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Win7 users with an Intel chipset mainboard and Intel X25-M 2G SSD's, who successfully have flashed the actually withdrawn Postville SSD Firmware, want to take advantage of the TRIM command support, but there still are some restrictions: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

[idata]

As long as the connection between the SATA Controller and the SSD uses either the generic MS IDE driver PCIIDE.SYS or the generic MS AHCI driver MSAHCI.SYS, everything will be fine regarding the Trim command support.

Except those drivers WON'T support dokh22's RAID, will they? So everything WOULDN'T really be fine, would it?

[idata]

I'm using the IastorV.sys driver, so I know that the automatic trim command won't work. But what I'm trying to confirm is whether the toolbox optimizer will work. Does the word 'trim' also refer to the toolbox optimizer's function? Or does 'trim' only refer to the command sent by the msahci.sys or pciide.sys drivers natively through windows? This is where I'm getting confused.

[idata]

TRIM is a native command in Windows 7, and will run automatically in the background using the MS AHCI drivers. The Intel Toolbox however will run this command either on a schedule or manually, which is what the optimisation feature does. This will allow you to run TRIM on your SSD using the Intel driver with your RAID configuration. It's not ideal but it does allow those of us who wish to use Intel's drivers (superior to the generic ones IMO) and / or RAID. I'm sure future revisions of Intel's storage drivers will support TRIM with the controller in RAID mode but I don't see any problem running TRIM on a schedule for now. If the alternative is to delete the RAID volume then it's a bit of a no brainer really. Just by running TRIM / Optimiser once a day I've already seen a significant improvement in write performance in synthetic benchmarks. This more than likely translates to a small difference is real world operation but TRIM is doing it's job without taking the controller out of RAID mode.

[idata]

Thanks Ziggy, all makes sense now!

[idata]

In the end, if I want to manually TRIM a single X25-M G2 connected as a non-raid member on the ICH10r while I have other 7200rpm hard drives in raid, then as soon as Intel re-releases the firmware and the Toolbox software, will I be able to setup a daily schedule where the Intel Toolbox will manually TRIM the X25-M?

If the above is not true, then is the purpose of the Intel SSD Toolbox to just be able to manually TRIM while using the Intel RAID drivers on ICH10r instead of the generic Microsoft RAID drivers as the Intel drivers give a single X25-M better performance in AHCI mode than do Microsofts?

Thanks!