I read in one of the webupd8 articles that TRIM support, which was introduced in Ubuntu 14.04, by default only works for Intel and Samsung SSDs. What about other? I am using Dell XPS 13 Dev Edition laptop and the SSD is from a different manufacturer, so does TRIM work by default as well or I have to manually make a cron job file?
2 Answers
Everything is already installed.
The command to activate trim 1 time:
sudo fstrim -v /
It will take a while and then show the results. Example:
sudo fstrim -v /
[sudo] password for rinzwind:
/: 93184647168 bytes were trimmed
And it is set up by default to run once a week for -supported devices-:
$ locate fstrim
/etc/cron.weekly/fstrim
/sbin/fstrim
If you check the cron job it is all explained:
$ more /etc/cron.weekly/fstrim
#!/bin/sh
# call fstrim-all to trim all mounted file systems which support it
set -e
# This only runs on Intel and Samsung SSDs by default, as some SSDs with faulty
# firmware may encounter data loss problems when running fstrim under high I/O
# load (e. g. https://launchpad.net/bugs/1259829). You can append the
# --no-model-check option here to disable the vendor check and run fstrim on
# all SSD drives.
exec fstrim-all
If the manual method works, you can add --no-model-check
to the command at the end (exec fstrim-all
) for it to activate.
The link in the file is an interesting read. It also has a method to check if your disc is bugged. A lot of the cheaper SSDs are faulty and could destroy data.
And to top it off: this is a list of compatible hardware (PDF download) including SSDs.
There is another method where you add discard
to your fstab for permanent trimming. Benchmarks (German) favor fstrim over discard.
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Awesome, thank you for the explanation. Now it's all clear. I'll mark the answer as the right one in a few minutes. Cheers. Apr 17, 2014 at 19:46
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I didn't understand how to check if trim is working properly. Is there a script that checks it, or something else? May 27, 2014 at 13:53
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see the 1st command:
sudo fstrim -v /
this will error out if it is unsupported.– RinzwindMay 27, 2014 at 13:55 -
According to bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/trusty/util-linux/… fstrim-all will also work for OCZ, Patriot and Sandisk and is automatically activated on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty (See /etc/cron.weekly/fstrim) Oct 7, 2014 at 9:23
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@ChristianBenke cool. I would assume more and more will be added :) Link is broken though ;)– RinzwindOct 7, 2014 at 15:19
You can also force the TRIM (on filesystem like ext4/xfs) adding discard to the options of /etc/fstab entry. For example mine is:
/dev/sda3 / ext4 errors=remount-ro,discard 0 1
If you use cryptsetup (for dmcrypt) you can also add discard in /etc/crypttab to force TRIM. Something like:
sda3_crypt UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx none luks,discard