Intel SSD Optimizer

[Dward]

Hi guys,

I am in the market for a new SSD. About a month ago I was set on a 160GB Intel 320, but then the 8mb bug surfaced. So now I am currently waiting on Intel to release the firmware update for the 320's to fix this. I have looked at other SSD's but I want to buy an Intel due to their (past) reliability. Hopefully once this problem is fixed it will be smooth sailing! Also I only have SATA-II so buying these new flashy SATA-III SSD's is not really worth it.

In the meantime I have been reading up on the Intel SSD Toolbox. Mostly to do with the "Optimizer". Those with Intel SSD's, do you run this? If yes how often and how do you find it?

I thought what the Optimizer does is what TRIM was invented for? ie. Doesn't W7 already do what the Optimizer does? Or is the Optimizer a more advanced and thorough TRIM procedure?

Cheers

Daniel

 

[Blain]

I've been running a 160GB 320 since before the "Big Bug Scare of 2011".
If you want an Intel, go ahead and order a 160GB.
Don't let these chicken littles hold you back.

 

[stargazr]

I agree with Blain. They are working on a fix for the problem on the 320. Intel makes great SSD's. Their return rates are still way better than their competitors.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Inte...ess-320-Series-SSD-Data-Loss-Bug-213238.shtml

As far as I know, you are right that running Optimizer on Win 7 is unnecessary.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us...sd-toolbox-video.html?wapkw=ssd%20toolbox

4:20

 

[Phynaz]

I run it when it strikes me, every couple of weeks or so. I shouldn't have to because I'm on Win7, but hey, it's only 60 seconds.

 

[DirkGently1]

I run it when it strikes me, every couple of weeks or so. I shouldn't have to because I'm on Win7, but hey, it's only 60 seconds.

60 seconds? When i run it on a 160GB 320 it takes one to two seconds and then says it's done. I wonder how we account for this disparity? This is on Win7 too.

 

[Phynaz]

Run the app, navigate to the optimizer, click through the warning, exit the app, get back to what I was doing.

Probably takes about 60 seconds.

Also, my drive is encrypted, so it takes about a 75% performance hit compared to yours.

 

[DervishChan]

I agree with Blain. They are working on a fix for the problem on the 320. Intel makes great SSD's. Their return rates are still way better than their competitors.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Inte...ess-320-Series-SSD-Data-Loss-Bug-213238.shtml

As far as I know, you are right that running Optimizer on Win 7 is unnecessary.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/ssd-toolbox-video.html?wapkw=ssd toolbox

4:20

The reason I'm using Optimizer in my Win 7 system is, I believe, it does not support trim. I have no AHCI option. Is win 7 support trim even without AHCI?

 

[Old Hippie]

The reason I'm using Optimizer in my Win 7 system is, I believe, it does not support trim. I have no AHCI option. Is win 7 support trim even without AHCI?

TRIM works in IDE or AHCI mode.

IMHO, this "bug" should be called the "Bullshit Bug" because it's been blown all out of proportion just like the last "CPU" bug.

 

[Coup27]

I've had an X25-M 80GB G2 for years and it has never once missed a beat. I run the Intel optimizer probably twice a week. My drive isn't encrypted and running the command takes 1-2 seconds.

I do question Windows 7's TRIM implementation. I have a genuine retail copy setup correctly in AHCI with the recommended SSD tweaks so there is no reason why it should not work. However a week or two ago I uninstalled a couple of programs, deleted some crap, updated a few others, not my usual usage pattern and ran the optimizer before shutting down and it took 3-4 seconds to run the tool. This suggested to me that Windows was not doing TRIM on the fly like it should and the optimizer had more work to do.

Since that session my workload has gone back to normal and the tool takes 1-2 seconds like it used to.

Edit: Going back to your original post, irrespective of Windows 7 native TRIM, the optimizer was also designed to give XP users a method of running TRIM. It will also do a few other things such as drive health status, statistics and secure erase a non-booted drive.

 

[capeconsultant]

I've been running a 160GB 320 since before the "Big Bug Scare of 2011".
If you want an Intel, go ahead and order a 160GB.
Don't let these chicken littles hold you back.

I have been running the same for the same time. I love it. thinking about a 300GB!

 

[soundasleep]

You should completely ignore all this crap about a 320 bug. I have heard that it doesn't even really exist. It was possibly completely made up by one of Intel's competitors. Just what I've heard. Not confirmed of course.

 

[soundasleep]

OK, I see that Intel has admitted there is an unsolved issue with the 320s. But seriously, there is absolutely no proof that their return rate is any higher than other Intel SSDs. You should totally go for it.

 

[tp23]

see http://communities.intel.com/message/135212 . Intel 320 160GB died on me. put my laptop to sleep, never came back. the thing is, one doesn't expect this kind of total death from a storage device, at least this is not what we got used with HD's over the last twenty years. No matter what statistics will tell, it's a shock to a 20year long HD user to see main storage die as easy as this Intel SSD did.

HOWEVER, SSD turned my T9500 Core2Duo from an unusable computer which i was about to replace (hard disk activity with a 7200.4 500GB seagate was slowing it down to be unresponsive most of the time, especially with VirtualBox VMs and with couple of dozen browser tabs) to a perfectly usable computer with exactly the same usage pattern, thus saving me from selling/buying/setting up a new laptop for a while.

There's no doubt in my mind that SSD's are currently a trade off between greatly reduced reliability and greatly increased performance.

I installed 3 SSDs on 3 laptops recently, one of them died (320 intel) while the other had random crashes/lockups which got sorted out. Still, with all the problems, increase in performance has been so immense that i'm happy to stay with SSDs. I do use SpiderOak's 100GB cloud storage setup on all computers, which makes restoring storage a lot easier and loss of data chances are greatly reduced with constant real-time syncs to cloud storage.

 

[tp23]

Forgot to mention, Crucial c300 has had a flood of registered problems with both their 006 and 007 (latest) firmwares, see here for a 36 pages (and growing) long thread on this http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-S...are-Update-Feedback-Thread/td-p/44696/page/14

 

[Blain]

There's no doubt in my mind that SSD's are currently a trade off between greatly reduced reliability and greatly increased performance.

Are you saying that failure rates are higher for SSD's than spinning platter HD's?

 

[tp23]

We don't have reliable statistics to claim either way and it is doubtful we will ever get them.

If you look at the first years of usage, there's one huge difference: HDs fail almost exclusively due to hardware, while SSDs fail due to firmware problems. In my work i installed hundreds and administered many thousands of HDs of all kinds over two decades. I can recall one incident of HD failing in the first days of usage. I installed 3 SSDs (80GB intel G2, 320 Intel 160GB, Crucial M4 256GB) in my 3 laptops, 1 failed, other had critical problems (random lockups) .

It is reasonable to expect that SSD makers will get a lot better at writing reliable firmware. Right now, total backups are a must.

I've had HDs dying, especially at work, too many times to count, they are far from super reliable. Quite the contrary, HDs eventually fail, almost all of them. If trashed hard (enterprise RAID arrays on busy applications), many HDs tend to die quite soon too (within weeks, months).

In short, i have no illusions about HDs. Speed of SSDs is an experience transforming upgrade on all 3 laptops and because of it i will battle through SSD issue (like i did with HDs in early 1990s when their reliability was poor).

But let us have no illusion about how poor currently early-reliability (in days and weeks after installation) of SSD is.

I've seen too many forums having people who staunchly defend SSD reliability, i wonder to they have stock in SSD makers, or do SSD makers have lots of people operating in forums.

Anyhow, a random sample of 3 SSDs tells a lot. So do OCZ, Crucial and Intel support forums. It reminds of HDs 15 years ago when one had to be careful which brand and model to select.

 

[taltamir]

1. Not having AHCI means that you lose out on NCQ, and vastly lowers the performance of your SSD.
2. TRIM works with any driver that supports it, the Microsoft generic driver for windows7 for AHCI and IDE supports it, however if you install the driver made by the manufacturer (which is often required or at least a good idea) then they must have put trim support in there. This is more common in AHCI drivers.
3. The intel SSD toolbox has a system configuration optimizer DO NOT USE THAT! it's changes do not improve the performance or longevity of your SSD in any way whatsoever, they will simply sabotage the performance of non SSD spindle HDD in your system to make the intel SSD look faster in comparison. (EDIT: It is called "System Configuration Tuner" not optimizer, my mistake)

 

[stargazr]

3. The intel SSD toolbox has a system configuration optimizer DO NOT USE THAT! it's changes do not improve the performance or longevity of your SSD in any way whatsoever, they will simply sabotage the performance of non SSD spindle HDD in your system to make the intel SSD look faster in comparison.

The optimizer in the toolbox says it runs trim. What does it do to HDD settings?

 

[Coup27]

3. The intel SSD toolbox has a system configuration optimizer DO NOT USE THAT! it's changes do not improve the performance or longevity of your SSD in any way whatsoever, they will simply sabotage the performance of non SSD spindle HDD in your system to make the intel SSD look faster in comparison.

What on earth are you talking about? Here is a screenshot of the toolbox after the configuration tuner has been ran.

Exactly what here is sabotaging the HDD in my system which is purely used for data?

 

[taltamir]

I said "System Configuration Optimizer" but it is actually "System Configuration Tuner"

You should enable superfetch, disabling it sabotages your HDD performance with no gains whatsoever for the SSD. And theoretically even lowers SSD performance (although not by a noticable amount)

On an SSD only system it will tell you to disable the defragmenter, however there is no purpose for it, the defragmenter will only defrag HDDs and will not even run the service on bootup, only when it is scheduled to run. There is no gain in disabling it and if you plug in an HDD at a later date it will not be defragged by win7 excellent intelligent defragger. (win vista and win7 actually do defragging right)

PS. if you are wondering about the size, I have my 80GB intel X2-M G2 partitioned into a win7 partition and a linux partition.

IIRC Older versions just disabled everything when you clicked run on system configuration tuner, at least now it asks and at least it recognizes that defragmenter should be left on if you have a HDD (although honestly it should always be left on)... but it still sabotages performance by getting people disable superfetch.

 

[pcunite]

I've got an Intel 320 80GB as boot drive in an HTPC setup. Works great. I think the bug only effects unusual power off scenarios, like pulling the cord.