Official GIGABYTE Forum

GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?

mezman

  • 10
  • 1
Hi all,

I just build a new system and along with that came a new SSD, because as long as I was buying new components it was time to try an SSD.  Brought over from my old system are 4 250GB drives that I had in a RAID-5 and I want to have the same on my new setup.  As such, I have the drives connected to SATA3_0-Sata3_3 ports and that all went just dandy.  The SSD is attached to the SATA3_5 port.

However, in order to get that array set up, I set the OnChip SATA Type to "RAID" in the BIOS, and OnChip SATA Port4/5 to "As SATA Type", which seems to mean that even though the SSD isn't part of a RAID array, it's still accessed through the RAID controller as an independent disk.  The reason I did this is because I've read that the GSATA controller is really a JMicron controller that pretty much sucks and to use the SB850 if you can because it's light years ahead of the GSATA controller.  Since none of the disks I have are SATA 3.0, I disabled the OnChip SATA3.0 Support since I've also read that performance suffers in SATA 3.0 mode if you don't have SATA 3.0 disks.

So my question is will the SB850 pass the trim command from Windows 7 x64 to the SSD even though the disk is accessed through the RAID controller because the disk in question isn't part of a RAID array?  Or once I set the the OnChip SATA Type to "RAID" instead of "AHCI" was the TRIM game over?

If it's the latter, does anyone know if the GSATA ports will pass TRIM commands in the AHCI mode?  Even with poorer overall performance, am I better off with TRIM on a crappy JMicron controller or no TRIM though the faster SB850?

My system for reference:
AMD 1090T x6
Zaward Vapor 120 aftermarket heatsink
Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5
8GB of Gskill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 7-8-7-24-2T
OCZ Agility 2 90GB SSD
4X250GB RAID-5 data drive
MSI FROZR GeForce GTX 275
Windows 7 x64

Thanks!

Dark Mantis

  • *
  • 18405
  • 414
  • 10typesofpeopleoneswhoknow binaryandoneswhodont
    • Dark Mantis
Re: GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2010, 10:23:51 pm »
I can only reply in general terms as I am not very familiar with this platform. The TRIM commands should be passed on whether the mode is set to AHCI or even IDE, that shouldn't make a difference. However even when the command is enabled there is no way to see if it is actually passed on to the drive and executed. I would have to agree with you about the GSATA versus the SB850.
I expect absic will have some more comments on this when he sees it.
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
i7 920
Dominators 1600 x6 12GB
6970 2GB
HX850
256GB SSD, Sam 1TB, WDB320GB
Blu-Ray
HAF 932

Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
i7 3770K
Vengeance 1600 16GB
6950 2GB
HCP1200W
Revo Drive x2, 1.5TB WDB RAID0
16x DLRW
StrikeX S7
Full water cooling
3 x 27" Iiy

mezman

  • 10
  • 1
Re: GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2010, 06:19:33 pm »
Thanks Dark Mantis!  I've done a little more looking around since I posted yesterday and the Gigabyte SATA-2 chip turns out to be a rebranded JMicron JMB363 chip which connects to the SB850 over a PCIe 2.0 1X link.  So that's a total of 500MB/s and that should give enough bandwidth for an SSD.  I bet the latency will go up though.

I guess I need to decide if I'll benefit more from TRIM or lower latency.  Probably TRIM since that will help maintain the drive's speed over the long term. 

As far as TRIM being passed in IDE, I thought that was only sent over AHCI.  I guess I have more research to do.  :)

mezman

  • 10
  • 1
Re: GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2010, 07:09:50 pm »
It seems that Benchmark Reviews would agree with you, Dark Mantis, that TRIM isn't limited to AHCI. 

So I guess the more important question now for me at least is whether or not the ATI Catalyst 10.8 SB850 drivers will pass TRIM from Windows 7 onto the drives.  The Microsoft AHCI driver will, and I can use that with the GSATA ports, but since I need to keep my RAID array, I need to use the ATI drivers for anything attached to the SB850. 

Is it me or does this seem unnecessarily complicated to anyone else?  It seems like storage should be one of the simplest subsystems in the computer from the users perspective.

Dark Mantis

  • *
  • 18405
  • 414
  • 10typesofpeopleoneswhoknow binaryandoneswhodont
    • Dark Mantis
Re: GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?
« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2010, 07:38:38 pm »
I know exactly what you mean. Storage used to seem so straightforward but recently seems to be getting more and more complex. To be fair I suppose a lot of the is my own fault with adding RAID arrays that don't work because they don't support TLER and SSDs that need TRIM etc. Maybe I should just go back to running a hard drive. :-\
« Last Edit: September 02, 2010, 09:59:17 pm by Dark Mantis »
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
i7 920
Dominators 1600 x6 12GB
6970 2GB
HX850
256GB SSD, Sam 1TB, WDB320GB
Blu-Ray
HAF 932

Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
i7 3770K
Vengeance 1600 16GB
6950 2GB
HCP1200W
Revo Drive x2, 1.5TB WDB RAID0
16x DLRW
StrikeX S7
Full water cooling
3 x 27" Iiy

autotech

  • 1553
  • 35
Re: GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?
« Reply #5 on: September 05, 2010, 03:16:05 am »
Wow something i know a little about.

Windows 7 does trim automatically. Also do not use achi mode. Windows 7 will also turn of defragmenter for the ssd drive automatically. You have the sb850 chipset do not use the driver for it from gigabyte. Go to amd and get the driver from there . Raid driver that is here is a link to it for you.

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?driver=Integrated/vista32-chipset


http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_to_set_up_Windows_on_a_VERTEX

above is a link to a very decent guide for windows 7 and ssd. Even though it is for a vertex you can follow all it it for any other brand but the firmware updates.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2010, 03:23:11 am by autotech »
GA-Z170X-UD5,Core i5-6600K,16 GIG,3200 ram ,2 X Corsair 240GB SATA III SSD, 500 gig HD,7 ult 64\, Rx-480 8gig\

Z97X-SOC GIGABYTE, I5 4670k, 16 gig 1600 ram, 240 gig sata3 SSD,1x 500HD/ R9 280x, corsair 650 RM PSU

GA-Z97X-Gaming G1,850 corsair,,DDR4 3200,240SSd,6950 video,850EVA

kaqkk

  • 2
  • 0
Re: GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?
« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2010, 06:58:06 pm »
Hi all,

First of all sorry for my poor English.

So, I have a similar problem with AMD RAID driver and SSD.
On a GA-890FXA-UD5 board currently I have an SSD attached to the SATA3_0 port, 2 x 1 TB HDD in RAID 0 array connected to SATA3_2 and SATA3_3 ports and 2 of my older 200 GB HDDs in RAID 1 array connected to the SATA3_4 and SATA3_5 ports.
I set the OnChip SATA Type to „RAID” and OnChip SATA Port4/5 to „As SATA Type” in BIOS because of the RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays. I currently use GSATA controller only for my IDE DVD drive, in „IDE” mode.

After using my system for a couple of weeks I noticed on forums that AMD RAID driver doesn’t pass TRIM to SSD, so I’m planning to change my SDD connection to an other port using it in „ACHI” mode and install Microsoft ACHI driver in order to pass TRIM. In addition I need to keep the SB850 SATA Type in „RAID” mode to handle my RAID arrays.

So what is the solution you can suggest?
1.   Should I change the connections of the 4 HDDs in RAID to SATA3_0-SATA0_3 ports, keep the OnChip SATA Type in „RAID” mode, and connect the SSD to a GSATA port and change Onboard GSATA/IDE Mode to ACHI? Will my IDE DVD Drive work when I change this controller to „ACHI” mode?
2.   Or should I connect the SSD to SATA3_4 port (with RAID discs in SATA3_0-SATA0_3), set OnChip SATA Port4/5 to "IDE" mode and use Microsoft IDE driver (is it pciide.sys, right?) on this controller?

Mezman, what is your solution?

My additional questions are:
1.   How can I install Microsoft ACHI driver (msahci.sys) to the GSATA controller?
2.   After I swithed on the TRIM, do I need to security erase my SSD using a tool like HDDERASE?
3.   And a little offtopic question: During boot after BIOS is loaded AMD RAID Option ROM is searching drives for a quite long time (about 10-15 seconds). Is it possible to avoid this searching somehow?

My system for reference:
Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 (rev 2.0), BIOS version: F5
AMD X6 1055T
Noctua NH-U9B SE2 CPU cooler
2x2 GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3K2
Sapphire VAPOR-X HD5770 GDDR5 PCIE
Corsair CSSD-F60GB2-BRKT SSD
2 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ in RAID 0
2 x Samsung SP2004C in RAID 1
Coler Master Silent Pro M700 PSU
Windows 7 x64

Thanks for any help!


mezman

  • 10
  • 1
Re: GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?
« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2010, 08:05:48 pm »
So what is the solution you can suggest?
1.   Should I change the connections of the 4 HDDs in RAID to SATA3_0-SATA0_3 ports, keep the OnChip SATA Type in „RAID” mode, and connect the SSD to a GSATA port and change Onboard GSATA/IDE Mode to ACHI? Will my IDE DVD Drive work when I change this controller to „ACHI” mode?
2.   Or should I connect the SSD to SATA3_4 port (with RAID discs in SATA3_0-SATA0_3), set OnChip SATA Port4/5 to "IDE" mode and use Microsoft IDE driver (is it pciide.sys, right?) on this controller?

Mezman, what is your solution?


Hi kaqkk,

That's pretty much the situation I found myself in.  I tried your first option as well but didn't like it because the GSATA controller is really a JMicron JMB363 controller and is at least 50 MB/s slower at reads with my SSD than the SB850.  It was just too slow and not much better than a good 7200RPM drive.

Your second option is one you can use if TRIM is really important to you as I understand that the MS IDE driver will pass TRIM.  However, what you lose is NCQ that way and you can keep NCQ if you leave your SSD on the SB850.  You can try both and see if the performance drop with the loss of NCQ is small enough to make TRIM worth it.  I didn't do any rigorous testing myself between these but opted to stay with the SSD on the SB850.

On the subject of TRIM, I decided it wasn't as important as NCQ speed improvements or the improvements of being on the SB850 controller as opposed to the JMicron JMB363.  I have a Agility 2 SSD which uses the Sandforce controller (I think your SSD is a Sandforce drive as well) and the Sandforce controller is very different from the other SSD controllers with how it works.  From my research (reading forums and posting questions) I came to the conclusion that because of the DuraWrite technology in Sandforce drives, TRIM doesn't have nearly the impact that it does on drives with other controllers like Indilinx or Intel.  The DuraWrite wear leveling algorithm doesn't pass though TRIM commands directly like on other drives so Sandforce drives really rely heavily on the internal GC algorithms. 

So eventually I came to the conclusion that since TRIM isn't going to have a huge impact anyway, I was much better off with leaving my SSD on SATA3_5 and leaving ports 4 and 5 "As SATA Type" to preserve the Native Command Queuing. 

My additional questions are:
1.   How can I install Microsoft ACHI driver (msahci.sys) to the GSATA controller?
2.   After I swithed on the TRIM, do I need to security erase my SSD using a tool like HDDERASE?
3.   And a little offtopic question: During boot after BIOS is loaded AMD RAID Option ROM is searching drives for a quite long time (about 10-15 seconds). Is it possible to avoid this searching somehow?


1. I think it should happen automatically assuming you didn't already install dedicated GSATA drivers. 
2. I don't think you should need to.  TRIM is an extra command that the interface can transmit, it shouldn't have any requirements linked to the data on your drive.
3. Not with the F5 firmware.  I noticed that when I flashed F5 over my F4 firmware, that drive detection period really got a lot longer.  I've read that's just something that's inherent to the new RAID BIOS that was part of the F5 firmware update.

Hope that helps!

 ;D

kaqkk

  • 2
  • 0
Re: GA-890FXA-UD5: Does SB850 pass TRIM from Win7 to SSD not in RAID array?
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2010, 03:12:52 pm »
Thanks a lot for your answer Mezman! According to that I'll leave my SSD in SB850 with RAID mode.