During
the past two years, SSD drives have gained increasing popularity among desktop
PC users and even the best laptops. We don't rule out that you've read or at
least heard someone talk about how fast these units are when compared to older
HDDs, they make a big difference in performance and upgrades to consider.
But
if you are already using an SSD or you are planning to buy an SSD in the
framework of improving your PC performance, it is necessary to have an idea of the
TRIM command and why it is important for SSD storage units, and how you can
check whether it is working or not in Windows? In this article, we will answer
all these questions, so let's start directly from the following lines.
As
you probably know, when you delete a file in Windows it marks that file as
unavailable in the file system, and the storage space it was taking becomes
writable for new data, while all of the file's data is still there.
In
fact, this is what gives recovery programs the ability to recover deleted files
easily - as it works to read the data of the deleted file again and then store
it in another place, which is the place that the user selects to save the files
in and thus the file becomes accessible again. This highlights the difference
between how HDDs and SSDs work.
Hard
disks can write data to the space previously occupied by the deleted file
whenever it needs to store new data. While SSDs cannot do this - you must first
erase the entire flash memory - where the deleted file was located - and then
write the new data. This can make writing data slower compared to traditional
hard drives, and it also causes rapid wear of the flash memory chips inside the
SSD.
The
alternative solution is to activate the TRIM command so that the next time when
you delete a file, the hard drive does not erase the entire blocks but deals
with small parts of the block called "pages" that contained the deleted
file, and it cleans them completely. This ensures a faster write speed when new
data is stored in those partitions later.
This
is very important to maintain the performance and life of the SSD, but on the
other hand, it also means that any file you delete will not leave any trace on
the hard drive; That is, you will not be able to restore it again by recovery
programs, so think twice before clicking on the Delete key.
First: Check if TRIM is already enabled
If
you are using a Windows 8, 8.1, or 10 operating system, you may not need to
enable TRIM manually because Windows does this automatically if your computer
has an SSD storage and even an NVMe M.2 SSD, but this does not apply to all
types of these units Thus, you should check if TRIM is turned on or you should
activate it yourself.
To
check if the TRIM command is active on Windows, you can use a plug-in provided
by the manufacturer that is usually installed automatically after the SSD is
installed in the device, such as Samsung Magician for all types of SSDs from
Samsung, Storage Executive for Crucial disks, SSD Manager from Kingston, and
SSD Dashboard software from SanDisk. After running the program, you should find
an indication of the status of the TRIM command, whether it is Enabled or
Disabled.
Alternatively,
you can make use of the Command Prompt but you must first launch it with “admin
rights” so right-click on the Start menu on the taskbar, then choose Command
Prompt (Admin. Or search within the Start menu for CMD Then right-click on
Command Prompt and from the menu choose Run as Administrator.
In
the black Command Prompt window that has appeared in front of you on the
screen, type the command attached below and hit Enter:
fsutil
behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
You
will see one of two results. If you see DisableDeleteNotify = 0 then the TRIM
command is working and you do not need to enable it. Whereas if you find
DisableDeleteNotify = 1 it indicates that the TRIM command is not enabled and
this is a problem if you have an SSD.
Second: How to activate TRIM
Windows
should enable the TRIM command automatically if you have a recent version of
the operating system with a recent SSD storage as well. But if you did the
verification steps that I listed in the previous lines and found that it
doesn't work, it may be because the SSD you are using is very old. However, it
is also possible to manually activate TRIM in several ways.
The
first and easiest way is to use a manufacturer-provided plugin like the one
mentioned above, besides displaying the status of the TRIM command it can also
be forced to activate if Windows doesn't do it on its own for whatever reason.
Of course, the method differs from one program to another, but you should find
this option in the program after searching in the settings.
Take
the SanDisk SSD Dashboard, for example. After you launch it, go to the
Performance section, then in the Optimization section on the left side, click
on TRIM, and check the box next to “Enable Windows TRIM.” TRIM is activated -
that easy!
If
you find no trace of the option enabling TRIM in the plugin, you can use the
Windows Command Prompt instead. Also, you need to run Command Prompt with
administrator privileges and then type the attached command and continue by
pressing Enter:
fsutil
behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0
After
that, you will see the message "DisableDeleteNotify = 0", which
indicates that the process of activating the TRIM command on the SSD was
successful.
Bottom line: SSDs are fast and performant when it comes to read or write speeds, they are much faster than traditional hard disks. However, because of the way you handle digital data, SSDs have to use software solutions to prevent performance degradation in the short term and that's why TRIM should be enabled which is something that will only take a few minutes to finish.