Clearing up FUD: Intel supports TRIM in ALL SSD's

[superAl1394]

I have been seeing this over and over again in the discussions about Lion's TRIM support.

ALL Intel SSD's support TRIM. There are a few models (I believe X-25m series) that had it disabled because the firmware that they shipped with had problems with their implementation. This has been fixed. A firmware update was pushed by Intel in November of 2009.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2865

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4244/intel-ssd-320-review/11

If you're not willing to take my word on it Anandtech has talked about this to great length.

If you have an older Intel SSD, I highly recommend updating your firmware. I personally have no idea if this affects data on the drive, I would suggest a few google searches on that before doing so.

TRIM support must also be present in the OS in order for the drive to use its TRIM capabilities.

Finally, a RAID will NEVER have TRIM. Ever. Because of the way RAID works TRIM, in the way it is currently implemented, cannot work. I imagine there are people hard at work fixing this, but I can only speculate.

 

[Tutorer]

The original X25-M series never got updated with a firmware that supports trim. In the X25-M product line only G2 upwards supports trim. Even the Anand article you link to says so.

I'm slightly bitter about this, because I own one ;-)

Be well.

 

[ScubaCinci]

I think the discussions have been more about the OS supporting TRIM for the drives, not the drives supporting TRIM. Virtually all but the first generation of SSDs support TRIM. If the OS doesn't pass the command, regardless if the drive supports it or not, TRIM won't happen.

It's been said (I haven't see it officially) that Apple has said that Lion will only support TRIM on Apple (OEM) installed drives. That's the real point of contention.

 

[ScubaCinci]

Finally, a RAID will NEVER have TRIM. Ever. Because of the way RAID works TRIM, in the way it is currently implemented, cannot work. I imagine there are people hard at work fixing this, but I can only speculate.

That is not true at all. TRIM does not work with RAID because the RAID controller does not pass the command. It has nothing to do with the way RAID works. I have been told that several RAID card makers are working on cards that support this.