Intel X25-M [H]ot!! X25-M Gen 2 - $214.99 for 80gb, $414.99 for 160gb @ Newegg!

Adding a third doesn't always improve the performance as much as expected when it comes to SSD's mainly because at the point you are being bottlenecked by the motherboard chipset. Most motherboards are completely incapable of handling that much through put on the SATA/IDE bus. In fact, there have been reports of doing this causing some motherboards to burn out from the stress and heat generated.

I would stick with only 1 or 2 drives. If you really want more, then you need to get a PCIe card or drive as the PCIe has a bigger bus.
 
gersson said:
I thought RAID w/ SSDs currently meant no TRIM...

How is your PC going to perform 3 months from now?
Click to expand...

Correct, no TRIM in RAID yet,

I've already written 100% to the array with several terabytes of fragmented Torrents, moving on and off the array.. so it has already seen a great deal of writing.. therefore these benchmarks reflect a well written RAID 0 array. And to be honest I have not noticeable seen any performance degrade.. benchmark wise.. probably.

3 months from now.. I still probably wont notice a degrade, but time will tell. By then I should receive my 3rd 80GB and will run HDDErase3.3 on the current SSD's to restore the performance loss which comes after having been written to. And also, Intel has said that TRIM in RAID will be released in the future.. I format my system every 6 months anyways, I can use HDDErase3.3 for the time being.

humblepie said:
Adding a third doesn't always improve the performance as much as expected when it comes to SSD's mainly because at the point you are being bottlenecked by the motherboard chipset. Most motherboards are completely incapable of handling that much through put on the SATA/IDE bus. In fact, there have been reports of doing this causing some motherboards to burn out from the stress and heat generated.

I would stick with only 1 or 2 drives. If you really want more, then you need to get a PCIe card or drive as the PCIe has a bigger bus.
Click to expand...

I don't expect the Seq. Reads to improve much.. maybe 100mb/s, but I do expect the Seq writes to increase by 50-70mb/s. It will be interesting to see how the Random read and writes are affected. Obviously if the performance downgrades much I will take the 3rd off the array, or move to a PCIe controller.

I have not read anywhere that 3 SSD's this fast on your south-bridge will cause premature failure, a RAID card may be in my future, but time will tell. I will search for others having bottleneck issues. All I have seen is the 4th SSD causing bottleneck not the 3rd. I have a lifetime warranty mobo through EVGA, so I guess that makes me glad I got it. If you can dig up a link that would be appreciated.
 
ShiShKaBoB said:
...I've already written 100% to the array with several terabytes of fragmented Torrents, moving on and off the array.. so it has already seen a great deal of writing.. therefore these benchmarks reflect a well written RAID 0 array. And to be honest I have not noticeable seen any performance degrade.. benchmark wise.. probably....
Click to expand...

Too bad you can't run the INTEL SSD Toolbox and see how much the life of the drive has dropped from 100% at new. I have a laptop at 99% but I am quite sure that yours would be a far lower percentage.

hofan41 said:
i received mine yesterday and found it a bit odd that the package was sent from "RMA Warehouse"

i don't have the drive installed yet to see if it has actually been used, but i would not be surprised.
Click to expand...

Stuff from Newegg often comes from the RMA Warehouse. If the package can not be delivered, that is their return address.
 
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Does anyone have a link to the latest firmware that had trim support and the ssd toolbox that intel pulled from their site?

Also is there a summary of what could go bad with that firmware that people were experiencing? Was it just a few people that it bricked their drive immediately, or was there some chance of bad things happening randomly over time? Trying to decide if I want to load it up on the drive or not before I even use it.
 
halcyon said:
Does anyone have a link to the latest firmware that had trim support and the ssd toolbox that intel pulled from their site?

Also is there a summary of what could go bad with that firmware that people were experiencing? Was it just a few people that it bricked their drive immediately, or was there some chance of bad things happening randomly over time? Trying to decide if I want to load it up on the drive or not before I even use it.
Click to expand...
Ditto.

EDIT: Got mine today too, shows it came from the RMA warehouse as well. It is, however, in a sealed plastic (ESD precaution) bag and I don't see any finger prints on it, so go figure.
 
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Mine will not arrive until Tuesday. Newegg's shipping sucks lately. What is it, 5-day now!?
 
aamsel said:
It probably has the new firmware on it already.
Why don't you hook it up and check the firmware version using HDTune Pro
or other method?

Also, was the ESD bag you got inside a brown padded box, I assume?

That would not prove "new" in and of itself.
INTEL definitely has the means to seal drives in static bags!!

Check the firmware version.
If it has the new firmware, I can email you the SSD Toolbox to check if the drive has
been written to. The firmware is too big to email. PM me if you need the Toolbox, but the toolbox requires the latest firmware.

The new TRIM firmware (that was pulled by INTEL) is 02HA.
I would actually be stunned if Newegg is shipping drives that don't have it.
Click to expand...

It came inside a brown padded box inside a sealed static bag. It came with 02GA and I successfully flashed it to 02HA this morning after obtaining the ISO from other online sources.
 
also, pay attention to packaging - is the drive electrostatic bag sealed with intel-branded yellow sticker (has intel logo and barcode and drive S/N) or not? Mine isn't (orange generic) but someone else got the drive with a proper intel seal. My other drive was also sealed with Intel sticker but it was a retail package.
 
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son of a bitch! the drive electrostatic bag is sealed with some generic sticker with no intel logo.

aamsel: i haven't tried the toolbox yet, where can I download the toolbox for this new TRIM firmware?
 
Mine is showing:
142.56GB host writes
20 power-on hours
23 power cycle count
13 unsafe shutdown count

2CV102G9 firmware, it had an orange ESD sticker. The box itself had definitely been opened previously, it had a second layer of tape over the original sealing it.

Is it possible these numbers are factory tests they run before pushing out the door? I'm interested to know what other drives were saying that were purchased before this 'deal'
 
You don't need a new firmware for the Toolbox to read the SMART values. You only need TRIM firmware for the maintenance feature to work. None of my drives are flashed to 02HA (trim) firmware since I was afraid of bricking them and yet the toolbox works just fine when all I ask of it to check SMART values.
 
I talked to Newegg and they told me they were new drives, and the return address on the envelope is incase there is a delivery problem that is where the product is returned to, and that it definitely came out of one of their 'new' product warehouses. *Shrug*

BTW does anyone know if you can run an ICH9 (6 sata channels) with some drives connected to it in raid, but this ssd not in a raid and get trim support in win7?
 
halcyon said:
I talked to Newegg and they told me they were new drives, and the return address on the envelope is incase there is a delivery problem that is where the product is returned to, and that it definitely came out of one of their 'new' product warehouses. *Shrug*...
Click to expand...

The RMA return address is correct. I have read that several times before this deal, and Newegg told me the same thing once before.
 
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Also if someone who has the 02HA firmware file from Intel could please post it we could use http://www.coralcdn.org/ to host it until they post an updated one later this month, I for one would like to flash this drive in XP before installing 7 on it.. thus averting any possible problems.
 
Mine shows 75.5GB host writes. Definitely not new. Power-On hours count is 9 hours.
 
hofan41 said:
Mine shows 75.5GB host writes. Definitely not new. Power-On hours count is 9 hours.
Click to expand...

I got mine in today...

Also just in a bag...

The bottom of the drive looks all scuffed up..

How do i find out the drive activity to see host writes and shit?

Can some one PM me where I can download the program to check?

Outisde of my Drive is Shows:
FW 02G9

i was just about to Install windows on the Drive... Should I wait, until I can confirm wether the drive has been used or not...
 
This whole thing is "curious" to say the least.
I am going to wait until I get my "new" one on Monday
and compare.
 
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Since when does NewEgg sell used items as "new"? Sheesh. :( Guess I need to find a new goto vendor.
 
I've received some stuff from them that looked suspiciously packaged, most likely used. Same thing with Amazon, but much less often.
 
quixotic said:
I've received some stuff from them that looked suspiciously packaged, most likely used. Same thing with Amazon, but much less often.
Click to expand...

Ditto. I think we should keep a VERY close eye on this. If this really is confirmed, I think it should be exposed. Maybe Kyle would be kind enough to get involved.
 
Good ole Newegg and there wonderful packaging. This is how mine just came today.

newegg002.jpg
 
mwaarna said:
I got mine in today...

Also just in a bag...

The bottom of the drive looks all scuffed up..

How do i find out the drive activity to see host writes and shit?

Can some one PM me where I can download the program to check?

Outisde of my Drive is Shows:
FW 02G9

i was just about to Install windows on the Drive... Should I wait, until I can confirm wether the drive has been used or not...
Click to expand...

i too, would like to know how to find out this info.

also, mine(160) came in a Intel SSD OEM box just like my 80 gb. It also has an orange ESD label
 
Where Can I get these Stats from:
halcyon said:
Mine is showing:
142.56GB host writes
20 power-on hours
23 power cycle count
13 unsafe shutdown count

2CV102G9 firmware, it had an orange ESD sticker. The box itself had definitely been opened previously, it had a second layer of tape over the original sealing it.

Is it possible these numbers are factory tests they run before pushing out the door? I'm interested to know what other drives were saying that were purchased before this 'deal'
Click to expand...


I got The following Tho:

My HD info from HD Tune 2.55(freeware version http://www.hdtune.com/)
I have not done anything with the Drive yet, except plug it in and boot up with my Old Drive...
HD_Info.JPG
 
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ericsan said:
Good ole Newegg and there wonderful packaging. This is how mine just came today.
Click to expand...

Mine came in a padded envelope lol. the drive itself was in a tiny cardboard box though and it was with UPS for like 8 hours so I guess it's OK
 
Got the Intel Utility...

03, Spin Up Time, 0
04, Start/Stop Count, 0
05, Re-allocated Sector Count, 0
09, Power-On Hours Count, 8
0C, Power Cycle Count, 20
C0, Unsafe Shutdown Count, 11
E1, Host Writes, 71.53 GB
E8, Available Reserved Space, 0
E9, Media Wearout Indicator, 0, 99
B8, End to End Error Detection Count, 0


Regardless... Going to start a Fresh Format now...
 
defragging is not good, formatting is not an issue (via HDDErase 3.3)

EDIT: I think it is factory testing, after all. Apparently, 160gb drives are written 142gb and 80gb - 75gb of test data. The packaging (orange sticker) is also normal for OEM drives, it's the retail ones that arrive with yellow Intel-branded ones. Sorry for all the anxiety, I just didn't expect a new SSD drive to be tested so extensively lol :)
 
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All my Smart stats were 0. None of them had any values. Guess mine was really "new".
 
TehQuick said:
...I think it is factory testing, after all. Apparently, 160gb drives are written 142gb and 80gb - 75gb of test data. The packaging (orange sticker) is also normal for OEM drives, it's the retail ones that arrive with yellow Intel-branded ones. Sorry for all the anxiety, I just didn't expect a new SSD drive to be tested so extensively lol :)
Click to expand...


My 160GB drive from August (opened tonight) showed:
Power-on hours: 17
Power Cycle: 22
Unsafe shutdown: 12
Host Writes: 142.63 GB


So TehQuick is probably correct that it is due to factory testing.
Where did you get your information that this is done?



ericsan said:
All my Smart stats were 0. None of them had any values. Guess mine was really "new".
Click to expand...

If you checked your SMART stats in a program like HD Tune Pro they won't show the real numbers.
Did you check your stats with the INTEL SSD Toolbox?
 
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used or unused. it just took me about 5 mins or less to install windows 7, i am one happy camper
 
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