SSD units requires TRIM to maintain performance effectively after long periods of use, It seems Intel has managed to get TRIM working on a RAID 0 array with two or more SSDs connected for better performance. An update many have been waiting for a long time.
With impressive data speeds and access times SSDs have been very promising to connect in RAID 0 configurations where you in theory double up the performance, but even though the SSD market has grown there has been no TRIM support in RAID 0 under Windows 7. Intel has now released an early version of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) 11.5 driver, where it has implemented support for TRIM in RAID 0 configurations.
Tidigare uppgifter talade om att det krävdes en dator med Windows 8, samt ett Intel Z77 moderkort med BIOS som stödjer en ny form av RAID Option ROM som är kompatibel med de nya RST-drivrutinerna. Tester på bland annat rwlabs.com visar nu att TRIM mycket riktigt fungerar i RAID 0, men att man faktiskt inte behöver använda sig av Windows 8 utan att stödet även verkar fungera fint i Windows 7. Nyckeln är att Windows med de nya drivrutinerna kan se SSD-enheterna som separata volymer trots att de sitter konfigurerade i en RAID-array, vilket tillåter TRIM att aktiveras – så tills vida att enheterna stödjer TRIM från start vill säga.
SSDs in RAID 0 the configuration is identified individually with the latest drivers.
To make TRIM work in RAID 0 you need Intel’s latest RST 11.5 driver, and an updated BIOS with a RAID Option ROM version of 11.5 or higher. The latter is what we are waiting for since no motherboard manufacturer have released any official BIOS updates with the latest OROM version. We have spoken to several and leanred that they are talking to Intel and holding off until they get a green signal from Intel, but we will soon have commercial support for TRIM in RAID 0.
With constantly dropping prices for SSDs, not the least units at 120 to 128 GB capacity, working TRIM support would open up for extremely powerful storage configurations. Something we will be investigating in the future.
Worth noting is that also SandForce/LSI has rolled out a new firmware (5.0.3) that restores the TRIM support that SandForce units lost with firmware 5.0.2. This has been documented by Tweaktown.
Source: RWLabs.com
