Intel Brings TRIM Support to RAID Setups

Until recently, RAID setups did not have support for the TRIM command features in the Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 and Linux 2.6.33+ operating systems. This made solid state drives rather unsuited for long-term configuration in any RAID setup. Seeing this as a serious limitation, Intel decided to write a driver that was able to activate this function even for such configurations, as long as the drives themselves support it.

Solid state drives have already reached a stage where they have started to outmatch hard drives. HDDs may still be more capacious, but they are limited in more than one way. Thanks to the use of flash memory, SSD speed is significantly superior and even reliability has earned SSDs points, especially on the enterprise market. Such products, unlike HDDs, also lack moving parts, which enhance their reliability and prevent any noise during operation.

Still, there is one issue which leads to performance dropping over time, namely the fact that leftover data from file deletions clutters on the drive. This problem was solved with the invention of the TRIM command which, by grace of Intel's new driver, will now be applicable to RAID setups (except RAID 5).

There is only one condition for the activation of TRIM on all RAID drives, namely that all units must have built-in support for this functionality. Of course, systems hoping to take advantage of this feature will have to use one of the three aforementioned operating systems. Consumers will no longer witness their SSDs performance degrade over time and thus will make the most of their purchase.

The Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver (RAID) for Intel Desktop Boards has already been made available for public download from the official website. Of course, end-users will have to actually be running one of the three aforementioned operating systems if they expect the software to work.