Will the 34nm 25X-M drives be the only ones that will be able to be flashed for TRIM support?

[idata]

After reading for a while I don't see this question being answered clearly. I have one of the black X25-M drives and with today's annocement of the silver ones (with a different controller) it mentions that they will support a TRIM update when Windows 7 comes out.

Was curious as I'd rather pay a restocking fee and shipping to send my curent x25 back to the seller and pick up a siler x25 when they are out.

[idata]

Well, your Gen. 1 can not be used the way you are using it, not without serious performance penalty and borderline unuseable.... This is what we have seen for a long time now, even with the 8820 firmware.... Now, this is ofcourse not acceptable, and the only cure is TRIM, no SSD is functioning properly without it and it should be an elementary update to the firmware, and the shock to the Gen. 1 owners when Intel said "no TRIM for Gen. 1" seems to have paralized them for a while, but are now starting to creep out of the woodwork... I wonder if we see the beginning of a lawsuit here, since the only way they could get away with this, was if they told anyone buying these drives that they would never get TRIM, and they surely did not.....

Maybe they will start locking and deleting threads, just as they did with one of the other TRIM/Gen. 1 thread..

[idata]

As a former participant in a recently (today) locked thread on the problems with X25-M G1 drives--my two most definitely included--let me come out with a bit of background data for my situation and then a serious compliment for Intel, which even a few days ago I could not have imagined writing on this matter.

First, many (especially on the just-locked thread) seem to think the problem with G1 drives is either an illusion or just the normal "so your G1 isn't as good as G2--big surprise, and big deal" sort of comment. In my experience, and obviously that of many others, that's not the issue at all. (No surprise that every single one of those claimants had a G2 drive, though there was one overall-satisified G1 owner there, whom I believe worked for Intel, which I mean as an observation, not a criticism at all.) A much better analogy would be if one had somehow purchased the latest and greatest and enormously more expensive Intel CPU--let's call it the G1--because of its astonishing performance, only to have that performance dramatically and (semi-) permanently degrade in ordinary use. This issue would not be that the newer G2 CPU would be faster than the G1 processor--the issue would be that the G1 processor utterly failed to live up to its demonstrated performance claims.

Returning to the X25-M, that was the situation I ran into.

Here is someone else's benchmark of a newly secure-erased 80GB X25-M:

Alas, perhaps due to the security features (e.g., the TPM chip) on my Dell workstation, I was not able to secure-erase my two X25-Ms (despite numerous attempts), and here was the performance I've been getting:

Drive 1 is my C: drive (38GB free, Windows Vista x64), mainly being read, of course, but lots of fairly small writes from programs and the OS over the months. (I've had the 8820 firmware since shortly after its release.)

Drive 2 is my 😧 drive (52GB free), mainly being used so far for large, sequential reads and writes, with occasional bursts of large, random database read and writes (but only for very occasional tests, not for ongoing production, at this point).

A couple other points to note: first, the partitions were not properly aligned when I restored an image using Acronis True Image, which reduces the scores by probably about 13% or so, I've read. (I've subsequently discovered it's entirely possible to use ATI and preserve or set a proper partition alignment: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/8322 http://forum.acronis.com/forum/8322) Second, I am using AHCI with all optimizations I know of turned on in Vista.)

As these last two benchmarks show, at least for some users (and I think pretty clearly for many), even those with very high-end systems, the G1 performance degradation is very serious, and nothing like a mere "well, you have to expect the new G2s to be faster than the older G1s."

But now the very good news: I'd read in one post elsewhere recently that at least if, as in my case, the performance problems were both serious and practically unremediable, Intel would do an RMA exchange on the drives, with the replacement drives being G2s.

So I called Intel support, and after a fairly thorough explanation of the problem of my numerous failed efforts to correct or even mitigate it, there was no hesitation whatever on Intel's side of the conversation: they'd be happy to replace the drives. This was a very pleasant surprise. There's a $25 per drive fee for advance replacement (that is, shipping out the replacement drive before Intel receives the defective drive), but that's a small price to pay for drives that work.

So after being part of the chorus of criticism, I'd like to thank Intel VERY much for coming through for me, and I think for many others in the same situation who are willing to make the same effort.

[idata]

I hardly think this is any official standpoint from Intel, and most that would try this route, would be declined any RMA, even if the degradation infact is a legitimate RMA case.. I can do an HDDErase, and I can get the original performance back, should I lie and act like an helpless nub just to get a couple of G2's in return? I just will not drop to this level, period.. In norway, where I live, we have to go via the store we purchased the drive, and if they do an HDDErase, and perfomance is up to spec, it will cost an arm and a leg in penalties, just to get the same drives in return... That is, unless Intel states officiallly, to the store/webstore that this is an legit RMA, and they will cover it, and this will never happen, mark my words..

If they suddenly got tousands of RMA's on the same degradation issue, noone would get anything, if some lonely soul every now and then ask politely to return his drives, he would probably get it, it's just good politics and if he posts it on a forum, well what a bonus for them... To sum it up, unless they admit the Gen. 1 is a faulty product, and all will get new drives, your praise of Intel should go to the support employe, not to the company, and is worthless for anyone but you. Still, I'm happy you are satisfied with getting out of this mess, but I do not think many wil experience the same..

All this mess would be avoided if they do what is right, give the gen. 1 owners a firmware that support TRIM and stop the lurking in the shadows saying nothing and doing less..

[idata]

I'm very sympathetic to your complaints here--I think you're right.

I do not know if Intel would accept the idea that having to secure-erase and then restore your drive every week (or so) to maintain performance is unacceptable. I think it's obviously unacceptable, you think it is too--but would Intel? I do not know, since that wasn't my situation. Being in Norway may also make it tougher--but I would absolutely give it a shot. http://www.intel.com/support/9089.htm http://www.intel.com/support/9089.htm They may have a semi-covert policy along these lines: not at all wanting to encourage people to get RMAs, for obvious economic reasons, but permitting people to get RMAs, for those whose drives are painful enough to drive them to (polite) action.

By the way, I very, very much admire the fact that you will not lie to them to get the fix. Your level of integrity is way too rare today--thank you. For too many people, lying to get their way seems like the obvious choice. Very screwed up, individually and societally.

[idata]

I agree

Performance after a while (6-9months) can degrade, even over RAID0.

When are we going to see a firmware update for the G1 X25-M drives which adds TRIM over RAID?

Thanks

John