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

DZand
Contributor III

Win7 users with an Intel chipset mainboard and Intel X25-M 2G SSD's, who successfully have flashed the actually withdrawn Postville SSD Firmware, want to take advantage of the TRIM command support, but there still are some restrictions: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

114 REPLIES 114

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Fernando, can you tell me exactly how you set up the partitions of your hard drive. I am getting ready to build a new computer with a similar setup to yours (2 160Gb X 25's) in a RAID 0 setup. No other HDD's. I will have the 2 SSD's as RAID 0 on the ICH10R SATA ports 0 + 1 and my DVD drive on the JMicron port in IDE mode. I don't quite understand what you mean about the page file (# 3 in your list). "the page file of the OS is outside of the OS partition" and

"it is on the active partition with the bootloader and was enhanced to a size of 8.5GB"

DZand
Contributor III

acerzr2 schrieb:

Fernando, can you tell me exactly how you set up the partitions of your hard drive. I am getting ready to build a new computer with a similar setup to yours (2 160Gb X 25's) in a RAID 0 setup. No other HDD's. I will have the 2 SSD's as RAID 0 on the ICH10R SATA ports 0 + 1 and my DVD drive on the JMicron port in IDE mode. I don't quite understand what you mean about the page file (# 3 in your list). "the page file of the OS is outside of the OS partition" and

"it is on the active partition with the bootloader and was enhanced to a size of 8.5GB"

When you are going to install Windows 7 onto a brandnew hdd or SSD, Win7 Setup will automaticly create a "System reserved" extra partition with a size of 100 MB. This is the "active" partition, where Win7 Setup will put the MBR files and the bootloader. Usually Win7 does not give the "System reserved" partition a drive letter, with the consequence, that you will not see it within the Windows Explorer.

This is what I have done:

1. Connected the 2 Intel SSD's to SATA ports 1 and 2

2. Created RAID0 by using the RAID Utility

3. Booted off the Acronis Disk Director Suite Boot CD and let the tool create the following partitions:

a) the "active" Boot partition named "BOOT"(Drive C) with a size of 8,5 GB (primary partition)

b) the Win7 partition named "WIN7" (drive D) with a size of 70 GB (primary partition)

c) another primary partion named "EXTRA" with a size of 70 GB (for a second OS) and

d) an enhanced partition with a logical drive F named "DATA" and a size of 150 GB (for Data),

all of them formatted with NTFS file system

4. Booted off the Win7 DVD and let the OS being installed onto drive D (Setup didn't ask to create a System reserved separate partition)

5. Once Win7 was up, I opened the "Enhanced System Settings", disabled the pagefile of the OS partition, created a pagefile within the active boot partition (physically drive C, but virtually with another drive letter under Win7) and gave it a fixed size of 8 GB (just the same as my RAM size).

That was all I have done.

I am running my RAID with the actual RST drivers v9.5.4.1001.

Hoping that these informations may help you.

Regards

Fernando

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

does anyone know if this new v9.5.4.1001 supports trim with raid?

DZand
Contributor III

Sonic01 schrieb:

does anyone know if this new v9.5.4.1001 supports trim with raid?

I doubt it. If anyone of us users would know it, I wouldn't have started this thread.

Your question can only be answered by Intel, but the Company obviously doesn't want to do it.

Regards

Fernando

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

yes but the 9.5.4 was released after you started the thread, much more recent.

i wonder if any one has tested it?

Its a shame Intel wont give anything away but i guess they dont want to make comments that they cant make good on...