Quick question - so is Samsung Magician 4.9.7 the last version to work on XP, or did you not test any later versions? And do you know what Magician version is needed for the 860 series to work with TRIM? Thanks!

Samsung Magician 4.9.7 I think is the last version that works on Windows XP and can do TRIM on demand. It supports very old SSDs only like 850 EVO. You also need AHCI driver, not SCSI driver in Windows XP. I was able to run it successfully in Windows 7 only with AMD SATA controller and EVO 850.

2nd option is to use Acronis True Image 2014. In menu Tools and Utilities -> Trim SSD. It seems to do it properly by rebooting and trimming on restricted boot. This works with old chipsets like nForce 4 which do not support AHCI. I use it with 860 EVO.

3rd option is to use USB key with Linux.

Thanks.

On one of my laptop's w/870 EVO, I booted with Acronis True Image 2014 boot CD. There was an option to TRIM. I clicked it. After 1-2 seconds, the programme exited saying it was finished. Is that normal? When I manually trim Ext4 partitions in Linux, it takes way longer (several minutes). The WinXP NTFS partition has never been trimmed.

On my WinXP desktop, it contains one of the notorious 870 EVO SSD firmware's with non-correctable error bugs. It has firmware SVT01B6Q. I've attached a screenshot. I'll probably replace the drive with an 850 EVO. That system has a JMicron 20360 AHCI SATA2 controller. If this is a controller that Magician 4.9.7 supports, would I still see N/A under "AHCI Mode" and under "SATA Interface"? Or do I need to have an 850 EVO connected for the controller to be identified?

Some people suggest Naraeon SSD Tools v5.4.0 for TRIM in Windows XP. This doesn't work with nForce 4 and Samsung 860 EVO. nForce 4 doesn't support AHCI. The utility fails to detect SSD and exits.

Acronis True Image 2014 TRIM runs just for a few seconds after reboot, but Trimcheck 0.7 confirms TRIM works correctly.

Trim should take split second when you are using sane file system. It sends the list of unallocated sectors to the drive and thats it, done. After that Drive is free to internally reallocate space however it pleases and take as much time as it wants.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-07-30, 19:07:

Acronis True Image 2014 TRIM runs just for a few seconds after reboot, but Trimcheck 0.7 confirms TRIM works correctly.

Where would one legitimately acquire Acronis True Image 2014, in 2026? I have an SSD with a key for Acronis True Image HD and I can't even find that today. Thanks!

rasz_pl wrote on 2026-07-31, 12:45:

Trim should take split second when you are using sane file system. It sends the list of unallocated sectors to the drive and thats it, done. After that Drive is free to internally reallocate space however it pleases and take as much time as it wants.

Just wanted to restate things for my own edification here-- Let me know if I missed or misstated anything important.

Deleting a file before Trim:

• Operating system updates the directory structure and the allocation table saying the file is gone.
• SSD preserves data on the sectors used by old file until a new file overwrites the sectors because nothing was done with these sectors
• Deleted files can be "undeleted" via old school 1980's methods.

Deleting a file with Trim:

• Operating system updates the directory structure and the allocation table saying the file is gone.
• Operating system send a list of sectors used by the deleted file to get "trimmed" (like a hedge in the spring). This is not a lot of overhead.
• SSD tags the sectors from the TRIM list as stale

And then there is the async garbage collection phase that occurs later on the SSD as time allows:

• blocks that recently became unused (only contain stale sectors) are erased and returned to the wear leveling pool.
• used sectors on partially allocated blocks are condensed to create additional unused blocks
• old files that have not been updated in a long time stored on blocks with a low usage count may get moved to blocks that have a high write count, freeing up blocks with a low write count for the buffer pool

So you can sort of see how good garbage collection can keep an SSD working for a long even without trim. Even if the SSD thinks that the drive is 99% full because the deletes were not trimmed, the garbage collection will eventually swap the data on those "cold" blocks to the hot blocks to keep things from dying. But this causes "write amplification", where more writes than necessary occur on the drive, because unwanted data from deleted files is getting shuffled around when it doesn't need to be. That theoretically reduces performance and shortens the life of device, however any SSD made in the recent past , even if operating at max write amplification, is still going to have much better performance and a much longer life expectancy than any 15 year old worn out spinny disk machine you might find in the back of your cupboard.

feipoa wrote on 2025-11-16, 12:57:

Thanks.

On one of my laptop's w/870 EVO, I booted with Acronis True Image 2014 boot CD. There was an option to TRIM. I clicked it. After 1-2 seconds, the programme exited saying it was finished. Is that normal? When I manually trim Ext4 partitions in Linux, it takes way longer (several minutes). The WinXP NTFS partition has never been trimmed.

Is it possible that the Acronis True Image tool just sends over a list of unused sectors while the linux tool is creating a large file to fill up the unused space and then deleting it with trim so that the OS sends the trim over?

douglar wrote on 2026-07-31, 14:36:

Is it possible that the Acronis True Image tool just sends over a list of unused sectors while the linux tool is creating a large file to fill up the unused space and then deleting it with trim so that the OS sends the trim over?

Fast ones just read NTFS $MFT directly. Terrible implementations will manually walk the filesystem.