Does the automatic trim really work ?

[OPLIC]

Two weeks ago I have successfully updated the firmware of my brand new Intel X25 G2 80GB (to 02HA). I set the ICH9R to AHCI and then installed my brand new Windows 7 OS. I have checked that my ssd was using the MS AHCI driver. So according to Intel, everything was ok to make automatic trim work : 02HA firmware + MS ACHI driver + windows 7.

Two weeks after, all my softwares were installed on my ssd (10 GB are free now). I launched Crystal diskmark and I had only 30 MB/s for the "4k write". All the other tests ( 512 k read/write, sequential read/write and 4k read) were also a bit disappointed (but fortunately not as much as the 4k write).

So I launched the Intel SSD toolbox and ran the ssd optimizer (manual trim). And yes, after that, my ssd is like brand new : 70 MB for the 4k write... (the other values are also higher).

So, does the automatic trim really do its job ? How can I check that it is really active ?

[idata]

Yes, I have "Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller listed in Device Manager ".

I also have 3 "ATA channel 0" ports and 3 "ATA channel 1" ports, this does NOT make sense, I should only have 1 of each....

Maybe I should delete and rescan them ?

Also my SSD is in SATA port0 and the last of the ATA channel 0 ports has someting installed with DMA disable... could you pls see if u have DMA enable, also it says its working in PIO mode 4... thats strange...

Think i'm going to delete this and rescan....

Under driver details I have msahci:

Thanks for help.

[idata]

I deleted the 3 ports and after rescan windows installs them back.

My MB is asus P5B Deluxe, it has 6 sata ports on ICH8R and 2 SATA ports on another onboard JMicron controler.

I can only guess that 3x "ata channel 0", must be 1sata port0 for intel, 1sata port0 for JMicron and 1 IDE port0 for IDE (JMicron).

Same thing for the 3x "ata channel 1".

[idata]

The intel drive is in PIO mode 4, I cant enable DMA, I check DMA box and do OK, but when I look again the setting is allways empty.

Is this ok?

Other SATA HardDisk is in UDMA-2

The 2 DVD-recorders are in UDMA-4 (Ultra DMA Mode 4)

Intel SSD:

[VPent]

Hi Mr. Wolf,

It seems that each MB manufacturer, and even each model of same MB manufacturer, implements SATA/IDE/AHCI/RAID modes of its own way; it also seems that Windows may have some issues with SATA mode.

That said, i have an ASUS Rampage II Extreme MB (ICH10R) and my 2 intel drives (one G1 and the other G2), in AHCI configuration, have exactly the same Avanced Settings properties your drive shows: the Device Manager says they are on PIO Mode 4 and it's impossible to enable DMA mode.

Interestingly, the Info section of HD Tune says the drives are in UDMA Mode 6 (Ultra ATA/133) and CristalDiskInfo informs SATA/300, like yours, so i think the drives (mine and yours) are operating in correct modes, and the odd drives properties the Device Manager shows are "eccentrities" of W7/MB implementation of SATA.

By the way, if you are not using the JMicron controler ports (Sata or IDE) i suggest you disable it on BIOS for there is less chance of any unwanted interaction between modes and shorter boot time.

regards,

valdir

[idata]

Hi Valdir,

Thanks for verifying your configuration, as you say it must be a "normal" behavior for windows with this drive.

I wonder if it's using dma, but the drive has SATA2 speed and there is no cpu load so no complaints here.

When intel releases trim supporting drivers, i'm going to try them anyway.