What SATA controller is it? Is it in legacy or AHCI mode?

Haven't they released (publicly) their very simple/automatic Linux firmware updater yet??

Dagnabbit!

It's a single file, incredibly simple to use, automatically finds/downloads the correct/latest firmware, and takes all of 5-seconds total to run.

But still in beta, I guess.

It's an older (2005) HP media center pc. No options in the bios for ahci. I did try setting the regedit option by it's self. No joy there. So if ahci is required, that machine is hopeless.

Found a link to the beta. Also see.

tags: ssd's linux flash beta firmware update OCZs

The OCZ updaters I've used generally wanted legacy mode instead of AHCI.

They were very picky about the controllers and what port you ended up attaching it to though. The easiest update seemed to be from the motherboard integrated Intel controllers and if you used the first 4 SATA ports.

Peachy. Just grab and use that then. It's dead easy to use, and you should totally skip on any attempt to follow that bloated "Partition magic" nonsense.

Just boot Linux (from a LiveCD or USB stick if necessary), open up a terminal window, and run the updater from the command line. It wants a single argument after the command name: the device path for the drive, which is normally /dev/sda in a single drive system.

Works on pretty much any controller, even AHCI ones. Because it's Linux.

Cheers

I pulled down and tried out the latest beta (Linux) firmware updater here today, on the drive inside my netbook. Worked fine.

I also discovered an interesting workaround, that might be useful to others. Normally, the BIOS in this Samsung netbook issues a "security freeze" command before booting. This prevents any further attempts to use the security "feature set", as well as any attempts to modify the firmware.

Why? Well.. as yet another security layer against MS-Win viruses and the like (thank you Mr.Gates.. not!). Note that this machine has never run anything other than Linux here.

This also prevents the firmware updater (Linux, Windows, whatever) from working until the drive is power-cycled, which is a problem in a machine like this one which requires complete disassembly to remove the drive.

But.. they didn't get the BIOS quite correct. After a suspend (to-RAM) and subsequent resume, the drive is "unfrozen" again, permitting the update without having to crack the case open.

Hurray for buggy BIOSs !

Arrgh!

That reminded me. The desktop I was trying to do the update from, has a bios that locks out the use of Smart monitoring. No doubt this is also interfering with the drive firmware update.

For desktop systems, running Linux, I just unplug the drive and plug it back in again, hot, while the system is running. That clears the "frozen" state and permits firmware update, security-erase, etc..

Cheers

Head slap! (self inflicted)

Kudos to Linux. I have been totally forgetting about this nettop I have running in the bedroom. Used primarily as a web & Calibre server.

Forgetting about it because I don't have to mess with it.

Next attempt will be there.

I got a 60GB version of this OCZ drive.

Good choice ?

Read Speed Up to 285MBps
Write Speed Up to 275MBps
Average Seek Time .1ms

It has TRIM and the read/write speed sounds good anything I am missing. Just want to ask the experts before opening it

Got it for 129.00 at Microcenter same price as Newegg so I figured what the heck I can bring it back if I made a bad choice.

Those were on sale here last month for CAD$80-$100 or so.
If you're happy enough with what you paid though, then the drive itself is excellent..

Just be sure to upgrade the firmware FIRST.

Cheers

Thanks !

Price I paid is ok I didn't pay much more than what NCIX wants including the shipping.

I am planning on booting off a USB drive to update the firmware. My desktop is dead until I get the new one together and I don't have a SATA to usb adapter to do it from the laptop.

Great! Installing an SSD is by far the best upgrade one can do for just about any machine. It really boosts responsiveness of just about everything.

Cheers

Any one know what SSD drives Dell uses in it laptops? Just curious.

I am trying to boot from usb to update the firmware. I made a bootable usb using the pendrivelinux universal installer and ubuntu 10.10. Boot up stops at syslinux 4.02 2010-07-21.

I made the stick on a Lenovo T61 and it boots fine on there but on the new motherboard it stops.

I have made these things a bunch of times so I don't know what the issue could be.

I have found that different versions of "syslinux", aka. the MS-DOS bootloader, work or fail depending upon the hardware/BIOS.

Best bet is to boot from a LiveCD, or use an Ubuntu system to create a bootable pen drive from an Ubuntu CD (System->Administration->StartupDiskCreator).

Cheers

Got the firmware updated to 1.24 and have Windows 7 installed. Does anyone recommend any thing I should check or change ?

I am going through the ABC guide on OCZs website. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/content.php?306-SSD-ABC-Guide

I made sure TRIM was on, and indexing is off so far.

I've just ordered one a couple days ago. Now I notice another (seemingly identical) for a couple bucks less.

Any updates from you guys on your trials with this card?

I have my eye on SSD prices. If they'd just inch a little closer to $1/GB I think I'd jump on a 128GB drive. My main empeg is complaining about drive reads these days. ~sigh~

Mine arrived (took 4+ weeks). There's no way this will ever fit into a notebook hard drive bay, so don't expect it to.

Mine's in the adapters pile, waiting for an opportunity to arise.

Cheers

I'm kinda waiting for: http://bcache.evilpiepirate.org/

but ... in the meantime ... what's the sweet spot at the moment for SSDs?

In terms of cost/size/reliability/performance/features - running linux of course and thinking of TRIM etc too

Sandforce (SF) controller, 120 or 160GB. Preferably OCZ for the frequent firmware updates and easy Linux updater.

120GB goes for around CDN$200 or so now. 60GB for under $100.

I just filled out the RMA form for my 60 gig.

I was getting many BSODs which could have been other things but I updated the Drive to 1.29. After that it still was working the same for a few days then I got a BSOD and the drive will no longer show up in the BIOS after doing many reboots and reconnects. I tried a different SATA cable, power connector and SATA port.

So I guess I will see what OCZ tells me.

Got the replacement drive yesterday. I didn't actually mail the drive until the 14h and I sent it ground so it wasn't too slow of a turn around on OCZ's part. They actually sent me a new drive sealed in the retail packaging. Either the old one was bad or OCZ doesn't bother testing them. I guess we'll see what happens with the new drive.

I haven't had anymore lockups since using the new drive so I guess I had a bad one.

I've heard so many horror stories about the SSDs exhibiting wonky behavior or just failing totally that I have put my SSD upgrade plans on indefinite hold. My five-year-old 80 GB IDE system drive just keeps plugging along.

Peripherally related to system drive upgrades, last night I was surprised to find out that Windows Vista (except for the "Home" edition) has built into it a cloning utility that will create a restore file (either on an external hard drive or on a series of DVD data disks) that will allow one to recover from a system drive failure, just like Acronis or Norton Ghost.

But you guys probably already knew that, didn't you.

tanstaafl.

If you buy a well known good SSD, it will last you a long time too. The difference is that all the really shoddy hard drive manufacturers faded away ages ago. The SSD field on the other hand has all kinds of bad manufacturers cranking out crap, leading to the horror stories. SSDs are also just manufactured chips, much like most of the other components in your system. Sometimes bad batches occur, leading to bad batches of SSDs.

Basically if you follow a proper backup plan, you have nothing to worry about beyond some downtime if a drive fails. That downtime is likely to be much shorter then the time gained due to SSD benefits. And trust me, the benefits are quite huge if you deal with any I/O intensive workloads.

Oh, and remember every single empeg made has an "SSD" sitting inside it, in the form of the flash chip saving settings. How many of those have failed over the years? I can't remember any specific threads here about flash failure. All about sourcing good components.

How many of them are 80 GB or larger?

The more transistors you have in the package, the higher the likelihood of failure.

Fron what I've read, the genuine Intel SSDs seem to be the most reliable. But of course the last time I looked into it was four months ago, so by now everything is probably different. Just like with hard drives, this week Seagate is junk, last week it was Maxtor, and next week who knows.

tanstaafl.

No, the Intel ones have had total data loss failures due to firmware bugs, same as the others. But they probably do have more exhaustive internal testing for new firmware than some other sellers.

But really, I've had six mechanical drive failures in the past two years, compared with only one totally dead SSD, and one SSD that required a full reformat.

And that's with all of my systems booting/running from SSD -- all OCZ branded, with the latest available firmware on each.

Cheers