Did you notice a nice performance improvement after installing the new Android 4.3 update on your Nexus devices? That’ll be partly due to the fact that Google finally introduced TRIM support in this release, allowing devices to recycle unused storage after apps and other content have been deleted from your device.

In previous versions of Android, TRIM wasn’t supported, so when you “deleted” apps, games, movies, music, and other content, they weren’t technically removed from your system. You see, Android simply marks the space taken up by those things as available, but without TRIM, there was no way for the space to be recycled and used again.

Crazy, right? There’s probably a ton of space on your Nexus device that cannot be used because the system doesn’t know how to recycle it properly. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case in Android 4.3. Your Nexus device will automatically recycle unused storage roughly every 24 hours — depending on the conditions — properly freeing up space from deleted files.

The impact TRIM support has on your Nexus device will all depend on how long you’ve been using it without wiping its internal storage. If you’ve been using it for many months and you’ve deleted lots of content in that time, TRIM support will likely have a noticeable impact on your performance.

However, if you haven’t had your Nexus long, or you’ve wiped it recently, then the impact won’t be quite as evident.

Android 4.3 is now available to the original Nexus 7, the new Nexus 7, the Nexus 10, the Nexus 4, and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It’s an over-the-air update that you’ll find within the Software Update section of your Settings app — if you haven’t already installed it.

• SourceAnandTech