X25-M G2 RAID 0 Garbage Collection

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sethk

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I've seen some mixed messages about this, but I'm wondering if anyone has any idea regarding the best course of action to take periodically with a pair of X25-M G2 drives in RAID 0 mode (controller is an ICH10R southbridge, X58 NB).

I have flashed both drives to the latest firmware prior to building the RAID set. My understanding is that TRIM commands don't operate through the RAID, so I was wondering if the latest firmwares include built in garbage collection, and whether the drive will automatically recover lost performance over time? Or will I need to manually perform steps like 'Tony Trim' or whatever to get back lost performance?
 
There is no GC in the firmware of the G2. Your only option is Tony Trim for Raid.
 
The main problem for "Tony TRIM" is that the first part of it is to use Diskeeper to move the data around on the drive, which means it's eating up write cycles. It's best to only do this when you actually notice a slow down during your usage, and not just when you benchmark. But since you're using two drives, it'll take that much longer before you'll notice any kind of degraded performance.
 
By the time performance starts to degrade we might actually have RAID drivers that properly pass TRIM commands thru anyway. :p Hey, one can hope! (I'd love to add a 2nd 80GB X25-M to my rig in a few months) What has been the hold-up as far as releasing those drivers anyway? You'd think it'd be at the top of Intel's priority list, since they're in the SSD market and all...
 
SicKlown42012 said:
The main problem for "Tony TRIM" is that the first part of it is to use Diskeeper to move the data around on the drive, which means it's eating up write cycles. It's best to only do this when you actually notice a slow down during your usage, and not just when you benchmark. But since you're using two drives, it'll take that much longer before you'll notice any kind of degraded performance.
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I'm not sure how much PerfectDisk actually adds to the process. It just compacts the used pages into as few blocks as possible, so that AS Cleaner can leave you with the maximum number of free blocks. However, simply running AS Cleaner will still erase all the empty pages even if they're not compacted. You'll be left with some blocks containing both used and free pages, but all the fee pages should be erased and ready for instant writing.

While it doesn't have TRIM-like garbage collection (which actively compares the SSD's data to the filesystem to clear unnecessary pages), it does have internal maintenance "garbage collection" routines. The SSD should be smart enough to consolidate those partial blocks as it's performing other actions on them. It won't actively seek them out like the Indilinx GC, but it should tidy things up as it comes across them.
 
I'm surprised that there are still significantly varying opinions about the necessity (and benefit) of all the steps in the 'Tony Trim' process when applied to G2 drives in RAID. There are quite a few people with these RAID 0 setups, so I would think that there'd be more of a consensus by now..
 
Ive been running g2's in raid 0 for a couple months now as my my only drives so they have my OS and all my data on them. I havent noticed any decrease in performance. Maybe running a benchmark would prove differently but I dont think its as big of a problem as people seem to make it. Just my opinion.
 
Renesis13B said:
Ive been running g2's in raid 0 for a couple months now as my my only drives so they have my OS and all my data on them. I havent noticed any decrease in performance. Maybe running a benchmark would prove differently but I dont think its as big of a problem as people seem to make it. Just my opinion.
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People are so worried about TRIM when in most cases they'll never notice enough degredation to even need to use it before the SSD is outdated and getting replaced anyway.

A good SSD is so much quicker than a normal HD, even at its slowest speed, that it would be hard to notice any minor changes in speed in daily use unless you're doing something outside the norm.
 
Well, it will be more of an issue if your drives fill up. As the number of remaining free blocks decrease, the juggle required to keep wear-levelling even for the memory cells is more involved and leads to increased write delays. The more free space you have, the longer it will take for the slowdowns to become noticeable. Since I'm making a conscious effort to keep non-speed sensitive data off my RAIDed drive, I hope that it will take more than a few months before slow down becomes noticeable, but basically I accept it as inevitable.

it may take 4 months, or it may take 2+ years, but eventually it will happen (unless I format and re-install Windows in between). I guess when that happens, I will re-investigate this issue.
 
So whats the deal with Tony Trim? This is the first i have heard of it.

Also is the latest Firmware still 02HD?

Ive got 2x 160GB G2's coming in and im trying to decide if I should RAID them or not.
 
sethk said:
I hope that it will take more than a few months before slow down becomes noticeable, but basically I accept it as inevitable.
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I'd bet that even when it starts to slow up, you won't even notice it unless you're keeping running track of it with benchmarking software (or you pack the drive 95% or more full). :D
 
Limahl said:
I'd bet that even when it starts to slow up, you won't even notice it unless you're keeping running track of it with benchmarking software (or you pack the drive 95% or more full). :D
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That's what I'm hoping. I hate random lag in apps, though. Even when it's not the SSD, I'm sure I'm going to start thinking a few months from now that anything that takes more than 1 sec. to respond is because of a SSD slowdown. That's when I'll break out the benchmarks :D
 
Thats the beauty of an SSD. Even if the data is so massively fragmented on the drive, there's basically no seek time to read it, so you don't lose the sort of speed you would with a normal HD.

You're gonna wonder how you ever lived without it once you get it going.
 
I've been heavily using two Intel 80GB G1 in RAID0 since May....I've used no Tony-Trim....Diskeeper w/Hyperfast....Tony-Trim with Diskeeper and Tony-Trim with Raxco.

Speeds can be all over the place after using Tony-Trim and slowdowns from a fresh state are inevitable.

Mine are the G1 drives and speeds on the G2 units are much improved.

I'm very satisfied with my drives and even at their slowest are still very speedy.
 
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