X25-M SSD install success! MBP 17''...I took the plunge but questions again

[rotobadger]

Welp...I did it. After a lot of hand wringing I purchased and installed a 160GB X25 (gen 2) on my new 17'' MBP. A little tricky but pretty smooth. Had to burn an iso to disk first to update the firmware on the drive. Didn't realize I had to format the drive before installing OS X. But figured it all out! And...

Wow! FAST! Timed my Boot into OS X at 19 seconds!

So now a couple of questions:

TRIM. We know that it doesn't exist for Mac yet but, if/when it does arrive, can it be applied at that point and make everything run quickly again? Meaning, is this a process that has to be done frequently and regularly or can it be done all at once when you notice a slowdown?

XP. I'm leaning toward an XP install on Bootcamp instead of 7 (for valid reasons related to software but too boring to go into). Am I correct in assuming that running Intel's optimizer on the XP partition will, at least, keep that side running quickly?

There is surprisingly little information on the web about these details and the Intel site is a bit vague about this as well.

So, any feedback? Thanks for the info!

 

[diablo2112]

I agree there's little information available on how these drives handle write degradation and space management. Here's the best I've found on the Intel drives.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3618/intel-x25v-in-raid0-faster-than-x25m-g2-for-250/6

Generally speaking, forget about TRIM on the Macs, even for the XP partition. Near as I can tell, the best thing with the new Intel drives is to do a large, sequential write to the drive to restore performance should it degrade. I've had my X-25M G2 (160GB) drive for about 5 weeks, it's currently half full, and I've seen no degradation according XBench testing. YMMV.

 

[rotobadger]

Thanks for the link diablo. Good to hear your drive hasn't experienced any slowdown yet.