Raid0 and TRIM Support on Intel 11.5 OROM and Latest v11.5.0.1184 RST Drivers ?

[Fernando]

what is GC ?

GC stands for "Garbage Collection".

Just for your information: I just have published the following statement within the Guru3D Forum (>LINK<):

@Fernando,
Per your comment on the XS forum; it only works on Windows 7 if you have a Z77 board, correct?

Until now I know about 3 users with the required RST(e) drivers/ROM version combination, who have published their test results:

• btester aka SSDFreak (board: GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H, OS: Win7 x64)
  He has published his test results >here<, >here< and >here<.
• andressergio (board: ASUS Maximus 5 Gene, OS: Win7 x64)
  You can find his test results >here<.
• Fernando=me (board: ASUS P8Z68-V, OS: Win7 x64 and Win8 x64 on different RAID partitions)
  I have published my test results >here<. The screenshots were taken while running Win8 x64, but the results with Win7 x64 were exactly the same.

All 3 users have done a quite similar test to verify, if Trim is working within the RAID or not:

1. Copy any file into the root of drive C (= OS partition),
2. Open Drive C with a Hex Editor and search for the Offset and Sector data of the just copied file.
3. Delete the file and empty the Recycle Bin.
4. After some minutes reopen Drive C with the Hex Editor and search again for the test file data (enter the previously noticed Offset/Sector digits)
5. If you see just Hex data 00 00 00 00 00, the Trim resp. Unmap command has cleaned the related SSD cells.

My conclusion: Trim/Unmap obviously works within the RAID0 array unter Win7.
Preconditions:

1. mainboard with an Intel Z77 chipset (it probably will work with other Intel chipsets of the 7-Series too),
2. BIOS with an Intel RAID ROM v11.5.0.1414 and
3. use of the actual Intel RST(e) drivers of the v11.5 series (v11.5.0.1184 or higher).

My own test results show, that Trim/Unmap obviously is not working within the RAID array, if the system has an Intel Z68 chipset (neither on Win7 nor on Win8).