SSD Drive Toolkit

Recently we reported on problems with the Intel firmware update for its SSD. New version of firmware  was supposed to speed up disk and activate the special control command (TRIM) in Windows 7. But with these improvements some users have received an addtitional surprise – their computers became unable to boot the operating system. After pour of complaints started to rush on Intel, the company quickly removed updated firmware from public access.

But now, after a month passed, Intel is ready to give the consumers of its SSD new advantages of TRIM and accelerate their device. New firmware version 02HD together with the updating tool v1.5 should finally give the holders of a 160 GB SSD promised 40% sequential write boost. In the first reviews of users, everything works as it supposed to be , so if you own a Solid State Drive from Intel, you’d better get latest update.
That’s what Intel wrote about the release:

This firmware update tool provides the latest firmware for the following Intel SSDs in all capacities:
-  Intel® X25-M/X18-M SATA SSD on 50nm (black case)  - updates to FW version 8820
-  Intel® X25-E SATA SSD on 50nm (black case)             - updates to FW version 8850
-  Intel® X25-M/X18-M SATA SSD on 34nm (silver case)  – updates to FW version 02HD
This firmware will enable your SSD to deliver the best performance in your PC. Use this update tool to get the latest production firmware.

Once Intel has released a new version firmware for the X25-M solid state drives, she began to receive complaints from consumers, to Score stated that new dress broke their device.
The representative of Intel’s NAND Solutions Group at the customer support forum said the company plans to release fixed firmware by the end of  November.

Firmware upgrade was also designed to expedite the work speed of X25-M SSD. It is necessary part for of Intel SSD Toolbox, which monitors and manages the X25-M on operating systems Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. New firmware and the Intel SSD Optimizer enable using of special command from the Windows 7 ATA Data Set Management (known as TRIM), which helps sustain good performance of solid state disk. TRIM physically removes files from the disk, which were previously marked for removal. For owners of the 160GB SSDs updated firmware will also increase thesequential write speed to 100 MB/s, it is 40% higher than current values.

The Intel Company has released special software called SSD Toolbox, which includes updated firmware for it’s advanced solid-state drives X25-M series and SSD Optimizer, which will improve performance of the SSD. New firmware in conjunction with SSD Optimizer and SSD Toolbox allows you to use a special ATA-command  to ensure continued high performance. This command, called Trim, synchronize list of actually deleted files with list of files, which are deleted but still physically exist on drive. Trim command tells SSD what exactly blocks became available. In other operating systems new tools for optimization are not yet available because the Trim command is part of Windows ATA Data Set Management Command and is only implemented in Windows 7. So Intel SSD will work faster only in Windows 7 for now.

Drives X25-M series are relatively new and are manufactured by the most modern 34 nanometer technology. Despite the novelty, these drives are affected of the general SSD problem – “degradation” after rewriting a large amount of data. According to the developers, the gain in speed from the new firmware and optimizing utility can be different. For 160 Gb Solid State Disk write speed is increased from 70 Mb/s to 100 Mb/s.

Intel SSD Toolbox Screenshot

It should be noted that experts from WindowsITPro reported that the Trim improves drive performance not in all cases, but only after complete removal of files. If you just  rewrites existing files, the level of degradation of the drive remains the same as before the using Trim command.

In any event, if you are using Intel X25-M SATA drives, you should be sure to download and install updated firmware and a set of utilities SSD Optimizer and SSD Toolkit to optimize the placement of files on the SSD-drive. You can use this link: http://www.intel.com/go/ssdtoolbox/

Intel has confirmed the existence of a problem with its own new generation Solid State Drives and suspended sales. New SSDs are manufactured with 34 nanometer technology. In comparison with available on the market Intel’s SSD drives, these devices has more capacity, better performance and lower cost.

The issues in question relates to an error in the SSD’s firmware. If user will set BIOS password and then will delete it, there’s probability of failure that leads to loss of access to the information stored on SSD. Intel strongly recommends don’t proceed manipulations with BIOS password to users who have already bought new Solid State Drives. The company works hard to eliminate errors and promised to release corrected version of firmware within two weeks.

New generation 34-nanometer Intel SSDs are now manufactured in the 2.5/1.8 inches form factors and has 80\160 Gb capacity.

Solid state drives are gaining increasing popularity and you can be sure that more and more people interest about purchasing that devices. Enthusiasts will find these drives excellent tool for getting the record results in the PCMark 2005 tests. Users who work with graphics programs will receive significant disk subsystem performance growth. For example Adobe Photoshop starts almost instantly with SSD. Gamers certainly appreciate the increased speed of levels loading etc. In any case, this technology is just interesting.

OCZ Vertex 2.5'' SSD

People from PC Perspective(pcper.com) decided to research productivity of OCZ Vertex SSD. This line of Solid State Drives is based on multilevel (Multi-Level Cell, MLC) flash memory NAND-type. This type of flash memory (MLC) is supposed to have less performance than SLC-based flash memory. Up to 64MB of cache memory is the solution to this problem in OCZ Solid State Drives. In addition, the products are based on an advanced architecture with an updated controller. This controller for OCZ Vertex 120GB is the Indilinx IDX110 chip, and cache memory module manufacturer is Elpida. The main capacity of SSD consists of Samsung chips.

For their tests researchers selected a several more drives to compare:
* OCZ Summit 250 GB SSD;
* OCZ Apex 250 GB SSD;
* Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD;
* OCZ 64 GB SSD SATA-II;
* Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB WD3000GLFS;
* Western Digital Raptor 150 GB.

The main competitor is Intel X25-M 80GB drive which is built on the MLC NAND flash memory. Thus, the memory type is the same as OCZ Vertex 120GB has, so let’s to see which product will be faster. Main infromation is presented below:

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Intel SSD Roadmap 2009

According to the leaked Intel’s SSD roadmap (that you can see above) capacity if its solid-state drives will be doubled by the end of 2009. This is due to the transition from old 54nm technology to 32nm. New technology process together with an updated controller will improve SSD performance. The new SSD lineup will include 3 capacities for the X18-M and X25-M MLC SSDs: 80GB, 160GB and 320GB. For the top Intel’s model X25-E SLC SSD will be 2 capacities available: 64GB and 128GB. Detailed pricing is unknown but we can expect low price/GB of capacity at the moment of new solid-state drives release.

The Intel company has announced the start of sales of new SSD (Solid State Drive) – X25-M 160 GB. It’s 2.5/1.8  inches disks with SATA interface. X25-M based on MLC (Multi-Level Cell) NAND flash memory chips.

Intel SSD x-25M 160GB

Intel claims that SSDs have 250 Mb/s reading speed and 70 Mb/s writing speed. Also with this device you can count on 1 200 000 hours of work without failures (average). X-25M can effectively operate in temperatures from 0 to 70 degrees Celcius scale.In addition, the product has very good resistance to adverse effects of shocks(1000G for 0.5 milisecond) and also relatively low power consumtion (150 mW during workload).

Intel future SSD plans

Intel continue to gain market of SSD with its solutions. The tactic is simple – create SSD with good quality and low price. It’s not necessary to achive best quality or lowest price, just to be better than average in both categories. Price of latest Intel’s SSD is expected around $600 for OEM vendors. But it’s possibly price will be slighty less than that for end users when we would have opportunity to order SSD X-25M. Of course it’s more expensive than price on HDD, but SSDs can do large jump in advance on notebook market during 2009. Time will tell us.