Z21 / Best way to 'defrag' or 'trim' the SSD array?

SSD's supposedly need trimming or similar to keep them in top condition. I haven't noticed any degradation after about 4 months, but just curious whether it's possible/necessary.

After reading about broken raid and Sony's choice of a custom ssd array in the Z21 i'm too afraid to play around with any 'defragger' that can break it. What if Windows or a special program cannot deal with the setup?
Any tips or experiences?

 

There is garbage collection within the controller, that runs when the unit is idle so nothing to worry about Don't try any defragger or other tools, just let it run like it's supposed to. My array still pumps out over 1000MB/sec with sequential reading

 

All right!

Thanks for your quick answer

 

Intels new RST driver version 11.5 is just around the corner, I guess. Semi-official statements say that it will finally bring TRIM to RAID0 arrays. Let's see what happens.

 

I have been using a non-official driver 11.0.0.1032 for a month or so without any problems and trim is enabled according to windows 7.

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel%20raid.htm

 

Windows reports TRIM is enabled, but that doesn't mean TRIM works. The raid controller receives the command but it doesn't do anything with it.

And a newer driver won't change much to TRIM support if Sony doesn't give us a new BIOS with a new Intel Option ROM...

 

Don't worry.

Also read: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-r...dows-8-ssd-raid-trim-and-many-more/14638.html

 

I got this driver from another message board. Is there a way to check if trim works other than that fsutil query command? Someone on the board said that it works with raid.

 

It doesn't. Fsutil says nothing more than windoze acutally SENDS TRIM commands to the driver. The current driver drops these and does NOTHING. Intel itself claimed that all RST drivers don't support TRIM in RAID arrays yet. What you are misunderstanding here is that recent drivers are indeed capable of doing TRIM properly in RAID mode. It only works for drives that are not part of a RAID array. I hope you understand what I mean.

Final 11.5 drivers will bring TRIM for RAID arrays.

 

Ahh. Okay. Thanks for the clarification!

 

The question is when will Sony (and others) give us a BIOS that can;t be hacked?
Protecting Computers at Start-Up: New NIST Guidelines

 

There is always a way, especially if the brand is Sony.

 

NIST has put a lot of work into secure BIOS and is making a big push promoting widespread private sector adoption of secure technologies. None of which invalidates your statement.

 

^ I bet it takes a couple of years until consumer class notebooks get these technologies. Other than that, Sony thought that their other prestige products like the PS3 were secure which was not the case for a long time. As for me I want to make use of the products I buy and I have strong dislikes against crippled soft-/hardware and enterprises that try to force their customers to spend more by preventing them accessing liberal markets. It has just begun. U.S. Declares iPhone Jailbreaking Legal, Over Apple?s Objections | Threat Level | Wired.com

 

^The initial focus will likely be on enterprise-class infrastructure rather than consumer products. As I understand it, the focus in on adopting proven, commercialized technologies that improve security rather than limit consumer choices (or in Apple's case limiting sheep's choices).

One example, albeit internal rather than for the private sector, will be a significant push to get the government off of XP, at least by the time MS stops supporting it. It's not likely to happen, but it should.

 

Just out of curiosity: would it have any effect if you just back up all your user data (excluding programs and the likes) , delete them and then put it all back then at once?
I can imagine it would restore everything a lot less messy

 

If you make an image (with Ghost for example), do a secure erase and then put the image back it will help a tiny bit. But the Z has excellent garbage collection, and doing that would be a complete waste of time if you ask me.

 

I've actually gone through this for testing purposes (imaged the laptop, broke RAID array, secure erased drives, created new array, recovered image), so I can confirm your comment. Other than wasting NAND cell write cycles, this does not give write speed improvements. For privacy reasons, I recommend this procedure over zero'ing the drives.

 

All right, thanks again

 

If not improving the SSD write speeds, would this procedure likely eliminate the dreaded "blinking cursor" phenomenon that afflicts a number of Z11s and gets worse over time, eventually hitting more than 20 blinks post-Bios, pre-boot and adding up to 30 seconds to boot time? i ask only because I believe I was advised to do this to "cure" that problem. Thanks.

 

The blinking cursor is something the Windows bootloader does. Restoring a sluggish Windows bootloader would still keep the issue. Doing a completely clean Windows installation should fix it. Using the Windows 7 Loader thing to pirate your Windows copy does introduce a few blinks as far as I know since it modifies bootloader code. (To anyone who's doing that: why don't you just use the Windows 7 Professional key that came with your laptop?)

I've had my Z1 since September 2011 now and it still doesn't do any cursor blinks at all.

 

What SSD config are you using?

 

And do you use it more than once a week?

 

I have the VPC-Z13M9E, 2x64GB Toshiba SSD's (128KB stripe RAID0), and I use my laptop for at least two hours every day, usually longer. It is my own clean Windows installation with as minimal as possible Sony-delivered drivers (almost none). During the Windows installation I already installed the Intel RST drivers, and I have the "noguiboot" option enabled. Doesn't matter if I use static or dynamic mode, it's always without any cursor blinks.

The most important thing though is that you disable any sort of boot method aside HDD boot. No external device boot, no other boot, and make sure HDD is the first boot device in the list. Cursor blinks are usually because your BIOS is looking for a boot sector. If you have external and optical boot enabled it might take a while before your BIOS figures out there isn't anything to boot on an external device or on optical media. It takes a while before it figures out the optical disc drive is empty too.

 

I very much appreciate your suggestions, but I have done them all and saw no appreciable change. This phenomenon appears to be more common on the Z11s, for whatever reason.

 

Strange. Perhaps using the TPM might make the boot a bit longer too? Mine is still disabled...