320 Series questions and issues

[idata]

I successfully migrated my old HD on my laptop (running Windows XP SP3) to a new 320 series SSD (160 GB). This leads me to a series of questions that I'm hoping to get answers to:

1. The drive worked fine for a week but as soon as I ran the Intel SSD Optimizer, the drive became very sluggish--even slower than my old HD. Reboot wouldn't solve it, so I used the migration tool to partition it and transfer the data back to it, and that seems to have fixed it. Is this a known bug with the optimizer? Is there a better way to resolve this issue other than migrating the old data back onto the drive? I have the latest firmware (4PC10362) and the latest Toolbox (2.0.2).

2. My complete product code is SSDSA2CW160G3K5. The sticky SSD FAQ (/thread/17986 http://communities.intel.com/thread/17986) contains a chart with info about the product code digits. It indicates that "Product Technology Type" is either "S" for SLC or "M" for MLC, but my product type is "C". What does "C" stand for? The "Feature" says "H" for "High Performance" but mine is "W". What does "W" stand for?

3. All the specs say this is a 25nm device, but why does the Optimizer software say "Optimizes Intel 34nm SSDs using Trim functionality...This tool does not work with 50nm Intel SSDs"? What does this mean for 25nm devices, which don't seem to be mentioned?

4. Windows is configured to enable write caching for this drive. Does this matter? Should I disable that?

5. Re. driver support: This page, http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-029623.htm http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-029623.htm, says:

Do Intel SSDs need special driver support?

No. The standard drivers for any HDD will support Intel SSDs as drop-in components, such as those bundled with Windows*. However, for best performance, a driver that supports SATA Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is recommended, such as the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager (IMSM) driver from Intel.

I can't seem to figure out which driver to download. my laptop has an internal IDE (PATA) port, and I am connecting the SSD via an internal adapter (PATA to mini-SATA), so the controller is listed in my Device Manager as "Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 27DF). Which Intel driver (Intel Rapid Storage Technology?) version should I download?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

--K

[MBall5]

Please note that it is not even recommended to use an ssd using an adapter or converter from an older technology such IDE to Sata, that could be the reason of most of the issues that you are experiencing right now.

Note that it is not necessary to install certain driver for the ssd to work.