Is TRIM supported on RAID 0 configurations for SSD drives in Windows 7?

I think the problem rests in how the word well doesn't always have a fitting antonym.

Let's say I go to work on Monday, and a coworker politely asks, “How are you doing?”

I could respond “I am good,” although some pedants might overhear that comment. Knowing that I frequent ELU, they might use that as a beachhead to attack what they perceive as shoddy grammar skills. Even though I'm convinced I would triumph, I'd rather not get dragged into that age-old debate, so I respond, “I am well, thank you.”

The same dialog happens on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, on Thursday, I'm feeling a bit suboptimal – not so under-the-weather that I could justify a sick day, but I would be a liar if I told my affable coworker that I was well. So, as soon as the friendly question is asked, I start searching my mind for a suitable antonym. “I am...” What am I? I am not exactly ‘well,’ but what's a good word for what I am?

As the day goes on, I mull over this opposite-of-well problem some more, and I notice there are many times when poorly works as a suitable antonym for well, and other times when ill does the job. Yet in some situations I feel stumped, and concede that I'm better off using not. For example:

• Dan looks like a slob standing next to Martha, who is, as always, well-dressed and well-groomed. On the other hand, Dan is poorly dressed and not well-groomed.

• Kevin – always the nice guy – is gaining some notoriety thanks to his new patent. Kevin, therefore, is well-mannered and well-known in the company. But the new guy, Chuck, who sits in the next cubicle over, strikes me as a real jerk. He is ill-mannered and unknown – although that anonymity could soon be replaced by a bad reputation if he doesn't watch his step.

• Vera just got a new raise. Seeing her pleasant, confident smile as she climbs out of her brand new Lexus every morning, anyone can tell she's well-adjusted and well off. But Adam, the company janitor, is going through a rough spell. He just went through a rough divorce, and a good percentage of his meager wages are going to his ex-wife as child support, seeing that they had four kids together. He's, well, even though I think he's resilient, and that he'll do just fine in the long run, I'd just say he's not so well-adjusted at the moment, and not too well-off, either – although perhaps you'd prefer to use one of the alternatives. Maybe I should invite Adam over for Chistmas; we've all been well-informed about how that can be a rough time of year for those who are struggling with both family and finances.

Edit: For some systems, Intel now supports passing the TRIM command to SSDs in RAID-0. The requirements are:

• A 7-series motherboard (6-series chipsets are unfortunately not supported).
• Intel's Rapid Storage Technology (RST) for RAID driver version 11.0 or greater (11.2 is the current release)
• Windows 7 (Windows 8 support is forthcoming)

Some Intel storage controllers will pass TRIM to SSDs, when the controller is in RAID mode, and some hard drives are RAIDed. However, at the moment, the SSDs must not be in RAID in order to receive TRIM.

This will also depend on the specific SSD(s) you plan to buy. AnandTech recently compared the performance of 2 x 40GB Intel X25-V SSDs in RAID-0 to other (non-RAID) SSDs. The sequential write and (aligned) random write speeds are improved, but there are still better single-SSD options available, which will not suffer from the loss of TRIM.

Update: For Windows 7, I cannot find any evidence that SSDs in hardware or software RAID 0 will accept TRIM. Intel Rapid Storage Technology has been updated from version 9.6 to 10.1, but does not add this feature. Nevertheless, this might be possible using software RAID with btrfs (and Linux):

As I understand it, hardware RAID controllers do not pass the TRIM command to it's disks; btrfs deals with the disk directly, supports TRIM, and supports RAID. I have seen no explicit mention of being able to combine RAID and TRIM support using btrfs with independent disks so I'm asking: When btrfs is in RAID mode, does it still pass the TRIM commands to the SSD?

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If TRIM is enabled then yes it should.

TRIM still does not seem to be supported on RAID, whether software or hardware or level 0 or more, and it also seems that Microsoft is not to blame in this case.

From Intel Rapid Storage Technology :

Is there TRIM support for RAID configurations?

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology 9.6 supports TRIM in AHCI mode and in RAID mode for drives that are not part of a RAID volume.

A defect was filed to correct the information in the Help file that states that TRIM is supported on RAID volumes.

For the current Intel Rapid Storage Technology version 10, the article What features are supported on each I/O controller hub (ICH)? still mentions :

TRIM support in Windows 7* (in AHCI and RAID mode for drives not part of a RAID volume)

The article software RAID/LVM TRIM support on Linux confirms this fact for Linux, but offers a workaround that conserves TRIM and has the same effect as RAID-0, but without using RAID.

As of right now: No RAID controllers I know of are passing TRIM commands down to connected SSDs.

As an aside, you can find out if trim is working by starting cmd and entering;

fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

A result of 0 indicates it is.

For TRIM to be enabled when using SSD's in a raid 0 config you need 2 things to achieve TRIM.

First and most importantly you need Intel Raid OROM 11.2 or newer (The OROM is part of your bios and can be updated via a bios update). Intel only officially supports TRIM for raid 0 SSD on its new 7 series chipset but this does not mean it can not work on older Intel chipsets ie P67/Z67 (there may be other chipsets that can have the 11.2 or newer OROM added to them), if you can find a custom/modded bios that includes the Intel Raid OROM 11.2 or newer (current is Intel RAID OROM 11.6.0.1702) and install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology 11.2 or newer driver (current being Intel RST 11.7.0.1013) you will obtain TRIM for SSD raid 0 arrays.

Here is a link to the forum I found that provides modded bios' for ASUS / ASRock (chipsets available for raid OROM update P67/Z68/Z77) motherboards - ASUS / ASRock BIOS's with updated RAID OROM(this link also contains the download link for Intel Rapid Storage Technology 11.7.0.1013 driver) Make sure to read the forum, it gives instructions on how to install the modded bios as well as other important information. I only have done this with Asus Sabertooth Z77 motherboard but it is the same for all the Asus Z77 motherboards, I do not have experience doing this with any other motherboard manufacturers. In order to install a modded bios you HAVE TO flash the bios via the USB Bios Flashback utility, this will require you to put the modded bios file on a usb flash drive, rename the bios file (for the Sabertooth Z77 I had to rename the bios to Z77ST.CAP, each motherboard has a specific file name and the USB Bios Flashback will not work if that file name is not exactly correct, you will not damage or break anything if you use the USB Flashback Utility with the wrong filename for the bios, it will simply not work). In order to take full advantage of the new OROM features, such as TRIM, you need to destroy and recreate your raid array, then you will need to do a fresh install of Windows 7 (Do not use an image instead of doing a fresh install). After Windows is installed and you have finished installing your drivers along with the Intel Rapid Storage Technology 11.7.0.1013 driver you will be all set to enjoy TRIM support on your Raid 0 SSD array.

If you have been using your SSD's in a raid array without TRIM support, I recommend that you perform a "Secure-erase" on each of the SSD drives, this is a different secure erase then what is traditional used on HHD's to completely erase data. I have personally done this to both my SSD's on my primary home computer and experienced no issues and it did return my SSD performance back to how it was when I originally installed the SSD's - HOW TO GET YOUR SSD PERFORMANCE BACK - The link will contain instructions on how to perform a secure-erase on your SSD, you will be using Parted Magic and unetbootin to put Parted Magic on a bootable USB (unetbootin is actually an incredibly useful tool because it will allow you to take ANY bootable .iso file and create a bootable USB flashdrive)