The new SSD Thread (Benchmarks, Brands, News and Advice)

Well, not everybody who has this issue with the drive goes on forums to inform others about it. They simply RMA the drive and move on. But that's reaching out too far into the uncertainty, so I won't sit on that.
However, two of my Intel drives have the issues. Maybe I'm just unlucky, or maybe something particular to the way I use the drives make the probably that the bug appears greatly increased.
Either way, I don't think I want another gamble, because the loss of data for those two occasions is already too much for me.

 

I frequently run engineering applications on my laptop with multiple instances at the same time, so I think that my expectation is high enough. I say it before and I'll say it again:
With about 6 applications opened (Matlab, Labview, Excel, Word, Firefox, and Thunderbird) while doing large file transferring (10GB+) the Samsung and Intel drive feels almost the same. In fact, the Samsung drive is a little faster, thanks to its higher sequential write.
Take from what my experience as you will. And if you think that I have a low expectation for performance, then so be it.

 

Indilinx drives are cheaper at every price point but 250GB. And they have better 4K performance, by 3x-10x. So how again are they such a good price-conscious buy?

 

He stated above that this wasn't true, 128GB Samsung for $220. Cheapest Indilinx at that capacity is high $200 to low $300. Performance difference is noticeable but not to the same degree that you see in benchmarks.

 

Intel X25M 80GB Mainstream Solid State Drive Retail Boxed SSDSA2MH080G2R5 $244.10

 

Too bad they haven't come up with an ssd with a built in RAID controller like THIS one that will fit in a notebook.

 

Hey Guys
I downloaded one program for formating erasing disks
and I erased my ssd with that using usb boot
the soft is called active KillDisk
and I performed erase and there was plenty choices how to erase disk
I chosed first one : one pass zeros
anybody knows what is difference between erasing options? there are 2 or 3 way pass 7 way ...
after erasing i installed win 7 and ssd is slower i mean writting is slower , reading is same ..

 

Writing zeroes to your ssd is a bad idea...it will make it slower because writing zeroes to an ssd is equivalent to filling it up with data. Having empty cells and ones that are filled with zeroes is two different things. Mine eventually recovered from it. What I did was boot to Windows installation disk and select format about 5 or 6 times reinstalled the os and it was fine, just formatting once and installing showed the same poor performance.

I had borked mine using CCleaner wipe free space which does the same thing--writes zeroes to it.

 

So what should I do just format it ?
How to make cells empty ? just that short format before install win 7?

 

Yes thats what I did except I selected format 5 times I think. The performance hit from writing those zeroes was significant. My WEI disk score went from 7.1 to 5.9, HDTune was flatlined at 160mb/s, PCMark Vantage hdd suite went from 21000 to 6800. What was strange was crystaldiskmark stayed the same--didn't show any performance loss.

 

@ Commander Wolf: just to let You (and everyone else) know that I find that RunCore have all kind of PATA SSDs with Indilinx controllers. It is Pro IV SSDs and You can choose 2.5" 44-pin IDE SSDs, 1.8" 44-pin SSDs (which are compatible with IBM ThinkPad X40 and X41) and 1.8" SSDs with ZIF connector. 1.8" comes from 16 to 128 GB and 2.5" from 32 to 256 GB.

BTW: My opinion is that Intel and Indilinx based SSDs are faster, but Samsung based are more reliable.

 

Since I am new to the SSDs and experienced the 8MB bug on Intel G2 160GB already, I wanted to make sure that I am not missing anything before the replacement drive arrives. Is there any specific procedure that I am supposed to follow before installing Snow Leopard on to the SSD?

First time, I just installed the drive, put in the Snow Leopard DVD and erased (formatted) the drive using Disk Utility. The installation went on for about 20 minutes and quit with an error, and everything went bad after that... Was I supposed to do anything before putting the drive in and/or formatting?

Thanks in advance!

 

I don't see any need to format a new drive.

 

No, you're not doing anything wrong. It's what people do with fresh install (format using installation disc before installing the OS). Once the drive arrives just do what you did with the first drive. If the same issue occurs, then, well, you should avoid Intel and buy Indillinx or Samsung then.

 

Try this for Intel SSD 8MB problem:

There's a program that will initiate SET MAX ADDRESS command for the SSD. This will let you change the total drive space. There are two portions on the drives, one for user accessible space and another for controller addressable space. In SSDs, that can be adjusted if necessary(up to a certain point you can gain performance if you allocate more for the controller).

http://www.hdat2.com/

Download the floppy disk executable file. You need to set your controller in BIOS to "legacy" not "native" in order to recognize your drives using HDAT2. If it does not boot using the SSD alone for whatever reason just use in conjunction with another drive.

*HINT: When adjusting your drive space, DO NOT set your drive size to the maximum which is 80 Gigabytes(which is the default they show at least in working drives). You need to reserve at least 5-6GB of space for the controller or your performance will suffer greatly*

According to Intel, they recommend you do a HDDErase after the drive capacity adjustment. I haven't, so all my efforts were useless. I'll do it someday when I really feel like reinstalling everything.

I think the "8MB" problem is not an irrepairable hardware issue, but a much simpler problem that may be related to compatibility. Everything in today's computers is optimized for platter HDDs including Operating Systems, controllers, drivers, 3rd party software.

 

I think he already RMA'd the drive, so he can't try the program out.
As for me, after days of trying to fix the issue, I discovered that a simple HDDerase fixed the problem.
Another thing, one of my associates tells me that he got hold of an engineering sample of the Intel SSD about a year ago, and it had the same 8MB issue. This is really worrying, as Intel didn't recognize the bug in the testing phase, the 1st release, nor the 2nd release.

 

So instead of helping with the problem, which you claim you know how to fix,you bashed the intel without telling tenderidol how to fix it.

 

You stated it much more eloquently than I wanted to.

 

@truckdriver and tilleroftheearth:
Please refer to this post I made 5 pages back after tenderidol describes his problem:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5352055&postcount=8629

Now please pull your foot out of your mouth after you're done. Thank you.

To others who actually read posts here and don't embarrass themselves, as well as actual Intel SSD owners (and obviously, I don't mean the kind that defend the drive to death even without so much as touching the drive), the 8MB issue is not always fixable with and HDDerase. My associate tries this method and it didn't work out for him, so if HDDerase doesn't work, I suggest that you RMA the drive.

 

Yeah I missed where youi suggested he try HDerase, as after your post started off with your "intel sucks" rant I skipped the rest. Why didn't you state that it fixed the problem? Seems to me that would be pretty helpful. When you post your possible solution after your rant it will be missed by alot of people.

 

Thanks again for all the replies on the 8MB bug.

I actually still have the drive (waiting for instructions on how/when to return it for an exchange). Even though I dont plan on keeping this drive, I may actually test it out tonight to see if it helps or not. If it takes care of the problem, should I keep it? Needless to say, the drive didn't leave a good first impression when it failed during OS installation.

I am reading more about the HDDerase and I saw a post that v4.0 didn't work with an Intel SSD (G1C1), but 3.3 did...

I am also planning to contact Intel regarding this problem to see if they try to fix it or replace it under warranty (given that the replacement is going to be brand new and would be delivered lot faster than waiting for an exchange from the vendor).

 

Don't know why, but I do it every time with new drive.

Probably there is no need to do it, but it must not make any damage.

 

hi Yes exactly I have same rating after that ...
but i tried use hdderase 4.0 but it hungs after pressing 3 yeses it freezes
duno what should do

 

got my intel postville g2 today..

hdtune says average speed: 193,5 mb/s. still my win7 need 40 secs to boot :x

 

Try formatting it multiple times and reinstall os.

 

How to Secure Erase (reset) an Intel Solid State Drive (SSD)

Try HDDErase 3.3

 

I found something interesting an am gonna try it
http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=81492

 

no go all hdd erase will freezes

 

NO, try the HDAT2 first. But this is purely for solving the "8MB" bug. I can't see why erasing a drive might fix the problem(good for you if it does). But if the controller somehow suddenly only recognizes 8MB, it could be fixable by setting the user addressable space by yourself.

 

I ve tried even that corsair's guy method not working .. :-/
sgilmore62

am gonna try active kill but if somebody knows i have plenty methods of erase to use
which should I use for ssd ?

 

Some of you guys are going overkill with HDDErase. Unlike normal usage, HDDErase is a guaranteed write cycle loss over the whole drive. If you do the 35 cycle one, you'll lose 35 cycles guaranteed!(sounds like a negative ad idea ).

Don't do it if you don't notice slowdowns on actual usage.

Evoss-X, use the first one, seems like the only logical one.

 

The first one that writes zeroes to the entire drive is what borked it in the first place.

 

the first one is writting zeros and I have done it sgilmore62 said I shouldn't write zeros and yeah ssd is slower ...
I found this on tom's :
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-248940_14_0.html

 

I just spoke to someone from Intel Tech/Warranty Support regarding my issue (e.g., 8MB bug). He acknowledged that it was an issue with the Gen1 drives, but it should not have affected the Gen2 drives, even though it showed up in the drive that I received. The only solution he offered was to RMA the drive through Intel instead of trying to "fix" it using erase/format tools. Since I am still within the exchange period of the retailer, I'll get it replaced through that way.

Oh... he also said that they dont consider this a "bug", especially on the silver drives

 

Oh yea right, I forgot about that.

What you want to use is: Write 1s, 1 pass

 

Ah, selective reading I see. Read stuff that you agree with, ignore stuff that you don't agree with, thus never learn how to be more open-minded.
And no part of what I said is a rant. Isn't it true that the prices of Intel SSD is through the roof? Look at 2nd gen drive, MSRP from Intel is ~$420, whereas they're going upward of $520 right now on eBay. That's not a rant, that's a fact.
And the 8MB issue exists, and I only state that I'm wary of trying the drive again. How is that a rant?
Also, Intel doesn't suck. And I believe that I never state that it sucks either. I merely inform others to be aware of an issue with the drive.

 

Just to confirm, by freezing you mean that there is a blinking cursor right? If that's the case, it's because HDDErase doesn't recognize the drive, as it's in AHCI mode. You need to change it to Compatiblity in BIOS.

 

It's not perfect. It's still not prime-time for SSDs and won't be for another couple of years(when the capacity exceeds user requirements by far).

There are lots more users with no 8MB bugs though. Some compatibility issues and/or misuse of the drive(like formatting multiple times or abusing HDDErase) could be part of the problem. I heard of it before.

 

Yeah, I had the blinking cursor with hdderase too but don't have any options for ahci or compatability in BIOS.

 

In my case, there was no abuse, and I know many people using G2 Intel SSDs with MBPs ruling out the compatibility issue. I didn't even get to load an OS on it

 

What is the difference between filling the ssd up with zeroes and filling it with ones?

 

To the SSD, no difference (they are both writes).

 

So, they are equally bad, then

 

I am not sure, was hoping INTELUSER would enlighten us. I borked my 60gb ssd using Ccleaner wipe free space which writes zeroes to free space. I reformatted the ssd and reinstalled the OS but the performance was still degraded. Tried again and clicked format 5 times and reinstalled the OS and the performance was restored.

I think a good format has to be performed by the controller which is why HDDErase I think is recommended for ssd's. Not sure exactly how Windows format works.

 

Strangely enough, the benchmark of my Samsung gets better after I do a "Wipe Free Space". I don't really know why though. It's supposed to get worse, as the LBA table is all filled.

 

Are you using the normal file deletion or secure file deletion and if secure which one, dod, nsa or gutmann?

 

SSDs use NAND flash memory.

NAND=Not AND flash memory.

In NAND, the binary system is reversed. 0 is "on" or "full" and 1 is "off" or "empty".

So if the software writes it with zeroes, you are filling the drive.

 

Looking at how my Viliv S5 Atom based MID was being pain in the yesterday, I wished I could have stuck the X25-M in there. The benefits on such a portable device with that drive is ENORMOUS. Desktop, not so much. Hard drives never bothered me with the noise, it was actually kinda comforting somewhat. Not to mention the Samsung DVD drive I have completely dwarfs the noise.

Too bad it only uses 1.8 inch PATA drives. I could notice battery life differences reaching 30-40% between defragging.

 

If it is filled with 1's an erase doesn't need to be performed prior to a new write--the new data can be written over the 1's?

 

No, from how I understand SSD's, there must always be an erase cycle prior to writing new data (assuming of course their is (some) data already written to the specific clusters we need to write to).