Intel today announced the availability of the Intel Solid-State Drive (SSD) Toolbox, with Intel SSD Optimizer and a firmware update to enable TRIM and to boost performance on select 34nm Intel X25-M Mainstream SATA SSDs. Read on to see how the Intel X25-M Mainstream 160GB Generation 2 SATA SSD does with the new firmware!
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...
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.
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!
How is the inability to use the TRIM in RAID 0 going to effect things though?
"Page 7 - Final Thoughts and Conclusions" in the article states:
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.
That's not quite right, you only need to schedule the tool if using Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 not using the Microsoft AHCI driver.
Thanks for the great first post and welcome to the forums.
I'll have to read up on that some more, but it looks like your info is rock solid. Makes sense to me! I'll check out that white paper/FAQ and update the article tomorrow accordingly after I've digested the new info!
I went through the update last night. The update itself was easy but it messed up Windows and I had to do a full reinstall. I guess that is what the disclamer is for
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...
From everything I have heard (and I think Nate put it in his article) they will not. Sorry.
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...
Ya, I believe right around the time the 34nm SSDs were announced, they also mentioned that the 50nm SSDs were no longer scheduled to get TRIM support. It turned out that none of the drives at that point from any manufacturer were going to get TRIM support, so it wasn't just Intel that bailed on the early adopters... every company did. But I know it sucks just the same.
There's an alarming amount of corrupt hard drive stories that sound pretty much the same after the firmware update (bricked/corrupted drive after first Windows 7 reboot after a newly flashed drive). It looks like Intel screwed up somewhere and didn't account for some common configuration that exists.
And just now it looks like Intel has taken down the firmware download from their website.
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.
I have the 80gb version. I would have to do a quick search again to pull the exact model but it was listed for the firmware update.
I am running Windows 7 Home Premium (upgrade). Basically the update went totally smooth but after reboot Windows crashes before getting to the desktop. I attempted a repair but Windows was unable to repair the OS installation. I ended up reformatting and reinstalling W7. I have all my documents on a separate drive so I didn't loose anything other than time . After getting W7 up and running again late last night I installed the toolbox and now have it scheduled to run trim on the SSD every evening.
x-clay, I would hold off on running it until they get this sorted out. TRIM should work automagically in the background anyway and worst case you aren't going to see a slow down in the few weeks it will take them to fix this.