Jump to content

How to make Defraggler TRIM an SSD?


Arbie

Recommended Posts

I see that support for TRIM was added for Samsung etc drives. However, there seems to be no information anywhere about when Defraggler will TRIM, or how to tell it to do so. I've checked the online Help and this forum.

 

--> Anybody know how to make Defraggler TRIM an SSD? Or how to tell that it did so?

 

Thx

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Trim will most probably happen when you use the 'Optimize' option - which does nothing with my Crucial drive, as expected.

 

That said I would like to see DF add the same feature as a competitor, to trim any drive on the press of a button. That is really simple and easy to implement. Check out the free tool ForceTrim.exe which does exactly that. It occupies all free areas of the drive without actually writing data, then deletes everything. The whole process takes less than 3 seconds, and the Trim command is forced this way. That's exactly what the competitor does, IMHO, nicely visually presented by all the empty blocks getting filled and cleaned again. It would be really nice to have this feature directly within DF.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Check out the free tool ForceTrim.exe which does exactly that. It occupies all free areas of the drive without actually writing data, then deletes everything.

I have the impression this is an obsolete utility, now withdrawn, that was for the support of obsolete OCZ SSD's,

and as such I doubt the benefit, and fear potential damage, when run on more recent SSD's from alternative suppliers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

From what I can see of ForceTrim, CC's Wipe Free Space does the same thing, if you use one pass of zeroes. The way the SSD controller manages pages of zeroes effectively TRIM's all the free space (although I don't have knowledge of all controllers, I would expect them to act in a similar way). I've mentioned before that this is what sent the OCZ forums into a tizzy some years ago, but nobody rose to the bait.

 

This is a rather cumbersome way of trimming a volume, so perhaps Windows Optimise behaves in a more effective manner to obtain the same result.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

CC seems not to do the same thing. Please try it. As I tried to explain (I'm no programmer) the idea is to NOT write data. CC does write data, which takes a long time (more than 5 minutes on my SSD for the free space) where ForceTrim needs less than a second (the allocated free space was 38 GB)!

 

And Alan_B: why not keep your 'impressions' to yourself unless you have facts to deliver?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

i would like to know how ForceTrim can do that much space(35gib) in that short a time(1 sec) - honestly, i really would - that is a stunning access speed, even for SSD's.

a quick search found a benchmark score of someone who used ForceTrim, with before and after scores.

results were rather disappointing for such a hyped-up utility.

Backup now & backup often.
It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.
Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And Alan_B: why not keep your 'impressions' to yourself unless you have facts to deliver?

Because after a long career as hardware and software designer / programmer,

my impressions may be worth posting against the enthusiastic endorsement of an unsupported utility by a non-programmer :rolleyes:

 

When I searched in several forums before posting I found nothing to explain how ForceTrim worked,

and the only potential download was from MediaFire. :o :o :o

 

I was troubled by reports that OCZ created the tool and had a topic but it had been abandoned.

 

Today I actually logged into OCZ and can report that :-

ForceTrim search has only 4 results;

The topic explaining the tool has been removed;

 

The download that had been available is no longer supplied by OCZ, but they give a link to the aforesaid MediaFire.

http://www.ocztechno...light=forcetrim

 

Two years ago some-one with a two week old SSD thought that ForceTrim might improve his access speed,

but it never worked again and had to be returned for replacement - see first post in :-

http://www.ocztechno...umper-this-time

 

Download it from MediaFire if you wish, but bear in mind that OCZ have effectively disowned it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Here is a response I got from Piriform Support on the subject of the OPTIMZE function on SSDs.:

 

"Defraggler will use a 'zero-filling' technique to optimize SSD's."

 

Zero-filling an SSD is a trick used to improve write performance. SSD can write data quickly only to a blank (zero-filled) block. But if there are no blank blocks, then it is necessary to erase some blocks before new data can be written. The process of erasing takes a long time. The need to erase blocks decreases performance of an SSD. Therefore, zero-filling applied to an SSD speeds write operations up for a while.

 

Note that Windows 7/8 and newer versions of iOS and Linux, all support TRIM, which does the same thing, but I'm not sure if it's done on the fly, or as a background task, done when system is idle or whatever. That info seems hard to find. If someone has that info, it would be good to know, same for the Linux and iOS methods. I suspect it is done in the background during idle periods, but I'm not sure. It may run TRIM on the fly as needed when the space is needed, but that would be a most in-efficient way of doing it.

 

I ran the DF OPTIMIZE on my SSD and noted a message warning that a temporary loss of drive space will occur, and it did. I'm running W7 Pro with an OCZ Vertex III 256GB drive, with 107GB free. It took about 5 minutes to run, and I watched my free space slowly dwindle down to near absolute zero, then quickly return to 107GB free. It seems to be part of the zero fill process to fill first, then mark them all as free at the end.  For this reason, I highly recommend closing any and all applications before running this, to prevent anything from possibly needing to write something or need space while the OPTIMIZE is running, the risk is probably very low, but I could see potential for a crash if the drive gets zero filled just as an app tries to write something, and there is no space available.  It was a bit unnerving to watch that happen, but all went fine. Just the same, always make sure you have a backup, which everyone should anyway.

 

After it ran, everything seemed fine, no problems. System performance seems a bit snappier with some tasks, but overall no significant notice of improvement.  I will probably run the OPTIMIZE every 90 days or so, just for grins. It certainly didn't hurt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 years later...

 it easy to trim a ssd in windows 7 and  up   with powershell

Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter c -ReTrim -Verbose

output-

VERBOSE: Invoking retrim on (C:)...
VERBOSE: Retrim:  0% complete...
VERBOSE: Retrim:  100% complete.
VERBOSE: Performing pass 1:
VERBOSE: Retrim:  81% complete...
VERBOSE: Retrim:  90% complete...
VERBOSE: Retrim:  96% complete...
VERBOSE: Retrim:  100% complete.
VERBOSE:
Post Defragmentation Report:
VERBOSE:
 Volume Information:
VERBOSE:   Volume size                 = 236.60 GB
VERBOSE:   Cluster size                = 4 KB
VERBOSE:   Used space                  = 193.86 GB
VERBOSE:   Free space                  = 42.73 GB
VERBOSE:
 Retrim:
VERBOSE:   Backed allocations          = 236
VERBOSE:   Allocations trimmed         = 2246
VERBOSE:   Total space trimmed         = 40.49 GB

i noticed that the  Total space trimmed   will be  off 2GB  i looked online   saw other  people   output same so  it seems normal 

Backed allocations         seem to stay that same  don't know exactly what it means  /likely means  max number of  trimmed allocations it can do at once 

Allocations trimmed   will change

in command line  defrag tool there is 2 ways

defrag  c: /o /v

defrag c: /L /v

/O      Perform the proper optimization for each media type.

/L      Perform retrim on the specified volumes.

/V      Print verbose output containing the fragmentation statistics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Augeas locked this topic
  • Moderators

This is a thread in it's sixth year of existence, your post has nothing to do with the subject, and Win 8 and 10 (at least) Storage optimizer will do at regular intervals what you're trying to do without you having to lift a finger.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.