Need help with a secondhand SSD

Long story short - when I bought a secondhand computer the other day, I wasn't expecting that it came with a secondhand SSD:



As a result, I need some help in:

• Identifying what exactly this SSD is: Googling the model number indicates it's an X25-M 160GB, but is it a G1 or a G2?
• Figuring out if this SSD is safe to use: I wouldn't be surprised if all of its P/E cycles have been exhausted, or it's been bricked, or there's something else wrong with it, given the circumstances
• Figuring out how to prep the drive and restore its original performance, if it is indeed safe to use: IIRC G1 drives don't support Secure Erase?

 

To my knowledge, secure erase is a function of storing the encryption key outside of the SSD rendering the data useless and the only way to recover use of the drive is to wipe the boot sectors then reformat.

Can you not just use the CLEAN ALL command to restore the entire drive with Zeros?
Maybe once you have done that then the Intel SSD management application can be installed and tell you everything you want to know?

 

My goal in secure erasing the drive isn't to remove all traces of data, it's to restore the drive's peak performance. Wouldn't zero filling the drive with CLEAN ALL be the exact opposite of that?

 

That is how to restore peak performance. Blocks have to be cleared, i.e., before they can be written to. If page data exists there it will have to be cleared by the controller and TRIM before it is written to.

 

I'm checking out for the evening. Hopefully you're not in a big hurry and some others can chime in. I'm not familiar with Intel drives, so more opinions should be sought.
I'm pretty sure that brand new drives are filled with zeros and I think that equates to being fully charged. Cells less than fully charged would be equal to ones.
On MLCs, last I remember, there are only two states: 0 or 1. And a completely empty cell is not a good state for a cell to be in.

I'll check back here tomorrow.

 

1) Intel X-25M G2 (you can tell with model number SSDSA2M160 G2GC). A 1st generation drive would have a model number of SSDSA2M160G1GC.



2) Yes, it is safe to use. This is a non-issue. The "limited lifecycle" of SSDs is a boogeyman back when people didn't understand the technology.

It is highly unlikely that you will ever find an SSD that has exhausted all of its NAND write cycles. Individual NAND flash cells are rated for 3,000 - 10,000 write cycles (depending on manufacturing process and physical transistor size), plus over-provisioning. If you do the math, a drive from the Intel X25-M G2 generation can something like 20GB per day, every day, for 5 continuous years. The only time you will ever find a data write pattern that exhausts the NAND flash cycles will be in transactional databases, or benchmarks / torture-test scenarios where someone is intentionally trying to exhaust the NAND flash write cycles. And even if that happens, the drive will revert to a non-writeable read-only mode.

Again, it is highly unlikely that you will ever see, use, or even hear about an SSD that has exhausted all of its NAND write cycles. It is far more likely that the SSD will suffer a drive controller failure first, or otherwise be replaced due to future obsolescence (speed, capacity).


3) Ensure your computer is operating in SATA AHCI mode (not IDE mode). Install drive, and then load data on it as you would any other drive. You do not need to do anything "special" to start using this drive.

I would suggest that you do a clean format of Windows 7 or 8, for three reasons:
* Windows 7 / 8 will detect an SSD (by querying drive and finding spindle speed = 0rpm), and configure itself to operate against an SSD. This includes disabling the Disk Defragmenter service, and turning on TRIM.
* Windows 7 / 8 will create aligned partitions correctly on the drive to ensure maximum speed. If you were to clone an existing image from mechanical HDD --> SSD, you will need to take extra steps to get partition alignment correct.
* Call me a nerd, but I actually *LIKE* installing Windows when I get new gear. I get to see how much faster my new toys are compared to my old stuff.

If you really want to be ultra-careful, download the Intel SSD Toolbox ( link). It's a set of utilities that allows you to view drive status, drive health, and manually send TRIM / garbage collection instructions to ensure maximum drive performance.

Note, you do NOT need to worry about secure erase. Secure Erase is intended to protect YOUR data when you give your drive to someone else. If you are receiving this drive, you don't care what's already on there. Just install Windows like you normally would, and then let TRIM run (either manually via Intel SSD Toolbox, or automatically by letting Windows 7 / 8 idle). That will ensure that you retain max speed on the SSD.

 

BTW, Intel X25-M G2 is a very solid choice. Even these days.

I've played with lots of SSDs from lots of different vendors over the past 5 years (multiple generations of OCZ, Crucial, Corsair, Intel). And out of all of those, the 3x Intel X25-M G2 80GB have been the most solid. They have always been fast, have not required me to do any housekeeping / maintenance on the drive (e.g. manual TRIM or garbage collection), never failed, never needed firmware updates, etc. They have just been fast, reliable, headache-free SSDs.

 

Filling an SSD drive with 'zeroes' will not give you peak performance (that is a myth). While writing sequential data to a drive (and allowing it to 'recover' for a 1/2 or so...) will increase the benchmarks on some drives, this is still not equivalent to even doing a Quick Format with a Windows 7/8 setup disk and allowing the drive a few minutes to do it's internal cleanup (GC) routines.

Secure Erasing will give the most performance... however, I agree with the others that that is not needed (and it is harmful to the nand chips as it essentially 'over volts' them until they hold no data - and thereby making them weaker).

Especially if you'll be clean installing Win8 x64 Pro, disabling the hibernation, pagefile (with over 16GB RAM) and System Restore. And, especially if you leave ~30% of the drive as 'unallocated'.

Once the O/S and the latest drivers are installed and all Windows updates completed, download and install the Intel SSD Toolbox and check out any information you want to know. I would also use the SSD Toolbox to see if a Firmware upgrade is needed on the drive and also set a weekly (automatic) TRIM run. I would also manually run the optimize routine and let the system sit idle for at least an hour (make sure to disable sleep and hibernation).

See:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455



At this point, you should have a fast SSD that will be indistinguishable from one that has been SE'd (and had an O/S installed to it). And it remain faster than the SE'd drive - if the SE'd drive was not setup with 'unallocated' capacity at the time of the O/S install.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

It looks like you got some opinions today!

If I'd just gotten the drive this is what I'd do, with Windows 7:

Install the SSD to the primary bay. Ensure the BIOS SATA mode is set to AHCI.
Start a Windows install and at the language form press SHIFT + F10.

Type the following commands exactly (BTW, this is for Windows 7 MBR boot/system disk setup), Press Enter key after each line:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK n (n = number of the target disk to bring into focus to operate on)
CLEAN ALL (will take up to 30 minutes)
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=200
FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL="System Reserved"
ACTIVE
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=106496 (this is exactly 104GB and will leave ~30% unallocated free for Over-Provision use by the SSD)
FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL="OS"
EXIT
EXIT

You're done. Click next to install Windows. I'd only use the CLEAN ALL command this one time to restore the drive to its default state and possibly correct any problem cells. Use just CLEAN the next time you need to install again or CLEAN ALL if the drive is giving you problems. Leave the System Reserved partition at 200MB in case you ever want to upgrade to Window 7 Ultimate.

 

Thanks for the help, everyone.

So I decided to (ab)use Windows 7's 30-day free trial in order to get the Intel SSD Toolbox installed. Here's what the main screen says:



And the SMART data:



The part that worries me is the Re-allocated Sector Count number - 13 bad sectors. Is this something I should worry about?

 

You didn't say what you did to prep the drive other than install windows.

Corrupted sectors might get locked and set aside so that the controller will not make the mistake of trying to write there. This info might be stored in the MBR partition table.

Minimally you should have used the CLEAN without the ALL command or maximally using the CLEAN ALL command. The only way to know for sure if it couldn't be corrected is if you had done this.

You're concerned that it would've hurt the drive, yet without doing it you see that the drive has errors anyway. Using CLEAN ALL with Windows 7 will not hurt the drive unless you do it once a month endlessly.

 

Secure erase once won't hurt anything, and I'd recommend it with a drive that you aren't sure of its history. Secure erase and start fresh.

It says 10TB host writes. On an 80GB drive that's roughly 125 NAND writes and considering it can handle thousands, so no concerns there. I still have a couple 80GB X25-M G2's myself running on a daily basis, and a 120GB. I've secure erased at least one of the 80GB drives 10-12 times and still going strong.

 

Peon, I have a similar drive (80 GB version) and my re-allocated is 10 - performance is just as good as new according to Crystal and my subjective opinion. BUT my power on hours are only 119, I have used the drive extensively for 2.5 years and am certain this number is too low. Could the toolbox not be reading the SMART data correctly?

 

EDITED *
Secure erase has a confused meaning I think. So does Format as it applies to XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Secure erase pre- SSDs was the method of writing random data over every bit of an HDD (repeatedly) to remove any patterns that could be extracted and sorted into data chunks to reveal some meaningful info. A popular software for this type of erasing is DBAN; As good as DBAN is with HDDs, I wouldn't recommend using it for SSDs - avoid.
Secure erase as it applies to SSDs has two ways of arriving at the same conclusion,
1. That simply writing zeros to the drive is sufficient at wiping data because SSDs don't accumulate patterns due to their controller activities.
2. As I wrote earlier in the thread, with built-in encryption, storing the key outside of the SSD like in the BIOS or TPM essentially renders it useless (unreadable) outside of the machine, or if the key was deleted the system or drive could be safely transferred; the drive can still be used/repurposed after the encrypted data has been cleared out, i.e., secure erasing to zeros.

Formatting had different meanings between the three OS's listed earlier. This may be why there is some confusion about when to use quick vs full format,

W/XP: use quick format if the drive is new or you know it doesn't have any bad sectors, and full format if it does have bad sectors or you don't know.
W/Vista: use quick format if the drive is new or you know it doesn't have any bad sectors, and full format if it does have bad sectors or you don't know. The change here from what I've gathered (btw, I never used Vista), ... is that a full format command did a zero write to the drive in addition to the normal formatting and also had the clean commands available. Vista didn't offer much support for SSDs so manufacturers needed to provide the additional support to make them less confusing and maintainable.
W/7: Reverted back to the formatting command structure that XP had: Use quick format if the drive is new or you know it doesn't have any bad sectors, and full format if it does have bad sectors or you don't know. Discerningly apply the CLEAN (ALL; zero write) command if needed before formatting. W7 also added a lot of support for SSDs.

Correcting a bad cell may just comprise over-volting. There is no need to over-volt a cell if it will trap the charge. Several attempts are made by the controller to turn the cell before it is considered un-turnable.

This is about the best I can do without posting a zillion links.
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* EDIT: Readjusted the sentences about OS formatting because they needed better writing.

 

I did do a diskpart clean prior to installing Windows, though I had entirely different reasons for doing so.

Prior to installing Windows, I booted via a Ubuntu Live CD and checked the SMART data via Linux. The numbers were the same in both cases.

I think when most people talk about secure erasing an SSD, they're referring to the high voltage insta-zap part that restores a drive to its clean slate performance. When they talk about formatting an SSD, they're referring to the part where the entire drive is TRIMmed. The scientific meaning and actual result of those terms - which is what you've described - is almost viewed as just a side effect, especially in the case of secure erase.

 

Sounds like from the comments you've received - the drive has some good life left in it still. And from your original post, the best I could assume was that you weren't even expecting to get an SSD with it; if that's the circumstance then it is definitely a windfall. SSD owners, actually all computer owners, should backup their drives often anyway because even new ones can fail.

I think you're right that most people just want the side effect without the how it gets done part. Unfortunately there are consequences: sometimes just spending a whole lot of time trying to figure out why it isn't working as expected, all caused by a vague or forgotten detail.

Anyway, Godspeed! I'll see you in the threads.

 

Indeed, I was not expecting it to come with a free SSD - the eBay listing explicitly stated that no drives were included. Essentially, this means that I've gotten a $50-$100 rebate on a $450 system - perhaps more, as I was originally planning to get a new SSD.

The origin of the SSD is an interesting mystery though, as this was an enterprise system that's just past its (contractual/leasing/warranty/upgrade cycle? I dunno which) lifetime, so its decommissioning should have been been done by an IT professional. On top of that, the drive had no partitions or data on it, so it must have been secure erased, in the proper scientific sense of that term. Why they, or for that matter the eBay seller middleman, would just give away a fully functional SSD will forever be a mystery, I suppose.

Every time I visit the SSD section of Crucial's or Intel's official forums, I always see a thread on the first couple pages with a title along the lines of "How do I secure erase my drive without losing my data?"

 

Simple.

It's cheaper to sell the system as-is, than it is to try and individually salvage and sell parts.

SSDs aren't all that expensive anymore. Salvage value of a used Intel X25-M 160GB is only about $75. The company that formerly owned the system would pay more for the manpower to salvage & sell individual parts, than it would be worth.

 

To keep the world in balance: assume he (the seller) intended it to be this way. Everyone's happy and no headaches; Well except for us anyway - trying to figure out if it's a good/safe drive or not. Ibuprofen/Aspirin to the rescue, hope they aren't bad when combined

It could've had Bitlocker or True Crypt hidden partitions in there. I'm adding to the mystery

 

While I doubt the company who originally owned and used the system would care, the middleman (the eBay seller) actually swapped out the CPUs for slightly cheaper ones (the version with the original, slightly more expensive CPUs goes for an additional $125), which is a lot of more effort than pulling out an SSD.

I guess I just like looking gift horses in the mouth

I suspected this as well, which is why I did a diskpart CLEAN before installing Windows

 

Here's the link for the Vista format command behavior: Change in the behavior of the format command in Windows Vista
Now they've lumped all the OS's together and left that part out of the help: Format

Something to go with the "How do I insta-zap my SSD without losing all my data", researchers:
My neighbor recently took her 5yo dell vista laptop to the IT department to fix the teeth gnashing slowness. It came back with the graphics turned down.
I asked, and she said, "he told me because it's old, electrical components shrink, that's the cause of it; I guess I'll just have to live with it".
Fortunately for her, she is a useful neighbor. Now she doesn't "just have to live with it" anymore. A simple Dell system restore minus a whole lot of garbage.