Intel Releases SSD Toolbox 3.0 Software

[btarunr]

Intel released the Solid-State Drive Toolbox 3.0 system software, which it recommends for use with its SSDs. SSDs have a limited number of times they can rewrite data onto their NAND flash cells. The most common 20-nanometer class MLC NAND flash offers around 5,000 rewrite cycles. This software monitors your Intel SSD for performance degradation, and provides a measure of how many rewrite cycles are left, so you can plan beforehand about backing up your data and replacing it. The software also provides a suite of diagnostics for your Intel SSD. Lastly, the software can update your drive's firmware without the need for a DOS bootable disk.



DOWNLOAD: Intel SSD Toolbox 3.0

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[RejZoR]

This has to be the best looking piece of software i've seen in the last months.

 

[erixx]

yeah, but... reading stuff like this makes me not hurry at all to get a SSD! 5000 write? FFS!

 

[cmberry20]

^ Thats quite good. The new Crucial M4 & OCZ drives only have 3000 rewrite cycles.

But dont panic as that is quite a lot. Let me explain:

Say you write 100GB data a day to your 120GB SSD (lets say 20GB is taken up with OS & software)

It would take 3000 days for it to wear out. This is 8 years!!!

 

[Tatty_Two]

^ Thats quite good. The new Crucial M4 & OCZ drives only have 3000 rewrite cycles.

But dont panic as that is quite a lot. Let me explain:

Say you write 100GB data a day to your 120GB SSD (lets say 20GB is taken up with OS & software)

It would take 3000 days for it to wear out. This is 8 years!!!

Yes, sadly, at the moment as the fabrication process gets smaller, so does the life expectancy, I have just bought a M4 and it's 22nm as opposed to the older 28nm or whatever it was.

 

[AsRock]

Sweeet been waiting for this for some time now.

EDIT: i recommend people to read the pdf too

 

[ERazer]

yay about time intel

 

[badtaylorx]

does this work with all ssd's somewhat like how msi afterburner works with all cards???

 

[AsRock]

does this work with all ssd's somewhat like how msi afterburner works with all cards???

Yes but you need to be using the intel chipset. Be warned though like OCZ toolbox don't like the version before this and might not like this version either.

 

[Jack Doph]

5000?
That's less than 14 per day (calculated over just one year).
I'm sorry, but my system does more of that (14) in an hour.. so how is this reliable?
:/

 

[DanishDevil]

Having to rewrite over the entire drive 5000 times, not just a single write. If you write over 1.4TB per hour on your system, then yes an SSD is not for you.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Corsair tested write cycles on there SSD's and apparently a low capacity 40gb SSD
http://www.corsair.com/blog/cat/tec...sd-life-testing/?___store=de&___from_store=en

it was able to withstand 240 TiB of writes before crapping out.

you would have to write 650gb of data per day for said SSD to die in 1 year. i doubt you can write 650gb per day for a year nor can you do 325gb per day for 2 years or 167gb per day for 4 years essentially its more likely the PCB that holds the SSD's controller is going to fail before memory chips reach there write capacity.

 

[timta2]

I have to say that I've been impressed with the quality of Intel software I've seen and this one looks nice, as in visually appealing. Now I just have to get an SSD to use it!

 

[Completely Bonkers]

But dont panic as that is quite a lot. Let me explain:

Say you write 100GB data a day to your 120GB SSD (lets say 20GB is taken up with OS & software)

It would take 3000 days for it to wear out. This is 8 years!!!

NO. Because you dont write "one 100GB file" each day, but actually tens of thousands of small files plus few large ones. You need to consider the number of files, cache management, and write amplification.

Now, for the average user, the average life might indeed be somewhere around 5 years... but not as a result of the math you just showed.

 

[extrasalty]

I bought my X25-m G2 for my laptop in Nov 2009 and it is still on 2% wear. SSDlife reports 5.2 TB written- it comes down to around 7GB/day. Meanwhile I replaced 7 rotational drives- 6 desktop and 1 laptop.

 

[stevednmc]

Just installed! Thanks for the link. Yeah, its nice looking software. Functions are essentaily the same as the previous version though. And for the record my x-25m I have had installed for over a year and it still shows 100 percent. AND I bought it used from a guy here on TPU.