[LINK] Semi-OT: Win7 SSD tweaks - where does Linux stand?

[Fernando Cassia]

I read here:
http://windows7center.com/windows-7-feature/windows-7-to-improve-on-solid-state-drive-ssd-performance/

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The Windows 7 team has done a lot to improve support for SSDs, so 
there’s definitely a lot to look forward to in terms of SSD 
compatibility. Since Windows Vista, a lot of re-engineering has taken 
place to improve the SSD support. SSDs are very different from SATA 
drives, but Vista treated them both the same, and hence, SSDs could 
never reach the speed they were capable of with Vista.

In Windows 7, Microsoft promises a substantial increase in read and 
write speed of SSDs. First and foremost, Windows 7 will partition the 
SSDs more efficiently to lessen the redundant read-write cycles. Also, 
when Windows 7 detects an SSD, it will automatically disable 
defragmentation, since defragmenting can reduce the lifespan of Solid 
State Drives. Read times are usually boosted when drives are 
defragmented, but since flash memory already has a high read rate and 
slow write rate, defragment is unideal for SSDs.

Secondly, Windows 7 will also come with a feature called �trim� which 
will cut down on the amount of data to be deleted, increasing the SSD’s 
lifespan and allowing it to delete garbage data in advance. It also uses 
ATA commands to increase the SSD write speeds.
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Did Microsoft, per chance, patent any of its "special code" to identify 
SSD drives and perform the mentioned tweaks?. Perhaps Microsoft will use 
this (patenting specific code tied to increasing performance on new 
hardware) as a way to get an edge vs. Linux?. I´m just guessing. I 
learned always to distrust the ultimate motives of everything Microsoft 
does (which not surprisingly, the ultimate goal of every move it makes 
is to extend the Windows monopoly and ecosystem).

And how does Linux cope with SSDs?. Any work on Linux to detect SSDs and 
minimize read-writes, for instance on projects like Gnome and/or 
OpenOffice?. Will Firefox on Linux try to cache reads-writes (or disable 
disk cache replacing it with RAM) if it detects it´s running on a SSD?.

FC