Intel's SSD firmware brings speed boost, mass death (again)
Intel's new SSD firmware massively boosts performance with Windows 7-related ATA commands, but has a bricking bug that's lost data for many users. How much longer will Intel's streak of SSD firmware foibles continue, and how much will these problems hold back the SSD revolution?
Intel's new firmware and toolkit for its new X25 line of solid state disks (SSDs) delivered a massive improvement in their already blisteringly fast performance this week, with increased write speed and a near-elimination of usage-induced performance degradation. The update also included support for the Windows 7 "trim" feature, which will boost SSD's speed and lifespan. So with a 40 percent performance boost and extra Windows 7 goodness, what's not to like about this update? Try data corruption, which some users have reported, causing the update to be pulled not long after it was released. This latest in Intel's uninterrupted streak of firmware foibles will probably be resolved as quickly as the prior two, but it may fuel ongoing doubt about the stability of the SSD as a reliable storage device.
Intel's G1 SSD introduced a subsector remap algorithm which massively increased performance against comparable SSDs, seemingly without cost, until a PCPerspective review showed that the new algorithm's remap table would become fragmented over time and cause degradation, sometimes to below the performance of a regular laptop hard drive. Shortly after this was fixed with a firmware update, Intel's G2 SSDs, with brand-new 34nm NAND, appeared on the stage with further improvements. These, though, were plagued by a lockout problem involving BIOS drive passwords, stopping shipments of the new drive until the issue was resolved via a firmware update.
Intel's latest problem, the third, causes unpredictable, irreversible bricking of G2 SSDs that have been updated to the newest firmware. While it's likely to be fixed fast, this new bug underscores a long and disturbing trend of strange bugs in SSDs from Intel and other drive makers. From lifespan problems to the JMicron controller issue which drastically reduced performance of many makes and models of SSDs, to Intel's ongoing problems, evidence is mounting to convince the user that SSDs aren't ready for the prime time, even as the SSD turning point draws near.
More's the pity, because the new firmware and its related utility resolve one of the major problems in SSD performance: the total lack of coordination between the OS and the SSD. When operating systems "delete" files, they don't actually write zeroes to the relevant sectors, but rather declare the data deleted and move on. This is massively faster (as users who have deleted a 100GB porn pirated movie Linux ISO stash in a few seconds are acutely aware), but causes problems for SSDs. NAND flash reads in pages, but writes in much larger blocks, necessitating a "read-modify-write" operation when a partial write occurs to a block already containing data. This means that when a write occurs to the former location of a deleted file, the SSD, jealously guarding its worthless "deleted" data, performs an unnecessary RMW cycle. As the drive ages, and all available sectors are filled with detritus from deleted files, this can lower performance dramatically.
The solution is to allow the SSD and OS to communicate. The latest revisions to the ATA specification allow a command called "TRIM," which tells the SSD that the data has been deleted. While the data remains, the SSD knows it's junk, and won't trigger an RMW cycle when it's partially overwritten. Performance is nearly as good in old drives as in new. Support for TRIM is native in Windows 7, and Intel's new firmware and utility allow support, for Intel-branded SSDs only, in Windows Vista and Windows XP. Other manufacturers of SSDs have released TRIM-supporting SSDs for Windows 7, but none had TRIM support under prior operating systems.
The new update also boosted write performance of the 160GB version of the X25-M G2 by about 40 percent at open-box. The 160GB model had, confusingly, the same performance specs as the 80GB version at launch, and this has been remedied. Intel hasn't announced exactly what changes account for the performance boost.
Ultimately, both the Intel-exclusivity and the bricking problems associated with the TRIM command will dissipate, as SSD options and optimizations improve and the market expands. However, until an SSD launch is as trouble-free as an HDD launch, SSDs will continue to face challenges in the enterprise. The question is, how long will it be until inexplicable bugs stop delaying and blunting SSDs' every success?
Intel's new firmware and toolkit for its new X25 line of solid state disks (SSDs) delivered a massive improvement in their already blisteringly fast performance this week, with increased write speed and a near-elimination of usage-induced performance degradation. The update also included support for the Windows 7 "trim" feature, which will boost SSD's speed and lifespan. So with a 40 percent performance boost and extra Windows 7 goodness, what's not to like about this update? Try data corruption, which some users have reported, causing the update to be pulled not long after it was released. This latest in Intel's uninterrupted streak of firmware foibles will probably be resolved as quickly as the prior two, but it may fuel ongoing doubt about the stability of the SSD as a reliable storage device.Intel's G1 SSD introduced a subsector remap algorithm which massively increased performance against comparable SSDs, seemingly without cost, until a PCPerspective review showed that the new algorithm's remap table would become fragmented over time and cause degradation, sometimes to below the performance of a regular laptop hard drive. Shortly after this was fixed with a firmware update, Intel's G2 SSDs, with brand-new 34nm NAND, appeared on the stage with further improvements. These, though, were plagued by a lockout problem involving BIOS drive passwords, stopping shipments of the new drive until the issue was resolved via a firmware update.
Intel's latest problem, the third, causes unpredictable, irreversible bricking of G2 SSDs that have been updated to the newest firmware. While it's likely to be fixed fast, this new bug underscores a long and disturbing trend of strange bugs in SSDs from Intel and other drive makers. From lifespan problems to the JMicron controller issue which drastically reduced performance of many makes and models of SSDs, to Intel's ongoing problems, evidence is mounting to convince the user that SSDs aren't ready for the prime time, even as the SSD turning point draws near.
More's the pity, because the new firmware and its related utility resolve one of the major problems in SSD performance: the total lack of coordination between the OS and the SSD. When operating systems "delete" files, they don't actually write zeroes to the relevant sectors, but rather declare the data deleted and move on. This is massively faster (as users who have deleted a 100GB porn pirated movie Linux ISO stash in a few seconds are acutely aware), but causes problems for SSDs. NAND flash reads in pages, but writes in much larger blocks, necessitating a "read-modify-write" operation when a partial write occurs to a block already containing data. This means that when a write occurs to the former location of a deleted file, the SSD, jealously guarding its worthless "deleted" data, performs an unnecessary RMW cycle. As the drive ages, and all available sectors are filled with detritus from deleted files, this can lower performance dramatically.
The solution is to allow the SSD and OS to communicate. The latest revisions to the ATA specification allow a command called "TRIM," which tells the SSD that the data has been deleted. While the data remains, the SSD knows it's junk, and won't trigger an RMW cycle when it's partially overwritten. Performance is nearly as good in old drives as in new. Support for TRIM is native in Windows 7, and Intel's new firmware and utility allow support, for Intel-branded SSDs only, in Windows Vista and Windows XP. Other manufacturers of SSDs have released TRIM-supporting SSDs for Windows 7, but none had TRIM support under prior operating systems.
The new update also boosted write performance of the 160GB version of the X25-M G2 by about 40 percent at open-box. The 160GB model had, confusingly, the same performance specs as the 80GB version at launch, and this has been remedied. Intel hasn't announced exactly what changes account for the performance boost.
Ultimately, both the Intel-exclusivity and the bricking problems associated with the TRIM command will dissipate, as SSD options and optimizations improve and the market expands. However, until an SSD launch is as trouble-free as an HDD launch, SSDs will continue to face challenges in the enterprise. The question is, how long will it be until inexplicable bugs stop delaying and blunting SSDs' every success?
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