Driver question for X25M-G2 80GB Windows 7

[idata]

I am suspecting that my clean Windows 7 installation (with BIOS AHCI enabled priorly) doesn't support trim function. My drive is connected to Intel ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller, using driver file iaStor.sys. As far as I understand, this is not Windows' native AHCI driver. I am suspecting Thinkpad Update for installing Intel drivers automatically.

Can I correct this issue? If there is no way, what am I losing by not having the trim function?

Below is a screenshot of my Device Manager:

Thanks!

K.

[idata]

Your suspicions look correct if you see it is using iaStor.sys and you did not install this. Correct, it's not the native driver. The current (released) version of the Intel driver doesn't support TRIM. You will need to run the toolbox to manually trim your drive or set a schedule for the utility to do so for you, for the time being.

Alternative 1) remove the current driver and revert to msahci (native win7).

Alternative 2) use toolbox as mentioned to manually trim your drive. Update to the newer Intel RST drivers (either the pre-released ones, or wait until they officially released) which are reportedly at WHQL stage and support TRIM.

[idata · Accepted solution]

I wouldn't call the Intel drivers an issue or think of them as a problem. You'll have better performance versus the MS drivers for one. Running TRIM on a schedule works just fine. I'd stick with the Intel drivers and update if and when a TRIM enabled Intel driver is released.

what am I losing by not having the trim function?

Well, as above, you are not exactly 'losing' TRIM. Having it run in the background without user input is more convenient of course, but provided you schedule frequently enough you shouldn't notice any adverse effects. Many of us were running these drives prior to any TRIM support without any significant performance degradation. It's great that we have TRIM support now but I do feel it was previously blown out of proportion as some huge problem. Even without TRIM the Intel drives perform extremely well compared to many competitors when in a used state, and any loss of performance was mainly felt only when running synthetic benchmarks.

In short, don't worry about this, add a Toolbox schedule, and hopefully we'll see full TRIM support in the Intel drivers soon.

[idata]

Thanks, Ozz and Ziggy! I already have the SSD Toolbox installed. I will just add a scheduled trim into it as you suggested!

Thanks again!

K.