Blog

Projects

Aboutme

synaptic fault

Contact

minddumped

Tweet

HowtoproperlyactivateTRIMforyourSSDonLinux:
fstrim,lvmanddmcrypt
PostedonSaturday,23rdFebruary2013

27comments

Language
English
Espaol

Unlikeharddiskdrives(HDDs),NANDflashmemorythatmakeSSDcannotoverwriteexistingdata.This
means that you first have to delete the old data before writing new one. Flash memory is divided into
blocks,whichisfurtherdividedinpages.Theminimumwriteunitisapage,butthesmallesteraseunitisa
block.

Tags
apache Applet debian email fpga game Git GNOME

hack hardware kernel

linux meego networking packages
performance power management procmail python
RFKill

Security ssd tor trim usb virtualization

warwebkitwireless

Categories
http://planet.igalia.com
http://planet.webkit.org
http://planet.webkitgtk.org
http://planetsecurity.org

Shareit!
Datacanbewrittendirectlyintoanemptypage,butonlywholeblockscanbeerased.Therefore,toreclaim
thespacetakenupbyinvaliddata,allthevaliddatafromoneblockmustbefirstcopiedandwrittenintothe
emptypagesofanewblock.Onlythencantheinvaliddataintheoriginalblockbeerased,makingitready
fornewvaliddatatobewritten.
Do you see the problem? This means that as time goes on, the SSD will internally fragment the blocks
among the different pages, until that it reaches a point where there wont be available any empty page.
Theneverytimethedriveneedstowriteablockintoanyofthesemifullpages,itfirstneedstocopythe
currentblocksfromthepagetoabuffer,thenithastodeletethewholepagetofinallyrewritetheoldblocks
alongwiththenewone.ThismeansthatastimegoesontheSSDperformancedegradesmoreandmore,
because for every write it has to go through a cycle of readerasemodifywrite. This is known as write
amplification.

RecentPosts
WebKitGTK+PerformanceBot!
How to connect to .onion Tor domains with
FirefoxonLinux
How to properly activate TRIM for your SSD on
Linux:fstrim,lvmanddmcrypt
Git: Copy a file or directory from another
repositorypreservingthehistory
IKEAHackers:LackRack

WithoutTRIMthediskisunabletoknowwhichblocksareinusebyafileorwhichonesaremarkedasfree
space.Thisisbecausewhenafileisdeleted,theonlythingtheOSdoesistomarktheblocksthatwere
usedbythefileasfreeinsidethefilesystemindex.ButtheOSwonttellthediskaboutthis.Thismeans
thatovertimetheperformanceoftheSSDdiskwilldegrademoreandmore,anditdontmattershowmuch
spaceyoufree,becausetheSSDwontknowaboutit.

Unlocking a LUKS encrypted root partition

What is TRIM? TRIM was invented for solving this problem. TRIM is the name of a command that the
operatingsystemcansendtotelltheSSDwhichblocksarefreeinthefilesystem.
The SSD uses this information to internally defragment the blocks and keep free pages available to be
writtenquicklyandefficiently.

Auth External: the Swiss Army Knife of Apache

HowtoactiveTRIMonLinux?ThefirstthingtoknowisthatTRIMshouldbeenabledonallI/Oabstraction
layers.Thismeansthatifyouhaveanext4partitionontopofLVM,whichinturnisontopofanencrypted
volumewithLUKS/dmcrypt,thenyoumustenablesupportforTRIMinthesethreelayers:Thefilesystem,
LVManddmcrypt.Thereisnopointinenablingitatthefilesystemlevelifyoudontenableitalsoonthe
otherlayers.TheTRIMcommandshouldbetranslatedfromonelayertoanotheruntilreachingtheSSD.

remotelyviaSSH
OpenRISC:Makingthestack100%free
DontejectyourUSBstorage:stopit!
RFKillAppletforGNOME
Auth

Tweets
RT

@News_Executive:

Update:

Spectacular Photo of the new eruption

now of #VolcanCalbuco in #Chile
http://t.co/JcXBQ9lybC
1monthago

RT

@aszy:

Improving

Compiler

Optimizations Using Machine Learning

http://t.co/jfVOO1kfSG
1monthago

Microsoftisgoingtocelebratethenext
Debian

release!.

Not

joke:

http://t.co/1NO3dZCjaR@debian
1monthago

RT @r_netsec: Practical Attacks on

DOCSIS[PDF]http://t.co/jzYjnytQZa

1monthago

RT @GSICKMINDS: This year to the

#gsickminds2015wehaveadoptedour
friends @jsconf code of conduct
http://t.co/52U2KdAngu
2monthsago

1. EnablingTRIMsupportondmcrypt
Wesimplyhavetoaddtheoptiondiscardinsideourcrypttab
$cat/etc/crypttab
#<targetname><sourcedevice><keyfile><options>
sda2_crypt/dev/sda2noneluks,discard

Note:TheusageofTRIMondmcryptcouldcausesomesecurityissuesliketherevelationof
whichsectorsofyourdiskareunused.

2. EnablingTRIMsupportonLVM
Wehavetoenabletheoptionissue_discardsintheLVMconfiguration.
$cat/etc/lvm/lvm.conf
#[...]
devices{
#[...]
issue_discards=1
#[...]
}
#[...]

3. EnablingTRIMsupportonthefilesystem
This is the most interesting part. Most people simply add the option discard in the mounting
options at /etc/fstab. However, this means that every time you delete a file, the OS will be
reporting in realtime to the SSD which blocks were occupied by that file and are not longer in
use, and then the SSD will have to perform a defragmentation and deletion of those internal
blocks,operationwhichwilltakeanamountoftimehigherthandesired.
InordertooptimizetheperformanceoftheSSD,IstronglyadviseyoutoavoiddoingtheTRIM
operationinrealtime(wheneverafileisdeleted)becauseyouwouldbeputtinganunnecessary
extraamountofworkovertheSSD.Inotherwords:Youshouldnotenablethediscardoptionin
fstab.
Instead,whatIrecommendistorunascriptperiodicallytotelltheSSDwhichblocksarefreewith
thecommandfstrim.Doingthisoperationdailyorweeklyismorethanenough.Thiswaywedo
notloseanyperformanceduetoTRIMwhendeletingfilesandweperiodicallykeepinformedthe
SSDaboutthefreeblocks.
Otheradvantagesofthefstrimwayare:
IfyoudidntenabledcorrectlytheTRIMsupportintheabovelayersofyoursetup,you
willreceiveanerrorwhenexecutingfstrim. On the other hand, if you were using the
discard option at fstab you wouldnt have received any error and you would end
thinkingthatyoumanagedtogetTRIMworkingproperlywhenyoudidnt.
Ifyoudeleteafilebymistake(youknowithappens),youcanrecoveritbeforeanacron
runsyourscriptfstrim.Ontheotherhand,ifyouwereusingthediscardatfstaboption
youwouldnthaveanychanceofrecoveringthefile,becausetheOSwouldhavetold
the SSD to TRIM that blocks as soon as you deleted the file, and consequently the

SSDhasirreversiblydestroyedsuchblocks.
Hereyouhavesimplescripttorunfstrim on the /,/bootand/home partitions, which can be
programmedtobeexecutedperiodicallybyanacron
$cat/etc/cron.weekly/dofstrim
#!/bin/sh
formountin//boot/homedo

fstrim$mount
done

Itsworthmentioningthatbothfstrimanddiscardatfstab options only work on filesystems that

implementtheioctlFITRIM.Today,suchfilesystemsare:
~/kernel/linux(v3.8)$greplrFITRIMfs/|cutd/f2|sort|uniq|xargsecho
btrfsext3ext4gfs2jfsocfs2xfs

Note: On most setups you will have to rebuild your initramfs with updateinitramfsu (Debian and
derivatives) or dracutf (Redhat and derivatives) and reboot the machine after touching the
configurationoptionsofLVMordmcrypt.
Update25Feb2013:SeemsthatFedora users with a dmcrypt volume will be affected by this problem:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/890533
Update14Aug2014: The following script can be used to automatically detect and fstrim all filesystems
thathaveTRIMsupportenabled.

dwhichFSsupporttrim,wecheckthatDISCMAX(discardmaxbytes)
atthanzero.Checkdiscard_max_bytesdocumentationat
//www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/block/queuesysfs.txt

n$(lsblkoMOUNTPOINT,DISCMAX,FSTYPE|grepE'^/.*[19]+.*'|awk'{print$1}')do

linux,ssd,trim

Git: Copy a file or directory from another repository

Howtoconnectto.onionTordomainswithFirefoxon

preservingthehistory

Linux

Leaveacomment?

27Comments.

charlieFriday,12thApril2013at15:50UTC

Reply

thedefaultinstallwithencryptionsets/bootasext2.andiguessthatdoesntsupportTrim.
whatwilltheramificationsbetoleave/bootasext2andnotbeabletoTrim?
clopezFriday,12thApril2013at19:14UTC

Reply

/bootisusuallyaverysmallpartition(<500MBusually).SoIthinkisnotabigdealtohavethis
withouttrimsupport.Ifyouareworriedbythis,youcanchangethedefaulttouseext3for/boot
FlaburganThursday,31stOctober2013at7:04UTC

Reply

Whatabouttheswappartition?ShouldIrunfstrimonittoo?

charlieFriday,12thApril2013at21:37UTC

Reply

thankyou!excellentblogyouhave!

ExonThursday,9thMay2013at15:30UTC

Reply

Thanksforyourgreatinformation.
I used to add discard in fstab before. When I switched to LVM, I needed to implement
another way to set the Trim in my SSD. I have followed the blog information to setup the
Trim,isthereanymethodtocheckmysetupiscorrect?Justlike
https://sites.google.com/site/lightrush/random1/checkiftrimonext4isenabledandworking
or
http://howto.unixdev.net/Test_LVM_Trim_Ext4.html
clopezThursday,9thMay2013at16:22UTC

Reply

Ifyoudontgetanyerrorwhenyourunfstrimthenallshouldbeworkingcorrectly.fstrimwill
giveyouanerrorifTRIMsupportisnotenabledcorrectly
ExonSaturday,11thMay2013at2:27UTC

Reply

Thanksclopez!

ChristianTuesday,4thJune2013at23:48UTC

Reply

Excellentarticlethanks!

pcworldMonday,5thAugust2013at1:51UTC

Reply

Isthisstilltrue?(fromhttp://askubuntu.com/a/191945/178920)
However, these discards will only trigger on remove or reduce operations on
LVs.DiscardsonthefilesystemontopofaLVwillnotpropagate!Fromthesame
LVM changelog: Issue discards on lvremove and lvreduce etc. if enabled and
supported.
clopezMonday,5thAugust2013at2:36UTC

Reply

Yes.NotsureaboutUbuntu12.04,butatleastonDebian6(Squeeze)istrue.
ThesupportforTRIMtoLVMwasaddedintheversion2.02.85(seechangelog)
So,ifyourLinuxdistributionshipsanolderversionofLVMyoumaygetnosupportforTRIM.
pcworldMonday,5thAugust2013at14:10UTC

Reply

But doesnt that mean the discard option in fstab is useless? Or does fstrim work
aroundLVM2?
clopezMonday,5thAugust2013at16:24UTC

Reply

IfyourfilesystemisontopofaLVMvolume,andyourversionofLVMisolderthan
2.02.85youwontgetTRIMsupport.Neitherwiththediscardoptionnorthefstrim
one.
Thegoodthingaboutfstrimisthatitwillreporttheerrors.Howeverdiscardoptionin
fstabwillfailsilently..
So the best advice to check if your FS has TRIM support enabled on all the
required layers is to run fstrim. If fstrim works, then you have TRIM enabled
correctly,otherwiseyouwillgetanerror.

JohnWednesday,21stAugust2013at12:12UTC

Reply

Notbeingmuchofabashpersonacoupleofthingsconfusemeonthis.
MymachineissetupwithsystemfilesonSSDand/tmp/varand/homeonharddrivesto
avoidwritestothessd.Thisleavesmewonderingwhattofstrimasallofthesecomeoff/.
The other aspect comes from reading about using ssd disks in redhat docs. They suggest
trimmingwhenthessdhasrunoutoffreshspace.Makessenseasthiswouldensurewear
levelling.Theredoesntseemtobeacommandavailabletocheckhowmuchfreshspaceis
leftthough.Allnothelpedbythefactthatthereseemstobelittleinfoaboutonwhatexactly
goesoninsidethesedisks.
Thanksfortheinfobytheway.BestIhavefound.
John

consatanMonday,28thOctober2013at9:10UTC

Reply

HowcanIfstrimswappartition?
clopezMonday,28thOctober2013at11:07UTC

Reply

Discardisavalidmountoption(/etc/fstab)forswap.Theotheroptionistousetheflagdwhen
addingtheswap.Checkthemanpageofswapon

ShashSaturday,21stDecember2013at21:09UTC
HiClopez,
ThanksforsharingthisinfoGracias
Ireachedthispage,bygoingthroughyouroriginalquestiononServerfault.com(
withref.toyourquestionyouhadaskedaboutdoingthissetupw/RAID0:
FS(OS)|
LVM|
RAID1|
dmcrypt|
SSD1+SSD2v
However,yourpostheredoesntcovertheRAID0setuppart.Highlyappreciateifyoucan
shareonhowsoftwareRAID1wasachieved(ifatall)inthissetup.

Reply

Manythanks.
cheers,
s#
clopezSaturday,1stFebruary2014at21:35UTC

Reply

Thisquestiononserverfault.comisnotfrommyself.
AboutTRIMoverRAID,Inevertestedit,butmyunderstandingisthatitshouldworkoutofthe
boxifyouhavearecentenoughkernelthatsupportsit.
MD RAID needs specific support to forward DISCARD requests and that hasnt even been
proposeduntil3.6https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/3/11/261
shashWednesday,19thFebruary2014at12:31UTC

Reply

HiClopez,
thanksfortip.
didrealizethatIhavegottheRAID#sallovertheplaceinmyoriginalcomment:D.but
IguessyoudidgetthedriftthatIwaslookingforRAID1:).
cheers.
S#

oxtanMonday,6thJanuary2014at18:50UTC

Reply

I have this bash snippet for the cron.weekly job that gets the mountpoints based on the
mounteddevicesinfoinsteadofhardcodingthem.Maybeitisusefultosomebodyelse:
#!/bin/sh
# this cronjob will discard unused blocks on the ssd mounted
filesystems
#getthelocallymountedblockdevicesthosestartingwith"/dev:
#rundfk,pipetheresultthroughgrepandsavethesixthfield
in
#inthemountpointarray
mountpoint=($(dfk|grep^/dev|awk'{print$6}'))
#loopthroughthearrayandrunfstrimoneverymountpoint
foriin"${mountpoint[@]}"
do
/usr/sbin/fstrimv$i
done

ryno75Monday,27thJanuary2014at23:05UTC

Reply

Fantastic writeup! Really well written and organized. One of the most useful howtos Ive
seen.ever.

FrankWangSunday,9thMarch2014at11:43UTC

Reply

Great blog! The only problem I encountered in my Ubuntu 12.04 where / is on lvm is the
fstrim/commandcanstillberunwithoutanyerrorraisedevenifIaddedissue_discard=0
in lvm.conf, then updateinitramfs u and reboot performed. This is not expected. Any
comment?Thanks!

RalfThursday,17thApril2014at15:06UTC

Reply

ItseemsthatopenSUSE13.1iscurrentlynotpreparedforproperhandlingofthediscard
optionin/etc/crypttab.Theinitrddoesnotcontainthepropercommand.
Workaround: In order to activate discard on boot time, I just hardcoded the cryptsetup
commandsin/lib/mkinitrd/boot/71luks.shtocontainluksOpenallowdiscards.Worksfine
sofar.

mr.CoconutWednesday,4thJune2014at17:58UTC

Reply

Hi,
it seems that trim is now activated by default on ubuntu 14.04 lts and its derivatives.
However,ifyouareusingLVM(notencrypted)andhavesnapshotsoflogicalvolumes,then
thesystemisunabletotrim.Icanconfirmthisbehaviour.Anyideas?

XTLSaturday,5thJuly2014at13:31UTC

Reply

OnDebian(andthelike)youcanalsodo
#!/bin/sh
formountin//boot/homedo
fstrim$mount
done
XTLSaturday,5thJuly2014at13:32UTC
Isntthatanicepasteslip

Nopreviewhere.

Reply

$sudodpkgreconfigureinitramfstools

Leave a Comment
NAME
EMAIL
WebsiteURL

CAPTCHACode*

NOTEYoucanusetheseHTMLtagsandattributes:
<ahref=""title=""><abbrtitle=""><acronymtitle=""><b><blockquote
cite=""><cite><code><deldatetime=""><em><i><qcite=""><strike>
<strong>

SUBMIT
Repliestomycomments

Notifymeoffollowupcommentsviaemail.Youcanalsosubscribe

withoutcommenting.

TrackbacksandPingbacks:
HowtoproperlyactivateTRIMforyourSSDonL...Pingbackon2014/03/10/18:06
Revisting an article on how to set up Solid State Disks with Linuxnews.siduction.org | news.siduction.org
Pingbackon2014/10/10/22:43

AllcontentonthissiteislicensedundertheCreativeCommonsAttributionShareAlike3.0License.

Top