fstab to be sure by running:

grep discard /etc/fstab

you should see something like:

/dev/sdaX / ext4 defaults,noatime,[U][B]discard [/B][/U]

for a linux installation with trim enabled. I think you should be able to add the "discard" option manually for any drive that supports TRIM that doesn't have it enabled by default.

 

[H54]

There is a fair amount of info on the net that claims adding discard to fstab noticeably affect performance.

If you're using systemd:

sudo systemctl enable fstrim.timer && sudo systemctl start fstrim.timer

I tested disk performance before and after:

sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdx

 

[Essence_of_War]

I tested disk performance before and after:

What did you find?

 

[H54]

What did you find?

Whoops, somehow the rest of the post was cut off.

I ran several tests before and after the change. Consistently, reads were substantially higher.

run 1
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1478 MB in  3.00 seconds = 492.20 MB/sec

run 2
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1492 MB in  3.00 seconds = 497.04 MB/sec

run 3
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1496 MB in  3.00 seconds = 498.66 MB/sec

They used to be in the low to mid 400s (420-430, typically).

 

[Elixer]

I have been doing fstrim -v / monthly on the work laptop, and this time around, it reported back 56GB trimmed.
For a year, the average is around 20GB trimmed.
This SSD has 256GB, haven't seen any slow downs on it, so, I am not even sure it is worth it to add fstrim to a cron job to execute daily/weekly instead of monthly.

I am hesitant to add discard to fstab from all the bad stories about it.

 

[VinDSL]

I've tried all sorts of routines, on various sites, and this works the best for me:

https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd

My Peppermint 5 laptop (Dell ATG D630 Latitude)boots in under 10 sec and flies like the wind doing the above.

Just take your time and follow the steps. Don't leave anything out...