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My current system has a slow hard drive, through a PATA interface. SATA interface is not an option. I am planning to replace the HDD with an mSATA SSD through a PATA adapter, though this will not allow TRIM to be used in this machine, because PATA cannot support these commands.
I am not trying to get full SATA transfer rates, only to eliminate the delay of a slow mechanical drive.
My question, is that since TRIM will be disabled in this machine, can I periodically remove the SSD and move it to another machine with a SATA controller, to run cleanup operations to free up unused data blocks from there? Does anyone foresee any problems with this arrangement?
SOLVED: It appears PATA drives suporting TRIM do exist, and ATA-7 PATA controllers may be able to use TRIM to manage SSDs, with a suitable bridge.. Credit to Groo for suggesting this.
washbow
Posted 2013-03-03T20:01:21.583
Reputation: 554
Realted: Explain TRIM, and are all SSD's going to support this with firmware updates?
– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2013-03-03T20:06:26.227AFIAK TRIM happens when a file is deleted. Not a process that runs later. – Brad Patton – 2013-03-03T20:41:48.643
My theory is that due to to lack of TRIM when files are erased, the drive can't be fully aware of blocks being freed up. I would then run fstrim (some discussion) from the other system, but would those blocks (that the SSD should now be aware of) be writable on the first system?
– washbow – 2013-03-03T21:00:17.4171Note that TRIM is an ATA command, not specifically SATA, so you might want to check simply if your adapter forwards these commands or suppresses them. – Groo – 2013-03-05T21:41:41.097
I believe it's an ATA7 command, so the ATA4 PATA bus can't support it. EDIT - got my specs mixed up, the PATA bus may be ATA 7. I will look into it. – washbow – 2013-03-05T22:23:47.500
Most current controllers have decent garbage collection routines in the event that the host system can't use TRIM. – afrazier – 2013-03-06T00:37:01.523