Do you need to erase SSDs often to recoup performance?

Back in 2009 when that post was made, trim support was very limited. Now in 2011 a lot has changed...

Not really something you need to worry about unless you are using RAID which does not support trim.
 
Ah that's what I figured, since that is what trim is for. Thanks for the info
 
JohnleMVP said:
Back in 2009 when that post was made, trim support was very limited. Now in 2011 a lot has changed...

Not really something you need to worry about unless you are using RAID which does not support trim.
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You can also use diskeeper w/ hyperfast or similar to take care of this so even if you're running RAID it's normally needed.
 
Sandforce SSDs using 1XXX controllers need to be periodically secure erased. Depending on who you ask, it can be 3-6 months, depending on use. Basically your write speeds will take a dump when writing highly compressed data. Speaking of which, I hit this performance penalty in less than 3 months using a Vertex 2, despite following OCZ's guides.

Look at Anandtech's review of the Vertex 3 120GB drive. Also look at the 240GB Pro preview. The 120 GB drive recovers it's performance after TRIM. Not as good as the Pro review, but that's much better compared to the Vertex 2 which needs to secure erased to recover performance.
 
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jojo69 said:
How do you know for sure trim is working?
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AFAIK you can't.

You can tell if the TRIM command is being sent but you don't know if it's actually being accepted and performed.

Hopefully someone else can come along and tell me I'm wrong. :)
 
Old Hippie said:
AFAIK you can't.

You can tell if the TRIM command is being sent but you don't know if it's actually being accepted and performed.

Hopefully someone else can come along and tell me I'm wrong. :)
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I think you are correct. If there was such a tool I would have heard about it on the OCZ forum. I think Anandtech has a tool obtained from either Sandforce or OCZ that can TRIM a Sandforce drive, but this isn't available to the public.
 
How do I know if TRIM is working in Windows 7?

In the Elevated command Prompt windows, type the following:

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
Results explained below:
DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled)
DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)
 
That doesn't tell you that it is working, only that it is enabled.
 
I run Intel Gen. 2 and Crucial 300s both in RAID 0 w/o trim and they run just as fast as the day I got them. If you tune your system and dump the swap file etc. you really don't write to them much purely reads which doesn't affect performance. They can sustain 5GB a day of wrtites no problem. Thats why you should buy Intel or Crucial (Micron) stay far far away from OCZ IMO.
 
danman said:
That doesn't tell you that it is working, only that it is enabled.
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That's verging on the philosophical though :) You know your systems is properly sending them TRIM command at that point - there's nothing else you can do - you have as much "TRIM" as you are going to get. What the SSD does with it is up to the firmware, and there's not much you can do there (unless you happen to be a firmware engineer I guess).
 
jojo69 said:
How do you know for sure trim is working?
Click to expand...

Benchmark and note the write speed. Write a bunch of stuff to the drive and delete it. Benchmark again and note the speed. If the write speed is about the same, TRIM is working. If it's a lot slower, TRIM isn't working.

You could probably also write a bunch of stuff to the SSD, delete it, then look at the disk with a direct hex editor and make sure that it was showing as actually being erased (as opposed to having the remnants of the previous writes there).

The other suggested methods will tell you if it's enabled, but the only way I know of to test if it's actually working is to look for results.
 
Another tuning tip for ya, shutoff the superfetch service completely (stop it and set it to manual).
 
I am nopt recommending OCZ to the contray I say stay away. But the info in the link is good IMO, And my suggestion to tune over TRIM is right on.
 
If the drive doesn't properly report to Windows that its an SSD then Readyboost, defrag, and superfetch will not be disabled. As long as it does, all three will be for a system disk.

From the Microsoft Blog:

"If the system disk is an SSD, and the SSD performs adequately on random reads and doesn’t have glaring performance issues with random writes or flushes, then Superfetch, boot prefetching, application launch prefetching, ReadyBoost and ReadDrive will all be disabled."
 
Falcon_CMH said:
But results don't degrade immed. so thats a bad test IMO
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The degradation is immediate if you write enough.

The slowdown of SSDs occurs because NAND flash can't be overwritten like a typical platter HDD, it needs to be erased then written. When you delete a file, you're really just deleting the index information that points to the actual data on disk (this is why you need to wipe HDDs to remove any leftover data before you get rid of them). With a platter HDD, that location is marked as no longer holding data, so the next write operation can simply overwrite the old data there with the new data you're trying to save. With the NAND flash of an SSD, having that old data there means you have to first erase the old data before you can write the new data. With TRIM, the OS tells the drive to actually erase that data when you delete the file. That means you can write to the SSD immediately (without having to wait for an erase) the next time you want to save data there. Note that TRIM could just as easily be implemented on platter HDDs to provide more secure file deletion - the data would actually be removed when you delete a file (though it would probably also cause delays during the deletion).

As long as you fill up all the flash in your SSD with writes, it's a valid test to see if TRIM is working. Once all the flash has been written to, any new writes will require an erase before being able to write the data, which is what causes the slowdown. You're essentially just accelerating the slowdown process - instead of filling up the drive with writes over several months, you're doing it immediately and on purpose.
 
Falcon_CMH said:
I run Intel Gen. 2 and Crucial 300s both in RAID 0 w/o trim and they run just as fast as the day I got them. .
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I've run both those combos and am still using 2 256GB C300s in RAID0.

While the Intel G1s and G2s both lost a little "out of the box" speeds the Cucial units didn't lose one iota.

I did however use 20% overprovisioning on the Intel units.
 
danman said:
If the drive doesn't properly report to Windows that its an SSD then Readyboost, defrag, and superfetch will not be disabled. As long as it does, all three will be for a system disk.

From the Microsoft Blog:

"If the system disk is an SSD, and the SSD performs adequately on random reads and doesn’t have glaring performance issues with random writes or flushes, then Superfetch, boot prefetching, application launch prefetching, ReadyBoost and ReadDrive will all be disabled."
Click to expand...

Obviously you haven't installed an SSD with a fresh OS the blog is incorrect.
 
KENNYB said:
Sandforce SSDs need to be periodically secure erased. Depending on who you ask, it can be 3-6 months, depending on use. Basically your write speeds will take a dump when writing highly compressed data.
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why? Is there a white paper or link to this problem w/ sandforce controller?
 
InvisiBill said:
The degradation is immediate if you write enough.

The slowdown of SSDs occurs because NAND flash can't be overwritten like a typical platter HDD, it needs to be erased then written. When you delete a file, you're really just deleting the index information that points to the actual data on disk (this is why you need to wipe HDDs to remove any leftover data before you get rid of them). With a platter HDD, that location is marked as no longer holding data, so the next write operation can simply overwrite the old data there with the new data you're trying to save. With the NAND flash of an SSD, having that old data there means you have to first erase the old data before you can write the new data. With TRIM, the OS tells the drive to actually erase that data when you delete the file. That means you can write to the SSD immediately (without having to wait for an erase) the next time you want to save data there. Note that TRIM could just as easily be implemented on platter HDDs to provide more secure file deletion - the data would actually be removed when you delete a file (though it would probably also cause delays during the deletion).
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how does undelete / restore works on SSD then?
 
I just reinstalled my OS fresh on my SSD a few weeks ago. I checked and superfetch was enabled and active. I just disabled it.
 
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Happy Hopping said:
1) what about DiskKeeper? Does it work on SSD?

2) So if you accidentally delete a file, you're finish, there's no 2nd take? What about the recycle bin?

3) I currently doesn't own any SSD, so if I click DELETE on a file, what happens? The file is really gone for good? What kind of stupid technology is this?
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Seriously, I agree.

When I delete files, I don't actually want them deleted. Who in their right mind would click delete on a file, and NOT be pissed the fuck off when it was actually deleted?
 
in total commander, sometimes I accidentally highlight a file, then minutes later, I view a bunch of other files, and wanted to delete them. So now the problem is, the 1st file that I accidentally highlight got delete as well. This has happened before. W/ win 7, I just go to the recycle bin and restore that file
 
Happy Hopping said:
in total commander, sometimes I accidentally highlight a file, then minutes later, I view a bunch of other files, and wanted to delete them. So now the problem is, the 1st file that I accidentally highlight got delete as well. This has happened before. W/ win 7, I just go to the recycle bin and restore that file
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Trim has no effect on recycle bin functionality.
 
Happy Hopping said:
So all the hype that sandforce is the best is due to its SF2xxx series or is it just hype after all?
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The SF 2XXX is much better, by everything I've read and user reviews. Still, I'm wary. I don't trust OCZ one bit and they have given us many reasons to not trust them.
 
Happy Hopping said:
1) what about DiskKeeper? Does it work on SSD?

2) So if you accidentally delete a file, you're finish, there's no 2nd take? What about the recycle bin?

3) I currently doesn't own any SSD, so if I click DELETE on a file, what happens? The file is really gone for good? What kind of stupid technology is this?
Click to expand...

The file goes to the recycle bin. After you empty the recycle bin is when you may not be able to recover, aka, undelete the file.

This of course assumes that the file you are deleting fits in the recycle bin, otherwise it's immediately deleted. This behavior isn't exclusive to SSDs.
 
KENNYB said:
Sandforce SSDs using 1XXX controllers need to be periodically secure erased. Depending on who you ask, it can be 3-6 months, depending on use. Basically your write speeds will take a dump when writing highly compressed data. Speaking of which, I hit this performance penalty in less than 3 months using a Vertex 2, despite following OCZ's guides.
Click to expand...

How does wear levelling affect secure erasing a drive?
 
Tak Ne said:
How does wear levelling affect secure erasing a drive?
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I think wear leveling doesn't affect secure erasing a drive. Doing a secure erase returns the drive to a clean state. If there is already wear, secure erase isn't going to make it any better.
 
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