Following just behind the official launch of Windows 7, Intel has announced the immediate availability of firmware and a utility to give all Windows users access to the ATA TRIM command on the company’s lineup of X25-M G2 SSDs.

What is ATA TRIM?

An SSD’s total size is composed of thousands of smaller units called “blocks,” which average about 512k these days. SSDs deliberately try to spread written data across all of these blocks so as not to prematurely wear out the memory chips, which can only accept a limited number of writes. This technique is called wear leveling. Over time, wear leveling guarantees that every block on the SSD will become filled with a hodgepodge of active and deleted data. Once this happens, new writes force the drive to perform an intensive process called the read/erase/modify/write cycle.

An REMW cycle forces an SSD to scan its blocks for deleted files, copy active data to cache, purge the deleted files, append the new data to the data in cache, and then write the cache back to the new free space. This is called write amplification, and in serious cases, it can force an SSD to shuffle up to 20GB of data just to write 1GB of new information. This causes significant performance issues for SSDs.

The solution to this problem is to let SSDs physically erase files the moment they are deleted in the OS, and that is precisely what the TRIM command does. Windows 7 is the only Microsoft OS that supports it, and it must be used with a TRIM-compatible drive like the OCZ Vertex, G.SKILL Falcon and now the Intel X25-M G2.

The X25-M G2

“Fast and reliable access to data is critical for our SSD users,” said Pete Hazen, director of marketing, Intel NAND Solutions Group. “The latest firmware and toolbox upgrade for Intel 34nm SSD users provide a host of new management, information and diagnostic tools to help SSDs retain out-of-box performance. We are encouraging our 34nm customers to download the new firmware update today. Not only will Windows 7 users receive the performance enhancements of the Trim command, but so will our Windows XP and Vista users.”

As an added perk, the firmware upgrade also boosts the sustained write performance of the 160GB X25-M G2 by 40% up to 100MBps.

The X25-M G2 was released in July of this year as the product of a joint venture Micron and Intel to improve SSD production and reduce costs. Users with one of these new disks can nab the firmware upgrade at www.intel.com/go/ssdfirmware and the Intel SSD Toolbox and Optimizer at www.intel.com/go/ssdtoolbox.

UPDATE:

There are reports that the SSD Toolbox is bricking X25-M drives. We recommend waiting until the issues are resolved.