SSD's and TRIM

[Jonny88]

Hi there

I'm currently upgrading my aging PC to keep it running a few more years before building a new system,

My kit is;
Asus M2N32-SLi Deluxe Mobo
Geforce 7100
AMD Athlon X2 4200+
2x Samsung F3 500GB (was in Raid 0 but now one is backup drive)
3GB DDR2 Crucial Cas 5 or 6

I like my quiet PC so I'm not wanting a faster gfx card, besides I dont play many games. I'm thinking about swapping the 4200+ for a Athlon 250 or 635 instead, but I'm going to wait until I can get a more stable BIOS that supports them.

I'm running Dual boot win xp/ suse linux, using mostly linux except for photoshop and the odd thing eg firmware upgrades and win only programs/devices.

I was going to run the 2 F3s in RAID 0, short stroked to 500GB, but Linux and Windows won't play nice and neither seems able to read the others partioning when I use RAID, so had to revert back to single drive operations.

I've seen that SSD prices have come down, and the new budget ranges appeal to me, especially the OCZ Onyx, and the kingston V series, however the only side by side review I can find is here http://www.anandtech.com/print/3756 Reading the review I would certainly pick the OCZ, but then the reviewer recommends the Kingston, didnt quite understand that, but they are the same price so I just want the better one. What are peoples opinions on these two? The Drive will be used for Windows XP C: and linux root and home (root is about 8gb MAX and home is less than 1GB) which there is plenty of room for.

My biggest query is the TRIM support, I know windows XP doesnt support TRIM, which is fine, I dont fancy any upgrade right now, but is there an app to use instead? Some sites say that you need to run an app all the time, others say you can get an app that resets the drive back to normal and you just run it every so often. Confused on this.

On the other hand Linux supports TRIM since kernel 2.6.33 which I have available to me. How do I enable TRIM? Does it work the same as in windows 7? Do I need special drivers or does the kernel just do it? Will Linux's TRIM support fix the mess that xp is going to make of my shiny new SSD??

Last thing, what is a "TRIM Pass" and how do you do it, tried googling this one and nothing is coming up, only mention I can find is to the anandtech review I linked above, where the reviewer says he ran a TRIM Pass after crapping up the drive to see how well its performance recovers

Sorry for all the questions but its new tech to me, almost there but this TRIM stuff is throwing me.

 

[Ivyforce]

but is there an app to use instead?

Yes Disk manufacturers ones are available.

How do I enable TRIM? Does it work the same as in windows 7

TRIM works automatically in win 7.
Not sure about linux but read it does work native too.

Last thing, what is a "TRIM Pass" and how do you do it

Simply put, when you delete a file of a HDD, it gets overwritten later, on a SSD the flash cell has to be emptied first and then overwritten, the SSD cant just overwrite the data like a HDD, This delay in emptying the cell before the new data goes in is what slow down the drive. TRIM finds the deleted cells and empties it out.