Upgrading to SSD - TRIM, AHCI and dual boot

Hi

Currently my system is

WinXP
openSuse
Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3
4GB RAM
Athlon 640
1x 1TB Samsung F3
2x 500GB Samsung F3
1x SATA DVD
1x IDE DVD (Disconnected)

I plan to add a SSD boot, and use the 1TB for backups only, with the 2 500GBs for data. Then later I want to go to 64bit, add more RAM and upgrade windows, but thats not for today.

When I first installed on this build there was some sort of missing driver or poor compatability with the IDE controller, so I had to disable it to install Linux. I was also told to set the SATA controller to IDE mode instead of AHCI as that was more stable for troubleshooting an install.

Now I want to add the SSD I will want to use AHCI instead. How can I change the drives over, if I flip the BIOS over will they still be readable or do I need to change settings in the OS too?

When I fresh install Linux I assume TRIM turns on automatically, what about this drive alignment that I have read a lot about online?

Also, last q, the SSD will be split between Linux and Windows, can Linux TRIM the windows NTFS partition for it because XP lacks this ability?

Cheers
Jonny

Hello

Check the following article on the Arch Wiki for some good tips and info about running SSD devices under Linux:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSD

The article was written with Arch in mind, but most of it should apply to the other distros, too. I've been running Arch on solid state drives for a year or two now and no problems to report, but I don't do any dual booting so can't answer on that.