Legit Reviews

With the release of firmware version 02HA, the Intel 34nm SSD family becomes even more impressive. Intel delivered on their promise of releasing a non-destructive firmware update that supports the Windows 7 Trim command along with an end user tool to allow users to optimize the performance of their SSD on Windows XP and Vista operating systems. Those that have the 160GB 34nm SSDs got a very nice performance boost this morning as well. By just installing this firmware update you will see an instant performance boost on the sequential write speeds that allows you to reach speeds well over what you could have gotten with the existing firmware version...

Illuminati wrote:Sweet! Bout time we can rest easy since Intel's G2 drives have TRIM support!

Apoptosis wrote:I upgraded my personal system and so did BWall last week. Both of the updates went fine and the performance improved the second the firmware was installed... These are clearly the best SSDs on the market today. I've had one in my system for nearly 3 months now and I don't think I'll ever go back to a hard drive for my primary drive.

The one thing I might do here in the near future is to buy two of the Kingston 40GB boot drives for $85 each and then run then in RAID 0... You don't get TRIM in RAID 0, but the performance you would get for $170 would be out of this world. I have a feeling those Kingston boot drives are going to sell fast at $85, but you never know.

Intel Gen 2 34nm SSDs FTW!

We were under the impression that the Windows 7 ATA Data Set Management Command’s trim attribute was something done in the background, but that doesn't appear to be the case on the Intel drives. From what the documentation says, you need to schedule the Intel SSD Optimizer to run daily to get the best performance from your SSD.

hayesgcuit wrote:Does anyone know if intel is working on / will work on TRIM comands for the 50nm SSDs? I am an intel supporter, and I hope that intel doesn't forget about hte people that helped get them started with SSDs...

hayesgcuit wrote:Does anyone know if intel is working on / will work on TRIM comands for the 50nm SSDs? I am an intel supporter, and I hope that intel doesn't forget about hte people that helped get them started with SSDs...

Well, that was a short honeymoon -- Intel's now pulled its SSD Toolbox and associated TRIM firmware update amid reports that it was bricking drives under Windows 7. We haven't heard more than anecdotal evidence about this, but we'd definitely pick having a functional drive over the promised 40 percent speed boost from the code, so you should probably hold off if you've downloaded but haven't updated yet. We're looking into things, we'll let you know -- but man, the X-25M just hasn't had an easy life, has it?

Update: Intel just gave us its official statement on the matter:

Yes, we have been contacted by users with issues with the firmware upgrade for our 34nm SSDs and we are investigating. We take all sightings and issues seriously and are working toward resolution. We have temporarily taken down the firmware link while we investigate.