SSD optimizer finishes in 2 seconds

[idata]

Hi.

I'm using a 160 Gb G2 ssd with 2HD firmware on Windows 7 64 bit, AHCI. I had some problems with SATA drivers (lenovo update utility installed matrix storage 7.x which doesn't support TRIM) so I installed version 9.6 drivers. But I wanted to run the SSD optimizer (v1.3) to clean up after the old driver, but as soon as it starts it exits after 2 seconds. The result is passed and green, but i'm sure it didn't do anything. It has more than 100 Gb free space and according to SMART, 180 GB was written to it. I tried to run it with the old driver but it's the same.

Thanks

A.

[idata]

Why are deciding it isn't doing its job? How much data has been deleted from drive and not already overwritten? AFAIK, all the tool has to do is pass a list of deleted blocks to firmware. The firmware will clean up in background. The tool can take a long time to run depending on restore points that may be on the drive. Also, once you install a trim driver, the drive will slowly become trimmed as you use it.

Unless you're seeing some kind of slow, stuttering writes, there's not really anything to worry about.

[idata]

SMART reports 230 GB were written to SSD, win 7 reports 87 GB free from 148 GB. I had other OS on the SSD before I installed win 7. How does the optimizer decides in 2 seconds what blocks needs to be trimmed? Blocks that were probably written by a previous 100% non trim compatile OS.

I hardly believe the firmware can receive several millions of block addresses in 2 seconds and trim them in the background without the help of a software running in the OS. Neither can I beleive the optimizer is able to create this list in 2 seconds from MFT.

I understand the SSD will be trimmed as soon as I've written and deleted at least 160 GB with the TRIM enabled driver, but that's what SSD optimizer should do if I run it by hand.

[idata]

Trim is about deleted data, not written data. How much data was deleted from the drive? Certainly nothing near 230 GB. When you installed Win7, many blocks were written to the disk. Each write was an opportunity for the drive to overwrite unknown deleted blocks, so simply installing Win7 over an old OS will take care of many of the deleted blocks.

Consider: the first OS deleted a file from LBA 1000. It didn't tell the drive, so the drive thinks LBA 1000 has data. Win7 is installed, in the process writing to LBA 1000. The SSD overwrites LBA 1000 and now it has data. There is nothing to trim here. If LBAs were never written to in the first place, then there would be nothing to trim either. Generally, the behavior that results in a lot of trimming is the deleting of small files.

It seems to me that all the Optimizer needs to do for a 160 GB drive is send down 5 million bytes (160 million KB / 4 KB clusters / 8 (bits/byte)) of bitmap data, and then the drive can clean up after the Optimizer has finished. All of this data is stored in one file on NTFS.

[idata]

"How much data was deleted from the drive?"

I don't think this is important. Maybe the ssd was full with garbage when I installed win7. Now I have trim compatible drivers, all I want is a complete cleanup once and after that trim will take care of everything.

"the first OS deleted a file from LBA 1000."

The problem is not what was deleted by the old OS. When I installed win7 and repartitioned the SSD everything was "deleted". But there was certainly no trim for this "delete". Installing win7 only trims/overwrites around 10 GB from the 150 GB.

" send down 5 million bytes (160 million KB / 4 KB clusters / 8 (bits/byte)) of bitmap data, and then the drive can clean up after the Optimizer has finished."

Is there an official statement that the firmware can trim in the background from bitmap data without the OS? I think SSD optimizer manual says it creates a file as big as the free space and simply deletes it with trim. If it can do this background trim why is the optimizer warns about several hours of work and about loosing all free space until it finises?

[idata]

You are truly making a mountain of a molehill here. TRIM takes a split second to wipe. It is not deleting data but rather wiping cells of the deleted data and should only take a split second. If it takes minutes, then you have to worry.

Let me give you an example if I may. Some people leave system restore enabled and then wonder why manually optimizing with the Toolbox takes so long. It has been learned that TRIM doesnt work well, if at all, with system restore and, as a result, you will see all the work being done and taking quite some time in a manual Optimization.

Enjoy the drive. Trust the word of the millions of others who are experiencing split second TRIM as they should.

Les

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