X25-M on WinXP laptop - Is it possible/performance upgrade?

[kimn]

I am seriously considering to upgrade my old HD (80GB SATA Hitachi Travelstar,5400RPM) with Intels latest X25-M 160GB.

However, I have become quite confused whether its possible and if there is any performance gain for my system.

I have a Zepto Znote 6214W laptop (SATA1 controller, possible permanant in IDE mode - BIOS options for enabling AHCI have been hidden). The plan is to continue with Windows XP (fresh install), since I don't want Windows 7 for now (to expensive).

With the latest X25-M firmware available and whatever SSD Toolbox/optimizer shipping with the drive (as the latest version-download is currently disabled on Intel's site) what performance can I expect, and is it at all possible in my case?

All comments and/or links to websites that could help me is appreciated.

Other info:
IDE ATA/ATAPI controller: Intel(R) 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller - 27C4
Let me know if more info is required.

Kind regards
Kim

 

[letsrahk]

I would like to know the answer to this as well....

My impression was TRIM is supported on Win 7 and not XP though. I would imagine you should still see a performance benefit even without TRIM but the drive may slow down a bit over time.

 

[kimn]

I thought that running the Intel Toolbox/optimizer would do the trimming on XP and Vista. Is that wrong?

 

[kimn]

I would like to know the answer to this as well....

My impression was TRIM is supported on Win 7 and not XP though. I would imagine you should still see a performance benefit even without TRIM but the drive may slow down a bit over time.

I thought that running the Intel Toolbox/optimizer would do the trimming on XP and Vista. Is that wrong?

 

[nocteratus]

I thought that running the Intel Toolbox/optimizer would do the trimming on XP and Vista. Is that wrong?

TRIM is only support on Win7 but you can use the toolbox/optimizer in XP and Vista.

Not only will Windows 7 users receive the performance enhancements of the Trim command, but so will our Windows XP and Vista users.

Source:
http://www.techarena.in/news/15605-intel-announces-ssd-toolbox-optimizer-support-trim.htm

 

[kimn]

Does anybody have any experience using X25-M on Windows XP?

 

[sminlal]

Any SSD will certainly improve boot and application load times, as well as extending battery life and being pretty much indestructable to the indignities often suffered by laptops.

If it's a SATA controller then a SATA SSD should work fine, even if the controller is running in IDE emulation mode. The only thing that might be a bit of a hitch is whether Windows 7 would issue TRIM commands to a drive it thinks is an IDE drive. That's an interesting question and I haven't seen an answer to it.

 

[kimn]

Any SSD will certainly improve boot and application load times, as well as extending battery life and being pretty much indestructable to the indignities often suffered by laptops.

If it's a SATA controller then a SATA SSD should work fine, even if the controller is running in IDE emulation mode. The only thing that might be a bit of a hitch is whether Windows 7 would issue TRIM commands to a drive it thinks is an IDE drive. That's an interesting question and I haven't seen an answer to it.

I just ordered the X25 and hope that the Intel optimizer that comes with the drive will issue TRIM commands when scheduled to run every day on my Windows XP (even in IDE mode).

Actually I found a nice thread about this, which states that TRIM works in both IDE and AHCI mode.
Only thing is a better performance under AHCI (I only have SATA150 so I dont know if this is gonna be an issue - but hopefully it will still perform much better than my old 80GB SATA Hitachi Travelstar).

Intel thread: http://communities.intel.com/message/76439

 

[sminlal]

Actually I found a nice thread about this, which states that TRIM works in both IDE and AHCI mode.

Nice find, thanks for the link!

Actually, post 3 in that thread states that TRIM works with the Intel Toolbox software in IDE or AHCI mode, but Windows 7 only issues TRIM for AHCI mode drives (ie, drives that are accessed using the MSACHI driver). So you can manually reset the drive using Intel's utility, but it won't be TRIMmed automatically as Windows deletes files, etc.

 

[kimn]

I believe that the Intel optimizer can be scheduled in Windows XP/Vista and should only take a few seconds on each run, so hopefully this will diminish any performance loss due to file deletions.

Thanks for all the comments by the way.

 

[kimn]

Just a follow up:

I just received my X25 and it us much faster than my old 80GB SATA Hitachi Travelstar (really fast boot-up time and programs start almost instantly).

Only problem is the missing Intel Toolbox/optimizer (apparently not shipped with the drive) which means that eventually it will slow down (because the TRIM command is not used).

I hope Intel sorts out their problems with the optimizer and releases it soon (ironic, since I am running XP and all the problems seems to be related to Win7/Vista). Would be nice with some updates from Intel instead of the "The SSD Toolbox is temporarily unavailable" message.

 

[kimn]

Intel has just released the Toolbox program: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455

 

[sminlal]

Intel has just released the Toolbox program: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455

Excellent, thanks for the link!

But what's with that "Neo Sans Intel" font on the README file? The d@mn thing is almost unreadable!!!