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Order Number:  325912-001US 

September 2011 

Intel

®

 Solid-State Drive Toolbox 

 

User Guide 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary of Contents for Solid-State Drive Toolbox

Page 1: ...Order Number 325912 001US September 2011 Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox User Guide ...

Page 2: ...SITUATION WHERE PERSONAL INJURY OR DEATH MAY OCCUR Intel may make changes to specifications and product descriptions at any time without notice Designers must not rely on the absence or characteristics of any features or instructions marked reserved or undefined Intel reserves these for future definition and shall have no responsibility whatsoever for conflicts or incompatibilities arising from fu...

Page 3: ...12 Exporting SMART Attributes 15 Viewing System Information 15 4 Optimizing your Intel SSD 16 About the Intel SSD Optimizer 16 Intel SSD Optimizer Requirements 16 Manually Running the Intel SSD Optimizer 17 Scheduling the Intel SSD Optimizer 17 Removing a Scheduled Intel SSD Optimizer Session 18 5 Running Diagnostic Scans 19 Quick Diagnostic Scan 19 Full Diagnostic Scan 19 6 Updating Firmware 21 C...

Page 4: ...g a Secure Erase 27 About Secure Erase 27 Secure Erase Requirements 27 Deleting a Partition 27 Running Secure Erase 28 Creating a Partition 29 9 Troubleshooting 30 Troubleshooting Drives 30 Troubleshooting Firmware Update 30 Troubleshooting Intel SSD Optimizer 31 10 Obtaining More Information 32 Related Publications 32 Reference Documents 32 ...

Page 5: ...mation data also available for hard disk drives and non Intel SSDs Optimize the performance of an Intel SSD using Trim functionality a command that allows an operating system to inform an SSD which blocks of data are no longer considered in use and can be deleted Run Quick and Full diagnostic scans to test the read and write functionality of an Intel SSD Check and tune your system settings for opt...

Page 6: ...depending on the drive you select Model Firmware Version Serial Number Drive Details Drive Capacity Drive Health Estimated Life Remaining SMART Details 2 Click an option on the left side of the screen to run a task on the selected drive Available tasks vary depending on the drive you select Intel SSD Optimizer Quick Diagnostic Scan Full Diagnostic Scan Secure Erase Firmware Update System Tuner Sys...

Page 7: ...ent and maintenance purposes Move the mouse over a drive icon or click on the drive for more information Drives containing partitions If a drive contains a partition the partition appears as a separate drive on the home screen and may or may not be assigned a drive letter Drives installed as a cache using Intel Rapid Storage Technology Intel RST If a drive is installed as a cache using Intel RST t...

Page 8: ...ded with this version of the Intel SSD Toolbox the following icon appears next to the Firmware Update option To check if there is a newer firmware version for your Intel SSD see Checking for Firmware Updates Note To update firmware on an Intel X25 E Solid State Drive or Intel Solid State Drive 510 Series use the Intel SATA Solid State Drive Firmware Update Tool available at http www intel com go s...

Page 9: ...e space available on the selected Intel SSD The pie chart appears for Intel SSDs with valid partitions only The pie chart does not appear for SSDs without a valid partition or for SSDs installed as a cache Note The total usable capacity may be less than the total physical capacity because a small portion of the capacity is used for NAND flash management and maintenance purposes Identifying NAND Li...

Page 10: ... SSD on the home screen 2 Click Drive Details 3 Scroll down and view Security Status Word 128 Bit 0 indicates the Security Mode feature set supported If set to one security is supported Bit 1 indicates security enabled If set to one the security is enabled Bit 2 indicates security locked If set to one the security is locked Bit 3 indicates security frozen If set to one the security is frozen See t...

Page 11: ...ing are commonly referenced values For complete descriptions of all values see the ATA specifications Serial Number Word 10 19 Identifies production information about the selected drive Firmware Version Word 23 26 Version of firmware installed on the selected drive Model Number Word 27 45 Model of the selected drive For Intel SSDs the model number contains reference to the NAND lithography Securit...

Page 12: ...ute 1 Select the drive on the home screen 2 Click SMART Details under SMART Summary 3 Scroll down to view the SMART attributes supported by the selected drive Details shown for each SMART attribute include ID The hexadecimal name of the SMART attribute Description The name of the SMART attribute Raw The raw value assigned to the SMART attribute by the drive manufacturer Normalized The value of an ...

Page 13: ...emaining The normalized value begins at 100 64h which corresponds to 100 percent availability of the reserved space The threshold value for this attribute is 10 percent availability AB Program Fail Count The raw value shows total count of program fails The normalized value beginning at 100 shows the percent remaining of allowable program fails AC Erase Fail Count The raw value shows total count of...

Page 14: ...he Timed Workload Timer attribute E4 as a percentage of the maximum rated cycles E3 Timed Workload Host Read Write Ratio The percentage of I O operations that are read operations since reset of the Timed Workload Timer attribute E4 E4 Timed Workload Timer Measures the elapsed time number of minutes since starting this workload timer E8 Available Reserved Space Reports the number of reserve blocks ...

Page 15: ...ation data and system information for the selected drive to a csv comma separated values file The csv file can be opened in a program such as Microsoft Excel Viewing System Information The System Information screen shows details about your computer s operating system and hardware configuration such as central processing unit CPU chipset and controller name and driver version This information can b...

Page 16: ...eneration G1 50nm Intel SSDs To identify your Intel SSD see Identifying NAND Lithography of an Intel SSD Before running the Intel SSD Optimizer make sure the Intel SSD has the latest firmware installed See Checking for Firmware Updates Note the following before running or scheduling the Intel SSD Optimizer Do not run the Intel SSD Optimizer when a backup is in session Do not run the Intel SSD Opti...

Page 17: ... in a RAID configuration click Decline to stop running the Intel SSD Optimizer The Intel SSD Optimizer cannot run on Intel SSDs in a RAID configuration See Troubleshooting Intel SSD Optimizer for more information The Intel SSD Optimizer starts A progress bar shows the status of the tool Scheduling the Intel SSD Optimizer Note the following before setting a schedule Make sure Intel SSD Optimizer se...

Page 18: ... the selected SSD See Troubleshooting Intel SSD Optimizer for more information If the Intel SSD is in a RAID configuration click Decline to stop running the Intel SSD Optimizer The Intel SSD Optimizer cannot run on Intel SSDs in a RAID configuration See Troubleshooting Intel SSD Optimizer for more information 7 Exit the Intel SSD Optimizer or return to the home screen The Intel SSD Optimizer runs ...

Page 19: ... home screen or SMART Details screen may be accessed while the scan is running but no other tests such as Intel SSD Optimizer or Full Diagnostic Scan may be started To run the Quick Diagnostic Scan 1 Select the Intel SSD on the home screen 2 Click Quick Diagnostic Scan 3 Click Run 4 View the progress on the screen To stop the scan click Cancel Full Diagnostic Scan Run the Full Diagnostic scan to p...

Page 20: ...ptions such as the home screen or SMART Details screen may be accessed while the scan is running but no other tests such as Intel SSD Optimizer or Quick Diagnostic Scan may be started To run the Full Diagnostic Scan 1 Select the Intel SSD on the home screen 2 Click Full Diagnostic Scan 3 Click Run 4 View the progress on the screen To stop the scan click Cancel ...

Page 21: ...elected Intel SSD to the latest firmware available with this version of the Intel SSD Toolbox To check for a newer version click Check For Updates at the bottom of the Firmware Update screen Note To update firmware on an Intel X25 E Solid State Drive or Intel Solid State Drive 510 Series use the Intel SATA Solid State Drive Firmware Update Tool available at http www intel com go ssdfirmware The In...

Page 22: ...similar Prefetch feature available in Windows XP Superfetch Prefetch is not needed on an Intel SSD and should be disabled for optimal performance ReadyBoost In Microsoft Windows Vista ReadyBoost is a feature that uses any flash memory device connected to your system as a drive for disk caching It is also used to facilitate SuperFetch In Windows 7 ReadyBoost is part of SuperFetch In Windows XP Read...

Page 23: ...lp optimize performance of the Intel SSD Install your most frequently used applications on the Intel SSD Run and schedule Disk Defragmenter on the hard disk drive only Make sure Disk Defragmenter does not run and is not scheduled to run on the Intel SSD In Windows XP this requires that you check the following Open Windows XP Scheduled Tasks and search for defrag exe or other third party defragment...

Page 24: ...AID Configurations Using Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver To obtain higher performance from RAID configurations consisting of Intel SSDs and Intel Rapid Storage Technology Intel RST make sure Intel RST Write Back Cache is enabled Note Enabling Write Back Cache increases the chance of system data loss during a power loss event However all data written to the SSD will be committed to NAND durin...

Page 25: ...e most efficient power management method for managing SATA link power Intel recommends DIPM be enabled on Intel SSDs for optimal performance To use these instructions the selected Intel SSD must be connected to an AHCI controller To manually disable DIPM in Windows 7 1 Start the Registry Editor open the Windows Start menu and type regedit in the Search field 2 Navigate to the following entry HKEY_...

Page 26: ...nd Windows Vista This section explains how to enable Disk Defragmenter in Windows 7 For Windows Vista instructions see your operating system documentation Note In Windows XP Disk Defragmenter cannot be disabled To manually enable Disk Defragmenter in Windows 7 1 Open the Windows Start menu and type disk defragmenter in the Search field 2 Click Turn on Schedule 3 Follow the prompts on the screen to...

Page 27: ...used in randomizing data is re generated after Secure Erase Secure Erase Requirements To run Secure Erase on an Intel SSD The SSD must be the secondary drive in the system Secure Erase cannot be run from a bootable SSD or on an SSD with a partition All drive passwords must be removed from the SSD See your system documentation for instructions The system must allow access to the SATA power cable co...

Page 28: ...OK The Intel SSD Toolbox rescans the system for the SSD Once the SSD is detected continue with Step 6 If the SSD is not detected click OK on the Selected Drive Not Found message The Intel SSD Toolbox home screen appears and scans the system for drives Once the Intel SSD is detected select the Intel SSD on the home screen and click Secure Erase If the Security warning message appears again repeat t...

Page 29: ... Windows 7 These instructions can be helpful for preparing an SSD after performing a Secure Erase For more information or instructions for other operating systems see the documentation for your operating system 1 Right click Computer Manage Disk Management 2 Select the Intel SSD on which you want to create a partition and click New Simple Volume 3 Click Next when the New Simple Volume Wizard start...

Page 30: ...ive If the SMART Details option is not available for a selected drive make sure SMART is enabled on the drive Drive Health or Estimated Life Remaining does not appear for a selected drive Drive Health and Estimated Life Remaining information appears for Intel SSDs only with SMART enabled Troubleshooting Firmware Update If you encounter an issue updating the firmware on an Intel SSD or if the firmw...

Page 31: ...nnot run on Intel SSDs in RAID configurations The Intel SSD Toolbox checks for RAID configurations at startup However because not all RAID configurations can be detected at startup the tool runs a second check when starting the Intel SSD Optimizer If the selected Intel SSD is in a RAID configuration the tool displays this error message If the second check does not detect a RAID configuration the S...

Page 32: ...Intel Solid State Drives go to http www intel com go ssd Reference Documents Document Document No Location ATA 7 Volume 1 Specification April 2004 http www t13 org Documents UploadedDocuments docs2007 D1532v1r4b AT_Attachment_with_Packet_Interface_ _7_Volume_1 pdf SATA Rev 2 6 Specification February 2007 http www sata io org Revision History Date Revision Description September 2011 001 Initial rel...

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