Trim And Linux

[gazz]

Hi,

I have a new box with a Core i5 running a small SSD (64 GB for OS and apps) and a 500GB HDD for storage. I had intentions of going to a Mint distro but am concerned about the lack of full support for TRIM under Linux. I'm not too sure what is meant by partial support and how that impacts on the wear and tear of an SSD. Anybody here with knowledge on this issue?

cheers,

[CMSteve]

I don't run SSD's so this is not personal experience. From what I here, full support was built into kernal 2.6.33. The current versions of Ubuntu are well past that.

Try uname -v to double check.

[urandom]

what is your filesystem? ext4 does support trim, just add the the discard mount flag and you should be good (.33 or later)

[gazz]

Of concern is this bit of info. (I have not found any further material on the subject within the Linux community forums.)

"The vital TRIM function is supported by the Linux OS starting with 2.6.33 kernel (available early 2010). However, support amongst various file systems is still inconsistent or not present. Proper partition alignment is also not carried out by installation software."

I must admit, I do not have a lot of experience with Linux so over-the-top technical explanations are going to escape me. I want to move to Linux but have been hampered by a necessary app (Magic Jack) that has promised a Linux driver but has yet to deliver. I have not found any supportive information that would lead me to believe it would run under Wine. So, for the time being I continue my attempts to brush up on the eventuality of this move.

Thank you for your comments and please know I appreciate any further suggestions on where to turn for additional information on this topic.

[Norndeng]

Apologies if I have the wrong 'Magic Jack', but if you mean "Magic Jack" for calling over the internet then this site may be of use to you. Why not use Skype which definitely works with Linux?

[gibibits]

I use wiper.sh included with hdparm utility, put it in cron.weekly

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=51105#p341626

[glomp]

The drive still does wear levelling and some do internal garbage collection too so don't worry unless you really care about these things.