Fast Shipping Intel 160 GB X25M Mainstream SATA II Solid State Drive SSD Retail Package SSDSA2MH160G2R5
Band : Intel
Model : SSDSA2MH160G2R5
Product Features :
- With no moving parts Intel SSDs offer a quiet storage solution that responds quickly and uses less power
>> Intel X25 M SSD FAST Reader OK Writer slow for an SSD Usual XLNT Intel Quality Product BUT Complex To Install Correctly
Let s get busy and I ll tell you the story of my installation and the SSD s characteristics both good and OK and somewhat OK none bad mind you just some could be better for all that we re spending on this SSD but most of all please attend to the DETAILS details details of installation and yours will be all that much better in your own machine if you do
I am not going to get overly technical with this review after all it s not for a class on SSD s it s for the Amazon com marketplace and computer users of all types so it will remain mostly generic and easy to read hopefully So let s get going and let s have some fun
You re probably reading this because you either want an SSD already have one or are adding a 2nd or 3rd or 4th to a system you ve built or are improving your notebook or desktop PC or Mac with this fantastic new technology an SSD offers us so we all have that in common plus there s a general interest in SSD s that borders on fanaticism at this time in computing history so here s some data of this SSD s attributes and characteristics
The X25 M 160GB SSD has a formatted capacity of 149GB it is a 2 5 form factor hard drive generically speaking with a 9 5mm height to fit into most any notebook it weighs roughly 72 grams about 2 5 ounces has SATA 1 2 I II connectivity and throughput of 1 5GB/sec or 3 0GB/sec depends on the controller in your notebook desktop or RAID system controller interface Its internal formatting is in 4096KB sectors which is an important thing to understand right away because we have to think of Alignment of the sectors with SSD s and how they read write and seek data depends on sector parity with the system it resides in
Unlike platter HD s we cannot vary the sector count by formatting as it is fixed at the 4096KB 4K size by virtue of the MLC cells themselves or SLC cells the case being Multi or Single level cell structure inside the SSD configuration thus even if we wanted to change the structure of the SSD with 16k 64K 256K etc formatting we cannot it is fixed and aligned with 4K sector parity
Windows 7 is SSD Savvy as is the Mac OS X disk formatting scheme from both the installer DVD ROMs and their respective Disk or Hard Drive utilities the native HD formatting and partitioning software programs that come bundled with the operating systems Thus when you install Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10 5 x onto an SSD with the 4K sector alignment the installers will automatically format the SSD correctly for use beginning and ending the partition s the user wishes to use however many there are relative to the SSD s size on an integer of 4096KB so that when the SSD writes data to a sector it comes out even and all is well ie 2 2 4 I only want to mention this now because it is important as we get into the whole subject of Parity and Alignment
Let s take a couple examples and we ll get through Parity and Alignment quickly I prefer a single Partition for small HD s or SSD s in general so in my case all I had to do was open the Windows installer DVD ROM and it automatically formats and aligns the SSD in 4096KB sectors beginning with the Primary Partition and only partition with an integer of 4096KB and ending the partition at another 4096KB sector so all is well my setup is simple
Let s say however that a user wants 2 Partitions one for the OS and a 2nd for DATA in this case the installer would begin the 1st Partition on a 4096KB sector integer and when the user wants to break the SSD up into the two partitions for example the OS in 59GB and DATA in 90GB sized Partitions 59 90 149GB occupying all available space the installer would Align the 1st Partition at a multiple of 4096KB end that partition at another integer of 4096KB then begin the 2nd Partition for DATA at a 3rd integer of 4K and end it at a last 4K integer and all would be perfectly Aligned
There might be a very small amount of contiguous space wasted in all of the alignment to get the SSD into perfect parity with the 4K Alignment standard but the installer utility s job is to get the sectors Aligned correctly without wasting any space if possible beginning and ending each Partition on a 4K sector ideally
So the whole idea being that Alignment must be perfectly apportioned by the installer or an alignment tool of some sort or the SSD will waste its internal space and be searching aimlessly for data and writing it to odd sized sectors if we were to format it with 112KB sectors for example The SSD s great speed would slow to a crawl space would be wasted every time there was a new write made on the cell structure because it wouldn t add up to an integer of 4096KB if it were formatted in 112KB sectors in short the SSD would be a jagged tangle of non interleaved data its speed would be compromised and the SSD s entire premise of 4K Alignment would be negated by non conforming formatting a very bad thing
Why am I dwelling on this subject right now Well for one key reason straight away and that is that some Cloning or Partitioning tools are NOT SSD Savvy and will not perform Alignment correctly so avoid them at all costs
My favored Paragon Software s Partition Manager 10 x Professional is not yet SSD Savvy though they are working to make it so with its next edition However Paragon has developed for Western Digital Corp and also made a special version for their own uses a special PAT Paragon Alignment Tool that must be used if you are utilizing PM 10/Pro to Clone your data and OS from a normal platter HD to an SSD Otherwise the Clone will be out of Alignment and hopelessly out of sync with the 4K standard and basically any unaligned Partition would be terribly slow data would be all over the place instead of organized into nice contiguous 4K blocks/sectors and the SSD s high theoretical speed would be impossible to achieve
Getting this SSD up to high speed is also the result of having the latest firmware in place so that process must be done with an empty SSD ie when it is freshly installed before you place your OS and key data if any onto the SSD format it Align it etc so I m going to briefly go over the firmware updating procedure using a BOOTABLE CD ROM with the Intel firmware ISO Image correctly BURNED into the CD ROM with a proper burning software/utility and how to avoid problems with such a procedure
With a notebook this is relatively simple as there is usually only one or two SATA connections in a notebook ie one for the HD and one for the optical drive if the notebook has an optical drive netbooks and small form factor notebooks like my Asus UL30Vt X1 don t have optical drives so doing the firmware updating on my new notebook was a breeze
There are a couple problems that can occur and they are best handled by understanding the pitfalls themselves and how to avoid such problems First you must disable any HD passwords or Administrator passwords before doing the firmware update in BIOS or the CD ROM with the firmware update on it will NOT start up the notebook or desktop Second with most desktops with multiple SATA connectors it s best to install the SSD onto one of the Primary SATA connectors not those meant for optical drives or accessories so that is usually SATA connectors 1 4 numerically speaking not those farther downstream in the chain of SATA command You want the SSD to be flashed on a primary controller interface of the desktop on the primary or South Bridge SATA controller not one for accessories or North Bridge administered SATA connectors
Sometimes the firmware flash cannot be administered from the AHCI driver/connector of some notebooks because of a driver conflict When that happens the notebook won t let the CD ROM start up the computer and one must accomplish the firmware flash on a desktop then reinstall it into the notebook this is not so common but it does happen now and then so if your notebook refuses to start up with a correctly made CD ROM with the firmware ISO image burned into the disk properly this is probably the case so proceed accordingly
Speaking of firmware flashing and ACHI controllers the ACHI controller MUST be enabled in BIOS rather than the IDE controller or RAID controller or the RAID IDE or IDE setting for the controller in BIOS The setting must be ACHI and ONLY ACHI to accomplish the firmware update with an Intel ISO image on a CD ROM or USB Flash Drive made BOOTABLE using the proper procedure for doing that hat trick
Now if you don t have an external optical drive or internal drive or if you prefer to utilize a USB Flash Drive to do the procedure by all means do it that way but I m not going into it here I have been using CD ROM s for doing firmware updating updating the BIOS of my computers etc and prefer it to this day over USB flash drives so I m old fashioned that way but it works for me
The next subject of this review is a special treat I have in store for those of you who don t know about the newest Intel Storage RAID/SSD Driver for your IDE/SATA Controller of your desktop or notebook computer because guess what Intel Just Released a new extra special driver for RAIDs SSDs and Desktops/Notebooks with IDE/SATA AHCI Controllers who will be utilizing SSDs and I have the URL for it in the first Comment which I made at the end of this review The editors here at Amazon com removed the link from the review so there you go it s in the Comments area at the end of the review
The SSD compatible Microsoft and Intel IDE/ATA ACHI Controller/drivers up to now have not been SSD specific like the new driver is and it works a TREAT I am certain that it accounts for a fair amount of speed in my notebook s charting of SSD Read and Write Speed as I showed in my additions to the SSD Images in this review I don t think that too many people are getting up to 270MB /sec read speed out of their Intel X25 M SSD s at this time unless they are also using that driver for SSD s specifically and RAIDs specifically from the Intel software download web site
When you navigate to the Intel web page for the download download the EXE file and it s ready to ROCK Just double click it and WHAM It installs instantly as your controller s driver You can check and see if it installed correctly by going into Device Manager then to IDE/ATA ACHI Controllers Right Click on the Controller/Driver symbol in Device Manager then go to Properties of the driver and check to see if it has been updated to v9 6 0 1014
You can go ahead and Clone your HD to the SSD after doing the firmware update to the SSD and the Driver update to the IDE/ATA ACHI SATA Controller using Acronis True Image or any number of Cloning softwares that are SSD SAVVY but just be certain they are JUST THAT before you do the Clone operation and all will be well
Those of you using Paragon Utilities at this time please obtain the PAT Paragon Alignment Tool to use after the Cloning operation Your Paragon Software Support Agents can supply it for you in the Help Section at Paragon Software ie make a Support Request tell them that you are Cloning an SSD with PM 10 Pro etc and ask for the newest Beta PAT
If you are using the Windows 7 Installer in any flavor you choose it is SSD SAVVY natively so you can just go ahead and safely install Windows onto the SSD and all will be fine no problems to anticipate there
My WEI Score went up to 7 8 points just one/10th of a point from perfect which I have uploaded for you all to see in the Images section of this Review for the SSD
I uploaded several images to view about performance with my SSD installed in my new Asus UL30Vt X1 notebook and they are quite enlightening so be my guest and check them out for yourselves The most interesting and accurate image for performance of the new Intel X25 M High Performance 160GB SSD is the ATTO Tools Benchmarking Tool scoring which is xlnt
If you d care to look at that index you can see that from 16KB through 8192KB with the 256MB test file the Read speed was anywhere from 238MB/sec through 272MB/sec with the Write speed consistently between 110MB/sec and 115MB/sec which is top drawer for this particular SSD
The ATTO Tools test is especially regarded as the most accurate of all the benchmark tests along with HDTach Professional but I didn t have time to run HD Tach Pro on an empty volume and that is how that is best utilized My scores are with the OS and my applications installed already so those are pretty amazing numbers from an Intel X25 M High Performance 160GB SSD filled with almost 40GB of data and the OS
BE SURE and disable your Disk Defragmentation in Windows Disk Management Don t forget to do that Also if you can if you are running maximum RAM like I am in my notebook you can eliminate the Page File from the HD also I have turned off my Page File in my HD and that s easy to do also here s how to do it
1 Click on Computer in the Start Menu
2 Right Click on Computer Icon in Start Menu
3 In the Left Column Click on Advanced System Settings
4 Under System Properties go to Performance Options
5 Under Performance Options Go to Advanced Tab
6 Click on Virtual Memory Change
7 Under Virtual Memory click No Page File
8 Close all those Windows and Restart the computer
9 Done Deal and your computer will operate with a ZERO Allocation for Page File ONLY DO THIS with maximum RAM in your computer and it will improve the performance of the computer up to 25 over normal fast SSD performance
I am very pleased with this purchase very much so I give the Intel X25 M 160GB High Performance SSD HD the Wavey Davey Ultimate Performance GOLD AWARD for being the best SSD for the in the Amazon com marketplace
This is the one to buy the RETAIL BOXED SSD from Intel X25 M Land It was packed to beat the band no way anyone was going to tamper with it being sealed and protected inside of the box like a little vault Reminded me of buying one of their CPU s I ll always buy a retail boxed HD or SSD as long as it s within reason it just makes sense to do
Enjoy the graphics that I posted and I hope that you enjoyed the review and that my tips and help will come in handy for you
This one was a bit of a pain to install it had a lot of special things to do to it to make it ready for Prime Time but when I was done with the optimizing and the install of the special SSD/RAID Driver for the ACHI Controller I knew that I d done the right thing because my performance was very high Use that new Intel ACHI Driver That thing is the BEST Update your firmware Then sit back and enjoy a whole new notebook or desktop experience because things will be happening very very fast with the new X25 M in place
Wavey Davey 3 28 2010
>> What can I say
Excellent product Intel is one of the best technology companies out there
I went from a 5 9 to a 7 2 on Windows 7 Performance via one upgrade
The price well obviously the technology is new but at least its here and not sitting in R D for another 5 years
I m actually surprised Intel was able to dominate this market I would ve thought Corsair or Crucial would ve been the domination So that surprises me but hey they know what works and this works Same goes for USB2
Bottom line
Yes it s good Yes it works Installation is extremely simple
If you have the money get it It unlocks every bottleneck on your computer Make sure you get the TRIM Firmware upgrade I haven t yet kind ve a pain the fact that we still use BLANK CD R s / DVD R s to FLASH our hardware err also make sure you have Win7
Obviously if you wait 2 5 years the price from now will have dropped from 500 to 199 Just get it now you re missing out if you are
>> Amazing
Hands down the best PC upgrade i have ever purchased Boot time from POST to sitting at my windows desktop 11 seconds Highly recommended even if the price is a little steep due to it being new technology
If You are looking for >>> Intel 160 GB X25M Mainstream SATA II Solid State Drive SSD Retail Package SSDSA2MH160G2R5 find the best one here
