On 1/3/2013 1:20 AM, Russel Winder wrote:
(*) SSD should have all the flashing management algorithms built in to the firmware, the OS should not be able to distinguish an SSD from a random access sequence of bytes accessed as a SATA device. We were using flash devices in 2004 when all this was already sorted.
This is incorrect. Google SSD TRIM for why. The short version is yes, SSD drives will work without TRIM, but will run slowly. Operating system TRIM support is necessary for fast SSD operation. TRIM is how the operating system tells the SSD drive that certain blocks no longer contain useful data, and can be recycled.
The normal non-TRIM behavior is the only way the drive finds out that blocks are no longer used is when a write is issued for them.
Windows 7 has TRIM support, Windows XP does not. I have an SSD drive in an XP machine, it runs as slow as a spinning disk. An SSD in Win7, with TRIM, runs like lightning.
