Solid State Drives Part 2 - Let TRIM run wild

When writing data, the SSD can write only to empty sectors. This means if a Solid State Drive needs to modify a filled sector, it has to read it, note the contents, modify them, erase the sector, and write the modified contents. So, if we wanted to overwrite a sector, we'd have to erase the sector and write the new contents to
the now-empty sector. This extra step takes time.

Operating systems typically just delete a file by marking its data on the disk as deleted and erasing the pointer to it. The file's data is still there on the disk, but it will be overwritten only when the Operating System needs that "empty" space to write new files to the disk (hence there is the danger of not having your PC's hard drive wiped before selling it or passing onto a friend or relative).

The TRIM command tells the SSD to erase and consolidate cells that are no longer in use, so writing to those sectors in the future will be just as fast as when the drive was new. If not for TRIM, writes would take longer and an SSD's performance would deteriorate as you filled it up and deleted files from it.

Microsoft Windows 7 and 8 have TRIM enabled by default, so there's nothing special you need to do if your computer is using one of these newer Operating Systems. TRIM won't work on Windows Vista or Windows XP (you've already upgraded from XP, right?). You'll need to use a third-party SSD management software (like Samsung's SSD Magician or Intel's SSD Optimizer tools) to force TRIM on those operating systems.

Unless you need to force TRIM on an older OS, do not use the "SSD optimization" software that's out there to download and run. These programs promise to optimize your SSD by shuffling files and running TRIM, but your Windows 7 or Windows 8 system already TRIMs by default and your SSD's firmware has "garbage collection" tools that performs housekeeping tasks to optimise performance. There's absolutely no evidence a third-party utility can improve on this.

The good news is that SSDs are getting bigger, cheaper and ever-longer-lasting, so the future looks rosy for faster drive performance.