JoeSchmuck Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 I don't believe Acronis DriveCleanser will secure erase the SSD. If you follow the procedures outlined in the beginning of this thread then it might work for a hardware RAID but not sure, and it should work for a software RAID but you will have to re-establish the RAID. Post your results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwentzel Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 Will the procedure in the first message in this thread use the built in erase function of the F240 drive? I'd like to ensure all my data are removed and performance restored before putting my drive on eBay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kursun Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 I don't believe Acronis DriveCleanser will secure erase the SSD. If you follow the procedures outlined in the beginning of this thread then it might work for a hardware RAID but not sure, and it should work for a software RAID but you will have to re-establish the RAID. Post your results. I did it... 1. Booted my PC with Win XP, my second OS, 2. Backed up my raid win 7 Ult. 64 bit os drive using Acronis TIH 2011. 3. After backup, from the Tools & Utilities menu of Acronis TIH 2011 I selected DriveCleanser. "Fast" algorithm was selected (overwrites all data with zeros in a single pass). A few minutes after, DriveCleanser rebooted the PC and continued doing its thing on its own dos. It took about 18 minutes to drivecleanse. 4. I restored the raid drive (raid configuration and 100mb system reserved partition was intact). CrystalDiskMark data, BEFORE OPERATION: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 © 2007-2010 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [sATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s] Sequential Read : 352.107 MB/s Sequential Write : 49.264 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 257.961 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 8.160 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 21.169 MB/s [ 5168.1 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 7.453 MB/s [ 1819.6 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 41.195 MB/s [ 10057.5 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.600 MB/s [ 146.4 IOPS] Test : 1000 MB [C: 42.9% (51.1/119.1 GB)] (x5) Date : 2011/03/24 18:32:06 OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64) AFTER OPERATION: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 © 2007-2010 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [sATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s] Sequential Read : 352.384 MB/s Sequential Write : 291.717 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 256.602 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 59.860 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 21.621 MB/s [ 5278.5 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 6.761 MB/s [ 1650.6 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 42.812 MB/s [ 10452.2 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 5.088 MB/s [ 1242.1 IOPS] Test : 1000 MB [C: 42.9% (51.1/119.1 GB)] (x5) Date : 2011/03/24 22:09:17 OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64) In summary, Squential Write figure improved dramatically (49 to 291 mb/s). Random write improved too (8 to 60 mb/s)... Random Write 4KB (QD=32) figure improved from 0.6 mb/s to 5 mb/s For me, the most important reason for buying ssds, boot time only improved 3 seconds. :( BTW, I wonder if anything would have changed if I had selected a more complex algorithm than "fast" for DriveCleansing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSchmuck Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Will the procedure in the first message in this thread use the built in erase function of the F240 drive? I'd like to ensure all my data are removed and performance restored before putting my drive on eBay. If you want to erase your drive properly before handing it to someone else, you should conduct a DoD certified erase procedure. Anything that will write a few patterns will do. Keeping in mind that the F240 is not a magnetic drive, only one pass with alternating 1's and 0's should be just fine. There are many tools such as BCWipe, Acronis DriveCleanser, etc... I don't know if GParted offers a wipe feature but I thought it did. -Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSchmuck Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 BTW, I wonder if anything would have changed if I had selected a more complex algorithm than "fast" for DriveCleansing. Those are great numbers. As for using something more complex... From what I understand, writing zeros is like a secure erase operation and places the drive back into it's original state. Writing something else would not have the same outcome. I think you have a great success story. -Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kursun Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Those are great numbers. As for using something more complex... From what I understand, writing zeros is like a secure erase operation and places the drive back into it's original state. Writing something else would not have the same outcome. I think you have a great success story. -Joe Thank you for your responses JoeSchmuck. I must admit you gave the encouragement to go ahead and do it. The good part is, I didn't have to delete or re-establish the RAID array. Even the 100mb system reserved partition was intact (except data) all through the procedure. (The 100 mb. partition was drivecleansed too.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSchmuck Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Thank you for your responses JoeSchmuck. I must admit you gave the encouragement to go ahead and do it. The good part is, I didn't have to delete or re-establish the RAID array. Even the 100mb system reserved partition was intact (except data) all through the procedure. (The 100 mb. partition was drivecleansed too.) Glad I could help. Not all SSD's respond so well to just writting zeros like yours did but I'm glad it worked. I can't wait to buy a new SSD. I'm very happy with my P128 but most of the new drives are a lot faster and have larger capacity. I'm going to hold out for a 300GB or larger model that doesn't break the bank. That could be a year or more down the road but my 128GB drive is only half full. I keep a lot of stuff on an internal 1TB magnetic hard drive. What I do like is running a Virtual Machine from the SSD. It's so nice and quick. Take care, -Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwdr Extreme Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Hi All, I have tried the secure erase method from page 1 but it responds with Permission denied no matter what I try to do. I typed hdparm -I /dev/sda Says Permission denied, obviously can't run the secure erase command either. Drive is not password protected in Bios. What am I doing wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwdr Extreme Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Typed sudo hdparm and it worked. Had to hot swap the drive so it didn't show frozen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sudjaino Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 I never understand.... Why can't Corsair just develop an SSD maintenance utility to optimize the SSD automatically without having to resort to such a destructive method. It makes life so much easier for anyone. It can be done, and it has been proven. Currently aiming to purchase F60 or F90 myself, but looking at this thread alone has forced me to reconsider my purchase option. I really don't think I want to do this everytime I have performance problem. It's too tedious, too technical, too time-consuming, and I certainly don't wanna a headache. I seriously think Corsair should address this issue with a more sensible approach to common users. If it is really the intrinsic weakness of SSD product, then I believe it's the manufacturer's responsibility to provide a solution, either by additional hardware or software, rather than letting the users try to solve the problem their own with the help of external software & instructions found on the net. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 I never understand.... Why can't Corsair just develop an SSD maintenance utility to optimize the SSD automatically without having to resort to such a destructive method. It makes life so much easier for anyone. It can be done, and it has been proven. Currently aiming to purchase F60 or F90 myself, but looking at this thread alone has forced me to reconsider my purchase option. I really don't think I want to do this everytime I have performance problem. It's too tedious, too technical, too time-consuming, and I certainly don't wanna a headache. I seriously think Corsair should address this issue with a more sensible approach to common users. If it is really the intrinsic weakness of SSD product, then I believe it's the manufacturer's responsibility to provide a solution, either by additional hardware or software, rather than letting the users try to solve the problem their own with the help of external software & instructions found on the net.The F series has TRIM, no need to wipe the drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieu Posted May 27, 2012 Share Posted May 27, 2012 The F series has TRIM, no need to wipe the drive. Hello: I am a bit confused in that this entire thread (and others) are about restoring SSD performance but you have stated that it is not necessary due to "TRIM." As there is an abundance of threads covering this specific topic, I tend to agree with "Sudjaino" in that it is reasonable for Corsair to offer (as other manufacturers) a suite of small utilities that manages the restore, format and optimization needs for its products. As it appears now, we have two sticky threads dating back years covering various ad-hoc methods to restore and or optimize SSD's. After reading Sudjaino's thread, I am curious, what is Corsair's process with specificity, in restoring or optimizing an SSD? When installing a fresh copy of Windows 7, do we simply allow Windows 7 to handle the partition and format process? The crux of my concern is why does Corsair defer these important activities for their products, to other software manufacturers? Is this an issue of risk? If I am mistaken, please send me to the link that Corsair recommends in restoring and preparing the SSD for an OS load. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSchmuck Posted May 28, 2012 Share Posted May 28, 2012 I don't think you understand the original purpose of this thread. When it started several of the SSD's didn't have TRIM built in and those that did, some OS's didn't handle it. In order to restore performance you needed to perform a secure erase as unfortunate as is was but it does restore write performance, sometimes significantly. With any SSD the best way to handle this issue is to incorporate TRIM. Once TRIM was available in the firmware for a SSD then it was up to the OS to intelligently clean up the drive. This is the way all SSD's are these days. I can't say there aren't some that have automatic garbage collection in the absence of TRIM as I know it was out there a few years ago but that really isn't the most effective way to handle it. If you are using an OS that does not support TRIM then you may need to find a method to handle garbage collection for the fasted write times however keep in mind that the write times do not slow down that much that you are missing any significant benefits unless you are doing some serious compiling often. Just my opinion that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elioc9 Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 hello, i've got a corsair force 3 180gb firmware 5.02, and it's slow as hell. i've done a secure erase with parted magic and after install all, i've got the same problem. i'm using this ssd on a macbook pro 13'' i7 early 2011. the negotiated link speed is 6gb, and ahci is on. i've got in the best case, 300mb's writing and 200 reading using atto bench program. what else should i try? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnus71 Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Next, double click on terminal and type the following; hdparm --security-erase NULL /dev/hda Hi, I was using this method and as many here I was stuck in input output erros. Even trying with HDLLF in win7 I got I/O errors. The explanation is simple, the HD is locked. So a mini tutorial to solve this. Get HDAT2 4.53. Make a bootable usb stick or optical disk with freedos. (Better grab an copy of Hiren's boot cd it's all inside with other tools so you don't have to waste time, just download and burn.) So now put in BIOS at a as IDE not AHCI. Save in bios and restart. Just hook the ssd and cd at motherboard data ports if possible, so you will not get confused and erase other HDs. Select to boot from CD, there's an option during POST, in gigabyte the key to press is F12, other vendor got different key for boot manager of bios, check you manual or pay attention to first image during post. So now that we Have booted in cd with freedos or Hiren's we have to launch HDAT2. We can zero all sectors, if there's an error we have to go back to a menu for security options and unlock the ssd here. Please refer to screenshots at webpage of author of this wonderful software.http://www.hdat2.com/preview.html Now you can do many things as format from different tools and so on, but my advice is to avoid Gparted :mad: and use Disc Utility in Mac Os X or the tool in installation discs of windows. Regards. ::pirate:: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alan1476 Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 Can you use Parted Magic with the new Neutron GTX SSDs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Technobeard Posted November 12, 2012 Administrators Share Posted November 12, 2012 Can you use Parted Magic with the new Neutron GTX SSDs?Any SSD, sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EarlZ Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Any SSD, sure. I tried parted magic on my 240 before it died and secure erase was performed in just a matter of seconds, I benchmarked the drive and the performance was not as good as the day I got the drive. Also its bad enough that corsair does not have their own tool for this, I had to download several versions of parted magic that runs on my PC. Unlike the competing brand where their SE program works out flawlessly. Hopefully corsair can make their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toasted Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 Did you use ATTO to benchmark the drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhireX Posted March 13, 2013 Share Posted March 13, 2013 +1, this works, would be nice if there was an official tool for this .. which was .. you know, noob friendly & let you back it up to a USB drive, etc also good to do if ever selling a drive :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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