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While Intel reportedly has something in the works, there is currently no ‘easy’ way to defragment the sub-block level fragmentation that occurs as a result of write combining. In addition, we found that running the Windows defragmenter on the X25-M would rapidly Swiss Cheese the crap out of it, defeating the purpose entirely. All is not lost, however, as the ATA spec is being updated to include special commands such as “TRIM”, “DISCARD”, and “UNMAP” (a SCSI command). The new protocol lingo will let the Operating System tell the SSD when areas are no longer in use, such as when files are deleted. This will speed up the process of writing data to flash blocks no longer containing valid data, as the wear leveling routine doesn’t have to play musical chairs with data that is no longer relevant.
Windows 7 will support some variation of these commands, and firmware flashable drives like the X25-M should have the ability to be brought up to speed as well. This will not completely solve the problem – It falls short on some RAID configurations (i.e. RAID 5), since all data must remain ‘valid’ for parity calculations to work properly in the case of a drive failure. Data recovery also becomes more complicated, since deleted files could be overwritten by the wear leveling routine even if the OS did not specifically write over the addresses where those files were originally stored.
Workaround #1: Change your usage pattern
Until Intel tweaks their write combining algorithms and revises their released firmware, there are ways to minimize your chances of falling into the fragmentation black hole. Here are some things to avoid:
* Disk partitions not properly aligned with flash block boundaries (to be covered in another article).
* Heavy temporary file activity (think temporary internet files).
* Heavy page / swap activity.
* Applications that write random small chunks, even within a larger file (i.e. BitTorrent / Steam).
* Running *any* disk defragment utility (DON’T DO IT!).
Windows 7 will support some variation of these commands, and firmware flashable drives like the X25-M should have the ability to be brought up to speed as well. This will not completely solve the problem – It falls short on some RAID configurations (i.e. RAID 5), since all data must remain ‘valid’ for parity calculations to work properly in the case of a drive failure. Data recovery also becomes more complicated, since deleted files could be overwritten by the wear leveling routine even if the OS did not specifically write over the addresses where those files were originally stored.
Workaround #1: Change your usage pattern
Until Intel tweaks their write combining algorithms and revises their released firmware, there are ways to minimize your chances of falling into the fragmentation black hole. Here are some things to avoid:
* Disk partitions not properly aligned with flash block boundaries (to be covered in another article).
* Heavy temporary file activity (think temporary internet files).
* Heavy page / swap activity.
* Applications that write random small chunks, even within a larger file (i.e. BitTorrent / Steam).
* Running *any* disk defragment utility (DON’T DO IT!).
Read the full article HERE
I wonder if all SSD's are similar to this?