TRIM watch

Hello again CL,

I wasn't trying to sound disrespectful by using the 'myth' word and appreciate your experience & input which was why I posted here in the first place!:)

It's just that sometimes there is too much focus on theoretical specs - don't get me wrong I always want the latest & greatest, biggest & fastest etc. so much so that I was considering the £400+ Samsung SSD to go in my £250 Samsung Netbook...obviously more money than sense!;)

Like you I can only speak as I find and the transformation to my old, unused, slug of a TabletPC has made such a remarkable difference that I am pleased to use it and show it off - and that definitely has not got SATA300 in it.

But I am here to explore the possibilities of adding a SSD to my N110 and your post has made me rethink my original plan.

See...you have saved me money!:D

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
 
It's ok Glyn, it didn't come across that way at all :)

I agree with your views on looking at specs and benchmarks, when most of these drives "feel" the same in day to day use. An SSD in a netbook is great, just not quite as great as in other machines. Like you say if you're spending as much on a drive as the netbook itself, it's quite expensive and I don't want people to feel disappointed.

How much space would you need in the netbook? My favourite drive at the moment is the Kingston SSDNow V 40GB. It's a fast little drive using the Intel G2 controller, but at £70-80 it's also great value. It's still going to be bottlenecked, but at least it's cheap - though capacity may be an issue for you?
 
Hey CL,

I didn't sound too obnoxious then? I must be mellowing in my old age! :D

The Sammy has a 160GB HDD at the moment and as I am treating this as an upgrade I wouldn't want to downsize too much...smallest probably 128GB (although a quick look shows I have only used @40GB of that at the moment) but preferably a like-for-like 160GB or possibly a 256GB.

Shame about the prices of the Big Boys though? :eek:

Would be interested in hearing your opinion/recommendation for a 128-160GB SSD though?

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
 
Not at all Glyn :)

I'd still avoid JMicron based drives, so for the 128-160GB range, I'd be recommending an Indilinx (Crucial M225, Corsair X Series, OCZ Vertex & Agility) a Samsung (PB22-J, Corsair P Series), or Intel X25M G2.

Find the cheapest of any of those and you should be ok, the Indilinx is probably going to be your best bet as they will be overall the cheapest, and have TRIM support plus better updates than the Samsung. Intel, while it has the capacity is pushing up the price a bit more again.

All of them are too good, but you're going into this with open eyes :)
 
Trying to run the SSD toolbox optimizer, every time i try and run it it gives me "Intel SSD Optimizer error" which is a pretty useless error!

I've got the latest firmware, windows 7 and running in AHCI mode, can't see what else i need!
 
Hi guys,

My missus has bought 2 x Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB drives for my xmas, does anyone here know whether I can update them with the latest Intel firmware?

I've done some searching through Google, but can really seem to find anything regarding this, so I thought maybe one of you guys would know for sure.

TIA
 
I don't think you can. But they should come with the 02HA firmware - all mine have so far, this was withdrawn due to the flashing process - not the firmware itself from what I can gather - so I doubt there'll be any advantage flashing up to 02HD. Especially as you'll be running in RAID, and the main advantage of 02Hx firmware is the TRIM capability.
 
mrbios said:
Trying to run the SSD toolbox optimizer, every time i try and run it it gives me "Intel SSD Optimizer error" which is a pretty useless error!

I've got the latest firmware, windows 7 and running in AHCI mode, can't see what else i need!
Click to expand...

If you are running only W7, technically you don't need the optimizer.
 
Sorry if you already told me this in the other thread mate, but how do I go about maintaining my SSD's when running them in RAID-0?
 
DavyBoy said:
Sorry if you already told me this in the other thread mate, but how do I go about maintaining my SSD's when running them in RAID-0?
Click to expand...

First off I would not get too obssessed about this. I estimate given my usage and storage requirtements (having free space helps) I may do this once per year.

Anyway the process would be - make a image of the current drive / drives using imaging software (like Acronis or equivalent)

Make a bootable disk/cd/usb with HDDERASE on it.

Make a boot disk with the imaging software on it for the restore later. (can combine this with the previous step if you know how and have a single boot disk with the imaging software on it and hderase)

Boot to bios. Change from raid to ide. Change boot priority for next step

Boot the disk/usb with hdderase on it.

Run HDDERASE on both the SSD drives (do not erase the drive with your backup image on it !)

Boot to bios. Set bios to 'raid'. Remake your raid array with the now erased SSDs.

Restore the backup image to the SSD raid array using the imaging software boot disk.

Change boot priority in bios back to SSD raid drive.

Thats it really.
 
erolz said:
First off I would not get too obssessed about this. I estimate given my usage and storage requirtements (having free space helps) I may do this once per year.

Anyway the process would be - make a image of the current drive / drives using imaging software (like Acronis or equivalent)

Make a bootable disk/cd/usb with HDDERASE on it.

Make a boot disk with the imaging software on it for the restore later. (can combine this with the previous step if you know how and have a single boot disk with the imaging software on it and hderase)

Boot to bios. Change from raid to ide. Change boot priority for next step

Boot the disk/usb with hdderase on it.

Run HDDERASE on both the SSD drives (do not erase the drive with your backup image on it !)

Boot to bios. Set bios to 'raid'. Remake your raid array with the now erased SSDs.

Restore the backup image to the SSD raid array using the imaging software boot disk.

Change boot priority in bios back to SSD raid drive.

Thats it really.
Click to expand...

+1...just watch out if you're using Acronis, and do a full drive image (think it's sector by sector image). If you just do a standard image, which saves time and space, it restores with the wrong offset which would affect performance a small amount.

Hopefully by the time you need to clean the drives, we may have controller drivers that support TRIM.
 
Thanks a lot guys, I'm really hoping that they release firmware that will allow TRIM support with RAID arrays for these drives.

I can't wait til tomorrow night so I can get them installed, I'm quite excited actually!!! :D

Couldn't believe the size of these drives when they arrived, it's the first time I've ever saw one in person, I always thought that they were bigger than this!

Could someone answer another query I have?

When you setup a RAID array, will it only work in the 2 SATA ports that the drives were connected to when the array was configured, or could I put the drives into different ports?
 
Hi Davy, it's more the SATA controller (Intel ICHxR) drivers we need to support TRIM. They may need to do some tweaks to firmware, but it's more the drivers we need now.

On the EX58UD5? So long as you keep them on the Intel ICHxR you should be fine moving them around - as always make sure you have a backup to go back to just in case - but shouldn't be any problems. It won't work if you swap between the Intel and Gigabyte ports.

Don't expect too much from the new drives :) And let us know how it goes - Good Luck :D
 
Hmm, ran the new toolbox and it completed the optimisation almost instantly, like 1 or 2 seconds. Is this normal?

This is with a X25-M G2 80gb, Windows 7 pro installed on it, latest Intel matrix storage drivers, restore point functionality disabled and just under 30gb being used.

I ran benchmarks before and after and there is little or no difference. That said I do feel like windows is loading and shutting down ever so quicker, though it may just be in my head.

Not really bothered though since the drive is rediculously fast as it is anyway.
 
I'm not really expecting any huge gains in system performance, it's the fact that I'm going to be removing these noisy raptors out of my system.

If I do get any performance gains that will just be an added bonus.

But I reckon there will be improvements in my systems performance when going from these old SATA150 raptors..
 
titaniumx3 said:
Hmm, ran the new toolbox and it completed the optimisation almost instantly, like 1 or 2 seconds. Is this normal?

This is with a X25-M G2 80gb, Windows 7 pro installed on it, latest Intel matrix storage drivers, restore point functionality disabled and just under 30gb being used.

I ran benchmarks before and after and there is little or no difference. That said I do feel like windows is loading and shutting down ever so quicker, though it may just be in my head.

Not really bothered though since the drive is rediculously fast as it is anyway.
Click to expand...

I doubt it will have had much to do if you're only using >30GB, you've not filled the drive, and you've got TRIM enabled.

DavyBoy said:
I'm not really expecting any huge gains in system performance, it's the fact that I'm going to be removing these noisy raptors out of my system.

If I do get any performance gains that will just be an added bonus.

But I reckon there will be improvements in my systems performance when going from these old SATA150 raptors..
Click to expand...

Hehe, I'm sure it will ;) Just don't want to set your expectations _too_ high :D
 
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