Do Intel's new RST AHCI/RAID drivers support TRIM?

[DZand]

Win7 users with an Intel chipset mainboard and Intel X25-M 2G SSD's, who successfully have flashed the actually withdrawn Postville SSD Firmware, want to take advantage of the TRIM command support, but there still are some restrictions:

1. Intel's Matrix Storage Manager drivers (last official v8.9.0.1023) do not support the TRIM command. The only available SATA drivers, which do fully support the TRIM command, are the Win7 generic MS IDE/AHCI drivers.

2. SSD's running in "RAID Mode" neither do support the TRIM command nor can be "cleaned" by Intel's new SSD Toolbox.

So here is my question:

Do or will the upcoming Intel AHCI/RAID drivers of the Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology (RST) support the TRIM command?

I ask this, because I am already running the brandnew and WHQL certified RST driver v9.5.0.1037 (available at Station-drivers since 13th October) with my 2x160 GB Intel Postville SSD RAID0 system and got a really amazing performance boost.

Thanks in advance!

Fernando

My system:

MB: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R (P45 with Intel ICH10R Southbridge)

CPU: Intel Core2Duo E8400 (no OC)

HDD's: 2x160 GB Intel X25-M G2 as RAID0

RAM: 4x2 GB J.Skill PC2-8500

[DZand]

@ Arcticus:

You are right. There is no reason to use the generic MS drivers, because you will get the best possible performance with the Intel RST driver.

If you should ever get the feeling, that the speed is going down, you can use the Optimizer of the upcoming SSD Toolbox.

Futhermore we hopefully will get Trim supporting Intel RST drivers very soon.

[idata]

@ Fernando, do we have any benchmarks showing RST is faster than the standard Microsoft drivers that support TRIM?

[DZand]

GrantGochnauer schrieb:

@ Fernando, do we have any benchmarks showing RST is faster than the standard Microsoft drivers that support TRIM?

Since I am running my two 160 GB Postville SSD's in a RAID0 configuration, I am not able to use any generic MS IDE or AHCI driver, but I have done some benchmark comparison tests, which show, that my SSD's run much faster with the RST than with any MSM driver.

[idata]

I just ran a series of benchmarks to compare the performance of the default Microsoft Win7 driver vs. Intel MSM vs. Intel RST. I do not see a significant performance difference. I bencmarked using HD-Tune as well as Crystal Disk Mark. The crystal results are below - if you'd like to see the HD - Tune Random access, IOPS, file benchmark, and general read benchmark let me know - but like I said, no significant performance difference. This is on an ICH10R controller (asus P5Q deluxe)

MS - AHCI

MSM_8.9.0.1023

RST_9.5.0.1037

[idata]

Fernando,

I see what you are saying. But I never actually installed MSM until after my SSD was installed and i had already put the second install of windows 7 on it. So my assumption is that even if the MBR is on the RAID 0, it still used the built in drivers from Windows 7 on the new SSD...

So uninstalling the MSM should not affect this unless the old drivers that came with Windows do not get put back into place...

I think i will just wait now for the new toolkit or RST.

Thanks for the posts.