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Product Description
Amazon.com
The future of computer storage is here! The Intel X25-M Mainstream SATA II Solid State Drive (Retail) provides faster disk performance and greater durability than traditional hard drives. Since it stores data using NAND flash memory instead of spinning platters, the X25-M will never keep you waiting for disks to spin up. For further convenience, there are no moving parts to worry about breaking down.
A New Kind of Storage for Faster Data Access
The X25-M is a SATA II hard drive with a capacity of 160 GB. Additionally, it's in a 2.5-inch form factor that will work anywhere a regular 2.5-inch hard drive does, such as in notebook computers and external enclosures.
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 With no moving parts, the X25-M Solid State Drive provides silent and reliable storage. View larger. |
 The Intel SSD Toolbox lets you easily optimize the performance of your drive. View larger. |
The X25-M is a SATA II hard drive with a capacity of 160 GB. Additionally, it's in a 2.5-inch form factor that will work anywhere a regular 2.5-inch hard drive does, such as in notebook computers and external enclosures.
But don't think that the X25-M is any old drive. Instead of using spinning platters like traditional hard drives, the X25-M is a Solid State Drive (SSD), and it uses flash memory for storage, giving you dramatically faster data access. If you need less disk space, the X25-M also comes in a 80 GB version.
Performs Faster than Other Solid State Drives
Intel has been making memory chips for decades, and the company's experience is clearly displayed with the X25-M drive, which uses Intel's Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND Flash Memory. This delivers better performance than other SSDs, thanks to an advanced architecture and technologies such as Native Command Queuing, which enables up to 32 simultaneous operations. The result is sustained sequential read speeds of up to 250 MBps, sustained sequential write speeds of up to 70 MBps, and a read latency of just 85 microseconds.
And thanks to the drive's SATA interface that offers data throughput of up to 3.0 Gbps, you can take advantage of all that speed. What all this means for you is that applications launch instantaneously, files copy in less time, and your overall productivity is increased.
Optimize Performance with the Intel SSD Toolbox
Intel offers the Intel SSD Toolbox with Intel SSD Optimizer, so you can easily optimize and manage the performance of your drive. Simply download the Intel SSD Toolbox and you'll get a powerful set of management, information, and diagnostic tools to help you maintain performance at "fresh out-of-the-box" levels. The Intel SSD Toolbox with Intel SSD Optimizer is specially designed to run on Microsoft Windows 7, and it also works with Microsoft Windows Vista and XP.
Higher Reliability and Silent Operation
Compared to traditional hard drives, the X25-M is both faster and more durable. Because it doesn't have spinning disks or writing heads, there are fewer parts to fail. It is also less susceptible to vibration and shock and is completely silent. Providing superb reliability, the X25-M is rated at 1.2 million hours mean time before failure (MTBF).
Lower Power Consumption is Good for the Environment
The X25-M also consumes far less power than traditional drives, which saves you money and makes this drive a choice. The drive is certified RoHS compliant for its use of non-hazardous materials. Additionally, when it's installed in a laptop, the X25-M will give you better battery life, which means you can work longer on cross-country plane trips.
The Intel X25-M Mainstream SATA II Solid State Drive supports Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) commands, as well as additional SSD monitoring.
The X25-M is backed by a three-year limited warranty.
What's in the Box
Intel X25-M Solid State Drive (SSD), manual, sticker and 3.5" desktop drive bay adapter, screws and installation guide.
Product Description
Intel 2.5" 160GB X25-M Mainstream SATA II MLC SSD Retail
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
75 of 77 people found the following review helpful
Leaving a review here mostly because I see two 1 star reviews because of poor customer service, and nothing with the product itself. For the record, I did order from ANTOnline and was told the item was "in stock." After a week the drive had not shipped, I sent an email asking for a status and was told the item had not yet shipped from the supplier. ANTOnline should be avoided, possibly banned from Amazon, since they are actively misleading customers with "in stock". (I canceled my order and placed the order through NewEgg). The version of this drive I have is after the initial batch, which has a bug with setting a password lock on the drive.
My first SSD is in my Dell 1330M XPS laptop. No only has it proven to make a large impact on battery life (I don't even bother plugging in the laptop when given presentations that run from an hour to 90 minutes), it has made a huge impact on application speed. I've had developers approach me after a presentation and ask me about the specs of my laptop because compiling code in my demos was very fast (Visual Studio 2008).
I've put this Intel SSD in a new desktop system, along with an iCore7 and 12 GB of RAM. Windows 7 scores the drive at a 7.8 (7.9 is the max as of this writing). In addition to very fast code compiling, a podcast I produce has gone from taking an hour to edit (mostly waiting on audio plugins to do their thing) to 10 minutes.
If you only use a PC to surf the net, send email, and play farm games on FaceBook, you have no need for this drive. You also probably aren't reading this review, so I can assume you do use the PC for more than websites. If you do any work with video or audio this drive is a must have - the time it saves will pay for itself. If you develop software, this drive is highly recommended if you can afford it - it will improve your compilers speed but how important that is varies by the type of software you write. I can say that doing game development, with may graphic and model assets to compile, this drive has been amazing.
I have not tried other SSD drives, so this is just me citing the research done by others such as Tom's Hardware and Anatech. Much of the speed of the SSD comes from it's controller and how well that controller decides where to write data. The PC spends most of the time reading and writing small bits of random data, and most SSD specs are listing continuous read / write speeds. How well the controller can play traffic cop will be the key in real world performance. When deciding to go Intel vs. another (cheaper) name, consider how much time and effort you are willing to spend on trouble shooting issues. I'm not saying the others have issues, just that the chance is greater because this is new tech and smaller companies can't test their products as extensively as Intel.
To summarize, as Ferris said, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking out up."
My first SSD is in my Dell 1330M XPS laptop. No only has it proven to make a large impact on battery life (I don't even bother plugging in the laptop when given presentations that run from an hour to 90 minutes), it has made a huge impact on application speed. I've had developers approach me after a presentation and ask me about the specs of my laptop because compiling code in my demos was very fast (Visual Studio 2008).
I've put this Intel SSD in a new desktop system, along with an iCore7 and 12 GB of RAM. Windows 7 scores the drive at a 7.8 (7.9 is the max as of this writing). In addition to very fast code compiling, a podcast I produce has gone from taking an hour to edit (mostly waiting on audio plugins to do their thing) to 10 minutes.
If you only use a PC to surf the net, send email, and play farm games on FaceBook, you have no need for this drive. You also probably aren't reading this review, so I can assume you do use the PC for more than websites. If you do any work with video or audio this drive is a must have - the time it saves will pay for itself. If you develop software, this drive is highly recommended if you can afford it - it will improve your compilers speed but how important that is varies by the type of software you write. I can say that doing game development, with may graphic and model assets to compile, this drive has been amazing.
I have not tried other SSD drives, so this is just me citing the research done by others such as Tom's Hardware and Anatech. Much of the speed of the SSD comes from it's controller and how well that controller decides where to write data. The PC spends most of the time reading and writing small bits of random data, and most SSD specs are listing continuous read / write speeds. How well the controller can play traffic cop will be the key in real world performance. When deciding to go Intel vs. another (cheaper) name, consider how much time and effort you are willing to spend on trouble shooting issues. I'm not saying the others have issues, just that the chance is greater because this is new tech and smaller companies can't test their products as extensively as Intel.
To summarize, as Ferris said, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking out up."
67 of 77 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intel X25-M SSD: FAST Reader, OK Writer (slow for an SSD), Usual XLNT Intel Quality Product-BUT Complex To Install Correctly!
March 28, 2010
By Wavey Davey
Let's get busy and I'll tell you the story of my installation, and the SSD's characteristics, both good and OK and somewhat OK (none bad, mind you, just some could be *better* for all that $$$ we're spending on this SSD), but most of all please attend to the *DETAILS*, details, details of installation, and yours will be all that much better in your own machine if you do!
I am *not* going to get overly technical with this review, after all it's not for a class on SSD's, it's for the Amazon.com marketplace, and computer users of all types, so it will remain mostly generic and easy to read...hopefully! So let's get going and let's have some fun!
You're probably reading this because you either want an SSD, already have one, or are adding a 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th to a system you've built, or are improving your notebook, or desktop PC or Mac with this fantastic new technology an SSD offers us, so we all have that in common, plus there's a general interest in SSD's that borders on fanaticism at this time in computing history, so here's some data of this SSD's attributes and characteristics.
The X25-M 160GB SSD has a formatted capacity of 149GB, it is a 2.5" form factor hard drive generically speaking, with a 9.5mm height to fit into most any notebook; it weighs roughly 72 grams (about 2.5 ounces); has SATA 1-2 (I-II) connectivity and throughput of 1.5GB/sec or 3.0GB/sec, depends on the controller in your notebook, desktop, or RAID system controller interface. Its internal formatting is in 4096KB sectors, which is an important thing to understand right away, because we have to think of "Alignment" of the sectors with SSD's, and how they read, write, and seek data depends on sector parity with the system it resides in.
Unlike platter HD's we cannot 'vary the sector' count by formatting, as it is fixed at the 4096KB (4K) size by virtue of the MLC cells themselves, or SLC cells the case being, (Multi or Single-level cell structure inside the SSD configuration) thus even if we wanted to change the structure of the SSD with 16k, 64K, 256K etc formatting we cannot, it is fixed and "aligned" with 4K sector parity.
Windows 7 is "SSD Savvy", as is the Mac OS X disk formatting scheme from both the installer DVD-ROMs, and their respective Disk or Hard Drive utilities, the native HD formatting and partitioning software programs that come bundled with the operating systems. Thus when you install Windows 7, or Mac OS X 10.5.x+ onto an SSD with the 4K sector alignment, the installers will automatically format the SSD correctly for use, beginning and ending the partition(s) the user wishes to use, however many there are relative to the SSD's size, on an integer of 4096KB, so that when the SSD writes data to a sector it comes out "even" and all is well, ie 2+2=4! I only want to mention this now, because it is important as we get into the whole subject of Parity and Alignment.
Let's take a couple examples, and we'll get through Parity and Alignment quickly. I prefer a single Partition for small HD's or SSD's in general, so in my case all I had to do was open the Windows installer DVD ROM, and it automatically formats and aligns the SSD in 4096KB sectors, beginning with the Primary Partition (and only partition) with an integer of 4096KB, and ending the partition at another 4096KB sector, so all is well, my setup is simple.
Let's say, however, that a user wants 2 Partitions...one for the OS, and a 2nd for DATA...in this case the installer would begin the 1st Partition on a 4096KB sector integer, and when the user wants to "break" the SSD up into the two partitions, (for example the OS in 59GB and DATA in 90GB sized Partitions, 59+90=149GB, occupying all available space), the installer would Align the 1st Partition at a multiple of 4096KB, end that partition at another integer of 4096KB, then begin the 2nd Partition for DATA at a 3rd integer of 4K, and end it at a last 4K integer, and all would be perfectly "Aligned".
There might be a very small amount of contiguous space 'wasted' in all of the alignment to get the SSD into perfect parity with the 4K Alignment standard, but the installer utility's job is to get the sectors Aligned correctly, without wasting any space if possible, beginning and ending each Partition on a 4K sector, ideally.
So, the whole idea being that Alignment must be perfectly apportioned by the installer or an alignment tool of some sort, or the SSD will waste its internal space and be searching aimlessly for data, and writing it to odd-sized sectors if we were to format it with 112KB sectors, for example. The SSD's great speed would slow to a crawl, space would be "wasted" every time there was a new write made on the cell structure because it wouldn't add up to an integer of 4096KB if it were formatted in 112KB sectors, in short the SSD would be a jagged tangle of non-interleaved data, its speed would be compromised, and the SSD's entire premise of 4K Alignment would be negated by non-conforming formatting, a very bad thing!
Why am I dwelling on this subject right now? Well, for one key reason straight away, and that is that some Cloning or Partitioning tools are NOT SSD 'Savvy' and will not perform Alignment correctly, so avoid them at all costs!
My favored Paragon Software's Partition Manager 10.x Professional is not yet SSD Savvy, though they are working to make it so with its next edition. However, Paragon has developed for Western Digital Corp, and also made a special version for their own uses, a special PAT (Paragon Alignment Tool) that must be used if you are utilizing PM 10/Pro to Clone your data and OS from a normal platter HD to an SSD. Otherwise the Clone will be out of Alignment and hopelessly out of sync with the 4K standard, and basically any unaligned Partition would be terribly slow, data would be "all over the place" instead of organized into nice, contiguous 4K blocks/sectors, and the SSD's high theoretical speed would be impossible to achieve.
Getting this SSD up to high speed is also the result of having the latest firmware in place, so that process must be done with an empty SSD, ie when it is freshly installed, before you place your OS and key data (if any) onto the SSD, format it, Align it, etc, so I'm going to briefly go over the firmware updating procedure using a BOOTABLE CD ROM with the Intel firmware ISO Image correctly BURNED into the CD ROM with a proper burning software/utility, and how to avoid problems with such a procedure.
With a notebook this is relatively simple, as there is usually only one or two SATA connections in a notebook, ie one for the HD and one for the optical drive, if the notebook has an optical drive (netbooks, and small form-factor notebooks like my Asus UL30Vt-X1 don't have optical drives, so doing the firmware updating on my new notebook was a breeze!).
There are a couple problems that can occur, and they are best handled by understanding the pitfalls themselves, and how to avoid such problems. First, you must disable any HD passwords or Administrator passwords before doing the firmware update, in BIOS, or the CD ROM with the firmware update on it will NOT start up the notebook or desktop. Second, with most desktops with multiple SATA connectors it's best to install the SSD onto one of the Primary SATA connectors, not those meant for optical drives or accessories, so that is usually SATA connectors 1-4 numerically speaking, not those farther "downstream" in the chain of SATA command. You want the SSD to be flashed on a primary controller interface of the desktop, on the primary or South Bridge SATA controller, not one for accessories or North Bridge administered SATA connectors.
Sometimes the firmware flash cannot be administered from the AHCI driver/connector of some notebooks because of a driver conflict. When that happens the notebook won't let the CD ROM start up the computer, and one must accomplish the firmware flash on a desktop, then reinstall it into the notebook...this is not so common, but it does happen now and then, so if your notebook refuses to start up with a correctly made CD ROM with the firmware ISO image burned into the disk properly, this is probably the case, so proceed accordingly.
Speaking of firmware flashing and ACHI controllers, the ACHI controller MUST be enabled in BIOS rather than the "IDE" controller, or "RAID" controller, or the "RAID+IDE" or "IDE" setting for the controller in BIOS. The setting must be "ACHI" and ONLY "ACHI" to accomplish the firmware update with an Intel ISO image on a CD ROM, or USB Flash Drive, made BOOTABLE using the proper procedure for doing that hat trick.
Now if you don't have an external optical drive, or internal drive, or if you prefer to utilize a USB Flash Drive to do the procedure, by all means do it that way, but I'm not going into it here. I have been using CD ROM's for doing firmware updating, updating the BIOS of my computers, etc, and prefer it to this day over USB flash drives, so I'm old-fashioned that way, but it works for me.
The next subject of this review is a special treat I have in store for those of you who don't know about the newest Intel Storage RAID/SSD Driver for your IDE/SATA Controller of your desktop or notebook computer, because guess what? Intel *Just Released* a new, extra-special driver for RAIDs, SSDs, and Desktops/Notebooks with IDE/SATA AHCI Controllers who will be utilizing SSDs, and I have the URL for it in the first Comment, which I made at the end of this review. The editors here at Amazon.com removed the link from the review, so there you go, it's in the Comments area at the end of the review.
The SSD-compatible Microsoft and Intel IDE/ATA ACHI Controller/drivers up to now have not been SSD-specific like the new driver is, and it works a TREAT! Read more ›
I am *not* going to get overly technical with this review, after all it's not for a class on SSD's, it's for the Amazon.com marketplace, and computer users of all types, so it will remain mostly generic and easy to read...hopefully! So let's get going and let's have some fun!
You're probably reading this because you either want an SSD, already have one, or are adding a 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th to a system you've built, or are improving your notebook, or desktop PC or Mac with this fantastic new technology an SSD offers us, so we all have that in common, plus there's a general interest in SSD's that borders on fanaticism at this time in computing history, so here's some data of this SSD's attributes and characteristics.
The X25-M 160GB SSD has a formatted capacity of 149GB, it is a 2.5" form factor hard drive generically speaking, with a 9.5mm height to fit into most any notebook; it weighs roughly 72 grams (about 2.5 ounces); has SATA 1-2 (I-II) connectivity and throughput of 1.5GB/sec or 3.0GB/sec, depends on the controller in your notebook, desktop, or RAID system controller interface. Its internal formatting is in 4096KB sectors, which is an important thing to understand right away, because we have to think of "Alignment" of the sectors with SSD's, and how they read, write, and seek data depends on sector parity with the system it resides in.
Unlike platter HD's we cannot 'vary the sector' count by formatting, as it is fixed at the 4096KB (4K) size by virtue of the MLC cells themselves, or SLC cells the case being, (Multi or Single-level cell structure inside the SSD configuration) thus even if we wanted to change the structure of the SSD with 16k, 64K, 256K etc formatting we cannot, it is fixed and "aligned" with 4K sector parity.
Windows 7 is "SSD Savvy", as is the Mac OS X disk formatting scheme from both the installer DVD-ROMs, and their respective Disk or Hard Drive utilities, the native HD formatting and partitioning software programs that come bundled with the operating systems. Thus when you install Windows 7, or Mac OS X 10.5.x+ onto an SSD with the 4K sector alignment, the installers will automatically format the SSD correctly for use, beginning and ending the partition(s) the user wishes to use, however many there are relative to the SSD's size, on an integer of 4096KB, so that when the SSD writes data to a sector it comes out "even" and all is well, ie 2+2=4! I only want to mention this now, because it is important as we get into the whole subject of Parity and Alignment.
Let's take a couple examples, and we'll get through Parity and Alignment quickly. I prefer a single Partition for small HD's or SSD's in general, so in my case all I had to do was open the Windows installer DVD ROM, and it automatically formats and aligns the SSD in 4096KB sectors, beginning with the Primary Partition (and only partition) with an integer of 4096KB, and ending the partition at another 4096KB sector, so all is well, my setup is simple.
Let's say, however, that a user wants 2 Partitions...one for the OS, and a 2nd for DATA...in this case the installer would begin the 1st Partition on a 4096KB sector integer, and when the user wants to "break" the SSD up into the two partitions, (for example the OS in 59GB and DATA in 90GB sized Partitions, 59+90=149GB, occupying all available space), the installer would Align the 1st Partition at a multiple of 4096KB, end that partition at another integer of 4096KB, then begin the 2nd Partition for DATA at a 3rd integer of 4K, and end it at a last 4K integer, and all would be perfectly "Aligned".
There might be a very small amount of contiguous space 'wasted' in all of the alignment to get the SSD into perfect parity with the 4K Alignment standard, but the installer utility's job is to get the sectors Aligned correctly, without wasting any space if possible, beginning and ending each Partition on a 4K sector, ideally.
So, the whole idea being that Alignment must be perfectly apportioned by the installer or an alignment tool of some sort, or the SSD will waste its internal space and be searching aimlessly for data, and writing it to odd-sized sectors if we were to format it with 112KB sectors, for example. The SSD's great speed would slow to a crawl, space would be "wasted" every time there was a new write made on the cell structure because it wouldn't add up to an integer of 4096KB if it were formatted in 112KB sectors, in short the SSD would be a jagged tangle of non-interleaved data, its speed would be compromised, and the SSD's entire premise of 4K Alignment would be negated by non-conforming formatting, a very bad thing!
Why am I dwelling on this subject right now? Well, for one key reason straight away, and that is that some Cloning or Partitioning tools are NOT SSD 'Savvy' and will not perform Alignment correctly, so avoid them at all costs!
My favored Paragon Software's Partition Manager 10.x Professional is not yet SSD Savvy, though they are working to make it so with its next edition. However, Paragon has developed for Western Digital Corp, and also made a special version for their own uses, a special PAT (Paragon Alignment Tool) that must be used if you are utilizing PM 10/Pro to Clone your data and OS from a normal platter HD to an SSD. Otherwise the Clone will be out of Alignment and hopelessly out of sync with the 4K standard, and basically any unaligned Partition would be terribly slow, data would be "all over the place" instead of organized into nice, contiguous 4K blocks/sectors, and the SSD's high theoretical speed would be impossible to achieve.
Getting this SSD up to high speed is also the result of having the latest firmware in place, so that process must be done with an empty SSD, ie when it is freshly installed, before you place your OS and key data (if any) onto the SSD, format it, Align it, etc, so I'm going to briefly go over the firmware updating procedure using a BOOTABLE CD ROM with the Intel firmware ISO Image correctly BURNED into the CD ROM with a proper burning software/utility, and how to avoid problems with such a procedure.
With a notebook this is relatively simple, as there is usually only one or two SATA connections in a notebook, ie one for the HD and one for the optical drive, if the notebook has an optical drive (netbooks, and small form-factor notebooks like my Asus UL30Vt-X1 don't have optical drives, so doing the firmware updating on my new notebook was a breeze!).
There are a couple problems that can occur, and they are best handled by understanding the pitfalls themselves, and how to avoid such problems. First, you must disable any HD passwords or Administrator passwords before doing the firmware update, in BIOS, or the CD ROM with the firmware update on it will NOT start up the notebook or desktop. Second, with most desktops with multiple SATA connectors it's best to install the SSD onto one of the Primary SATA connectors, not those meant for optical drives or accessories, so that is usually SATA connectors 1-4 numerically speaking, not those farther "downstream" in the chain of SATA command. You want the SSD to be flashed on a primary controller interface of the desktop, on the primary or South Bridge SATA controller, not one for accessories or North Bridge administered SATA connectors.
Sometimes the firmware flash cannot be administered from the AHCI driver/connector of some notebooks because of a driver conflict. When that happens the notebook won't let the CD ROM start up the computer, and one must accomplish the firmware flash on a desktop, then reinstall it into the notebook...this is not so common, but it does happen now and then, so if your notebook refuses to start up with a correctly made CD ROM with the firmware ISO image burned into the disk properly, this is probably the case, so proceed accordingly.
Speaking of firmware flashing and ACHI controllers, the ACHI controller MUST be enabled in BIOS rather than the "IDE" controller, or "RAID" controller, or the "RAID+IDE" or "IDE" setting for the controller in BIOS. The setting must be "ACHI" and ONLY "ACHI" to accomplish the firmware update with an Intel ISO image on a CD ROM, or USB Flash Drive, made BOOTABLE using the proper procedure for doing that hat trick.
Now if you don't have an external optical drive, or internal drive, or if you prefer to utilize a USB Flash Drive to do the procedure, by all means do it that way, but I'm not going into it here. I have been using CD ROM's for doing firmware updating, updating the BIOS of my computers, etc, and prefer it to this day over USB flash drives, so I'm old-fashioned that way, but it works for me.
The next subject of this review is a special treat I have in store for those of you who don't know about the newest Intel Storage RAID/SSD Driver for your IDE/SATA Controller of your desktop or notebook computer, because guess what? Intel *Just Released* a new, extra-special driver for RAIDs, SSDs, and Desktops/Notebooks with IDE/SATA AHCI Controllers who will be utilizing SSDs, and I have the URL for it in the first Comment, which I made at the end of this review. The editors here at Amazon.com removed the link from the review, so there you go, it's in the Comments area at the end of the review.
The SSD-compatible Microsoft and Intel IDE/ATA ACHI Controller/drivers up to now have not been SSD-specific like the new driver is, and it works a TREAT! Read more ›
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful
The Intel 160GB SSD installed for me without any problems at all. I like that Intel includes a steel adapter bracket that lets you mount the SSD in a desktop system where a 3.5" hard drive goes. The bracket has standard spacing for the side holes and elongated slots where the SSD mounts so you can adjust things to your heart's content. There is also a plastic spacer screwed to the top for installation in laptops that take 9.5mm (something like that) thick drives, or you can remove it for those that need the thinner drives. Two sets of screws are included.
My drive arrived with one firmware version back - I downloaded the late November firmware updater from Intel's web site (a bootable .iso) and it worked fine. I'm using the drive on Windows 7 and am glad to have TRIM support.
Note: If you are using Windows 7, you must make sure that your computer's BIOS is set to use the AHCI mode for disk drives, otherwise you won't get the benefit of TRIM. Before you do so, make sure that Windows has enabled the AHCI driver - this is explained in Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB922976 - otherwise you'll get an error when you reboot. To see if you already have AHCI enabled, click on the Start orb, right click Computer and select Manage. Under Computer Management, select System Tools > Device Manager. Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" and look to see if there is an entry "Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller". If not, follow the steps in the KB article to enable AHCI in Windows, then boot into your BIOS and change the setting for the IDE controller to be AHCI. (The details of this will vary.)
Once installed, my Windows Experience Index for the hard drive went from 5.9 (a WD Caviar drive) to 7.2, and the system feels much snappier, as well as booting noticeably faster. It is also eerie that it is silent.
If you read magazine tests of SSDs, you will find that there are some out there with faster write transfer rates, but the reviewers always seem to end up preferring the Intel X25-M for its consistent excellent performance over time. I'm very happy with my selection.
My drive arrived with one firmware version back - I downloaded the late November firmware updater from Intel's web site (a bootable .iso) and it worked fine. I'm using the drive on Windows 7 and am glad to have TRIM support.
Note: If you are using Windows 7, you must make sure that your computer's BIOS is set to use the AHCI mode for disk drives, otherwise you won't get the benefit of TRIM. Before you do so, make sure that Windows has enabled the AHCI driver - this is explained in Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB922976 - otherwise you'll get an error when you reboot. To see if you already have AHCI enabled, click on the Start orb, right click Computer and select Manage. Under Computer Management, select System Tools > Device Manager. Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" and look to see if there is an entry "Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller". If not, follow the steps in the KB article to enable AHCI in Windows, then boot into your BIOS and change the setting for the IDE controller to be AHCI. (The details of this will vary.)
Once installed, my Windows Experience Index for the hard drive went from 5.9 (a WD Caviar drive) to 7.2, and the system feels much snappier, as well as booting noticeably faster. It is also eerie that it is silent.
If you read magazine tests of SSDs, you will find that there are some out there with faster write transfer rates, but the reviewers always seem to end up preferring the Intel X25-M for its consistent excellent performance over time. I'm very happy with my selection.
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Nice Drive!
If you have the money.. You need one of these! Nice drive and so much faster than a standard drive.
Published on January 5, 2011 by lotus.developer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Performance.
I installed this drive on my new notebook computer. Since the first thing I did after recieving my new computer was pop out the stock HHD, and replaced it with this one, I can't... Read more
Published on December 7, 2010 by R. Meincke
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Option in the current SSD market
This drive is higher priced than similar capacity models, but has far and away the best speed ratings. Read more
Published on November 22, 2010 by Joseph Koheleth
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fast, quiet, and clean in my Macbook Pro
I bought this drive to replace the Momentus XT. The XT had potential: it was certainly quick, but I had more stalls, spin downs, and beach balls than I had had with the original... Read more
Published on October 11, 2010 by R. Maguire
