Intel SSD Toolbox Download Problem

In trying to download the latest Intel SSD Toolbox (version 3.2.3), I found that I could download neither with Firefox nor even Internet Explorer. 

Clicking the "I accept the terms in the license agreement" didn't start the download as I'd expect, and clicking the "do not accept" also did nothing.

I right-clicked on the page and clicked View Source, and managed to find the direct link. I bypassed complying with the license agreement, true, but if Intel had tested their site code thoroughly, maybe a workaround like this wouldn't be necessary in the first place.


Here is the direct download link.





 

Manually Invoking TRIM To Restore SSD Performance

I've had my SSD for almost two years now and although Intel's SSD utility shows it as having plenty of life remaining, I'd been reading up on TRIM and the details of how SSDs manage their space.

TRIM is a kind of garbage collection for SSDs, for although SSDs don't experience data fragmentation of the sort that hard drives do, there is clutter which can accumulate over time and negatively affect performance.

I found a forum post on "refreshing" SSD performance which mentioned a tiny utility called ForceTrim, which tells your SSD to perform TRIM processing and smooth out the "wrinkles" in its data storage.

Using CrystalDiskMark to benchmark my SSD performance before running ForceTrim, I saw performance close to what it was when I first started using this SSD as my operating system drive:

BEFORE - Seems pretty close to new SSD performance.

I then opened ForceTrim, selected my C: drive, and clicked TRIM. As the tool advised, I waited around five minutes for the drive to "recover", then reran the benchmark:

AFTER - Modest gains pretty much across the board.

It does appear that manually invoking TRIM can provide a modest boost in read and write performance for an SSD. Perhaps in the SSD age, forcing TRIM once in a while is the "new" defrag?