With newer generation drives those factors have been mitigated or eliminated completely. Still, some PC users may need to check on their SSDs from time to time to make sure that they provide the same performance and reliability as in the beginning.

SSDLife Free is a Windows software program that can check the life expectancy of a solid state drive. It interprets the SMART data of the drive. The free version of the program supports only one connected SSD. If more than one drives are connected only the first will be analyzed and displayed.

When you start the program for the first time data about the first SSD of the system is collected and then displayed on the screen. This includes a general drive health rating at the top with the estimated lifetime of the solid state drive. The information are more detailed in the middle of the window. Here you see your drive’s model, the total drive space and free space, the work time in hours and days and the times the drive has been powered on.

The program displays furthermore if TRIM is supported by the drive, and the estimated life expectancy in more detail. Lastly, it also displays how much data was written in Gigabyte in the SSD’s life.

The expected lifetime is handy to know, as it allows users to make preparations to replace the drive when the time of “death” comes nearer.

SSDLife Free can display the SMART data of the drive in an online report in the web browser.

Users with one Solid State Drive installed on their computer can download the free software from the developer website.

Users of previous versions of the Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox will notice that the new installment ships with a redesigned interface. The start screen display information about all hard drives connected to the computer. The drives are separated by Intel SSD and Other Drives tabs. Information about the drive model, firmware version and serial number are displayed here next to drive health and estimated life remaining bars.

Linked from here are the drive details section and the SMART details section of the program.

Probably the biggest new feature in this version is the new firmware update button that checks online for new firmwares for the SSD and informs the user if new versions are available. Users can install the new firmware right away from within the program interface and Windows. Intel surprisingly though only recommends to minimize system use during the operation and not to create a backup of the data on the drive prior to installing a new firmware.

Another issue here is that the update screen lacks information about the changes in the new firmware version. The new firmware version is however displayed on the screen so that a manual search for the version should reveal the update information. It is highly recommended to check the changes before installing the firmware update.

The program still offers to run the Trim command regularly on Windows operating systems that do not support it to retain the performance levels.

Windows 7 and newer users who can make use of the built-in Trim functionality can use other features of the toolbox that have already been available in previous versions of the application. Among them the System Tuner which runs a quick check to see if operating system features such as the disk defragmenter, ReadyBoost or Superfetch and Prefetch are configured optimally.

The Secure Erase feature on the other hand can be used to remove all data from the drive which can be handy before selling, lending or giving it away.

Windows users can download the latest iteration of Intel’s Solid-State Toolbox from the Intel website.

I have reviewed several programs to link and move folders, applications and games from a Solid State Drive to another drive to free up space. This includes Steam Mover and the portable program Junction from Sysinternals.

SSD Boost Manager offers a similar functionality on first glance. Windows users can configure directories that they want to move and create symbolic links for so that everything works as if the folder would still be in its original location on the drive.

But instead of just doing that, it offers to swap the folder back to its original location on demand. That’s for instance very handy for gamers who do not want to uninstall games, but need storage space on their SSD for a new program. They can use SSD Boost Manager to move the folder and create a symbolic link to free up the space, install and play the other game, uninstall that game and move the old game back to its original location (or instead of uninstalling move and create a symbolic link for that second game as well).

Most users should switch the interface language from French to English by clicking on the flag button in the app.

A click on the Add button opens the configuration menu.

Here you can define a name and the directories of the Solid State Drive and the other folder you want to use. It is optionally possible to create a profile for each subdirectory of the selected folder, which can be handy if you have a games folder on your drive with multiple games installed.

The default action that is selected is to move the data from the SSD to the HDD. This can be switched easily to restore the HDD data back to the SSD.

The idea to swap apps and games back and forth could be interesting for users who do not want to uninstall the applications or games when they run out of space. The English version of the interface could use some tooltips and explanations on how to use the program properly. Another problem that non-French speaking users can run into is the French installation of the game.

Interested users can download SSD Boost Manager from the project homepage, which is also only available in French. The program itself is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system.

A recent study of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California came to the conclusion that individual file sanitizing techniques were ineffective on SSDs and that built-in disk sanitizing techniques were effective if implemented correctly which was not always the case.

But this article is about encryption and Solid State Drives, read on how the findings impact encryption as well.

The makers of the open source encryption software True Crypt for instance recommend that “TrueCrypt volumes are not created/stored on devices (or in file systems) that utilize a wear-leveling mechanism (and that TrueCrypt is not used to encrypt any portions of such devices or filesystems)”.

They basically ask their users to use True Crypt on conventional hard drives only and not on Solid State Drives and other Flash storage devices.

Why are they recommending that? For that, we need to take a look at how data is saved to SSDs.

Solid state drives use a technology called wear leveling to extend the lifetime of the device. Storage sectors on Flash drives have limited write-cycles which means that they cannot be written to anymore eventually. Wear leveling is used to avoid heavy use of specific sectors. With Solid State Drives it’s not possible to save data to a specific sector of the drive. The wear leveling mechanism makes sure that the data is evenly distributed on the drive.

This means that it is theoretically possible that data is stored multiple times on the drive. If you change the TrueCrypt volume header for instance it can be that the old header is still accessible on the drive as it is not possible to overwrite it individually. Attackers could exploit this if they have found the old header. A basic example. Lets say you have encrypted your SSD and found out that a trojan recorded the password or keyfile that you use to access the encrypted data.

All you need to do on conventional hard drives is to create a new password or keyfile to resolve the issue and protect the data from access. On solid state drives however it may still be possible to extract the old header and use it to access the data with the stolen password or keyfile.

But what if the drive is empty before you use it? What if you plan to erase it securely if it is compromised?

Even this may not be sufficient. First, we already established that some “secure erase” tools offered by manufacturers of SSDs implement the technology incorrectly which means that the data may still be accessible after the operation.

TrueCrypt recommends the following precautions prior to encryption a blank Solid State Drive.

Before you run TrueCrypt to set up pre-boot authentication, disable the paging files and restart the operating system (you can enable the paging files after the system partition/drive has been fully encrypted). Hibernation must be prevented during the period between the moment when you start TrueCrypt to set up pre-boot authentication and the moment when the system partition/drive has been fully encrypted.

Even then the makers do not guarantee that this “will prevent data leaks and that sensitive data on the device will be securely encrypted”.

What’s the conclusion then? It depends. The security implications are probably nothing that home users need to worry about as it requires some technical background and equipment to attack encrypted drives. If you run a business, are a government official or an individual with data that needs to be protected at all costs, then you need to avoid drives with wear leveling for now.

Have a different opinion? Let me know in the comments.

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.

Most solid state drive manufacturers offer tools to aid the user in tasks that are specific to SSDs. Intel for instance has created the Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox which has been released in a new version a few days ago.

I have reviewed the software previously here in an earlier version (see Intel Solid State Drive (SSD) Toolbox for the review). Intel has added two new modules to version 2 of the SSD software that justify a closer look at this new version.

The software basically can be used to manage Intel Solid State Drives. It comes with SMART monitoring options for other hard drives connected to the computer system, but the SSD tools are only available if an Intel SSD is connected.

Three Intel SSD Management Tools are offered in the latest version of the application. The Intel SSD Optimizer is the only program that has been available in previous versions of the software as well. It basically offers TRIM functionality if the operating system does not support it by default. Windows 7 users with TRIM working do not need this (see Verify That TRIM Is Enabled In Windows 7 to find that out). Other Windows users may need to run the optimizer regularly to keep the performance as high as possible.

The two new modules on the other hand are interesting for all users regardless of the operating system they use.

The Intel SSD System Configuration Tuner checks if system settings are optimized for SSD usage. It checks Superfetch and Prefetch, ReadyBoost, DIPM and the Defragmenter. A Tune It! link is displayed next to each entry that is not optimized.

Secure Erase is the second addition to Intel’s Solid State Drive Toolbox 2. It can be used to erase all data on a selected Intel SSD. The tool only works on secondary SSDs that are not bootable or with a partition.

The software furthermore offers to run fast or full diagnostics on Intel SSDs. Intel’s Solid-State Drive Toolbox 2 is available for download at Intel’s Download Center. The software that is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.

The main cause for this, besides the obvious that an SSD was purchased that uses a controller that is not capable of delivering blazing fast speeds, is that the SSD was not connected correctly. This is most of the time not the user’s fault. See, Solid State Drives should be detected as such by Windows. The operating system then changes several system settings which are optimized for SSDs. This includes TRIM for garbage collection, disabling the defragmenter schedule and disabling prefetch and superfetch if the SSD is installed as the main Windows drive.

The core reason for improper detection of the drive as a solid state drive is that the BIOS is not set to Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) but to Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE).

There are several ways to find out if a solid state drive is connected properly to the PC. One of the easiest options is to launch the free benchmarking software AS SSD Benchmark.

Just select the drive from the pulldown menu and make sure that msahci is displayed beneath the drive name and firmware. The program may require elevated rights to display the drives of the system properly.

What if it is not displaying msahci? Then it is definitely not connected, or at least recognized properly by Windows. This is usually the case if AHCI is not enabled in the BIOS. SSD that are connected to the computer with AHCI disabled will not be recognized as such by Windows which means that Trim and other solid state drive specific optimizations will not be made by the OS.

The only option available is to enable AHCI in the BIOS for the controller the SSD is running on. Users need to make sure to change a Registry entry in Windows first as the operating system would fail to boot otherwise.

Open the Windows Registry editor by pressing Windows-R, typing regedit and hitting the enter key. Then navigate to the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci

Take a look at the START parameter there and make sure it is set to 0. Once done restart the PC and enable AHCI in the BIOS. It is recommended to backup all important data before doing so. Windows will install the AHCI drivers on next start which may require the Windows DVD.

Now Intel has published a software to migrate data from a hard drive to Intel solid state drives as well. The Intel Data Migration Software was developed by Acronis for Intel, to offer Intel SSD owners an option to migrate from their old hard drive to the new Intel solid state drive.

The migration tool is limited to migrating to Intel solid state drives, and can only do so if the SSD has at least the same storage size as the source hard drive. The program offers three features:

• Copy drive contents from a hard drive to an Intel Solid-State Drive
• Create a Bootable Rescue Media
• Use the Acronis DriveCleanser to erase data on drives and partitions

The tool supports an automatic mode in which the migration software will handle everything, and a manual mode that gives the user better control over the process. Please note that existing contents on the target Intel SSD will be erased in the process.

Start the Software and Migrate your Data

1. Double-click the Intel Data Migration Software shortcut icon on your desktop.

2. Complete the registration form when prompted.

3. Click Register Now. After registering the software, the Intel Data Migration Software screen will appear. Optional)

4. Click Start Now. The Intel Data Migration Software automatically detects your drives and gives you the option to copy all of your data to your Intel SSD.

The Data Migration software works with Intel SSDs only. If you receive an error message, make sure that you have an Intel SSD connected to your system. If you have an Intel SSD connected to your system and still receive an error message, contact Intel support. The software identifies your SSD and verifies that the used space on your old storage device is the same or smaller than the available space on your SSD Click Clone Now. The data migration process starts. During this process, you will be prompted to reboot your computer.

6. Click Reboot. As your computer reboots, the software loads a pre-operating system where the migration process
continues. View the progress bar to see the status of the data migration. The length of the procedure corresponds to the amount of data on the drive being transferred.

7. Once the operation completes, you are prompted to shut down your computer.

8. Once your computer shuts down, switch the placement of your drives.

Switch your Drives

1. After the data migration onto your new Intel SSD is complete, switch the placement of your old hard disk drive with your new Intel SSD.

For desktop computers, you can either physically remove the old hard disk drive and replace it with your new Intel SSD or keep the hard disk drive in your computer and change the boot order of the drives in the system BIOS . Refer to your computer’s original instructions to determine how to safely switch the SATA positions of your original hard disk drive and new Intel SSD.

For laptop computers, remove the old hard disk drive and replace it with your new Intel SSD. Follow the instructions included with the Intel SSD.

2. After switching your drives, start your computer. A notification that the migration process completed successfully will appear when your operating system starts.

Intel SSD owners can download the Intel Data Migration Software and a pdf with instructions from the Intel Download Center [link]. Intel’s solution is not as sophisticated as Paragon’s. Considering that Paragon Migrate OS To SSD is currently freely available it is suggested to use this software to migrate to a solid state drive. Its core advantages are that it works with all solid state drives, and that it can migrate data to a smaller drive.

Still, some early adopters cannot resist the temptation and buy SSDs, despite their price tag and relatively low storage capacities. Sometimes, users buy a SSD for their old system, with the intention to replace the current hard drive the system is installed on.

Those users face a problem. How can they migrate the operating system from the old hard drive to the new and faster Solid State Drive.

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD offers a solution for those users. The software is currently in testing, and available for all early adopters at the Paragon website. All it takes is to enter some registration information and the product keys and download links will be delivered to the email account entered in the registration form.

After program installation, launch the tool using the program list in Windows start menu, or by clicking the corresponding shortcut on your desktop.

On the wizard welcome screen, read the warning about data on the second disk drive. According to the program logic, all data on this drive will be overwritten by copying data from the source drive. Before you click next, make sure you have saved any important data on the second drive to an outside source.

Clicking the Learn more link in the bottom left corner opens a program tip-window with useful information about the tool.

Click Next>, and the program analyzes the disk configuration of your computer and searches for any system volumes.

In the next screen, you will be presented with possible migration scenarios. You can either agree to perform the operation, or cancel it.

In the next window, specify which files and folders to exclude during migration. This option is very useful if you want to reduce the space you will use on the final partition, or copy the system to a smaller drive than the original one.

After migration, shutdown the computer and remove the source drive. Make the remaining drive bootable in BIOS and restart the computer. Your newly migrated system will boot after the system finishes processing.

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD will detect all operating systems installed on the hard drives automatically, and prompt the user to pick one of the systems that have been discovered.

The user is then asked to pick the target drive for the OS migration, which in this case is the SSD. If the SSD has a larger size than the data on the OS partition all data can be transferred. If the target drive has a lower size then the user is asked to select data that is then excluded from the migration.

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD’s biggest strength is that it is very easy and convenient to use. In addition, users do need a deeper knowledge of partitions and system disks, as this is mostly handled by the program.

Even inexperienced users can migrate an operating system to a SSD with the program comfortably.

Only the Intel SSD Optimizer was included as a management tool in previous versions of the toolbox (see Intel Solid State Drive (SSD) Toolbox for a full review). The latest release however has seen two additions that add to the value of the free software program.

Both the System Configuration Tuner and Secure Eraser are new management tools that have been added in the latest release of Intel’s Solid State Drive Toolbox.

intel solid state drive toolbox

System Configuration Tuner

The tool checks if the system configuration is set for the best performance, endurance and power efficiency with Intel SSDs. The status column indicates if the system is optimized, and will notify the user in red text if it is not. The recommended action in this case is to run the tuner to optimize the system for Intel SSDs.

A click on run displays the settings that are checked by the Intel SSD System Configuration Tuner. A red notification again indicates a setting that can be optimized for SSDs.

The tool detected that Superfetch was enabled on our test system, and recommended to disable it.

intel ssd system configuration tuner

Additionally, the tuner will check if prefetching, Readyboost, DIPM and defragmentation is enabled. A click on Tune It changes the unoptimized settings to suggested ones. On our test system this meant that Superfetch was disabled by the tool.

Secure Erase

Secure erase is the second new tool that has been added to the toolbox. It can unfortunately only be used to erase all data on secondary Intel SSD. This means that the tool cannot be used on bootable SSD, or SSD with a partition.

This limits the use significantly. Only users with multiple solid state drives, or one that they do not longer need will benefit from this.

Verdict

The new tools do not add unique features to the Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox, as it is possible to make the changes manually as well to optimize the system for SSDs. Still, having them available in a tool makes things a lot easier, especially for users who run the tool regularly for its TRIM capabilities.

Intel SSD users who do not use Windows 7 or Linux may want to consider configuring the program to run the TRIM command regularly. And while they are at it, run the system tuner once to optimize their PC for the SSD. Download it here.

Still, it sometimes pays to run benchmarks. An example would be to see if the speed that other users of the device get is also the speed of the device purchased. And benchmarks can obviously be used to compare hardware with each other.

AS SSD Benchmark is a benchmarking program for Solid Sate Drives. The portable program can run the benchmark on any hard drive that is connected to the computer.

It will perform read and write operations using four synthetic and three transfer rate benchmarks. The synthetic benchmarks are run one after the other, and test the sequential and random read and write performance of the selected solid state drive. In addition to that, the access time of the drive and the overall performance is tested and displayed as an overall score.

solid state drive benchmark

The transfer rate benchmarks create three typical folders on the drive, and benchmark the time it takes to copy the files. The first folder contains two big ISO files, the second a lot of small files simulating a progrma folder, and the third a mixture of big and small files, simulating a games folder.

How can this tool be beneficial to the user? For one, it can be used to test the performance of the SSD right after its installation, and then again at a later time to test the performance degradation over time.

Another option is to compare the results with test results that the developer of the software has published on his site.

The speed of the SSD is influenced by other PC components, which needs to be considered before making comparisons.

The SSD benchmark tool is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. A download is offered at the developer’s website.

Before TRIM, SSDs degraded in performance over time due to the way they handle write operations. Some manufacturers countered this with reset tools, which had to be run regularly to keep the performance at an acceptable level. Finally, some added garbage collection to the controller. This basically meant that the data on the drive would be defragmented, or that the TRIM command would be issued based on the findings of the garbage collection.

Now, the difficulty with TRIM is that it is only supported by Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Linux at the moment. Users who do not run those operating systems do not have access to TRIM.

Windows users need to make sure that TRIM is working properly, especially if they notice that the performance of the Solid State Drive seems to drop significantly over time.

We would like to introduce two options to find out if TRIM is enabled in the operating system.

Drive Controller Info

The portable software program performs a scan of all drives and will report if Windows Filesystem Delete Notification (ATA TRIM) is enabled or not. All it takes is to execute the program, wait some seconds for the scan to complete to see the results in the main program interface.

trim windows 7

Drive Controller Info can be downloaded by clicking on this link.

Administrator Command Prompt

The second option requires no third party software. Users need to start a command prompt with elevated rights. This is done by clicking on the start orb, then All Programs, Accessories, right-clicking on Command Prompt and selecting Run as Administrator.

Now execute the command fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify and take a look at the result.

trim enable windows-7

Two results are possible:

• DisableDeleteNotify = 0: This indicates that TRIM is enabled and working on the operating system.
• DisableDeleteNotify = 1: This means that TRIM is not enabled, and that SSDs will therefor not benefit from it.

If TRIM is not active on the system, which can be the case if the SSD has not been properly recognized, if it is to slow or if drivers have not been properly installed.

TRIM can be enabled with a similar command if it is not enabled in Windows 7. To activate TRIM issue the command fsutil behavior set disablenotify 0.

SSDs work differently than platter-based hard drives, especially when it comes to read and write processes on the drive. The most effective way to securely delete platter-based hard drives (overwriting space with data) becomes unusable on SSDs because of their design.

Data on platter-based hard disks can be deleted by overwriting it. This ensures that the data is not recoverable by data recovery tools. This method is not working on SSDs as it is not possible to specify the location to overwrite.

That’s highly problematic for computer users who want to give their computer away or sell it to a third party as data on the SSD could be recovered by the new owner.

Several suggestions have been made on how to delete data on solid state drives permanently. We have decided to test those methods on an old OCZ Core Series II SSD to see how effective they are.

• Delete the files
• Format the SSD
• Encrypt the whole drive
• Issuing a secure erase command with HDDErase

The efficiency of the methods will be tested by running the data recovery software Recuva after each method. An effective method should leave no recoverable files behind.

Test System

• Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
• OCZ Core Series II SSD
• File recovery software Recuva

Deleting the files

This is a direct way to delete files on the Solid State drive. It is the only option in the article that can be used to delete files and folders selectively.

Deleting the files directly in Windows Explorer is not sufficient to protect the data from recovery software. Recuva found almost 100% of the files that have been deleted in Windows Explorer.

delete files directly

Deleting files directly in the operating system is therefor not an option to delete data permanently on solid state drives.

Formatting the Solid State Drive

This is the easiest option as it can be executed directly without additional software requirements. Windows users need to locate the SSD in Windows Explorer, right-click it and select Format from the available options.

format solid state drive

It is important to uncheck the Quick Format option to ensure that all data on the drive will be formatted.

format drive

Windows Explorer does not list any files on the drive after the full format completes.

It is now up to Recuva to find out if files can be restored from the drive after a full format. Recuva is easy to use. All it takes is to select the solid state drive letter and click the scan button. A deep scan is proposed and should be accepted. This scan might take a while depending on the size and speed of the SSD.

ssd file recovery

The scan did find a total of 243 files of which were all ignored and not shown in Recuva. Ignored files are mainly zero byte files, in our case all files that were found were 0-byte files.

The full format did delete all files on the drive with the exception of unrecoverable files. The ignored files that were shown as recoverable had no filename, were all 0 byte files and note recoverable.

Alternative Format Software:

Darik’s Boot and Nuke is an option for users who only have the SSD connected to their computer or use another operating system.

Encrypting the Solid State Drive

Encrypting the whole SSD should in theory be enough to make the files unrecoverable. We have decided to use the encryption software True Crypt to encrypt the Solid State Drive. True Crypt if available for Windows, Linux and Mac.

Here are the steps to encrypt a drive with True Crypt. Click the Create Volume button in the main True Crypt interface. This opens the TrueCrypt volume creation wizard.

true crypt

Encrypt a non-system partition/drive is the option to encrypt a drive other than the system drive. Select standard TrueCrypt volume in the next window and the select device button in the next. Pick the Solid State Drive partition from the list of connected hard drives.

encrypt drive

Selected Create encrypted volume and format it on the next screen, keep the default values in the encryption options on the next screen, click next on the volume size screen and pick a password thereafter. Keep the default settings from that point on by clicking Next whenever available.

A click on the Format button in the end will spawn a warning window in True Crypt stating that all data on the drive will be deleted when the True Crypt volume is created. Continue by selecting “Erase any files stored on the partition by creating a TrueCrypt volume within it”.

true crypt format

True Crypt will then format the drive and display a notification window afterwards stating that the encrypted volume has been created successfully.

Recuva was not able to scan the drive stating that the boot sector of the SSD could not be read. Additional recovery programs were not able to recover files as well. Cautious users could format the drive after it has been encrypted and run the file recovery software afterwards to test the effects. This yielded the same results as the plain drive format did.

Issuing a secure erase command with HDDErase

The secure erase command resets all NAND locations to an erased state which effectively removes all data from the drive. The command is mainly used to restore factory settings of drives that see reduced performance levels over time.

This method is for advanced users only, largely because it requires BIOS configuration and the creation of a boot disk.

HDDErase is one of the tools supporting the secure erase command. The latest version is HDDErase 4 which is not compatible anymore with Intel SSDs. Intel users need to download HDDErase 33 instead.

A bootable disk needs to be created. HDDErase will only work if AHCI is disabled in the computer BIOS.

Secure Erase scans the drive to verify that it supports the command.

sec erase 2

A full walkthrough of the steps required to use HDDErase to securely erase the SSD is available at IISHacks.

No data was recoverable after the secure erase command was issued in DOS.

Recommended method to erase data on solid state drives

Format, encryption and the secure erase command have made the data on the drives unrecoverable. A lot speaks for formatting the Solid State Drive as it is the easiest method of the three. It is usually not necessary to encrypt the data on the drive before formatting it as it yielded the same results as a standard format.

It is highly recommended to test the result with file recovery software to make sure that no data left-overs can be recovered.

Do you know of other methods to delete data on solid state drives permanently? Let us know in the comments.

Everyone else may find it sufficient to know that aligning the partitions reduces redundant read write operations on the hard drive which increases the performance of the drives and the lifespan of Solid State Drives and other flash based storage devices.

As you can see in the graphics above the program aligns the partitions to reduce the read write operations on the drive significantly.

The Paragon Alignment Tool will scan the connected hard drives of the PC on startup. The hard drives are then categorized in optimally aligned partitions, non-optimally aligned partitions and partitions that cannot be aligned.

Nothing needs to be done if all partitions are already aligned optimally. Non-optimally aligned partitions on the other hand can be processed by the program to align them correctly to increase the performance of the drive.

PAT works well with the new 4K drives (Advanced Format Drives) that have been introduced a while ago as well as Solid State Drives and virtual machines.

Paragon was nice enough to provide a special version of the tool to IT specialists. The 32-bit and 64-bit edition of the Paragon Alignment Tool is offered for free after registration. The whitepaper is also available at the same website.

The program downloads and whitepaper is linked in the email that is send after the registration has been completed.

The homepage of PAT contains additional information and links about the tool.

Why misaligned partitions are the problem for hard disk drives?

Partitions can be misaligned because the physical sector size is not 512 bytes and software does noknow about it. Modern hard disk drives, for example Western Digital, Seagate, etc., have an interna4096 bytes physical sector size, their logic operates 4K chunks of data, but for outside hardware andsoftware they appear as “traditional” drives with 512b sectors. This emulation is needed for oldsoftware compatibility. Thus another level of abstraction is being added.

Usually the partition start is indented on 63 sectors, because it is an old measure of a disk “cylinder” and some old versions of DOS or Windows demand that the partition has to be aligned to the “cylinder” for correctly sectors addressing and accessing. It is an old compatibility issue and all modern operating systems do not use this archaic CHS (cylinder/head/sector) addressing scheme. Instead, the Logical block addressing (LBA) scheme is used, where there is no any “cylinders” or “heads”, sectors are addressed continuously over a whole disk drive. But by legacy reasons all versions of Windows before Vista creates partitions according to this “cylinder alignment” rule.

There was no problem with this rule and partitions alignment in the home users segment before the appearance of mass 4K hard disk drives. Partitions aligned accordingly to 63 sectors start are not aligned with 4K sectors by default.

Why misaligned partitions are the problem for SSD?

Misaligned partitions problem is even more important for SSD drives than for traditional hard disk drives. Many modern SSD drives have an internal memory page size 4096 bytes or larger accordingly to 4K size, which are some analogue for 4K sectors. Thus all previously mentioned problems are the same for SSD partitions alignment.

There is one crucial SSD issue besides file system speed decline (which is not so noticeable in comparison to traditional HDD). It is the SSD memory cells degradation after some amount of write operations. So if partitions on SSD are misaligned beside downgraded system speed you put your solid state drive in danger. After partitions alignment PAT eliminates all redundant read/write operations and thus provides speed boost and grants SSD a longer lifetime.

Why misaligned partitions are the problem for SAN and RAID?

RAID is used to compose many hard disk drives or other storage devices into one large array of data. This array is seen as one large storage device in the system and data is striped across it. The granularity at which data is stored on one drive of the array before subsequent data is stored on the next drive of the array is called the stripe-unit size. Stripe-unit size may be different; you can set the stripe-unit size for example to 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, or 64 KB.

System performance may slow when you use a hardware-based redundant array of independent disks (RAID) or a software-based RAID and if the starting location of the partition is not aligned with a stripe unit boundary in the disk partition that is created on the RAID. In this case one data operation will be multiplied over several RAID disks.

The second feature or process is usually referred to as Garbage Collection. This basically optimized the Solid State Drive again for write processes.

The Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox is a Windows software program that can be used to optimize and analyze Intel SSDs that are installed in the computer system. It supports running regular optimizations that make use of the above concepts to retain the drive’s performance over time. It can furthermore be used to view drive information, check the Solid State Drive’s SMART attributes and run a fast and full diagnostic scan on the selected drive.

The drive information for instance display the drive’s firmware version, model and serial number which can be used prior to upgrading the SSD’s firmware if a newer version is available on the Intel website.

The most important feature is however the SSD optimizer which computer users need to run regularly (Intel recommends once a week) to retain the drive’s performance. The weekly runs can be scheduled in the program which will later be added to the Windows Task Scheduler.

The Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox is a must have program for computer owners with an Intel SSD. It can be downloaded from the Intel website

Second generation drives can sometimes be saved by applying a firmware patch that will add trim support and a software solution that’s called Wiper. Trim needs to be supported by the SSD’s firmware and the operating system. Currently only Windows 7 and a few Linux distributions support it.

Trim is a command that the operating system can send to the flash storage controller letting the controller know which data is not longer needed which speeds up the write processes. But this speed gain diminishes with the fill rate of the drive which is why most manufacturers suggest that the drive should only be filled up to 80% of its capacity.

Wiper is basically a software based trim with the difference that it will only perform its operation on execution and not all the time.

First generation SSD users on the other hand usually have to live without trim or wipers. That’s where third party programs like SSD Tweaker can help.

SSD Tweaker tries to reduce the write processes on the Solid State Drive which will affect the performance of the drive positively.

The portable software will display several options in its interface that can be used to enable or disable write intensive functions of the Windows operating system.

This includes disabling the Windows Indexing Service, System Restore, clearing the pagefile at shutdown, boot tracing, ntfs 8.3 name creation or file date stamping.

These configuration tweaks can benefit all SSD drives, even those that support Trim or come with a Wiper program. They do on the other hand limit the functionality of the operating system.

SSD Tweaker comes with an auto tweak setting that will apply the suggested settings for the best performance automatically.

The program is compatibly with all 32-bit and 64-bit  Microsoft operating systems from Windows XP to Windows 7. Download is available at the OCZ Technology Forum.

You can find additional optimization tips in our Optimize Slow Solid State Drives guide.

FlashFire is a software program for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 that can speed up computer systems with SSDs noticeably. The description on the developer’s website is a bit vague. FlashFire seems to make use of computer memory to speed up random writes of a connected SSD. Probably something comparable to a RAM disk.

The good news is that the software works. It works that well that the performance gain is very noticeable after installation of the software and a reboot of the system. There is another aspect that is kinda confusing. Some users state that they have a icon in the system tray upon startup. Some users on the other hand say they do not. This apparently depends on the version of the software program. There are two things that users need to know: Flashfire needs to be started with parameters and settings can only be changed in the Windows Registry.

To start Flashfire a user would use the command flashfire.exe on to turn it on or flashfire x where x is the drive number that the program should speed up. Users who use flashfire.exe on have to make sure that a SSD is the configured drive in the Registry. They need to navigate to

HK_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ffire\Enum

and check the drive number of the Solid State Drive there. They then need to navigate to

HK_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ffire\Parameters

and make sure that drive number is the value of the Disknum key. Flashfire can be turned off easily by issuing the command flashfire.exe off. Several users reported great success with Flashfire on Asus EEEPCs with Solid State Drives. Flashfire can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Their biggest downfall besides the price is the write speed which can be low. So low that it will slow down the computer system when data is written on that drive. Many programs, including web browsers, email programs, editors but also the operating system itself cache data on the hard drive or use the hard drive to store temporary data. That’s a problem if the cache folder of that application is located on the Solid State.

What can be done to speed up the overall computer system?

• Move the temp folders of the operating system to another hard drive.
• Move the pagefile and System Restore locations to another hard drive
• Move the cache of applications to another hard drive, e.g. web browsers, email clients.
• Disable programs that access the hard drive and that are not needed, like Windows Indexing Service
• Upgrade the computer memory of the computer system (only makes sense if sub 4 Gigabybtes on a 32-bit system)

Most of these tips center around moving the cache to a new hard drive and disabling features that slow down the computer system. If you cannot install a second hard drive to the computer system you might consider adding a fast external device that can be used for caching. The downside of this method is that you need to have it near the computer system all the time which can be annoying if the system is mostly used on the road.

Newer Solid State Drives (check the OCZ Vertex review for instance) are slowly introduced that beat conventional hard drives fair and square both in write and read performance. They come at a price though but this is going to change in the future. Prices will drop, capacities increase and the slower SSD will slowly cease to exist.

OCZ on the other hand seems to be one of the driving forces in SSD technology at this point in time. Their OCZ Vertex drives look really promising in both read and write performance. Old Solid State Drives usually excelled in read performance but lacked the necessary write performance.

Their latest hardware that was first shown at the Cebit in Germany is the OCZ Z-Drive. This piece of computer hardware is connected via PCI Express to a computer system taking up two slots because of its dimensions. It is made up of four 256 Gigabyte MLC-based OCZ Solid State Drives and 256 Megabytes of ECC DDR2 RAM. This adds up to a total storage capacity of 1 Terabyte and promises maximum read rates of 600 MB/s and read rates of 500 MB/s. The sustained write speed is said to be 400 MB/s.

The only drawback is the hefty price tag which is expected to be between $1500 and $2000. The OCZ Z-Drive is expected to be available in April 2009 with additional models following later this year.

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!