Intel X25-M SSDs slowing down with extensive use?
By Donald Melanson 
posted February 19th 2009 1:09PM
posted February 19th 2009 1:09PM
Intel's X25-M SSD drives have certainly shown themselves more than capable enough in the usual tests and various configurations, but a long-term test report from the folks at PC Perspective is now casting a bit of doubt onto their long-term effectiveness and speediness. More specifically, they found that the sector remapping and wear-leveling algorithms that are designed to increase performance and extend the drives' lifespans were actually doing quite the opposite as the drive became increasingly fragmented after extensive use. Further complicating the matter, it seems that conventional defrag programs only make the situation worse, with the only sure way of resetting the drive's sector maps being a complete wipe of the drive. PC Perspective is quick to point out, however, that many users may well never notice the slowdown with light use, and they do have a few suggestions to minimize the problem until Intel devises a firmware fix, which is the only surefire solution.
[Via Ars Technica, thanks Robert]
[Via Ars Technica, thanks Robert]
yeah im staying away from these for the same reason you dont buy the first year of a new car model.
who knows how long these things will really last ... i would hate to lose the drive in 2 years and have ALL the data completely gone (at least with normal drives theres always a possibility of retrieval).
in time they will be worth it, but for now im sticking with my raptor :)
@SR, I think this is the software you mentioned?
http://www.diskeeperblog.com/archives/2008/12/hyperfast_is_al.html
http://downloads.diskeeper.com/pdf/HyperFast.pdf
Looks like it's already part of Apacer SSDs.
See the comments section for the blog link; there are some interesting comments and responses there.
I wouldn't run a normal defragmenter on an SSD, since it's not SSD aware and may not minimize file movment, thus wasting erase-write cycles. If I understand correctly, the erase-write cycle specification is analogous to the MTBF of HDDs...in other words, both are statistical guides, and not to be relied upon 100%.
I am going to wait and watch until the SSD bugs are ironed out and price/capacity becomes more favorable before rushing to buy one.
I don't think the situation is quite so dire. There is a lot of evidence that consolidating free space helps; see the OCZ forum for the latest recommendations. And I installed a 32 GB Transcend in an older P4 machine a few weeks ago, which worked fine at first, but I noticed a slowdown recently, with what appeared to be a few hangs while browsing. So I installed PerfectDisk 7 and enabled SmartPlacement to get free space consolidation working, and all is well again with the SSD. You don't actually need the file defragmentation aspect of it, only the free space consolidation, but they can't be enabled separately so you get both. However, I set the trigger points for rarely/frequently used files to the maximum (999/998 days) to minimize movement of files resulting from the SmartPlacement algorithm. I now have it set to run automatically once a week. Since it operates relatively efficiently and requires only a single pass, I don't think it will affect the longevity of the SSD at all in normal use. Your hard drive will die first.
Isn't it as simple as keeping a small unused partition on your SSD? That's my theory - although I'm yet to test it. Anyone else want to test the theory and report their results?