This little jewell promises very good capacity (160GB) in 2.5" standard form factor and amazing performances.
If you're interested in details see the product overview at Intel Mainstream SATA SSD Drives page.
I couldn't wait any longer to see the improvements with my aged (three years old) Vaio VGN-SZ3XP laptop.
This post describes the upgrade path I've chosen and an initial feedback about the disk.
Upgrade Steps:
Step 1 - Windows 7 image backup
I'm LAZY and I hate to spend too much time rebuilding my laptop OS from scratch during OS upgrades. That's why, few months ago, I trusted Microsoft and decided to do an in-place upgrade from the "not-so-beautiful" Vista to the newly revised Windows 7.
I was really impressed by the quality of the new upgrade procedure and the stability and performance gained after the upgrade.
- Windows 7 "image" backup
- HD swap
- Windows 7 "bare metal" restore
- SSD Firmware Upgrade
- 1 blank dvd
- 1 blank cd-rom
- 1 "large enough" external USB 2.0 drive
- 1 good screw driver
- at least an entire free afternoon
Step 1 - Windows 7 image backup
I'm LAZY and I hate to spend too much time rebuilding my laptop OS from scratch during OS upgrades. That's why, few months ago, I trusted Microsoft and decided to do an in-place upgrade from the "not-so-beautiful" Vista to the newly revised Windows 7.
I was really impressed by the quality of the new upgrade procedure and the stability and performance gained after the upgrade.
My only regret was paying Microsoft more than an hundred euro just to have Vista as it should be!
Anyway, since then, my laptop worked perfectly so I did not feel the need to reinstall it just because I would upgrade my drive.
In the past, when I needed to restore a full OS image, I've used "Ghosting" tools and BartPE to have the job done.
This time I would like to see what's inside the new powerful backup methods integrated (should you read free?) into Windows 7.
As you can see from the following picture
the new Backup And Restore control panel applet provides us all we need to "Create a system image" and then "Create a system repair disc" useful to boot the laptop with the new uninitialized SSD drive and restore the system image
Creating the system image is very simple. Just make sure to connect an external reliable USB 2.0 drive with enough free space to store all the backup data (the imaging program is smart enough to include just the used space and not the whole partitions space).
The imaging process uses VSS, so no problem with open files, and creates one VHD file for each partition that you select (you can read more on that later in restore step). In my situation, having to backup 2 partitions (C: and D: drives) with almost 60GB data size, has taken me four hours to complete the task (using a decently slow iomega 2.5" external USB target drive).
During the backup phase I inserted a blank DVD in my laptop DVD Drive just to create the "System Repair Disk" (something that I should have done well before this time...).
Step 2 - Disk drive swap
Changing VAIO laptop hard drive was harder than it should be. No easy way to quickly access the drive via any possible visible outside cage.
Knowing my poor tendency towards mechanical stuff, I've done a quick search through the web (can you imagine a life without google?) and, as I suspected, almost immediately appeared an amazing guide (Sony VAIO VGN-SZ Hard Drive Installation Guide) written by Thai Tan that allowed me (armed with a couple of good screw drivers) to swap my two drives !
Step 3 - Windows 7 bare metal restore
Restoring my laptop image on the new SSD was an easy task (and much much faster than the backup part).
When you boot from the previously created system repair disk, you're allowed to run the recovering task.
Select the right keyboard layout:
and then the select the Restore from a system image option
Tools is able to auto discover the last image backup just scanning the external USB drive
Last restore options allows you to Exclude disks during the restore and change two "simple" Advanced options (see that from the following pict.)
"Is there a firmware update for the Intel SSD?
Anyway, since then, my laptop worked perfectly so I did not feel the need to reinstall it just because I would upgrade my drive.
In the past, when I needed to restore a full OS image, I've used "Ghosting" tools and BartPE to have the job done.
This time I would like to see what's inside the new powerful backup methods integrated (should you read free?) into Windows 7.
As you can see from the following picture
the new Backup And Restore control panel applet provides us all we need to "Create a system image" and then "Create a system repair disc" useful to boot the laptop with the new uninitialized SSD drive and restore the system image
Creating the system image is very simple. Just make sure to connect an external reliable USB 2.0 drive with enough free space to store all the backup data (the imaging program is smart enough to include just the used space and not the whole partitions space).
The imaging process uses VSS, so no problem with open files, and creates one VHD file for each partition that you select (you can read more on that later in restore step). In my situation, having to backup 2 partitions (C: and D: drives) with almost 60GB data size, has taken me four hours to complete the task (using a decently slow iomega 2.5" external USB target drive).
During the backup phase I inserted a blank DVD in my laptop DVD Drive just to create the "System Repair Disk" (something that I should have done well before this time...).
Changing VAIO laptop hard drive was harder than it should be. No easy way to quickly access the drive via any possible visible outside cage.
Knowing my poor tendency towards mechanical stuff, I've done a quick search through the web (can you imagine a life without google?) and, as I suspected, almost immediately appeared an amazing guide (Sony VAIO VGN-SZ Hard Drive Installation Guide) written by Thai Tan that allowed me (armed with a couple of good screw drivers) to swap my two drives !
Step 3 - Windows 7 bare metal restore
Restoring my laptop image on the new SSD was an easy task (and much much faster than the backup part).
When you boot from the previously created system repair disk, you're allowed to run the recovering task.
Select the right keyboard layout:
and then the select the Restore from a system image option
So, all this is in perfect classic "Next, Next, Yeah, Yeah" Microsoft style!
Just press a couple of confirm buttons and, one hour later, I had my partitions restored and my VAIO perfectly running again!
Last simple thing I had to do was to "EXTEND" my D: partition to use the more space that came with the new Intel SSD drive. This task is now easy thanks to the new capabilities offered by the Windows 7 DISKPART command line tool. Just open a cmd prompt, and type:
DISKPART
SELECT DISK 0
SELECT PARTITION 2
EXTEND
To find out the correct disk number and partition number remember to use the LIST DISK and LIST PARTITION commands. Pressing "?" at DISKPART prompt will show you a brief help
DISKPART ?
Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7600
ACTIVE - Mark the selected partition as active.
ADD - Add a mirror to a simple volume.
ASSIGN - Assign a drive letter or mount point to the selected volume.
ATTRIBUTES - Manipulate volume or disk attributes.
ATTACH - Attaches a virtual disk file.
AUTOMOUNT - Enable and disable automatic mounting of basic volumes.
BREAK - Break a mirror set.
CLEAN - Clear the configuration information, or all information, off the
disk.
COMPACT - Attempts to reduce the physical size of the file.
CONVERT - Convert between different disk formats.
CREATE - Create a volume, partition or virtual disk.
DELETE - Delete an object.
DETAIL - Provide details about an object.
DETACH - Detaches a virtual disk file.
EXIT - Exit DiskPart.
EXTEND - Extend a volume.
EXPAND - Expands the maximum size available on a virtual disk.
FILESYSTEMS - Display current and supported file systems on the volume.
FORMAT - Format the volume or partition.
GPT - Assign attributes to the selected GPT partition.
HELP - Display a list of commands.
IMPORT - Import a disk group.
INACTIVE - Mark the selected partition as inactive.
LIST - Display a list of objects.
MERGE - Merges a child disk with its parents.
ONLINE - Online an object that is currently marked as offline.
OFFLINE - Offline an object that is currently marked as online.
RECOVER - Refreshes the state of all disks in the selected pack.
Attempts recovery on disks in the invalid pack, and
resynchronizes mirrored volumes and RAID5 volumes
that have stale plex or parity data.
REM - Does nothing. This is used to comment scripts.
REMOVE - Remove a drive letter or mount point assignment.
REPAIR - Repair a RAID-5 volume with a failed member.
RESCAN - Rescan the computer looking for disks and volumes.
RETAIN - Place a retained partition under a simple volume.
SAN - Display or set the SAN policy for the currently booted OS.
SELECT - Shift the focus to an object.
SETID - Change the partition type.
SHRINK - Reduce the size of the selected volume.
UNIQUEID - Displays or sets the GUID partition table (GPT) identifier or
master boot record (MBR) signature of a disk.
Digging inside the "image backup" taken, I discovered that Microsoft tool creates one .VHD file for each partition selected. That's really fine because you can mount them as disks using the new "ATTACH VHD" option present in Windows 7 disk management applet.
Step 4 - SSD Firmware Upgrade and Intel SSD Optimizer
Reading the following interesting Intel whitepaper Intel SSD Optimizer and the FAQ on Intel web site I learned about the availability of a new firmware release that (as usual) provides improvements and optimizations.
"Is there a firmware update for the Intel SSD?
Yes. There is a firmware update currently available for X25-M, X18-M, X25-E and the X25-V. This firmware upgrade has several continuous improvement optimizations intended to provide the best possible user experience with the Intel SSD drives. A new firmware is available at the following Web site:>www.intel.com/go/ssdfirmware"
Intel did a very good job providing an ISO download from which you should create a bootable cd-rom to upgrade the firmware disk.
In the same download page you'll find the Intel SSD optimizer tool (a nice MSI package that is necessary so that my Windows 7 laptop without an HACI enabled SATA controller can manage in the correct way - or should I say SSD compatible way - any file erase).
I hope to find some time to report back in a following post the performance improvements and some other details about SATA II and HACI drivers/controllers and SSA idiosyncrasies.
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