Trim SSD

Trim SSD Wizard lets you improve the speed of write operations on a solid-state drive (SSD) and mitigate degradation in performance. This issue naturally occurs as a result of intensive or long use of an SSD, and arises from the way SSDs overwrite and delete data.

Like with traditional hard drives, if you delete a file from an SSD, data cells are simply flagged as "available for use" instead of being erased. When the operating system later performs a write operation to such a cell, it actually becomes an overwrite operation from the point of view of the storage device. For traditional hard drives, it is like writing to an empty cell. SSD cells, however, are an exception and need to be erased before a new write operation can be performed. Due to hardware limitations, the erase operation on an SSD always affects a block of 512 KB. So, if you need to overwrite 60 KB of previously deleted data with another 60 KB, the contents of the entire block will be read from the SSD and stored in cache before the block is effectively erased. Then, the necessary data will be modified in the cached block. Finally, the entire block will be written back to the SSD. This results in the writing performance being significantly crippled. In order to avoid this issue, new data is always saved to a new location so long as empty cells are available on the storage device. Sooner or later, the SSD has no vacant cells, and every write operations initiates the "read-erase-modify-write" cycle described above.

Trim SSD Wizard completely purges the data that has been marked as deleted and leaves data cells empty and ready for new write operations.

Note: The utility uses the standard TRIM command to inform an SSD about blocks of data that are no longer in use and can be erased. Please make sure that your SSD has necessary firmware to support it.

Trimming an SSD

WARNING! This operation is irreversible. No data recovery will be possible when the operation is complete.

Trimming an SSD by means of Acronis True Image 2014 is reasonable only if you use Windows Vista or earlier. Windows 7 supports the standard TRIM command right out of the box and erases cells as soon as data is deleted.

To trim an SSD:

1. On the sidebar or on the toolbar, click Tools & Utilities and select Trim SSD.

   This opens the wizard.

2. From the list of available drives, select the SSD(s) that you want to trim and click Next.
3. Review the summary page and click Proceed.
4. If you have run the wizard under Windows, click Reboot when prompted.

   After the reboot, the operation will automatically proceed in the standalone Linux-based environment. When the operation is complete, the wizard will boot up Windows again.