It’s probably nothing sinister, though.
  • @cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28•7 months ago

    Only necessary on the ol spinning rust, with SSDs not only is it completely unnecessary, but it also burns extra writes.

    Spinny’s store data magnetically on the platter with 1s and 0s, SSDs store data on the NAND as a held charge. If there’s a charge in the block it’s a 1 if there’s no charge it’s a 0.

    With spinny’s, a file gets marked as “deleted” but the residual magnetic 1s and 0s will remain on the platter until eventually overwritten

    With SSDs a file gets marked “deleted” and within no more than a few minutes TRIM comes along and ensures the charge on the NAND is released for that data, there’s no residuals to worry about like with spinny’s and is in fact necessary to ensure decent lifespans.

    • @brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3•7 months ago

      Wow, the SSD can hold the charges perfectly while unplugged for ages? Amazing.

      In a post apocalyptic world where I am in charge of building a storage drive and I’m given all the instructions and fabs, the world is going without storage.

      • @davidgro@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13•7 months ago

        Wow, the SSD can hold the charges perfectly while unplugged for ages? Amazing.

        Yup. Before flash memory, devices like video game cartridges which had game saves actually needed a battery to power the memory holding the saves.

    • @Verat@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2•7 months ago

      But wouldn’t TRIM be the deleting he is requesting? Removing the charges would be setting all the bits in that block to the same value.