My SSD and TRIM

For general computer discussion & help, come here

Moderators: Bakhtosh, EvilHomer3k

Post Reply
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

My SSD and TRIM

Post by Daehawk »

So you cant defrag a SSD as you normally would a HD and instead they come with TRIM or GARBAGE colelction. Supposed to do the same job without ruining your SSD, Ive used the TRIM that came with my Samsung SSD from time to time. But it seems to do it instantly and Ive worried it does nothing actually.

To test this I only have my DeFraggler software that I use to defrag my normal drives still in my PC. So I ran DeFrag in analyze mode on the SSD to show fragged files and fragments. I then ran the drive's TRIM command software in Samsung Magician and lo and behold it didn't change the numbers at all..not a single fragment had changed.

So either it really does nothing and my drive is fragged to hell with no way to TRIM it correctly or my old type DeFrag software just cant read it right at all to start with.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
stessier
Posts: 29816
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:30 pm
Location: SC

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by stessier »

You could try following these instructions if you really think it will make a difference.
I require a reminder as to why raining arcane destruction is not an appropriate response to all of life's indignities. - Vaarsuvius
Global Steam Wishmaslist Tracking
Running____2014: 1300.55 miles____2015: 2036.13 miles____2016: 1012.75 miles____2017: 1105.82 miles____2018: 1318.91 miles__2019: 2000.00 miles
User avatar
Victoria Raverna
Posts: 5012
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 2:23 am
Location: Jakarta

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Victoria Raverna »

Daehawk wrote:So you cant defrag a SSD as you normally would a HD and instead they come with TRIM or GARBAGE colelction. Supposed to do the same job without ruining your SSD, Ive used the TRIM that came with my Samsung SSD from time to time. But it seems to do it instantly and Ive worried it does nothing actually.

To test this I only have my DeFraggler software that I use to defrag my normal drives still in my PC. So I ran DeFrag in analyze mode on the SSD to show fragged files and fragments. I then ran the drive's TRIM command software in Samsung Magician and lo and behold it didn't change the numbers at all..not a single fragment had changed.

So either it really does nothing and my drive is fragged to hell with no way to TRIM it correctly or my old type DeFrag software just cant read it right at all to start with.
Don't defrag your SSD!!!!!!

SSD doesn't require defrag and not slowed by fragmentated files. It is normal for SSD to be fragmented and you're not supposed to defrag it because you'll shorten the life of the SSD. The way SSD work is that the location that the OS think the data is stored at is not the same as the actual location in SSD. The actual location when you write something to SSD is decided by the SSD and SSD keep a table to match the virtual location (that SSD give to the OS) with the actual location on the SSD. So even if you defrag using an old defrag software that doesn't recognize SSD (can defrag SSD drive) and you see that all the files are not fragmented, the actual files are still fragmented because you only defrag the virtual location not the actual location.

TRIM doesn't defrag, what it does is to let the SSD know which data block is no longer in use (the files have been deleted) so that SSD can use those for new data. Because the way SSD work by allocating new disk write request to unused space pool, the drive need to know if a data block is no longer in use so it can add that back to the unused space pool.

If you run a newer Windows, then the built-in disk defrag software can recognize SSD and will not defrag SSD. It'll instead do TRIM process on your SSD. So it is safe to run built-in disk defrag from new Windows.

Also with newer Windows when you delete files, it'll "auto TRIM" so in theory you don't need to run TRIM tool. Running TRIM tool on those OS is only for just in case for some reason the OS failed to inform the SSD (for example: OS crashes during file deleting so the file is deleted but the OS freezed before it send the TRIM command.
User avatar
Blackhawk
Posts: 43493
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:48 pm
Location: Southwest Indiana

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Blackhawk »

Think about it this way: a traditional hard drive works like a record player. Spread the data over the disk (fragment it) and the needle has to jump all over the place to get it all. Moving the needle slows down the transfer, as it actually uses time to move.

An SSD does not have a needle. It reaches for the data and the data is dumped out.
(˙pǝsɹǝʌǝɹ uǝǝq sɐɥ ʎʇıʌɐɹƃ ʃɐuosɹǝd ʎW)
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Daehawk »

Ya I know all this guys...I thought I made that clear in my OP. Just looking for a TRIM that works. Reading online Samsung has some error in theirs and then others tested showed they really didn't do anything either. Was hoping someone knew of some software that worked better than default stuff.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by TheMix »

Daehawk wrote:Ya I know all this guys...I thought I made that clear in my OP. Just looking for a TRIM that works. Reading online Samsung has some error in theirs and then others tested showed they really didn't do anything either. Was hoping someone knew of some software that worked better than default stuff.
Except you clearly don't understand how TRIM works. As Victoria Raverna stated, TRIM doesn't change anything on the drive. So of course the drive will appear just as fragmented as before. It updates reference locations, not the actual data. So there won't be a change. So, if you understand that, why do you think that TRIM isn't working?

There is an old adage that applies here: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Why the hell are you messing with your SSD? Just the other day you posted about how fast it is. Leave it alone. Sheesh.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Daehawk »

I li9ke stuff optimized.

Found something..Auslogics Speedboost 8 and their own DiskDefragger. Its has optimization for SSD drives. Has a lot of stuff built in that I have as separate software already. I like it so far.
Last edited by Daehawk on Thu May 26, 2016 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Daehawk »

And no Im not a huge SSD informed person..just enough..its why I asked about them. But Ive been huge into hardware for 27 years and built systems for 22. Everything else I know about.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
Victoria Raverna
Posts: 5012
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 2:23 am
Location: Jakarta

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Victoria Raverna »

Daehawk wrote:I li9ke stuff optimized.

Found something..Auslogics Speedboost 8. Has a lot of stuff built in that I have as separate software already. I like it so far.
SSD has limited write cycle, the more you run tool to move stuffs around on it, the sooner it'll fail.

And also it is useless to move the data around because even if you make it look not fragmented, the data is actually stored fragmented inside SSD.

If you write to block 100 in SSD, that'll be written to a random block in SSD. Next time you write something to that location, it'll be written to another random block.

So if a defraged file use two sectors for example block 100 and 101, the actual location will not be sequential, it can be 100 is actually block 1000 and 101 is block 100. So what is the point of defragging SSD? What you see as non fragmented from outside SSD view is likely to be fragmented inside the SSD.
User avatar
Victoria Raverna
Posts: 5012
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 2:23 am
Location: Jakarta

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Victoria Raverna »

Daehawk wrote:And no Im not a huge SSD informed person..just enough..its why I asked about them. But Ive been huge into hardware for 27 years and built systems for 22. Everything else I know about.
Then read this article:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/2104 ... -ssds-work

You'll see why your knowledge of 27 years (of conventional HDD) doesn't apply to SSD.

Maybe in the future, once they perfected SSD, it'll be like HDD in term of you can decide where to write on the SSD, but right now the technology is that SSD do the translation to the actual location that have no relation to the location that OS or you as user see.
User avatar
Anonymous Bosch
Posts: 10512
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:09 pm
Location: Northern California [originally from the UK]

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

TheMix wrote:
Daehawk wrote:Ya I know all this guys...I thought I made that clear in my OP. Just looking for a TRIM that works. Reading online Samsung has some error in theirs and then others tested showed they really didn't do anything either. Was hoping someone knew of some software that worked better than default stuff.
Except you clearly don't understand how TRIM works. As Victoria Raverna stated, TRIM doesn't change anything on the drive. So of course the drive will appear just as fragmented as before. It updates reference locations, not the actual data. So there won't be a change. So, if you understand that, why do you think that TRIM isn't working?

There is an old adage that applies here: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Why the hell are you messing with your SSD? Just the other day you posted about how fast it is. Leave it alone. Sheesh.
Alas, I think another old adage may be more applicable here: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

FWIW Daehawk, I recall reading the following article from PC World a few years back, and I think it may behoove you to do the same (particularly as it contains a brief review of the Auslogic software, and the negative effects it had upon their SSD after optimization):

Fragging wonderful: The truth about defragging your SSD | PCWorld.

Here's the money quote, though:
PCWorld.com wrote:Defrag your hard drive, but leave the SSD alone

From my limited tests, I’m firmly convinced that the tiny difference that even the best SSD defragger makes is not worth reducing the life span of your SSD. Add another voice to the chorus that’s singing “Don’t defrag your SSD.”
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." — P. J. O'Rourke
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Daehawk »

From the stuff Ive read that lifespan of a SSD is all useless as it will usually outlast the usefulness of it anyways even with grueling testing done on it to see how long it lives.

This is just one article on it.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2856052/ ... fears.html
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
Victoria Raverna
Posts: 5012
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 2:23 am
Location: Jakarta

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Victoria Raverna »

Daehawk wrote:From the stuff Ive read that lifespan of a SSD is all useless as it will usually outlast the usefulness of it anyways even with grueling testing done on it to see how long it lives.

This is just one article on it.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2856052/ ... fears.html
Depend on which SSD. Samsung's SSD is not likely to fail because of write limit before you upgrade your PC with a new SSD.

But that is from normal usage, if you run defrag daily to move data around then maybe it'll fail sooner depend on when you're upgrading but probably still going to last more than 5 years.

The thing with defrag and SSD is that the software can't know actual location of the data so all you defrag is the virtual location, not the real location. Can it speed up data access, in theory it can since it can reduce the command to read from the SSD if the data is not fragmented from the view of the OS. But the speed increase is probably not worth the extra wear and tear of running defrag.

WIth HDD, defrag is useful because it speed up reading and writing data from the disk by increasing the speed of reading data from the disk (reduce head movement). With SSD, defrag can only reduce IO requests, not the actual reading data from the disk. So for example instead of 5 separate I/O requests of one block each to read from the SSD, it'll require only 1 I/O request of 1 block. That in theory can speed up the SSD access but probably not noticeable outside of a benchmark program.
User avatar
Rip
Posts: 26891
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:34 pm
Location: Cajun Country!
Contact:

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Rip »

Have you defragged your memory yet?
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Daehawk »

Rip wrote:Have you defragged your memory yet?
Never. When it seems slow I wash it in warm slightly soapy water. Always works well. Its too delicate to defrag well.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
Anonymous Bosch
Posts: 10512
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:09 pm
Location: Northern California [originally from the UK]

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Daehawk wrote:From the stuff Ive read that lifespan of a SSD is all useless as it will usually outlast the usefulness of it anyways even with grueling testing done on it to see how long it lives.
If it helps, forget about SSD longevity, and focus instead on the negligible benefit of third-party SSD optimization; the point being, it's still an abortive endeavour (particularly if you're running a modern version of Windows, whiich handles SSD optimization automatically).
Last edited by Anonymous Bosch on Thu May 26, 2016 1:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." — P. J. O'Rourke
User avatar
Rip
Posts: 26891
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:34 pm
Location: Cajun Country!
Contact:

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Rip »

I'll have a guy from Windows call you, next time he calls me. I'm sure he can optimize it for you.

:twisted:
User avatar
GreenGoo
Posts: 42239
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:46 pm
Location: Ottawa, ON

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by GreenGoo »

My understanding is that the early concerns of SSD life span are not nearly as worrying today.
User avatar
stessier
Posts: 29816
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:30 pm
Location: SC

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by stessier »

GreenGoo wrote:My understanding is that the early concerns of SSD life span are not nearly as worrying today.
Somewhere around here I linked to a test where they are surviving Petabytes worth of read/writes.
I require a reminder as to why raining arcane destruction is not an appropriate response to all of life's indignities. - Vaarsuvius
Global Steam Wishmaslist Tracking
Running____2014: 1300.55 miles____2015: 2036.13 miles____2016: 1012.75 miles____2017: 1105.82 miles____2018: 1318.91 miles__2019: 2000.00 miles
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by TheMix »

On the other hand, the controller board for the SSD can die, leaving you with a brick. I have no idea, however, whether excessive activity can speed that up...

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
gameoverman
Posts: 5908
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:21 pm
Location: Glendora, CA

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by gameoverman »

I thought SSDs are merely memory chips with small electrical charges in each cell thus allowing the storage of data even when the computer is turned off.

If so, then defragging or anything similar makes no sense, since you don't worry about defragging your computer's memory while you use it right?

I manually use TRIM on my SSD and the way I know it's doing something is because the time it takes to perform the TRIM command varies. If it was doing nothing then it'd take the same amount of time to not do it every time it did it.
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by Daehawk »

I ran defrag on it. It was so fast I ran it 20 more times. I cant tell a difference.

Im kidding..Id never do that. I just trim'd it and moved on the spinners. Those things take forever to defrag. In the old days you couldn't do anything while they defragged. If you even opened a browser the defrag either stopped or failed and you started over. Now days you can surf or play games. Not bad.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
gameoverman
Posts: 5908
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:21 pm
Location: Glendora, CA

Re: My SSD and TRIM

Post by gameoverman »

I remember I once ran a defrag on a hard disk and it was going to take something ridiculous like two or three hours. So after waiting about half the time I got impatient and tried to use the computer and it reset the defrag!

All that time wasted. I got so mad I shut the computer off.
Post Reply