Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Order Number: 325912-001US September 2011
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH INTEL PRODUCTS. NO LICENSE, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, BY ESTOPPEL OR OTHERWISE, TO ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS GRANTED BY THIS DOCUMENT.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Contents 1. Getting Started ..................................................................................................................... 5 About Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox ...................................................................................... 5 Using the Home Screen ............................................................................................................ 6 Scanning for Drives......................................
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide 8. Performing a Secure Erase ................................................................................................. 27 About Secure Erase................................................................................................................ 27 Secure Erase Requirements .................................................................................................... 27 Deleting a Partition ...................................................
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Getting Started About Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox The Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox is drive management software that allows you to: • View current drive information for Intel® Solid-State Drives, including: • Drive Health • Estimated Life Remaining • SMART attributes (also available for hard disk drives and non-Intel® SSDs) • IDENTIFY DEVICE Information data (also available for hard disk drives and non-Intel SSDs) • Optimize the performance of
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Using the Home Screen The Intel SSD Toolbox home screen shows all Intel® Solid-State Drives (Intel® SSDs) and other drives (hard disk drives and non-Intel SSDs) installed in your system. 1. Click on the drive you want to manage. If your system contains multiple drives, use the arrows to the left and right of the drives to scroll through and select a drive.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Scanning for Drives Upon startup, Intel SSD Toolbox scans for all available drives installed in the system including Intel SSDs, non-Intel SSDs, and hard disk drives (HDDs). All located drives appear on the home screen. If your system contains multiple drives, use the arrows to the left and right of the drives to scroll through and select a drive.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Viewing Basic Drive Information Model On the home screen, Model provides information such as device type, bus architecture, form factor, and capacity of the selected drive. Tip: Move the mouse over the drive icon to show detailed model information. For Intel SSDs, this information includes reference to the NAND lithography. For example: • If the number contains G1, the SSD is 50nm. Note: The Intel SSD Optimizer does not run on these SSDs.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Estimated Life Remaining On the home screen, Estimated Life Remaining reports the estimated percentage of remaining life of the selected Intel SSD. This estimate is based on the E9 SMART attribute. Endurance calculations are estimated and may vary. The estimation shown is based on the applied workload and is not accurate if the workload changes. Estimates are based on your usage to date and will not extend or reduce the SSD warranty period.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Identifying the Security State of an Intel SSD To identify the security state of an Intel SSD: 1. Select the Intel SSD on the home screen. 2. Click Drive Details. 3. Scroll down and view Security Status (Word 128). • Bit 0 indicates the Security Mode feature set supported. If set to one, security is supported. • Bit 1 indicates security enabled. If set to one, the security is enabled. • Bit 2 indicates security locked.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Obtaining Drive, SMART, and System Information Viewing Drive Details The Drive Details screen displays standard IDENTIFY DEVICE information data for the selected drive. The information displayed is generated by an ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE command. 1. Select the drive on the home screen. 2. Click Drive Details under Drive Summary. 3. Scroll down to view all values on the screen.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Exporting Drive Details On the home screen, click Export to save SMART attributes, IDENTIFY DEVICE information data, and system information for the selected drive to a .csv (comma-separated values) file. The .csv file can be opened in a program such as Microsoft Excel*. Viewing SMART Attributes The SMART Details screen shows Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) attributes on the selected drive.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Start/Stop Count 04 05 For Intel SSDs, reports a fixed value of zero (0). This type of event is not an issue for SSDs. However, hard disk drives can experience only a finite number of these events, and therefore, must be tracked. Re-allocated Sector Count The raw value shows the number of retired blocks since leaving the factory (grown defect count). Power-On Hours Count The raw value reports the cumulative number of power-on hours over the life of the device.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Unsafe Shutdown Count (Power-off Retract Count) C0 The raw value reports the cumulative number of unsafe (unclean) shutdown events over the life of the device. An unsafe shutdown occurs whenever the device is powered off without STANDBY IMMEDIATE being the last command. Temperature - Device Internal C2 Reports internal temperature of the SSD. Temperature reading is the value direct from the internal sensor. The raw value is the current temperature.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Exporting SMART Attributes On the home screen, click Export to save SMART attributes, IDENTIFY DEVICE information data, and system information for the selected drive to a .csv (comma-separated values) file. The .csv file can be opened in a program such as Microsoft Excel*.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Optimizing your Intel SSD About the Intel® SSD Optimizer The Intel SSD Optimizer helps an Intel SSD retain its out-of-box performance by removing deleted data files from NAND flash management blocks on the SSD using Trim functionality (a command that allows an operating system to inform an SSD which blocks of data are no longer considered in use and can be deleted) .
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Manually Running the Intel® SSD Optimizer Note the following before manually running the Intel SSD Optimizer: • Do not run the Intel SSD Optimizer when a backup is in session. • Do not run the Intel SSD Optimizer if the Intel SSDs are in a RAID configuration. To run the Intel SSD Optimizer: 1. Select the Intel SSD on the home screen. 2. Click Intel SSD Optimizer. 3. Click Run. 4.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide 5. Set the schedule (including day, time, and frequency). 6. Click Add. 7. Review the requirement text and click Schedule. The schedule appears on the screen.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Running Diagnostic Scans Quick Diagnostic Scan Run the Quick Diagnostic scan to test the basic functionality of the selected Intel SSD. The scan takes approximately three minutes to complete and performs two tests: • Read Scan - checks 1.5 GB of the Intel SSD for READ errors. • Data Integrity Scan - creates 1 GB of random data, writes the data to unused areas of the Intel SSD, and then compares it for data integrity. The scan requires: • A minimum of 1.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Note: Other Intel SSD Toolbox options (such as the home screen or SMART Details screen) may be accessed while the scan is running, but no other tests (such as Intel SSD Optimizer or Quick Diagnostic Scan) may be started. To run the Full Diagnostic Scan: 1. Select the Intel SSD on the home screen. 2. Click Full Diagnostic Scan. 3. Click Run. 4. View the progress on the screen. To stop the scan, click Cancel.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Updating Firmware Checking for Firmware Updates If your Intel SSD contains an older version of firmware than the version included with this release of the Intel SSD Toolbox, the following icon appears next to the Firmware Update option on the home screen: To check for a newer version: 1. Note the firmware version of the selected Intel SSD (on the home screen). 2. Click Firmware Update. 3. Click Check For Updates to open the Intel Download Center. 4.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Tuning your System Running System Tuner Use the System Tuner to check your system and adjust settings to improve the performance, power, and endurance of the selected Intel SSD. If your system requires tuning, the following icon appears next to System Tuner on the home screen: To run the System Tuner: 1. Select the Intel SSD on the home screen. 2. Click System Tuner. The System Tuner displays services that can be optimized for use with the selected Intel SSD.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide 3. Click Tune! next to the setting you want to optimize. Additionally, depending on your system configuration and operating system, perform the tasks in the next section to optimize performance.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Mobile Systems with Shock Sensor If you have an Intel SSD installed in a mobile system with shock sensor, make sure the shock sensor on the mobile system is disabled. Note: Intel SSDs are not affected with performance degradation caused by shock or vibration in specified limits, and therefore, can run with the shock sensor disabled. See the Intel Solid-State Drive Product Specification for your Intel SSD for specified limits.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Changing System Tuner Settings System Tuner can configure services to optimize your system for use with an Intel SSD. To change a service back to its original setting once optimized, you must manually configure the service. For complete instructions on all services, see your operating system documentation. Changing Device Initiated Power Management (DIPM) The System Tuner enables DIPM in mobile systems.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Changing Disk Defragmenter The System Tuner disables Disk Defragmenter in Microsoft Windows* 7 and Windows Vista*. This section explains how to enable Disk Defragmenter in Windows 7. For Windows Vista instructions, see your operating system documentation. Note: In Windows XP*, Disk Defragmenter cannot be disabled. To manually enable Disk Defragmenter in Windows 7: 1. Open the Windows Start menu and type disk defragmenter in the Search field. 2.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Performing a Secure Erase About Secure Erase Secure Erase permanently deletes all data on an Intel SSD. To run Secure Erase, the Intel SSD must be installed as a secondary SSD in your system. CAUTION: Secure Erase is an unrecoverable operation that permanently deletes all data on an Intel SSD.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Running Secure Erase Run Secure Erase to permanently delete all data on a secondary Intel SSD installed in your system. 1. Review the requirements before running Secure Erase: 2. Delete all partitions on the Intel SSD to be erased. 3. Select the Intel SSD on the home screen and view the Drive Summary information to verify the Intel SSD is the drive you want to erase. 4. Click Secure Erase. 5. Click Erase.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide 7. When complete, create an active partition and format the SSD. 8. Click Refresh on the home screen to view the Intel SSD. Creating a Partition These instructions describe how to create and format a partition on an Intel SSD in Microsoft Windows* 7. These instructions can be helpful for preparing an SSD after performing a Secure Erase. For more information or instructions for other operating systems, see the documentation for your operating system. 1.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Troubleshooting Troubleshooting - Drives Drive does not appear on the home screen If a drive installed in the system does not appear on the home screen: • Check power to the drive • Check the SATA cable connection and make sure the cable is properly connected to the drive and the host system • Click Refresh on the home screen • Reboot the system and restart the Intel SSD Toolbox If the problem persists, contact Intel.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Troubleshooting - Intel® SSD Optimizer Tool is not supported on the selected drive This error message may appear when trying to run the Intel SSD Optimizer if the selected Intel SSD does not have the latest firmware installed or if the SSD lithography is 50nm (G1). 1. Check the lithography of the Intel SSD to make sure it is supported by the Intel SSD Optimizer. 2. Check the firmware to make sure the Intel SSD is using the latest version.
Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox User Guide Obtaining More Information Related Publications For more information on Intel Solid-State Drives, go to http://www.intel.com/go/ssd. Reference Documents Document Document No./Location ATA-7 Volume 1 Specification, April 2004 http://www.t13.org/Documents/UploadedDocuments/docs2007/D1532v1r4bAT_Attachment_with_Packet_Interface_-_7_Volume_1.pdf SATA Rev 2.6 Specification, February 2007 http://www.sata-io.
