neufuse Veteran Posted June 2, 2015 Veteran Share Posted June 2, 2015 Does anyone know if windows supports TRIM on M.2 SSD's? I know this sounds like a common sense question BUT I've been reading that windows does not support TRIM natively on PCI express bus SSD's and the M.2 is a PCI express bus SSD technically and it only supports it on SATA interfaces natively. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LogicalApex MVC Posted June 2, 2015 MVC Share Posted June 2, 2015 M.2 SSDs appear use a SATA controller to function so it should work just fine... Unless using Windows 7. MorganX 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorganX Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 It's working for me. You can use this nifty little tool to verify: https://github.com/CyberShadow/trimcheck http://blog.thecybershadow.net/2012/12/09/ssd-trim-check-tool/ Roger H. 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted June 2, 2015 Author Veteran Share Posted June 2, 2015 M.2 SSDs appear use a SATA controller to function so it should work just fine... Unless using Windows 7. not all them do though, the ones that use a SATA controller are slower then native pci express SSD's you can get some insane speeds on native PCI express SSD's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted June 2, 2015 Author Veteran Share Posted June 2, 2015 It's working for me. You can use this nifty little tool to verify: https://github.com/CyberShadow/trimcheck http://blog.thecybershadow.net/2012/12/09/ssd-trim-check-tool/ See I just ran it on a native M.2 pcie card and got this.... TRIM check v0.7 - Written by Vladimir Panteleev https://github.com/CyberShadow/trimcheck Loading continuation data from C:\Users\Default.Z99\Desktop\trimcheck-cont.json. .. Drive path : \\.\C: Offset : 15902396416 Random data : B0 AF A4 5C D7 59 52 95 31 D9 9E 43 3F 85 FA 43... Reading raw volume data... Opening \\.\C:... Seeking to position 15902396416... Reading 16384 bytes... First 16 bytes: B0 AF A4 5C D7 59 52 95 31 D9 9E 43 3F 85 FA 43... Data unchanged. CONCLUSION: TRIM appears to be NOT WORKING (or has not kicked in yet). You can re-run this program to test again with the same data block, or delete trimcheck-cont.json to create a new test file. Press Enter to exit... I tried it multiple times waiting different lengths of time and even a reboot and get the same result "not working" yet windows claims trim is enabled Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorganX Posted June 3, 2015 Share Posted June 3, 2015 See I just ran it on a native M.2 pcie card and got this.... I tried it multiple times waiting different lengths of time and even a reboot and get the same result "not working" yet windows claims trim is enabled That sucks. I need to do a little research. I'm on a SATA m.2. Perhaps PCI Express does not support it ... I'm going to follow this thread as my next system will def be m.2 PCI Express x4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted June 3, 2015 Author Veteran Share Posted June 3, 2015 That sucks. I need to do a little research. I'm on a SATA m.2. Perhaps PCI Express does not support it ... I'm going to follow this thread as my next system will def be m.2 PCI Express x4. I only went looking when reading about it in some forensics newsletter we get at work... and low and behold it seems to be missing support for PCIe M.2 cards in windows.. it claims Linux supports it but now windows, windows only supports SATA interface TRIM commands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LogicalApex MVC Posted June 3, 2015 MVC Share Posted June 3, 2015 not all them do though, the ones that use a SATA controller are slower then native pci express SSD's you can get some insane speeds on native PCI express SSD's I'm not sure I follow you... M.2 is a subset of the SATA specification and the logical interface for all drives is SATA... The spec requires it to pass through a SATA controller... Source: Wikipedia M.2 Specification Overview Windows 7 lacks TRIM support for M.2 SSDs due to lacking awareness of the interface in its built in AHCI driver. Windows 8+ doesn't suffer from this limitation. See I just ran it on a native M.2 pcie card and got this.... TRIM check v0.7 - Written by Vladimir Panteleev https://github.com/CyberShadow/trimcheck Loading continuation data from C:\Users\Default.Z99\Desktop\trimcheck-cont.json. .. Drive path : \\.\C: Offset : 15902396416 Random data : B0 AF A4 5C D7 59 52 95 31 D9 9E 43 3F 85 FA 43... Reading raw volume data... Opening \\.\C:... Seeking to position 15902396416... Reading 16384 bytes... First 16 bytes: B0 AF A4 5C D7 59 52 95 31 D9 9E 43 3F 85 FA 43... Data unchanged. CONCLUSION: TRIM appears to be NOT WORKING (or has not kicked in yet). You can re-run this program to test again with the same data block, or delete trimcheck-cont.json to create a new test file. Press Enter to exit... I tried it multiple times waiting different lengths of time and even a reboot and get the same result "not working" yet windows claims trim is enabled Why is this program more trustworthy than Windows directly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorganX Posted June 3, 2015 Share Posted June 3, 2015 Why is this program more trustworthy than Windows directly? Good question. Windows enables trim, doesn't verify it. Nothing in Windows says, trim is working. Prior to the Series 7 Intel chipset, trim on Raid 0 did not work. Post Series 7, it should. The only app to actually perform a physical test and validate trim is physically working that I've found is this. TRIM has to be supported by the drive/firmware, chipset/controller, and OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samw61 Posted June 3, 2015 Share Posted June 3, 2015 Don't know if this is relivent, but if you click "Optimise" in windows disk defrag for a SSD in Windows 8.1, the second it takes to run it will show "74% trimmed". I hadn't noticed that until only recently though (who checks disk defrag these days). 128GB M.2 SATA 42mm SSD in a Thinkpad Yoga. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted June 3, 2015 Author Veteran Share Posted June 3, 2015 I'm not sure I follow you... M.2 is a subset of the SATA specification and the logical interface for all drives is SATA... The spec requires it to pass through a SATA controller... Source: Wikipedia M.2 Specification Overview Windows 7 lacks TRIM support for M.2 SSDs due to lacking awareness of the interface in its built in AHCI driver. Windows 8+ doesn't suffer from this limitation. Why is this program more trustworthy than Windows directly? The forensic docs I'm reading claim there are two ways M.2 works, SATA and native, it also claims windows in version 7 does not support native mode (NVMHCI not AHCI) but few M.2 SSD's run in this mode apparently and just use plain SATA with AHCI, and up to windows 10 it does not support direct PCIe bus (one example card is the Plextor M6e that doesn't use SATA for M.2) these direct to PCIe cards can reach 2GB/s and actually make use of the PCI express bus bandwidth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MS Bob 11 Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 Download and install KB2990941 and KB3087873 patches for Windows 7 SP1. Then TRIM should be enabled on NVM Express/PCIe SSDs with M.2 connector. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 (edited) You do realize the drive may not NEED to be trimmed yet, especially if it's a new drive and a new install Best thing to do is let windows do it's thing and optimize it for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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