4

I'm aware of the DOS utility to "Reset" an Intel SSD to factory settings, but I'd rather not shut down my system to do this to my SSDs.

Supposedly newer kernels support TRIM, but I haven't found any utilities to actually run TRIM.

Has anyone found a way to do this?

Joel K
  • 5,765
  • 2
  • 29
  • 34
  • 1
    Found this link, but it looks a little gnarly. http://blog.patshead.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?search=ssd&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20 Finding a version of hdparm to work with this also appears to be a challenge. Looking for something better. – Joel K Jan 22 '10 at 23:26
  • Are you referring to performing a "factory reset" of internal data used by the SSD's internal controller or are you referring to TRIM? If the former, *do not do this as wear leveling is important to prolong the lifespan of your SSD and wiping that data will make the SSD's controller forget about which blocks are the most worn, which is bad for your SSD* - that's if it's even possible to do this. If the latter, check out the `fstrim` command (recommended) or the `discard` mount option (not recommended). – Micheal Johnson Nov 16 '17 at 16:46

4 Answers4

2

There isn't just a 'wear leveling table' that you can wipe and be merrily on your way.

Without an OS that supports the TRIM command the drive does not know which subblocks are empty and so the data on the SSD becomes fragmented below the level that the OS sees. The only way to 'reset' it involves clearing all the data whether you use the proper utility or try and do it manually.

If you want to avoid the hassle of backing up/ghosting regularly when it slows down then you need to use an OS that supports TRIM.

JamesRyan
  • 8,138
  • 2
  • 24
  • 36
  • 1
    The question is about Linux. So "use an OS that supports TRIM" is not an usable answer to this question. –  Jan 25 '10 at 13:30
  • Linux will have support sooner than later. In the meantime you could run Linux in a virtual machine under Windows, not use SSDs yet, put up with the speed degredation or regularly wipe the drive (which might have an adverse effect on the lifetime). Plenty of usable solutions to the problem. The main point of my answer is that the OP is asking the wrong question because he misunderstands how TRIM works. – JamesRyan Jan 25 '10 at 20:49
  • Rather I'm acknowledging that there is no TRIM support that I'm aware of, and that I'm forced to occasionally wipe the drive. Right now, wiping the drive requires rebooting in to a DOS utility from Intel. I'd prefer to avoid that. – Joel K Jan 26 '10 at 17:02
  • The DOS utility doesn't just run a command, it includes the driver as well. So if there was a utility on linux then there would pretty much already be native support. – JamesRyan Jan 28 '10 at 14:50
2

I found instructions for running an ATA security erase command here:

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

I intend to try it myself, since I have been naively running my X25-M SSD on a laptop with suboptimal settings and I think the performance is falling.

user38397
  • 121
  • 3
1

From what I've been able to gather...

TRIM is an OS command, you don't call it, the OS does. So there's no 'TRIM' utility.

It's called (by a compatible OS) when you delete a file from an SSD drive. See Here and Here.

The SSD drive firmware needs to support the TRIM command as well.

If you want to "reset you wear leveling tables" then you're going to have to wipe the drive completely, as it requires either re-writing every block on the drive to one state; or by wiping the LBA tables by issuing a "SECURE ERASE" command (see here) - AKA 'low-leveling the drive'.

All of which will blow away your OS (and anything else) if it's on that drive, effectively preventing you from doing it from within the OS. :)

If your SSD is a COMPLETELY separate drive from your OS drive(s) you may be able to get some decent results by using a good 'secure hard drive eraser' app of some kind, but I wouldn't count on it.

HTH.

techie007
  • 1,892
  • 17
  • 24
  • Right. Two options: 1. Low level utility to wipe drive's wear tables (what I'm asking for, and can't find) 2. Filesystem (as a part of the OS) implements TRIM to keep wear tables in check.. I have found neither in LINUX. :) Thus my original post. – Joel K Jan 26 '10 at 17:00
0

This is not the whole story.

For the X25 there is a toolbox, working under XP and Vista. You can activate it as a job. Intel says you should set it to an auto job for every week. There are some problems to get the thing working allright. Read Intel communities very carefull.

My 160G X25 works like a charm, (I had to patch xp because I have no English version) it is worth the effort.

I am not aware of a toolbox for linux.

Does anyone know about the same efforts in linux?