Speed Up SSDs on Windows 11 With TRIM in 3 Steps

By ToolNerdy Editorial Team Updated May 2026 4 min read

The verdict

SSD feeling slow after a year? Here's how to run TRIM via the GUI and PowerShell, straight from Microsoft's official guidance, in three steps.

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Has the SSD in your Windows 11 PC felt slower after a year or two of use? If so, the culprit usually isn’t a failing drive — it’s TRIM not running at full effectiveness. This guide walks through how to check on TRIM and run it manually so your SSD performs like new again, with references to Microsoft’s official documentation.

Why SSDs slow down over time

Every SSD uses NAND memory cells, which can’t be “overwritten” directly — an entire block has to be “erased” before new data can be written. The TRIM command tells the drive which cells are “no longer in use” so it can erase them ahead of time during idle periods, making the next write much faster, as the Microsoft support page explains.

By default, Windows 11 schedules a weekly automatic TRIM via Task Scheduler. But if your machine is off when the schedule fires, or the schedule has been disabled, your SSD can end up “sitting” on data that was never pre-erased — which shows up as gradually slower writes.

Method 1 — Check and trigger TRIM via Optimize Drives (GUI)

Press the Windows key, type defrag, and select Defragment and Optimize Drives
In the Media type column, confirm your drive shows as “Solid state drive” — if it shows as “Hard disk drive,” Windows hasn’t detected the type correctly, as Microsoft Q&A explains
Click the drive you want to optimize, then click Optimize. Windows will issue a TRIM command instead of a defragment
Click Change settings under Scheduled optimization and make sure “Run on a schedule” is checked, with frequency set to Weekly (the default)

Method 2 — Run a deeper TRIM via PowerShell (for machines that often miss the schedule)

If you use a laptop that’s powered off most of the time and you suspect TRIM has been falling behind, run Optimize-Volume with the -ReTrim parameter. It re-issues TRIM across every free sector, per Microsoft Learn’s documentation:

Right-click the Start button and choose Terminal (Admin)
Switch to the PowerShell tab and run:
```
Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter C -ReTrim -Verbose
```
Replace C with the drive letter you want.
Wait for the command to finish — your machine will display progress along with the sectors that have been TRIMmed

Method 3 — Extra settings to extend SSD life

Leave at least 15–20% free space — drives that are nearly full fragment faster and write noticeably slower
Update the SSD’s firmware via the manufacturer’s tool, like Samsung Magician or WD Dashboard. Vendors regularly release firmware to fix bugs and improve stability
Don’t enable daily defragmentation — for an SSD, unnecessary writes and erases shorten its lifespan. Windows already schedules a weekly TRIM, which is enough
Disable Hibernate if you don’t use it (run powercfg /hibernate off in an admin Terminal) to reclaim several GB of space

If it’s still slow after all of the above

If your SSD still feels abnormally slow after running ReTrim and confirming the schedule, check these three things:

Check the SSD’s health with CrystalDiskInfo. If “Total Host Writes” is higher than the manufacturer’s rated TBW, the drive is approaching end of life
Check the cable and port — a SATA SSD plugged into an older port may run at SATA II (3 Gbps) instead of SATA III (6 Gbps). Try a different port and re-test with CrystalDiskMark
Check for malware or a cryptominer secretly writing in the background — open Task Manager, go to Performance, and check whether the idle write rate is close to zero

Sources

Tags: PC optimization, SSD, TRIM, tutorial, Windows 11

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