Been pretty reliable for me tbh.
Although im not going to go through the hassle of wiping it again, waiting for the Gen 3 Intel SSDs.
Want a 160Gb one
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How to secure erase your SSD's on a Mac
- Thread starter VirtualRain
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Been pretty reliable for me tbh.
Although im not going to go through the hassle of wiping it again, waiting for the Gen 3 Intel SSDs.
Want a 160Gb one
Simply looking for a good way to benchmark my SSD, to see if it's performance has degraded over 8 months usage.
XBench clearly is useless with SSDs.
Loa
I use the SSD as boot volume, so the 4K tests are very important for me.
I have an Intel G2 80GB. I know they're not supposed to slow down, but it would be nice to verify that.
I haven't "noticed" any slowdown, but over 8 months, it could be gradual enough that it went undetected.
Loa
Just don't use that recondition command expecting it to do that to your SSD's as discussed elsewhere here.
For the record, here are my thoughts on it... (pasted from another thread)
I have a Macbook Pro and hopefully you all could help! What is the best way to do secure erase without taking the SSD OUt. Can I just install windows on a external and go that route?
Help?!?!
Help?!?!
isnt a repartition enough?
Im sorry im new to the SSD thing.. What do you mean? I can just repart the SSD install windwos on it and go that route?
yes, basicaly, use the OSX installation disc to reformat the drive - DO NOT "zero" out the drive or anything like that, because you will lose all performance that the drive gives you.
formatting the drive will then allow you to repartition to however you want.
What brand of drive? The brand and generation makes a HUGE difference...
If your drive, as mentioned above, has the Sandforce controller, you just need to let your system idle when not in use (note--NOT sleeping it), as it has its own built in "Trim"-like software that will reclaim unused but written space when idle. Many people have said that you need to log out and leave your machine at the login page, but I have a Vertex2 and I haven't noticed any difference between doing that and just letting it sit.
For earlier OCZ drives (Indilinux controllers) there are firmware updates that will install a similar proprietary utility in the drive, but I believe they are OCZ only (it's called "Garbage Collection", I believe). The BEST source of knowledge on your SSD drive is the manufacturer's forums, it's become a tradition in the SSD world (much like the memory overclocking world) for users and even employees to offer advice regularly on fine-tuning SSDs.
I don't know about Intel drives; I did read that the WD ones have the Sandforce auto-TRIM feature. Also, if you have a DESTRUCTIVE firmware update (MUST be destructive), running that will return the drive to its original state, though it will also erase it completely.
If your drive, as mentioned above, has the Sandforce controller, you just need to let your system idle when not in use (note--NOT sleeping it), as it has its own built in "Trim"-like software that will reclaim unused but written space when idle. Many people have said that you need to log out and leave your machine at the login page, but I have a Vertex2 and I haven't noticed any difference between doing that and just letting it sit.
For earlier OCZ drives (Indilinux controllers) there are firmware updates that will install a similar proprietary utility in the drive, but I believe they are OCZ only (it's called "Garbage Collection", I believe). The BEST source of knowledge on your SSD drive is the manufacturer's forums, it's become a tradition in the SSD world (much like the memory overclocking world) for users and even employees to offer advice regularly on fine-tuning SSDs.
I don't know about Intel drives; I did read that the WD ones have the Sandforce auto-TRIM feature. Also, if you have a DESTRUCTIVE firmware update (MUST be destructive), running that will return the drive to its original state, though it will also erase it completely.
AFAIK if it's a Gen 2 then just don't worry about it; let your system idle every now and again and that should reclaim it (make sure you have the most current firmware, though).
once you have reset it all, yes. you should be able to reinstall from that state - but getting there is the hard part
I'm afraid taking the SSD out is the only way you are going to get the drive "unfrozen" which is a firmware related issue, not an operating system problem. It may be a PITA but that's the only way. Booting to Windows isn't going to help with this aspect. All booting to Windows allows you to do is (possibly) run Intel's disk utility without burning the CD I mention in the first post... but it won't work unless you can unfreeze the drive to enable it to receive the secure erase command.
Thanks for the info! Thought I'd do a clean install and it seemed sensible to try and "reset" the drive first.
Worked fine on my 2008 Macbook Pro unibody, with Intel X25M G2 SSD.
Essentially I just followed Step 4 (the ATA reset command link) from a livecd boot of Ubuntu 10.04. To unfreeze the drive I simply closed the lid until the MBP was asleep and then reopened it. Sure enough it said "not frozen" when I issued the hdparm command after that, and away I went with the rest of the commands.
Took about 53 seconds on my 80GB. For those concerned about the security aspect, it sure as hell beats the old magnetic HDD method of running DBAN for a couple of days!
Can confirm that it worked, as I got the question mark on reboot and had to reinstall
Worked fine on my 2008 Macbook Pro unibody, with Intel X25M G2 SSD.
Essentially I just followed Step 4 (the ATA reset command link) from a livecd boot of Ubuntu 10.04. To unfreeze the drive I simply closed the lid until the MBP was asleep and then reopened it. Sure enough it said "not frozen" when I issued the hdparm command after that, and away I went with the rest of the commands.
Took about 53 seconds on my 80GB. For those concerned about the security aspect, it sure as hell beats the old magnetic HDD method of running DBAN for a couple of days!
Can confirm that it worked, as I got the question mark on reboot and had to reinstall