The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Freeing memory cells on USB drives and SD cards?

    Discussion in 'Accessories' started by Mr.Koala, Aug 23, 2014.

  1. Mr.Koala

    Mr.Koala Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    568
    Messages:
    2,307
    Likes Received:
    566
    Trophy Points:
    131
    Triming on (S)ATA SSDs is well known, but what about those other flash type memory devices like SD/TF cards and USB drives? According to this Wiki page at least MMC/SD does support ERASE which can free cells, but how do I actually do that?

    I understand this is mostly irrelevant for typical removable media usage. Just want to know what to do if I ever use those in some unusual way.
     
    Mr.Koala, Aug 23, 2014
    #1
  2. Marksman30k

    Marksman30k Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    2,080
    Messages:
    1,068
    Likes Received:
    180
    Trophy Points:
    81
    As far as I know, no TRIM happens over USB. All of the flash management is strictly done by internal Garbage collection (in the case of the more sophisticated USB Flash drives). I'm not even sure SD cards have GC as the controller is quite limited.

    I just bought SLC flash drives for BIOS flashing etc which require repeated full drive cell wipes.
     
    Marksman30k, Aug 23, 2014
    #2
  3. Tinderbox (UK)

    Tinderbox (UK) BAKED BEAN KING

    Reputations:
    4,745
    Messages:
    8,513
    Likes Received:
    3,823
    Trophy Points:
    431
    My Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 stick has Trim at least Crystaldisk info says it has.

    EDIT: I tried the trimcheck app but it says that trim is not working :(

    John.
     
    Tinderbox (UK), Aug 23, 2014
    #3
  4. baii

    baii Sone

    Reputations:
    1,420
    Messages:
    3,925
    Likes Received:
    201
    Trophy Points:
    131
    I have real ssds on 2 fancy USB adapter and they don't trim. :eek:
     
    baii, Aug 23, 2014
    #4