G.SKill Falcon firmware V1819

[tehroller]

The release notes for 1819 says it futher improves trim in Win7,
"The controller now supports Windows 7 TRIM command much better"
So you could assume trim is working in win7 with 1571.

What we miss here is G.Skill giving us real time up to date support and advice like you see with OCZ, the more we guess and assume the more we are going to screw it up.

I'm pretty sure win7 (ok, I'm still using build 7100, but anyway) doesn't support trim with the Falcon 1571. From experience, the performance difference after running wiper.exe (which simply sends TRIM to the drive) is pretty big, which seems to imply win7 is NOT sending trim to 1571 version falcons. Now this could be because the trim implementation in 1571 is buggy/incomplete, or it could be because the trim implementation in win7 is buggy/incomplete. We'll probably never know which was at fault, and given the nature of standards, it's most likely just due to the rapid evolution (just look at HTML for an example of moving target standards) Either way, indilinx or MS had to budge and modify their software to work with the other, and you can bet your bottom dollar M$ weren't the type to change their OS for a particular piece of hardware So it appears indilinx have modified their implementation of TRIM to be compatible with Win7. This is probably what they mean by 'better', read 'compatible with the only windows O/S that natively supports trim'.

I haven't updated to 1819 yet, and probably won't for a month or so, just to make sure there are no mega bugs, 1571 is ok, and wiper once a week is hardly painful.

[Extide]

1571 does not support ata trim.

It DOES report that it supports trim to the disk controller, but it actually does NOT.

Win7 TRIM is complete and proper.

[djmorgan]

And just how do you know this?

[Extide]

If you follow the OCZ forums there is lots of information. (TRIM being 'disabled' in 1571 is mentioned a lot).

I know thats not that great of an answer but well, thats how it is these days...

[djmorgan]

Yes, I'd like a more formed opinion from somebody with specific technical knowledge or expertise rather than from forum chatter.

[TwoCables]

so if TRIM is working in Windows 7 with FW 1571 why would anyone need to use FW 1819 for since it lowers performance?...I thought the main point behind the new firmware was to enable TRIM support...but if the older firmware supports it then we have the best of both worlds---optimal performance plus TRIM...win for everybody

I'm on FW 1571 with W7 Home Premium (OEM version) and fsutil behavior QUERY DisableDeleteNotify shows as 0 for me as well but I don't know if I trust that

is that Command Prompt a reliable method of determining if TRIM is working?...any official confirmation from G.Skill that 1571 supports automatic background TRIM?

Please see the quote below. He beat me to it.

The release notes for 1819 says it futher improves trim in Win7,
"The controller now supports Windows 7 TRIM command much better"
So you could assume trim is working in win7 with 1571.

What we miss here is G.Skill giving us real time up to date support and advice like you see with OCZ, the more we guess and assume the more we are going to screw it up.

As this quote shows, TRIM does indeed work with 1571, however, firmware 1819 simply improves upon it: "The controller now supports Windows 7 TRIM command much better".

For example: I would sometimes use my computer quite heavily for several hours, and then immediately run an ATTO Benchmark and then go to bed. When I woke up, I would run another ATTO Benchmark before doing anything else. The result was that some of my performance was restored. I could see it in the graph; I didn't even have to look at the numbers.

But y'know something: I don't care about that stuff. All I care about is how the performance feels and whether or not I am satisfied with it. And I am currently very satisfied with 1571.

So, I plan on waiting a little while to see more results of 1819 installations. I want to see what the average result is, and then make my decision based on that. But so far, it looks like I would either see a 10% decrease in performance, or I would have a slightly snappier system. But since it could go either way, I will wait.

[Titus]

I'm pretty sure win7 doesn't support trim with the Falcon 1571. From experience, the performance difference after running wiper.exe (which simply sends TRIM to the drive) is pretty big, which seems to imply win7 is NOT sending trim to 1571 version falcons. Now this could be because the trim implementation in 1571 is buggy/incomplete, or it could be because the trim implementation in win7 is buggy/incomplete. We'll probably never know which was at fault...

I haven't updated to 1819 yet, and probably won't for a month or so, just to make sure there are no mega bugs, 1571 is ok, and wiper once a week is hardly painful.

I tend to agree with this...

I also run Wiper with 1571 and while the difference is not huge afterwards, there is definite improvement meaning TRIM is not working in the background

I don't know if that Command Prompt can necessarily be the final word on TRIM as I tend to trust my benchmark numbers over that artificial setting...plus as someone posted earlier even RAID Falcon setups are showing up as TRIM enabled with that setting...so it cannot be trusted

although some members seem to be reporting TRIM ability with 1571, for now I will just stick with 1571 + manual Wiper every 3-4 weeks...hopefully a G.Skill rep will post an official reply in this thread sometime this century so that we can stop speculating and get a final answer one way or the other

[TwoCables]

I tend to agree with this...

I also run Wiper with 1571 and while the difference is not huge afterwards, there is definite improvement meaning TRIM is not working in the background

I don't know if that Command Prompt can necessarily be the final word on TRIM as I tend to trust my benchmark numbers over that artificial setting...plus as someone posted earlier even RAID Falcon setups are showing up as TRIM enabled with that setting...so it cannot be trusted

although some members seem to be reporting TRIM ability with 1571, for now I will just stick with 1571 + manual Wiper every 3-4 weeks...hopefully a G.Skill rep will post an official reply in this thread sometime this century so that we can stop speculating and get a final answer one way or the other

The reason why the difference after wiper isn't huge is because even though TRIM is working, it's not doing as good of a job as it probably should. So we have to use Wiper in order to kind help it, so to speak. But 1819 is said to support native TRIM "much better" than 1571 does. So, considering how DisableDeleteNotify comes up as Enabled, and considering how 1819 supports TRIM "much better" instead of "it now supports TRIM", I am concluding here that 1571 definitely supports it.

And I have seen it with my own system. I would use my computer quite heavily for several hours, and then run ATTO Benchmark immediately after. And then several hours later, I would go up to my computer and run another ATTO Benchmark just to see if TRIM was doing anything. Sure enough, the numbers went back up. They didn't go back up all the way, but still: I cannot deny that my drive's performance was mostly restored when my system was idling. Or maybe I should say that it's a halfway point between "somewhat restored" and "mostly restored".

[macdaddy]

Can i update this using BartPE on USB ?

[Titus]

The reason why the difference after wiper isn't huge is because even though TRIM is working, it's not doing as good of a job as it probably should. So we have to use Wiper in order to kind help it, so to speak. But 1819 is said to support native TRIM "much better" than 1571 does. So, considering how DisableDeleteNotify comes up as Enabled, and considering how 1819 supports TRIM "much better" instead of "it now supports TRIM", I am concluding here that 1571 definitely supports it.

And I have seen it with my own system. I would use my computer quite heavily for several hours, and then run ATTO Benchmark immediately after. And then several hours later, I would go up to my computer and run another ATTO Benchmark just to see if TRIM was doing anything. Sure enough, the numbers went back up. They didn't go back up all the way, but still: I cannot deny that my drive's performance was mostly restored when my system was idling. Or maybe I should say that it's a halfway point between "somewhat restored" and "mostly restored".

so I guess the question people need to ask themselves is 1819 worth it because yes it supports TRIM better but at the cost of a slight performance hit...versus 1571 which might not have as good TRIM support but optimal performance...so in summary

1571= best performance...not so good TRIM

1819= 10% performance hit...much better TRIM

so it's a tradeoff and up to each person to decide which is more important to them...or maybe a 3rd option which is to wait for Indilinx/G.Skill to release another firmware update which combines optimal performance with excellent TRIM support...which considering their track record might be a very long wait

[macdaddy]

It does not matter for raid users. TRIM or better TRIM. We want to see is Garbage Collection works.

[gonx_me]

wait for a new firmware? Won't it take ages??

[TwoCables]

Well, I'm seeing mixed reports on here: some say that upgrading to 1819 has caused a 10% performance decrease. But there are others who have said that their system feels snappier than it did with 1571.

So, I am going to wait until it is clearer as to what is more likely to happen if I update the firmware on my Falcon in my particular system.

[Daweed]

it's way more than a 10% performance drop.
We're talking about a 100mbyte/s write speed cap AND a 10% performance drop.

I did everyhting correct yesterday : secure erase, manual alignement, fresh Win7 x64 install. Everything was ok on crystaldiskmark ( well, except the 10% drop due to the bggc i guess ).
This morning, i'm capped to 100mbyte write speed, AGAIN.

OCZ are working on this bug. At least they're aware of this bug. What can Gskill tell us about this ?

[Titus]

Well, I'm seeing mixed reports on here: some say that upgrading to 1819 has caused a 10% performance decrease. But there are others who have said that their system feels snappier than it did with 1571.

although the few people that have stated that their systems feel snappier also probably had performance hits as well...I havn't heard of a single person who has stated that the new firmware kept performance levels about equal to or greater then with 1571...for me feeling snappier doesn't matter as much as pure performance...mine is plenty snappy with 1571