cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Intel Matrix Storage + SSD TRIM Pass-through?

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Hello!

I would like to know if Intel is aware of the issues with SSD's and RAID arrays regarding the lack of TRIM capability. More and more SSD drives support the block cleaning/optimising method aka. TRIM. Windows 7 has the operating system level support for it. As far as the user useres his SSD's in normal SATA/Legacy IDE mode this TRIM methid works because the OS can send the TRIM method calls directly to the drive itself. But if the user's SSD drives are in a RAID0 array TRIM capabilities are gone, because the Intel RAID controller does not pass through the TRIM method calls.

My question is that whether Intel is aware of this problem and if is there any effort to solve this issue? Are we seeing any driver updates soon?

Thank you indavance!

Regards

22 REPLIES 22

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

I don't feel there's any reason to avoid posting links or referencing information which is applicable to this topic, even if it's from another company or product. Perhaps it needs to be pointed out to those who need to know.

We never know - Intel might follow up with a response which reads something like, "Our drives won't require 'trim' support because they already perform internal optimizations, or they will in the next firmware release."

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Well gentlemen, 5 months have passed since you began your interesting discussion/debate regarding TRIM and RAID. Intel firmware updates and Windows 7 have since been released. Any new performance data or changed opinions? I'm planning on implementing RAID-1 (for redundancy not performance) probably using two Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G2 SSD's for a new Win 7 Pro 64bit system I'm building. Motherboard will be Intel DP55KG.

I was definitely planning to implement TRIM if the onboard RAID controller will pass it through, but now I'm not sure. Most daily writes (temp, paging, backups, etc, will be going to RAM drive and/or a 1TB WD Caviar Green or Black RAID-1 disk array. Low noise, reliability and energy efficiency are more important than performance for me although read performance from the SSD RAID-1 array should be phenomenal--especially for home use.

DZand
Contributor III

1. None of the "Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager" (MSM) driver versions do support the Trim command.

2. I don't think, that Intel will ever release an MSM driver, which passes the Trim command, because the MSM drivers will be outdated very soon.

3. Obviously Intel is planning to release in the near future a completely new AHCI and RAID driver generation named "Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology" (RST). The first drivers v9.5.0.1037 are already available at Station-Drivers. They are optimized for being used with SSD's and Win7.

4. What I don't know is, if the new RST drivers do already or will support Trim. That is why I started this thread:/message/74253# 74253 http://communities.intel.com/message/74253# 74253

5. The biggest problem for RAID users is the fact, that they are not able to run the Optimizer of Intel's SSD Toolbox.

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Fernando, thanks for the info on MSM and RST driver support (or lack thereof) for TRIM and the SSD optimizer toolbox. Also read your thread (74253). Hope Intel responds.

Obviously I need to do some more research. Will the new RST drivers work on Intel's DP55KG motherboard? I'd never heard of Station-Drivers before. Looks like a French website. Do they have a reputation for getting drivers before everyone else?

DZand
Contributor III

steppinwolf schrieb:

Fernando, thanks for the info on MSM and RST driver support (or lack thereof) for TRIM and the SSD optimizer toolbox. Also read your thread (74253). Hope Intel responds.

Obviously I need to do some more research. Will the new RST drivers work on Intel's DP55KG motherboard? I'd never heard of Station-Drivers before. Looks like a French website. Do they have a reputation for getting drivers before everyone else?

The v9.5.0.1037 RST drivers are WHQL and are running perfect with my 2x160 GB Intel X25-M SSD's in RAID0. I got a much better performance than with the latest MSM drivers. For further details you may look into this thread, where I have shown my results with these drivers (I'm sorry, it's in German language): http://www.german-winlite.de/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=3141 http://www.german-winlite.de/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=3141

Since your mainboard has a P55 chipset and the RST drivers do support all Intel Southbridges from ICH7 up, you will have no problem to get them installed.

And yes, Station-Drivers very often publish drivers, which are shown by other companies several weeks later.

Regards

Fernando