Intel SSD 530 NAND Write Problem

[fZhan14]

Hello, everyone:

I bought an Intel SSD 530 120G for my laptop several days ago. It worked well with the OS Win8.1 Pro x64.

When I paid attention to the NAND writes, something make me confused.

The situation is as follow:

The SSD with the OS is the first(primary) Disk, and the HDD is the second one. I have moved the cache of IE, chrome and Firefox to the Hard Drive using IE setting or mklink command, and verified it correctly. With the explorer working, the written data stream from cache is produced in the HDD partition theoretically, also I have got this conclusion through the System's Resource Monitor and the Diskmon from Microsoft website. When I cached several Movies embedded in any explorer without other operation separately, there are lots of written data traffic produced in the HDD partition, and just little data wrote in system disk(SSD), it's no doubt. Finally, each test(using one kind of explorer) improved less than 200Mb in Total Host Writes which is normal for system operating, but this process also consumed about 3Gb SSD's Total NAND writes in total in the CrystalDiskInfo 6.0.1. Also I have got the same result with the newly Intel SSD Toolbox, AIDA64 3.20 and CrystalDiskInfo 6.0.1. In fact, this written data traffic produced by explorer's cache in HDD is calculated into the SSD's total NAND writes.

Actually I'm not care of the SSD's wear, and I'm sure it couldn't reach the limited lifespan with normal usage until next generation product arrives. This accidental discovery confused me now, and the result above make me suspect the theory, Putting IE/Chrome or System cache into other medium/drive saving your SSD's wear.

Q:Here, I want to know what makes this strange condition happen, the drivers, system's bug, bad support for old mainboard, the system's setting&config or the special system log?

Testing condition:

Thinkpad R400(GM45 motherboard)/P8700/8Gb RAM/Intel 530 SSD+Hitachi 7k500/Intel 5300 AGN/Win 8.1 Pro X64 with the Win 8.1's Default config and drivers, except trunning the service Superfetch off mannually.

I could make sure the location of explorer cache(IE, Chrome, Firefox) in HDD, also the written data traffic in HDD, and the vast imprived NAND writes in SSD simultaneously.

Thanks for your help.

[Pte_R]

What I see on my two Intel 530 series SSDs is: the F9 "Total Nand Writes" increases 1GB per 5-6 minutes no matter what you do, even when the drive is complete idle (no OS on it and no file access whatsoever). It seems to me that there is some internal housekeeping by the controller using the flash memory cells. Updating the firmware from DC32 to DCP2 (to prevent DevSleep) makes no difference. Please Intel explain what is happening, or at least try to reproduce the problem yourself which should not be that difficult.

[TYan3]

DCP2? A new firmware update? When was it released? Where can we get it? I don't see it available with issdfut_2.1.1.iso.

[Pte_R]

Firmware Intel SSD Firmware Update Tool 2.0.14 (issdfut_2.0.14.iso). It is released only to special customers. You have to google on it, but this version of the Intel 530/535 SSD Series Firmware Update Tool is no longer available for download. Intel has chosen to only make it available to customers via their support channels. This tool is intended to enable/disable DevSleep feature on selected SSD models.

[TYan3]

Btw I haven't read every post thoroughly so I don't know why some of you guys think that it has something to do with DevSlp. FWIW my UEFI setting has no option to enable/disable DevSlp and it is disabled according to hdparm 9.48:

https://ptpb.pw/4glE https://ptpb.pw/4glE

It's a desktop Haswell platform with Core i5-4570S and ASUS H87-PRO.

[Pte_R]

There is a major difference between the 520 and 530 series: When making a Norton ghost image from the 530 and putting it onto the 520 series the excessive NAND write growth just is not there anymore. Even better on the 520 it stays always well below the Host writes! Both have a SF2281 controller, but on the 530 it is Intel branded. In the datasheet you see that DevSleep is implemented in the 530, but also some sort of ultra-low idle power mode (530 is idle 125mW while the 520 is 600mW). Somebody mentioned that switching to these low-power modes frequently could cause this excessive NAND write growth on the 530. So AGAIN Intel please explain!!!

I am a very loyal Intel SSD costumer, starting with the X25M, later on using the 320 series and the 520/530. This whole problem makes me very hesitant on buying any new SSDs from Intel anymore.