Update from Intel's NAND Solutions Group

[Alan_F_Intel]

Dear User of the Intel® SSD Communities:

Thank you very much for your blogs on Intel Support Community related to updating the firmware on your Intel® 34nm High Performance SSDs. Intel is committed to its customers and its products and is taking this issue very seriously.

We have been contacted by users with SSD issues after using the firmware upgrade tool (version 1.3) in a Windows 7* 64bit environment. Intel has replicated the issue on 34nm SSDs (X25-M) and is working on a fix. If users have downloaded 02HA firmware and not upgraded, Intel recommends they don't upgrade until further notice. Intel is pursuing the resolution of this as a high priority. No related issues have been reported by users who have successfully upgraded to 02HA firmware via the firmware upgrade tool (version 1.3)."

You should know that Intel is seeking direct feedback on this issue from members of the Community. In fact, we have communicated with selected users of the blog "Trim Update Hosed my Windows 7 Install", asking them to send their drives directly to Intel to expedite the analysis of the issues. This action will enable us to more quickly generate a resolution for this issue.

We appreciate your patience in this matter. And thank you for participating in the Intel Support Community.

rgds,

Alan

NAND Solutions Group

[idata]

As for G2 drives and their behavior in Win7. I bought new G2 (80GB) a day before new FW came out. I had no time to play with it when new FW came out (luckily), so when drives started to turn into bricks I decided not to update FW (although I planned to install 32bit version of Win 7). After some time and waiting and after the disappointing lack of information and communication from Intel, I decided not to upgrade and go ahead with the installation using original FW. Win 7 Pro installation went smoothly and one of the first things I have checked after the install was if SSD optimizations worked in Win 7 Pro (final release downloaded via MS Action Pack from MS web). To my surprise, defragmentation (which worried me the most) was in fact DISABLED for SSD (and enabled/scheduled for secondary disk, which is a regular HDD). So in my case Intel G2 drive (with original FW) announced itself correctly to Win 7 and optimizations were applied. I do not know however, if it would be so with the new FW.

[idata]

I did two installations of Windows 7 x64, first with original firmware and second with new firmware. I am pretty sure the scheduled defrag was checked, but I am not concerned if it was checked. The ultimate factor for me is the SSD with new firmware is working with TRIM passing through. Now I have Home Edition and maybe there is some difference because you have Pro? Regardless, it is not a problem to uncheck the scheduled Defrag.

[idata]

I understand and respect the fact that you don't care but please understand that I do care. Is the implementation of TRIM fully compliment with Windows 7 or not? Why are Windows 7 optimisations not working automatically with these drives?

Maybe you did not bother to read those links in my earlier posts. My questions could be highly significantly to the problems being experienced with the G2 drives if the NTFS file structures are being messed about. Maybe that is not the case, but it is why I ask the question.

Either way I'm a little bit disappointed that AnandTech etc did not pick on the lack of automatic Win 7 optimisations in their reviews.

Unless you can answer please do not continue to post that you don't care and assume that no one else should either. You seemed to think the bricked drive problem was everyone else's problem just because your update worked OK. What do you say now that Intel has confirmed they can reproduce it? Again a rhetorical question.

Intel:

Is the implementation of TRIM fully compliment with Windows 7 or not? If yes:

Why are Windows 7 optimisations not working automatically with these drives?

Under what circumstances could you reproduced the bricked drive scenario?

Why are you not issuing a f/w update to allow users to revert to an older f/w version?

[idata]

redux wrote:

IEither way I'm a little bit disappointed that AnandTech etc did not pick on the lack of automatic Win 7 optimisations in their reviews.

I am too, but maybe they didn't experienced any problems at all and the optimization might have worked in their case (as they did in mine). What disappoints me more is that they do not cover the story as it develops - they surely are site for geeks and early adopters, so I think this IS a story worth commenting. And as a side effect it might even push Intel to at least some meaningful response

[idata]

The optimizations are all working for you? Have you checked Superfetch, prefetch, ands ReadyBoost?

I doubt you have a problem with ReadyBoost, even that was disabled by the OS in my system, but what about Superfetch and Prefetch?

By the way, guys, Microsoft has not issued an official statement saying those services would be disabled on SSD systems, at least no official statement I have seen.