This blog is partly triggered by the new Resilient File System (ReFS) that Microsoft just announced for Windows 8. At least for now, the new file system appears to be more for servers than any laptops or tablets, and that too, particularly SSD based laptops and tablets. More about the ReFs in some other blogs.
For the record, I believe Intel holds a trademark on the term Ultrabook.
I am not sure my Windows 7 and Windows 8 Developer Preview NTFS based laptops need a better metadata checksum mechanism, let alone a better user data checksum mechanism. But here is what I do believe my NTFS based laptops (Win 7 and presumably also the Win 8 based laptops) need, especially so when the hard disk is an SSD.
- Can the OEMs please stop bundling and/or stop offering a disk defragmentation utility with SSD based systems? SSD based volumes do not need to be defragmented, indeed, they reduce the life of the SSD! Further, maybe the Microsoft OEM division, especially so for Windows 8, as well as the Intel Ultrabook division can do something about this?
- Microsoft, thank you for disabling the built in defrag code in Windows 7 when an SSD based NTFS volume is detected. Hopefully the same is true in Windows 8 as well.
- SSDs have this need for the unused data blocks to be erased. That is just the nature of the physics involved. Doing so makes the writes faster. After a user buys an SSD based laptop, after a while, all of the blocks have been written and it would be advantageous for the disk firmware to know which blocks are unused as seen by the file system (NTFS) so that it can go ahead and erase them. The idea is that the disk blocks are erased and ready for me to write to when I download the latest movie, whether from iTunes, YouTube, or my DVD drive. Enter the Windows 7 “TRIM” command where Windows 7 passes down the information as to what disk blocks it just “released” and that can be erased. The problem is that it is not clear which drive vendors make use of that TRIM command? Or when a new version of the driver firmware makes use of that TRIM command, do the laptop OEMs bother to use that firmware? I understand there are profits to be made, and that goal may at least temporarily result in a situation where a Windows 7 SSD volume is simply ignoring the TRIM command. It would be interesting to get those statistics – whether it be from Microsoft, or a drive vendor, or a laptop OEM, or for that matter Intel for its Ultrabook branded OEMs.
- What would be even more useful would be to have the same insight for Windows 8 SSD based laptops and tablets, whenever those are commercially available. While I will not buy a laptop or tablet simply because it makes proper use of the TRIM command, I do know that 64GB and 128 GB SSDs tend to fill very quickly, and hence the TRIM command will help. So it is certainly an important consideration. Perhaps this is one way an OEM can differentiate their offering.
More about ReFS and SSD in a new blog at a later date.
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