Indilinx. Self repairing SSD firmware

entireweb · 13 Aug 2009 at 10:41

ronnie136 said:
The new OCZ Vertex v1.4 firmware was released tonight, it's based on the latest Indilinx firmware but the OCZ's own additions. It includes automatic Garbage collection and TRIM support on Win7.

Just downloaded and installed, works a treat. Leave your drive for 10mins and it self-cleans itself restoring full performance.

But can you use the OCZ Vertex v1.4 firmware with the Crucial or Supertalent SSD?

I know you can flash the lastest Indilinx firmware 1711, but the OCZ firmware also has the garbage collector.

ronnie136 · 13 Aug 2009 at 14:33

I don't think you can flash the OCZ firmware to competitors drives.

Updating the firmware will not wipe the drive if you are currently on firmware v1.30.

fornowagain · 13 Aug 2009 at 14:37

I would have thought OCZ are wise to that one by now, but maybe not see here. I'd bet the SuperTalent will go on the Crucial though. Not that I'd be the first to try it :eek:

snakefood · 13 Aug 2009 at 15:57

Lots of mention here of Crucial and OCZ...if I was looking to purchase a ssd, which of these would be the best to look out for?

fornowagain · 13 Aug 2009 at 16:15

The OCZ Vertex is more or less the same drive (controller & memory) as the ST Ultradrive, Falcon & M225. With OCZ you get better support with beta firmware and innovations. But the Crucial has the 5 year warranty and is a lot cheaper at present. I'm sure the crucial firmware will catch up later on.

Moeks · 13 Aug 2009 at 16:33

ronnie136 said:
I don't think you can flash the OCZ firmware to competitors drives.

Updating the firmware will not wipe the drive if you are currently on firmware v1.30.

You can to the G.Skill Falcon, it's been done. But you will lose your warranty if you do it.

entireweb · 13 Aug 2009 at 17:12

Moeks said:
You can to the G.Skill Falcon, it's been done. But you will lose your warranty if you do it.

The G. Skill Falcon uses the exact same PCB as the Vertex. Both are the same reference board design from Indilinx. So its no surprise that the OCZ firmware flashes into the G.Skill.

The Supertalent me and the Corsair also use the exact same PCB, but its different than the Vertex. However its components are the same, eg Arm based controller, Elpida 64MB cache and the same Samsung Nand flash.

So IMO, the ocz firmware should also flash into the supertalent/corsair.

I was just hoping someone else would try it before I did

linktoinsanity · 13 Aug 2009 at 17:40

Looks good

fornowagain · 13 Aug 2009 at 17:47

entireweb said:
The G. Skill Falcon uses the exact same PCB as the Vertex. Both are the same reference board design from Indilinx. So its no surprise that the OCZ firmware flashes into the G.Skill.

The Supertalent me and the Corsair also use the exact same PCB, but its different than the Vertex. However its components are the same, eg Arm based controller, Elpida 64MB cache and the same Samsung Nand flash.

So IMO, the ocz firmware should also flash into the supertalent/corsair.

I was just hoping someone else would try it before I did

Funny you should mention the pcb's, I've been keeping the images just in case I felt brave enough to cross-flash...which I'm not

Crucial M225

ST Ultradrive

Vertex

Falcon

entireweb · 13 Aug 2009 at 20:46

Thanks for the pictures. You can clearly see the Vertex and the falcon are the same. So are the ST and the Crucial.
I posted on the super talent web forum if anyone has tried to flash the vertex firmware. No reply as yet.

The big square chip is an ARM 7 microcontroller, the cpu of the system. Its a ARM7TDMI which is the same chip as the Nintendo DS and also many Samsung and Nokia mobile phones.

When you flash in firmware, you are just copying some code into a reserved part of Nand flash which is called when the system boots.

Normally this code would be encrypted and decrypted before running. Its entirely possible that a "device id" is also part of the reserved space (written at production). The firmware code would first check this "device id" and abort if it doesnt match the manufacturers code (hidden in the encrypted firmware). It is then entirely possible that on abort another reserved word could be written which means "lock out". In which case, if lock_out==true then you have a brick and further flashing wont work.

NOW the ST and Crucial are both using the exact same firmware, which is ARM 7 code provided by Indilinx. Neither of them have been bothered to tweak the base code and provide it from Indilinx, as is.

However the Vertex code is bespoke. Its based on the ARM7 code provided by Indilinx with an additional "in house" bit of code. In which case they could have implemented the above.