How to check if TRIM is enabled and active?

Subject says it all. And, no, I am not looking for that fsutil command. As far as I can tell this is near-useless when trying to find out if TRIM is, in fact, being used by the OS. So, does anyone know of any easy-to-use utilities, that are compatible with any brand SSD, and also work with RAID configurations, that can positively identify whether or not TRIM is active?

Short of using a low-level disk editor, I mean, if possible. Barring that, does anyone know of a good disk editor that I could use for this job, including instructions of how to accomplish what I want?

P.S.: Sorry, I forgot to mention that the OS I am using is Windows 7 x64.

 

I looked for something as well and didn't find anything that was manufacturer agnostic. If you have an Intel SSD, their toolbox will at the very least allow you to initiate TRIM. I think Samsung SSDs have something similar, but for the other brands, I haven't found anything yet.

Maybe Anvil Storage Utilities: Anvil's Storage Utilities. I'm not certain whether it will detect whether TRIM is active, but it looks like you can send the TRIM command to te SSD at the very least. I haven't tested that software by the way.

I know of nothing that works with RAID though.

 

Description of an easy TRIM test method

www.station-drivers.com • Afficher le sujet - Tuto: Easy TRIM test method

 

Open CMD with administrative right, then write:
fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
if result is = 0, then Trim is enabled.

 

That will tell you if the OS is sending TRIM commands, but nothing about if the hardware actually processes said TRIM commands.

 

See part 3 here Guide FW Flashing Tips - Windows 7 tracking ATA trim
Good question, BTW

 

Actually within Windows 7, just as Greg says, this will tell you that Windows is sending TRIM commands when deleting LBAs.

However, If you want to know if the device is processing those, then I think WhatsthePoint's post may be the only way.

 

In the article linked below the site uses a different method to test Trin on a R0 array although I think the hex editor method is a better test.

RAID0 TRIM Another Look

 

Some excellent finds here by a number of people. Thanks to all who have helped, I have repped all of you. With one exception, your posts were exactly what I had been looking for. As an update, I now have a modded ROM flasher for my M6400, so I should be able to get RAID with TRIM working on this machine. I just don't dare yet do the actual flash. This is a mission-critical machine, and I cannot afford to loose it at this time of the year. I will try this later in the spring, however, and report back.

 

Pirx, I am very curious to seeing a comparison (productivity - not benchmarks) of your current setup to your 'modded' setup.

This is something I would be willing to try (not for RAID capabilities - but simply to have the OROM be the proper version for the latest IRST drivers for the best compatibility and performance).

Keep us posted and Good luck!

 

tiller,

What is the version of chipset of your target mobo?

 

jclausius, I have no method to check actually - but it was bought a year ago so I don't expect it to be too current (HP Pavilion dv7-6197ca).

 

Out of curiosity, if you're not going to be worried about RAID, why bother upgrading the OROM portion? In other words, the way I understand it, the Optional ROM is the "Fake RAID" controller portion of your BIOS? If you're not going to be running RAID, the latest drivers should work just fine w/ the rest of your controller.

 

I'm not sure if that is accurate - the latest drivers need the latest OROM to work 100% properly (and as fast as possible) if I understand it right?

 

I guess that is my question. If the first part of OROM is "Optional," and the 2nd part of the ROM is specifically for fake RAID, why would the drivers need any of this, especially if your not even using RAID?

 

How I see it is that RAID or not, the OROM and the IRST still has to work in tandem - but I could be wrong. Hmmm... more questions than answers!

I'll have to look into this further with my own testing (maybe a few weeks before I'll have the time).

 

I wish Intel's public documentation was a little more transparent on these issues. Let us know what you find.

 

Here's what Fernando @ win-lite.de says:

AHCI and RAID systems generally will work at its best, when the in-use RAID ROM module (="firmware" of the AHCI/RAID Controller) and the in-use AHCI/RAID drivers belong to the same generation (for Intel: MSM/RST/RSTe) and - if possible - to the same version series (e.g. Intel MSM v8.9 or Intel RST v10.1).

Unfortunately there are some technical limitations, because the actual PCI ROM modules are not fully backwards compatible. Only the owners of a brandnew mainboard or pc can be sure, that the newest PCI ROM version definitively will work. As a consequence users with an older hardware configuration have to find out themselves (or by a Google search) the last PCI ROM version, which is suitable for their mainboard/system.

Users, who have flashed a BIOS with an uncompatible Intel RAID ROM version, probably will not be able to run and/or to use the Intel RAID ROM Utility (by hitting CTRL+I), but usually this problem can be solved by reflashing the original BIOS.

BIOS-Modding: How to update PCI ROM modules of an AMI/Phoenix/Award BIOS - BIOS/BIOS-Modding - Win-Lite Forum

 

If I understand this correctly, the OROM in the BIOS may not be backwards compatible due to variations even within the same chipset family. Am I misinterpreting this?

 

TRIMcheck: A FREEWARE TRIM TESTER

When executed for the first time it will write on specific sectors on the SSD. It will then delete the written data and exit. When you run it a second time a minute later, it will try to read the exact same sectors. When TRIM works you'll get zeroes on the sectors it wrote, plus a notification that TRIM works. If the data is still there you'll be notified that TRIM is not working. This is good for cases where certain software use cheap workarounds that cripple TRIM in order to ensure SSD compatibility. In such cases fsutil will still show that TRIM is enabled, regardless if it really works or not. With this proggie you'll know for sure.

This program has no GUI, it runs in a command prompt window. You must copy it on the SSD that you are testing and run it twice, waiting for at least 30 seconds to a minute between runs in order to ensure accurate results.

Get it here:

Index of /trimcheck

 

Thanks for the post. However, a bit confused at this statement...

Unless something runs as ADMIN on Win 7 and disables this within the OS, not sure how a piece of software could stop the OS from sending TRIM commands along with any delete.

In any case, thanks for the followup.

 

The free HWiNFO program shows what chipset you have, and also a lot of other useful stuff. Latest version is 4.12

Download it at: HWiNFO, HWiNFO32 & HWiNFO64 - Hardware Information and Analysis Tools

 

Trimcheck v0.4 released by cybershadow

Index of /trimcheck

 

Trimcheck v0.6 was released by cybershadow on March 23,2014

Index of /trimcheck