Using SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD with XP

[Bob F]

Is it needed or helpfull to run some kind of TRIM emulating utility with this
drive, or does the built in cleanup do the whole job? I've also read about
configuring for a somewhat smaller actual drive size than the available space to
extend life and performance. I'd be interested in hearing your experience and
opinions.

I CHATed Sandisk about the TRIM issue, and they told me to use a 3rd source
utility, but refused to recommend or even name any particular ones.

 

[philo]

Is it needed or helpfull to run some kind of TRIM emulating utility with this
drive, or does the built in cleanup do the whole job? I've also read about
configuring for a somewhat smaller actual drive size than the available space to
extend life and performance. I'd be interested in hearing your experience and
opinions.

I CHATed Sandisk about the TRIM issue, and they told me to use a 3rd source
utility, but refused to recommend or even name any particular ones.

A while back I installed XP on a mini-SSD and got poor performance.

Since I was unable to find a TRIM utility, I did what I was told to
never do...I defragged the drive. That improved the performance
considerably.


Even though defragging an SSD can shorten it's life...
I'm not too worried about it as I probably won't defrag more than once
or twice a year.

 

[BillW50]

In philo typed:

A while back I installed XP on a mini-SSD and got poor performance.

Since I was unable to find a TRIM utility, I did what I was told to
never do...I defragged the drive. That improved the performance
considerably.

Even though defragging an SSD can shorten it's life...
I'm not too worried about it as I probably won't defrag more than once
or twice a year.

Hi Bob! What did you finally come up with? I've been running a number of
SSD on Windows since 2008. Mostly netbooks and Windows tablets. Although
I haven't done so with my laptops until just recently. Man, I am so glad
I did. Speed is so unbelievable! It is like getting a new laptop.

Anyway as you probably already know, but both Windows 7 and 8 supports
trim, but not XP or Vista. Also both 7 and 8 won't allow you to defrag a
SSD. Instead they invoke trim instead. Although this is generally
unnecessary, since 7 and 8 when you delete something, it also sends the
trim command so they should always be current with trim anyway.

Now since we XP users have no built in options to manually run trim,
what should we do? Well nothing really. As the SSD should do its own
trim during idle periods by its own garbage collection. So there is
nothing to worry about anyway until you notice writes are taking longer.
Then and only then would I worry about finding a trim utility.

 

[Bob F]

In philo typed:

Hi Bob! What did you finally come up with? I've been running a number
of SSD on Windows since 2008. Mostly netbooks and Windows tablets.
Although I haven't done so with my laptops until just recently. Man,
I am so glad I did. Speed is so unbelievable! It is like getting a
new laptop.
Anyway as you probably already know, but both Windows 7 and 8 supports
trim, but not XP or Vista. Also both 7 and 8 won't allow you to
defrag a SSD. Instead they invoke trim instead. Although this is
generally unnecessary, since 7 and 8 when you delete something, it
also sends the trim command so they should always be current with
trim anyway.
Now since we XP users have no built in options to manually run trim,
what should we do? Well nothing really. As the SSD should do its own
trim during idle periods by its own garbage collection. So there is
nothing to worry about anyway until you notice writes are taking
longer. Then and only then would I worry about finding a trim utility.

I did find that the latest Seagate Discwizard has a trim capability, which I
tried once while I had the drive attached to another PC for a recovery operation
after an infection.