Latest FW update any good for XP, Sata 1 system

[idata]

Hi,

I was wondering if the lastest FW update and the tool box software are of any use to my sata 1 system that runs on XP. Will I be able to run TRIM, even manually or anything that will improve the performance of the SSD?

Thank you for your advice in advance.

[idata]

Even assuming RAID is an option, one SSD is far better than two drives in RAID 0:

With the SSD you have significantly better access time, which is what will determine most of the perfomance improvement over a normal drive. You should maintain most of this performance with SATA 1.5Gb/s.

Raid 0 doubles your risk of losing data from drive failure.

[idata]

Hi Rick!

Thanks again! Yes, I understand the cap on SATA1 but went ahead with SSD anyway because of its other benefits, e.g.,, power consumption, weight, and shock resistance. Most importnat of all, I need the quick access time, as I constantly need to search full-text search on dictionaries and PDF files.

[idata]

Good morning Mr Wolf!

Thanks for the useful advice. I will go ahead with the update, though it's kind of scary given so much negative feedback on the update process. Can you tell me the worst scenario that can happen when such a update fail? Will it render the SSD totally unusuable? Is there any good, detailed info on the update process on this forum (I am a total layman, as you can judge from my questions)? Thank you very much!

[idata]

Hi ZXTT,

Thank you for your advice. Acess time is indeed very important for me. Cheers!

[idata]

Before doing the FW updade, you should backup your data, either clone your drive to another HD or just backup MyDocuments, Favorites, emails, etc.

It's allways good to have backups of your personal files/information, everyting else can be reinstalled, but not your personal files.

The firmware update is not going to erase the data, but it's better to be prepared than sorry.

I've only read about 2 issues when ppl tried to upgrade to last 02HD FW:

1. The FW upgrade software can not find the SSD because of computer bios settings. There is no problem with this, simple you can not upgrade in this situation. You need to follow intel readme.txt instructions and change bios settings until it works or you need to do the upgrade in another computer.

2. I remember reading that some ppl got an error saing the fw upgrade was not complete, but after booting it was ok... I cant remember if this was only with 02HA, but In this the case, they rerun the FW upgrade and it told them they already had the last FW. It looks like the drive has upgraded, just gave an error at the end of the process....if this bothers you, just search and try to read about it. I can not comment on this, I dont know what happend in this few cases.

The reports I read about some drive failures were only upgrading the firmware 02HA, intel removed this FW and fixed the problem in 02HD.

I didn't read anyone loosing their drives when upgrading to the last firmware 02HD.

You can read about people experiences with 02HD here:

http://communities.intel.com/thread/8865?start=0&tstart=30

You will find some reports from ppl that broke their drive with 02HA and could not fix it with 02HD.

Backup and follow intel instructions (readme.txt in download page), they explain how to do the FW upgrade.