Greetings,

After reading the recent conversation on m.2 SSDs in a USB-3 enclosure, I decided to give it a try. I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD and a Ugreen NVMe USB-3 enclosure. I'm pleased with the performance, but when I
tried running fstrim on it I got a "not supported" error. The same result came from an older 20TB USB-3 spinning disk.

Is this simply because of the USB link?

--
Regards,
Peter.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Most likely.  You also can't run smart test on them, unless you read the manual and jump through hoops.  I have had 1 external hard drive enclosure that actually communicated properly and that did support SMART without hoops.  I've had several others
that didn't work easilly and I've never bothered to learn the SMART command options to try and make the others work.  As usual there's an ideal way to implement drives over usb, and then there's the easy/lazy/incomplete way most of them actually work.

--"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege." Tommy Douglas




Mar 5, 2025, 08:54 by peter@prh.myzen.co.uk:

Greetings,

After reading the recent conversation on m.2 SSDs in a USB-3 enclosure, I decided to give it a try. I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD and a Ugreen NVMe USB-3 enclosure. I'm pleased with the performance, but when I tried running fstrim on it I got a "not supported" error. The same result came
from an older 20TB USB-3 spinning disk.

Is this simply because of the USB link?

--
Regards,
Peter.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Am Wed, Mar 05, 2025 at 03:53:51PM +0000 schrieb Peter Humphrey:

Greetings,

After reading the recent conversation on m.2 SSDs in a USB-3 enclosure, I decided to give it a try. I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD and a Ugreen NVMe USB-3 enclosure. I'm pleased with the performance, but when I tried running fstrim on it I got a "not supported" error.

To get confirmation, try to find out what controller chip is used in the enclosure. I looked at a product search for “Ugreen M.2 USB” and just on the
first page found three different models with three different controller
chips, from Asmedia, JMicron and Realtek. Then you can check the data sheet whether it supports the necessary functions.

The same result came from an older 20TB USB-3 spinning disk.

Spinning disks only support TRIM if they are SMR.

Is this simply because of the USB link?

The link itself not. The controller needs to support and implement the relevant functions. Sometimes it’s also an issue of discovery. Pages like https://kb.plugable.com/data-storage/trim-an-ssd-in-linux mention a udev
rule which helps linux at detecting TRIM.

--
Grüße | Greetings | Salut | Qapla’
Please do not share anything from, with or about me on any social network.

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On Wednesday, 5 March 2025 19:54:19 Greenwich Mean Time Frank Steinmetzger wrote:

Am Wed, Mar 05, 2025 at 03:53:51PM +0000 schrieb Peter Humphrey:

Greetings,

After reading the recent conversation on m.2 SSDs in a USB-3 enclosure, I decided to give it a try. I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD and
a
Ugreen NVMe USB-3 enclosure. I'm pleased with the performance, but when I tried running fstrim on it I got a "not supported" error.

To get confirmation, try to find out what controller chip is used in the enclosure. I looked at a product search for “Ugreen M.2 USB” and just on the
first page found three different models with three different controller chips, from Asmedia, JMicron and Realtek. Then you can check the data sheet whether it supports the necessary functions.

The same result came from an older 20TB USB-3 spinning disk.

Spinning disks only support TRIM if they are SMR.

Is this simply because of the USB link?

The link itself not. The controller needs to support and implement the relevant functions. Sometimes it’s also an issue of discovery. Pages like https://kb.plugable.com/data-storage/trim-an-ssd-in-linux mention a udev
rule which helps linux at detecting TRIM.

Yes, you need a compatible USB controller and suitable firmware to have the appropriate UASP SCSCI-to-ATA command for TRIM (unmap). Now somewhat aged, but detailed discussion on this topic can be found here:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/744891/fstrim-for-usb-ssd-boot-drive

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--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wednesday, 5 March 2025 19:54:19 Greenwich Mean Time Frank Steinmetzger wrote:

Am Wed, Mar 05, 2025 at 03:53:51PM +0000 schrieb Peter Humphrey:

Greetings,

After reading the recent conversation on m.2 SSDs in a USB-3 enclosure, I decided to give it a try. I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD and
a
Ugreen NVMe USB-3 enclosure. I'm pleased with the performance, but when I tried running fstrim on it I got a "not supported" error.

To get confirmation, try to find out what controller chip is used in the enclosure. I looked at a product search for “Ugreen M.2 USB” and just on the
first page found three different models with three different controller chips, from Asmedia, JMicron and Realtek. Then you can check the data sheet whether it supports the necessary functions.

Thank you Frank.

I revisited this today and found that the enclosure I bought does not support TRIM, but another one, barely distinguishable, does. I'll return the one I have and replace it with the other.

--
Regards,
Peter.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sunday, 23 March 2025 12:01:55 Greenwich Mean Time Peter Humphrey wrote:

On Wednesday, 5 March 2025 19:54:19 Greenwich Mean Time Frank Steinmetzger

wrote:

Am Wed, Mar 05, 2025 at 03:53:51PM +0000 schrieb Peter Humphrey:

Greetings,

After reading the recent conversation on m.2 SSDs in a USB-3 enclosure,
I
decided to give it a try. I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD
and
a
Ugreen NVMe USB-3 enclosure. I'm pleased with the performance, but when
I
tried running fstrim on it I got a "not supported" error.

To get confirmation, try to find out what controller chip is used in the enclosure. I looked at a product search for “Ugreen M.2 USB” and just on
the first page found three different models with three different
controller chips, from Asmedia, JMicron and Realtek. Then you can check
the data sheet whether it supports the necessary functions.

Thank you Frank.

I revisited this today and found that the enclosure I bought does not
support TRIM, but another one, barely distinguishable, does. I'll return
the one I have and replace it with the other.

Hah! Not only does the new one still not support discard, but it can't handle 4TB drives.

Back to the drawing board...

--
Regards,
Peter.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)