The majority of SSDs that are currently sold support TRIM or can be upgraded to support it. But Trim is not supported on all operating systems. At the time of writing, only Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 support it on Windows.

Samsung’s SSD Magician Tool has been released as a English beta version. The tool offers system information, performance optimization, firmware updates, data cloning and performance benchmark for Samsung Solid State Drives.

The utility detects connected Samsung drives automatically and blocks some of the program’s functionality if no drive is detected.

• System Information: Displays detailed information about the computer system and the disks that are connected to it.
• Performance Benchmarking: Only works on Samsung SSDs. It can be used to test the performance of the solid Sate drive. The test range and I/O size can be defined individually. Can be scheduled to run regularly.
• Performance Optimization: Only available if a Samsung SSD is connected to the PC. This basically runs garbage collection on the drive to improve its performance again. Only necessary if it does not support Trim or runs on an operating system that does not. Can also be scheduled to run regularly.
• Firmware Update: Offers to create a bootable USB Disk that can be used to update the SSDs firmware. The firmware file needs to be downloaded separately from the Samsung homepage.
• Date Clone: The feature is not implemented yet in the beta.

Samsung’s SSD Magician Tool is especially handy for users who run an operating system that does not support TRIM as it offers to maintain the drive to keep the performance of it near factory levels. The ability to run the garbage collection regularly means that it is possible to automate the process.

The feature set is different in some aspects to comparable tools like Intel’s SSD Toolbox. Intel’s application supports operating system tweaks to optimize the system for SSD usage. Samsung’s software on the other hand offers a performance benchmark that Intel’s tool does not offer.

Third party tools, like the excellent SSD Drive Tweaker can be helpful to overcome those limitations. (via)

The Samsung SSD Magician Tool is available for download at the project website. The very same page contains firmware downloads and installation help files.

24 drives equals a total storage of 6 Terabytes. The other system specs are as impressive. They added a combination of two Intel 3.2GHz QX9775 Quad-Core cpus, two ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards, 4GB of 800MHz FB-DIMM DDR2 SDRAM, two Corsair HX1000W power supply units, an Adaptec 5 Series RAID card, an Areca 1680ix-24 RAID card and of course the 24 256GB MLC Solid State Drives.

How fast was the system after all? They managed to top 2 Gigabytes of sequential write and reading speed. They performed some tests like loading all Microsoft Office applications (in 0.5 seconds), all 53 apps of the Windows start menu (in 18.09 seconds), copying a 700 Megabyte DVD rip (0.8 seconds) or recycling 700 files with a total size of 5.6 Gigabytes (instantly).

The viral marketing campaign is highly successful with more than 250K views on Youtube already. Can you imaging running a system like this? What are your thoughts, let us know!

The only real downside of SSDs was their rather low write speed which was especially true for last generation’s drives. This is quickly changing with the release of this generation’s SSDs that have a twice as fast write speed as last generation thanks to multiple parallel channels and interleaving single-layer cell NAND flash memory.

Samsung has announced a state of the art SSD that is aiming for a release in the first quarter of 2009. The Samsung SS805 Solid State Drive will offer 100 Gigabytes of storage space with a sustained sequential read rate of up to 250MB/sec. and a sustained sequential write rate of up to 170MB/sec.

To put that in comparison. The OCZ Core Series II SSD drive that I bought last year had a sustained sequential read rate of up to 170 MB/sec. and a sustained sequential write rate of up to 98MB/sec. and won almost every read speed benchmark at that time.

Samsung’s SS805 SSD will increase the read speed by about 50% and the write speed by almost 100% in comparison. The only factor that could play a role in the drive’s success is the retail price of the device.

Intel’s 32 Gigabyte X25 Solid State Drive retails currently for a price of $650-700 at most online shops.

The SS805 SSD is therefor aiming at the enterprise market but hints at what the consumer market will see in the near future.