TRIM: A Final Discussion
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In my "Mac SSD" thread, the final determination was decided by this comment:
"But if you find yourself in a situation where TRIM isn’t available, don’t panic—it’s nice to have, but it isn’t a requirement."But all the reading I did got me to thinking. Do we really need TRIM, ever?
Most of the manufacturers these days say their SSD technology eliminates the need for TRIM. Do we believe that?
And what about in a server scenario, where the drive is behind a RAID card. Is TRIM even viable in this scenario?
ML is the place for all storage answers. So what is the answer here?
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TRIM (garbage collection) just makes SSD's run faster (or as fast as they should to begin with) and IIRC possibly longer life as wear levelling works better. It's not at all required for their use or operation.
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Most of the manufacturers these days say their SSD technology eliminates the need for TRIM. Do we believe that?
I don't know for sure, but it's totally possible this is being done by the controller on the SSD. I think this would be an optimal solution as the OS is for OS'ing and the SSD is for SSD'ing.
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@BRRABill said:
And what about in a server scenario, where the drive is behind a RAID card. Is TRIM even viable in this scenario?
I think we'll see RAID cards support TRIM soon.
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Way to drive the post count up!
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@BRRABill I do my part
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@MattSpeller said:
@BRRABill I do my part
...you always show up in the discussions aboot trim.... oh, wait is that some kind of acronym?
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@RojoLoco said:
@MattSpeller said:
@BRRABill I do my part
...you always show up in the discussions aboot trim.... oh, wait is that some kind of acronym?
I'll let you know when I have a suitably witty backronym for TRIM
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The part of that thread that you did not grasp, is that TRIM makes garbage collection more efficient. It is always better to be more efficient.
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Efficient good. Inefficient less good.
I think the thing is that TRIM is good, but TRIM might not be needed. Lots of things are good but not needed. RAID 10 is faster and safer than RAID 6, but do we need the amount better that it is? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's better, technically, but does it meet the business needs best? Sometimes.
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@JaredBusch said:
The part of that thread that you did not grasp, is that TRIM makes garbage collection more efficient. It is always better to be more efficient.
I understand that.
But when SSD Manufacturer X says "you don't need OS TRIM ... our drives do garbage collection anyway, and do it better than the OS" ... are we to believe that?
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@BRRABill I usually wait for some enterprising person with free time to test it
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@MattSpeller said:
@BRRABill I usually wait for some enterprising person with free time to test it
Yes, but then 10 people do that, and write 10 different articles discounting each others findings.
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@BRRABill said:
@MattSpeller said:
@BRRABill I usually wait for some enterprising person with free time to test it
Yes, but then 10 people do that, and write 10 different articles discounting each others findings.
If they all agreed we'd have nothing to bicker about - be thankful
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@MattSpeller said:
If they all agreed we'd have nothing to bicker about - be thankful
I don't like bickering.
I'd prefer for us all to sit around, drinks in hand, and discuss how awesome TechnologyX is.
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BTW: I reached out to Cameron at Kingston about this, just to get a manufacturer's opinion. (I also invited him to join the forum as Kingston has been very helpful with demos and stuff.) Same as what the experts here have said.
He said:
TRIM is not as critical today as it was several years ago. The SSD controllers now do a good job at garbage collection which is effectively trying to accomplish the same thing by trying to keep the invalid data areas empty for new writes to come in efficiently. We've studied the performance affects of TRIM in our labs here at Kingston and have found that most reputable SSD manufacturers today are making SSD's that perform well whether TRIM is enabled or not on the operating system.TRIM support is definitely necessary from a marketing standpoint but less necessary from a technical stand point at this point in time.
