X25-M G1 usage guidelines

[DAndr17]

Hi All,

Bearing in mind that X25-M G1 SSDs do not support TRIM are there any particular guidelines from Intel on how to best use these SSDs to make the most out of them? For instance if I know in advance that I'll fit into 60GB should I set reserve in my 160GB ones at half their capacity for 75% occupancy (60/80) or rather leave it intact for 37.5% occupancy (60/160)? Also how often should I do Enhanced Secure Erase on them to bring their speed closer to that of their G2 counterpart and how will it affect their lifetime in figures? E.g. ESE done on one of my X25-M G1 80GB SSDs after about a year of light usage in a SATA-I capped ThinkPad X60s appears to be quite helpful, so I wound't mind doing it more often other things equal:

Thanks in advance!

[ASouz7]

DmitriyA,

Before we go any further it is important that you know that this drive is out of interactive support. As you know TRIM is not supported on this drive and in order to optimize the SSD you can use the SSD optimizer found in the SSD Tool Box, here is the link: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18455/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Toolbox Download Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox you are welcome to review the: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/software/000006209.html Intel® SSD Toolbox Frequently Asked Questions for Software

You can also use security erase when you deem necessary, just bear in mind that everytime this action is performed the SSD life time is reduced.

Regarding the reserved space, you can set as many partion on the drive as you want if the disk is unallocated.

[DAndr17]

Hi aleki_intel,

Thanks for your reply past the end of G1 support.

> As you know TRIM is not supported on this drive and in order to optimize the SSD you can use the SSD optimizer found in the SSD Tool Box

> here is the link: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18455/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Toolbox Download Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox you are welcome to review the: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/software/000006209.html Intel® SSD Toolbox Frequently Asked Questions for Software

Q&A # 2 in that doc says SSD Optimizer doesn't work on 50nm (G1) SSDs. I suppose it has something to do with the lack of TRIM support, which SSD Optimizer probably needs do to its job.

> You can also use security erase when you deem necessary, just bear in mind that everytime this action is performed the SSD life time is reduced.

May I have an approx lifetime reduction figure? (say, in % of SSD's lifetime upon every Secure Erase) That'll tell me how often I want to run it.

> Regarding the reserved space, you can set as many partion on the drive as you want if the disk is unallocated.

Sorry unsure I got the idea... what I'm after is whether overprovisioning my 160GB SSD, i.e. reducing its capacity available for user data down to 80-120GB by means of SET MAX ADDRESS ATA command or just leaving the rest of it unpartitioned is any better (i.e. will increase its life and/or performance) than running with entire capacity allocated to its partition(s)? Or G1's SSD controller will level its wear regardless, making overprovisioning unnecessary?

- the following Intel whitepapers on Overprovisioning suggest (if I got it right) that reducing usable space from 160GB to 96GB increases SSD's endurance from 29TB to 150TB:

http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/45/95/459555_459555.pdf http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/45/95/459555_459555.pdf <<< Currently unavailable; I guess it's Intel whitepaper doc # 324441-001 or 324441-002:</a>

http://www.matrix44.net/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/intel_over_provisioning.pdf http://www.matrix44.net/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/intel_over_provisioning.pdf

http://www.ictlogic.eu/files/intel/White%20Paper%20-%20Over-provisioning%20an%20SSD%20r1.pdf http://www.ictlogic.eu/files/intel/White%20Paper%20-%20Over-provisioning%20an%20SSD%20r1.pdf

- here an Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD overprovisioning as 64GB is expected to deliver almost 4x life and performance boost based on the aforementioned Intel whitepaper(s):

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=94241 http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=94241

If these Intel overprovisioning guidelines apply in particular to G1 SSDs I'll be more than happy to overprovision them with up to 50% reserve to make them last "forever" )

Many thanks!

P.S. Btw we could probably treat my questions on Secure Erase impact and Overprovisioning benefits as equally applicable to G2 and all newer SSDs.

[Anonymous]

I don't see that it support SET MAX ADDRESS according to smartctl/hdparm identifying my 80GB G1. You can at most leave certain amount of space unpartitioned and HOPE that the controller would make good use of it

I wonder what's the point to do secure erase here if it is expected to reduce life span. I have always used it to wipe my G1 since the day I found out such thing. Not trying to lengthen its life span but just because its quick and convenient. Still living alright with more than 9TB Host Write and frequent secure erase.

FWIW, G1 could be the most durable Intel SSD series ever made. I remember reading some data showing how exceptional it is when compared with the "modern" series from Intel and other vendors.

[DAndr17]

Tom Yan:

Thanks for your reply. May I ask how often you do SE on yours? I had to do it only once so far - after my spouse said her PC is "slowish". The figures in my OP suggest it boosted the speed a lot (in fact even higher than brand-new somehow!), so I definitely don't mind doing SE more often (well, at least once every half a year) and ideally would like to understand exactly how much resource each SE costs the SSD. Hopefully this figure isn't confidential and we'll get an Intel rep to disclose it.

> FWIW, G1 could be the most durable Intel SSD series ever made. I remember reading some data showing how exceptional it is when compared with the "modern" series from Intel and other vendors.

Well, being infinitely far from internal SSD design I suppose it has something to do with stuffing "just" 4 voltage levels into those large 50nm cells: there's no such luxury anymore with modern ones. Planar TLC ones e.g. Samsung 840 EVO are definitely a no-go because of the well-known old data read degradation issue, and we have yet to see what newer V-NAND TLC ones such as 850 EVO are like.