This is all well and good, but there are problems. And problems in compatibility with the equipment. So, Sata-2 is known to be backward compatible with Sata-3. This is true and it is fair, and the problem is not at all in this, because it lies in the compatibility of your board with a specific controller that is used in the drive, or maybe your equipment cannot work correctly with an SSD at all. Let's consider a specific case and draw the appropriate conclusions.

I wanted to upgrade the Asus K50IE laptop and decided to purchase an SSD. The choice fell on the Kingston SSDNOW 300v. Pretty good value for money, they even recommended it to me. I come home, insert it instead of the hard drive and start to observe funny things. Windows 8 sees the disk, but it is installed every other time, and after installation it cannot boot in any way. 8.1 and seven do not see the disk at all. After dancing with a tambourine, 7ku forced to see, but to no avail, the installation hung. On another laptop, everything was fine and I began to understand that the problem was not in the disk at all, the problem was in Sata - the nvidia nforce controller. I began to read the information and slowly begin to see clearly, but there was still a glimmer of hope. Having danced, I put down the tambourine and decided to contact the manufacturer of this miracle directly. It was late and of course no one answered. I danced again, reset the bios, tried to update the disk software, but to no avail. Although 8ka started a couple of times, though then it stopped. I dropped everything and decided to wait until the next day. In the morning I immediately called Kingson. I got through quickly and they told me that there really are problems with my Sata controller, because the disk is based on the Sandforce controller. I was advised to change to another drive that runs on the Phison chip and was told that it should work. Inspired, I began to act.

I immediately called the manazin, explained the situation, went, replaced it with a Kingston Hyperx savage disk. Paid, brought. This device certainly looks more solid, plus in the kit they give a free key to Acronis True Image, for the possibility of cloning the operating system to the SSD. I put it in the laptop, the situation changes. 8ka seemed to go to be put, but then hung, 7ka and 8.1 still did not want to see. New dances have begun. Then I decided to clone the operating system, cloned it, but it hung when loading. Time passed and awareness came more and more. Having suffered enough, I called the laptop manufacturer, where they told me that the laptop does not officially support SSD and most likely there will be problems. I immediately wrote to the store about the return. They answered positively, went in the evening and passed.

In general, the problem came from where they did not expect. Nowhere before I met such a disaster, I have not seen this, but here I received a package of fun from personal experience. It's a shame that Asus doesn't write about it, SSD manufacturers don't write, sellers don't say, and many of them don't know. And I had to find out after it became clear that I got into a trouble, fortunately everything worked out!

What conclusions can be drawn from this? Yes, very simple. Before buying an SSD, find out what kind of Sata controller you have, contact the manufacturer of the disk, motherboard, laptop, clarify everything, maybe they will warn you against an unnecessary purchase and save you time and money, because with a guarantee everything is not as smooth everywhere as I would like to. Personally, I was lucky and I essentially did a free trial. I hope you will not follow in my footsteps in this matter, but first you will find out everything about the disk you are going to buy and its compatibility, and only then decide to buy it. I wish you success. Be vigilant and careful. See you again.

Nowadays, when buying a computer, many people have a question: a PC with which drive is better to take, with HDD or SSD. To answer this question, you first need to understand what is the main difference between SSD and HDD. Hard drives HDD appeared in the distant seventies and are used to this day in millions of computers. Basic principle of operation hard drive HDD is in writing and reading on special magnetic plates of information. Reading is recorded using the head movement lever, and the magnetic disks themselves rotate at very high speeds at this time. Due to the mechanical component of the HDD hard drive and the write and read speed, it is inferior to SSD solid state drives.

How an SSD works built on writing and reading information from special high-speed memory chips included in its composition. The very speed of writing and reading information from the SSD exceeds the HDD several times. In addition, thanks to the chip design, the SSD is less prone to damage from bumps and falls, and also has miniature form factors that allow it to be installed in tablets and ultrabooks. Main disadvantages solid state drives is price and life cycle. But progress does not stand still, so it is already clear how the price of SSDs is gradually falling, and their rewriting cycle is increasing. In this article, we will cover all aspects of working with a solid state drive and describe their characteristics, so if you decide to upgrade from an HDD to an SSD, then this article will be very useful for you. In addition, we will consider such problems when the BIOS does not see the SSD and many others.

What types of SSD drives exist and which one is better

When choosing a solid state drive should first of all pay attention to its form factor and different types of interfaces by which they connect to the PC. The most common form factor, as with rigid HDD, is a 2.5-inch chassis form factor. This solid state drive can be found in many laptops and personal computers. Below is a list that lists all types of form factors that are available in our time of solid state drives:

• Form factor type 2.5 inches;
• mSATA form factor type;
• M.2 form factor type.

Below is a picture of a 2.5 inch solid state drive, which is the most common and familiar to many users.

The drives listed above are quite popular models and have the following markings - GOODRAM CX200 240 GB, Kingston HyperX FURY SHFS37A/120G and Samsung 850 EVO MZ-75E250B. Such drives are connected using a standard SATA interface, which is used on most computers.

The second type of mSATA device, shown below, has been used mainly in laptop computers since 2009.

It is extremely rare to find mSATA on desktop motherboards, but it is not uncommon in ultrabooks and tablets.

The third M.2 form factor is a new development that should replace mSATA devices. The figure below shows a Samsung M.2 drive.

With formats solid state drives figured out, now let's try to figure out the type of memory used in them. Now on sale you can find devices with SLC, MLC and TLC types of NAND memory. The table below shows the memory specifications relative to NAND chips.

It can be seen from the characteristics of the table that disks built on SLC chips have 90,000 - 100,000 rewriting cycles. It follows that such discs will last longer. But buying an SLC drive is very expensive nowadays, so most users prefer MLC and TLC drives. To give our readers an idea of ​​the lifespan of an SSD, we have prepared a table that describes it.

It can be seen from the table that we took as a basis the cheapest drive with TLC memory chips. The formula shows that our SSD goes through one rewrite cycle per day, and this is not so little. For example, a PC user can overwrite much less information, 120 GB per day. But even under such unforgiving conditions, this drive is able to work for 8 or 13.5 years.

Below is a table for a drive with SLC, MLC memory chips.

Of course, the user can use more rewrite cycles per day, but then the table performance will be different. For example, if you overwrite an SSD on MLC memory chips 10 times a day, then the life cycle of this disk will be 7.5 years. Judge for yourself, with 10 times overwriting on this disk per day, you need to overwrite 1200 GB of information, which is quite a considerable amount.

Based on the information described above, an SSD with TLC memory chips is enough for an ordinary PC user.

We solve problems by updating old SSDs

All new drives have an SSD built in. a special routine that removes garbage as it fills up. This garbage disposal mechanism is needed to maintain SDD performance. Solid state drives have been on the market for a long time. In older versions of SSD, some models do not have a garbage cleanup protection mechanism, as a result of which write speed on these discs. drops noticeably. You can solve this problem by completely erasing the information on the disk and then reinstalling Windows. In order not to reinstall Windows, not to break new partitions on the disk, below we will describe a method that preserves the previous state of the system.

The first step is to download the image from http://clonezilla.org clonezilla, which will help us save all partitions. You can also use other means of cloning the system and restoring it. The process of creating a system image using clonezilla It is simple and can be handled by both an experienced user and a beginner. After creating a full backup, you can start cleaning the disk. For this we need an image Linux Parted Magic and utility UNetbootin. You can download this software from the websites: https://partedmagic.com And http://unetbootin.github.io. Using the utility UNetbootin you can burn our image to a USB flash drive, creating a boot drive from it. After creating a bootable USB flash drive, you can boot from it.

Now on the desktop we find the program " Erase Disk' and run it.

In the program window that opens, find the item " Internal Secure Erase' and click on it. After that, a window should open with the choice of your SSD. After selecting the required disk, the wiping process will begin. After cleaning, restore the system with clonezilla. Refurbished Windows should function like you have a brand new SSD.

With help Linux Parted Magic the user can partition and create new partitions on the solid state drive. You can partition and create a partition on a solid state drive in the same way as on a hard disk HDD.

We solve problems with speed, BIOS and SSD firmware

The most common problem Not correct operation, or when computer does not see SDD, is old version microcode motherboard BIOS fees. You can update the BIOS on any released motherboard. Most often, the problem with SSD manifests itself with older versions of motherboards with an already new UEFI BIOS. In most cases, updating the BIOS is done using a downloaded file with microcode and a USB flash drive. The BIOS file is placed on a USB flash drive and updated with it. Each motherboard manufacturer has detailed instructions on the BIOS update site.

Be careful when updating the BIOS, because the wrong update can ruin the motherboard.

Find out what BIOS version installed on a Windows PC using the CPU-Z utility.

A lot of PC users are buying SSDs to speed up Windows significantly. But with such an upgrade, it should be borne in mind that most older PCs only support SATA-2 connector. When connecting a solid state drive to SATA-2, the user will receive a data transfer rate limit of 300 Mb / s. It follows that before buying, you need to find out if your motherboard supports the SATA-3 connector, which provides throughput at 600 MB/s.

Even to make the work of the SSD more stable, you can get rid of most of the errors using the firmware. The firmware for an SSD is a microcode, similar to the BIOS, thanks to which the drive functions. Firmware as well as BIOS can be found on the official website of the SSD manufacturer. Update instructions can also be found on the manufacturer's website. Such firmware can solve the problem on some motherboards when the SSD does not see them.

The computer does not see the SSD due to the cable or drivers

In addition to the problems described above, very often the motherboard does not see the SSD due to a problematic cable or connector. In this case it will help cable replacement SATA to serviceable. Also, in many cases, the motherboard does not see due to a faulty SATA port, so you can solve this problem connecting to another port.

If you connect an SSD to a computer running on an HDD, you can encounter a situation where it does not see it. The system does not see the installed SSD due to old drivers. You can solve this problem by updates such drivers like Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver and AMD AHCI Driver.

SATA AHCI

The required mode for the controller to work properly with your SSD is AHCI. This mode allows the SATA controller to take advantage of new features, including speeding up the SSD. Unlike the old IDE mode, AHCI mode provides the following benefits:

• AHCI support for hot-swapping connected drives in Windows;
• AHCI improves performance when using NCQ technology;
• AHCI mode allows you to use a transfer rate of 600 MB / s (relevant for SSD drives).
• AHCI mode includes support for additional commands such as TRIM.

At Windows installation on a modern motherboard, it is not necessary to enable AHCI mode in the settings, since it is the default, but if an older Windows, for example, Windows XP, was used before, then you should switch the operating mode from IDE to AHCI. The figure below shows BIOS settings motherboard MSI with AHCI enabled.

It is also worth noting that if you installed Windows 7 after XP, then after switching to AHCI mode, the BIOS firmware sees the installed seven in IDE mode, and subsequently you will receive blue screen. In this case it will help reinstalling windows 7 in AHCI mode.

How to properly partition an SSD drive

Many PC users on the forums very often have the following question: how to properly partition an SSD drive into partitions. The answer to this question is quite simple - there is no fundamental difference between SSD and HDD when partitioning disks. Therefore, if you have experience with partitioning HDDs, then you can also partition SDDs. The only thing to consider is the volume of SSD and HDD, which is much higher for the latter. For example, the volume of the system disk must correspond to the size of the software installed on it, and the free space for its proper functioning.

Summing up

After reading this material, each of our readers will be able to see what the advantage of modern solid-state SSDs over hard HDDs is. Also in this material, our readers will find ways to solve problems related to SSD. It is also worth noting that solid state drives must be properly configured in the operating system. For these purposes, we have an article "How to set up an SSD under Windows 7, 8 and 10", which will help you properly set up an SSD.

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According to research by IHS marketers, the annual failure rate of SSD drives (1.5%) during the warranty period is significantly less than that of hard drives (5%). However, in case of problems, you can take appropriate measures.

Upgrading old SSDs

In SSD drives older than 5 years, the mechanism for cleaning memory from garbage (Garbage Collection) is still partially missing, which maintains the speed of data writing as the disk fills up. The speed of such SSD drives is constantly decreasing. However, it can be increased again by complete removal and reinstalling the operating system.

You should first create an image of the SSD disk using the Clonezilla tool (clonezilla.org) on ​​an external drive (available on the CHIP DVD) and once again save important data separately. The command to securely delete data can be called from the manufacturer's tool (however, only if the OS is not running on this SSD) or the Linux Parted Magic utility, released as a Live CD.

Using the UNetbootin tool (unetbootin.github.io) you can install Parted Magic on a USB flash drive, boot from it and run System Tools / Erase Disk. Select Internal Secure Erase. safe removal”) and the SSD on which you want to delete the data.

Then the computer is put into sleep mode and "wakes up" again to execute the Secure Erase program (included in Linux Parted Magic). After that, the data on the SSD is permanently deleted, and after restoring the system from the Clonezilla image, the drive is as fast as a new one.

Fault does not mean "failure"

If Windows no longer boots from the SSD, it may mean that write-only access is not working. If removed bad drive and connect it to a working computer (first a narrow SATA connector, then a wide power connector), then you can recover data from an SSD drive, at best even using a file explorer.

If the files are not visible, try a data recovery program such as Recuva (piriform.com/recuva). Otherwise, experts can mount the SSD on a (Live) Linux system in read-only mode.

Solving exotic problems

Unexplained SSD drive issues often occur due to incompatible hardware or UEFI interface settings. So, for example, some Lenovo laptops Thinkpad T540 repeatedly delete data on Samsung SSD 840 Evo drives.

The only solution is to update the SSD firmware. Another problem: computers with Intel technology Rapid Start after installing an SSD drive hangs at startup. The easiest solution is to disable the Rapid Start item in the UEFI settings.

With such single problems, it is necessary to check the relevance of the BIOS / UEFI of the computer, the firmware of the SSD disk and the chipset driver of the motherboard or computer. If these solutions do not help, contact the SSD manufacturer's support team.

Photo: manufacturing company

A solid state drive has the following advantages over a hard drive: high level performance and reliability, low power consumption, no noise and much more. Therefore, more and more users are choosing SSD as a system one. When you connect such a drive, you may find that it is not detected by the system or is not even displayed in the BIOS. It may look like there is no disk in "Explorer", Windows settings or in the BIOS boot selection list.

Problems with displaying the SSD in the system can occur for reasons such as the lack of a drive letter or initialization, the presence of hidden partitions, and the file system incompatible with Windows. At the same time, this may occur due to incorrect BIOS settings and physical damage to the disk itself or one of the connection elements between motherboard and ssd.

Reason 1: Disk not initialized

It often happens that a new disk is not initialized when connected to a computer and, as a result, it is not visible in the system. The solution is to run the procedure in manual mode according to the following algorithm.

1. Press at the same time Win+R and in the window that appears, enter compmgmt.msc . Then click "OK".



2. A window will open where you should click "Disk Management".



3. Click on desired drive right-click and select from the menu that appears "Initialize Disk".



4. Next, make sure that in the field "Disk 1" there is a checkmark, and set the marker in front of the item mentioning MBR or GPT. "Master Boot Record" compatible with all Windows versions, but if you plan to use only current releases of this OS, it is better to choose "Table with partition GUIDs".



5. After completing the procedure, you should create a new partition. To do this, click on the disk and select "Create Simple Volume".



6. Will open "New Volume Wizard", in which we click "Further".



7. Then you need to specify the size. You can leave the default value, which is maximum size disk, or select a lower value. After making the necessary changes, click "Further".



8. In the next window, we agree with the proposed volume letter and click "Further". If desired, you can assign another letter, the main thing is that it does not coincide with the existing one.



9. Next, you need to format. Leave the recommended values ​​in the fields "File system", "Volume Label" and in addition enable the option "Quick Format".



10. click "Ready".

As a result, the disk should appear in the system.

Reason 2: Drive letter missing

Sometimes an SSD does not have a letter and is therefore not displayed in "Explorer". In this case, you need to assign a letter to it.

After that, the specified storage device is recognized by the OS, you can perform standard operations with it.

Reason 3: Missing Partitions

If the disc you purchased is not new and has been used for a long time, it may also not be displayed in "My computer". The reason for this may be damage to the system file or the MBR table due to a failure, infection virus file, improper operation, etc. In this case, the SSD is displayed in "Disk Management", but its status is "Not Initialized". In this case, it is usually recommended to perform initialization, but due to the risk of data loss, it is still not worth it.

In addition, a situation is also possible in which the drive is displayed as one unallocated area. Creating a new volume, as is normally done, can also result in data loss. Here the solution may be to restore the partition. This requires certain knowledge and software, for example, MiniTool Partition Wizard, which has the appropriate option.

This should help solve the problem, however, in a situation where there is no necessary knowledge and the disk contains the necessary data, it is better to turn to professionals.

Reason 4: Hidden Section

Sometimes an SSD won't show up in Windows due to it having a hidden partition. This is possible if the user has hidden the volume using third party software to prevent the data from being accessed. The solution is to restore the partition using disk management software. The same MiniTool Partition Wizard copes well with this task.

After that, the hidden sections will appear in "Explorer".

Reason 5: Unsupported file system

If after following the steps above, the SSD still does not appear in the "Explorer", the disk's file system may be different from the FAT32 or NTFS that Windows works with. Typically, such a drive is displayed in the disk manager as an area "RAW". To fix the problem, follow the steps below.

Reason 6: Problems with BIOS and hardware

There are four main reasons why the BIOS does not detect the presence of an internal SSD.

SATA is disabled or in the wrong mode

Wrong BIOS settings

The BIOS will also not recognize the drive if there are incorrect settings. This is easy to check by the system date - if it does not correspond to the true one, this indicates a failure. To fix it, you need to reset and return to standard parameters according to the sequence of actions below.

Alternatively, you can remove the battery, which in our case is located next to the PCIe slots.

Faulty data cable

The BIOS will also not detect the SSD if the SATA cable is damaged. In this case, you need to check all connections between the motherboard and the SSD. It is advisable not to allow any bends or pinching of the cable when laying. All this can lead to damage to the wires inside the insulation, although externally the material may look normal. If there is any doubt about the condition of the cable, it is better to replace it. Seagate recommends using cables less than 1 meter long to connect SATA devices. Longer ones can sometimes fall out of the connectors, so be sure to check that they are firmly connected to the SATA ports.

Failed solid state drive

If, after carrying out the above procedures, the disk is still not displayed in the BIOS, most likely there is a factory defect or physical damage to the device. Here you need to contact a computer repair shop or an SSD supplier, after making sure that the warranty is available.

Conclusion

In this article, we examined the reasons for the absence of a solid state drive in the system or in the BIOS when it is connected. The source of such a problem can be either the condition of the disk or cable, or various software failures and incorrect settings. Before proceeding with the fix using one of the listed methods, it is recommended to check all connections between the SSD and the motherboard, try replacing the SATA cable.

Solid state drives (SSDs) are a relatively new and still quite expensive form of storage, so when deciding to purchase an SSD, you need to consider all the features of this technology in order to maximize the advantages of new drives and, if possible, minimize the impact of disadvantages.

Since SSDs are a fundamentally different type of memory, many of the usual methods and rules for working with drives are not applicable to them. One of the most serious problems is the performance degradation of the SSD as it fills up with data. It is expressed in a significant decrease in the write speed, reducing it to the values ​​of an average hard drive.

Why is this happening? To do this, let's recall how data storage is organized in modern systems. The evolution of hard drives has led to the fact that the operating system knows nothing about the physical structure of the disk, which is converted at the BIOS level into a logical structure with which the disk controller driver already interacts. In fact, all interaction between the OS and the drive ends at the file system level. Everything that is deeper remains a kind of black box for the OS. On the one hand, this is correct, as it provides backward compatibility and enables old operating systems to effectively use new drives. But in the case of using a fundamentally different data storage technology, this approach only added new problems.

A feature of the NAND flash memory used in SSD is that it can only be written to free blocks, if the block already contains data, then the data is read from it into the cache of the drive (or RAM) - clearing the block - replacing old data with new ones - record. It is easy to see that a busy block increases the number of write operations from one to four. In practice, high write speed is available as long as there are free blocks on the SSD, as the disk fills up with data, such blocks end and performance on write operations begins to drop significantly.

Now let's remember what we talked about a little earlier. The OS does not know which SSD blocks are free and which are not, so all disk operations are at the mercy of the file system, which has its own ideas about information storage methods. When deleting a file, modern file systems they don't rush to physically remove the file from disk, they just mark the corresponding blocks in the file location table as free. Really deleted data is present on the disk until it is overwritten with new data. When using mechanical hard drives, this approach is fully justified, since it allows you to avoid unnecessary calls to the mechanics of the disk (random access time is the main sore point of the HDD), at the same time, there is no difference between writing to a free sector and a sector containing data for mechanical disks.

Here we come to the main problem, when using an SSD, the system must interact with the disk at the level of its physical structure - blocks, this is the only way to take full advantage of these disks. But this is impossible without a fundamental change in the logic of operation of all levels of the storage system, which will make it incompatible with all previous technologies. Therefore, the developers went the other way, introducing special team TRIM, which notifies the drive that these blocks are no longer in use and can be cleared. This significantly improved the situation: the OS, having determined that it is dealing with an SSD, sends a TRIM command to the drive when deleting a file, and it, in turn, clears the indicated cells, making it possible to quickly write to them again. All that is required is TRIM support from the SSD and OC.

As for disks, the issue is closed for today, all current models support TRIM, and there are new firmware for previously released models. WITH operating systems not everything is so rosy, TRIM is currently supported by:

• Windows 7
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Linux with kernel 2.6.33 and higher
• FreeBSD 8.1, limited support only for low-level formatting, full support is expected in FreeBSD 9.

Today, our theoretical digression turned out to be unexpectedly extensive, it's time to check how things are in practice. After this February we decided to subject one of the discs OCZ Agility 2 lengthy test. We installed it as an additional disk in the server under Windows control Server 2003 and placed 1C:Enterprise 7.7 bases on it with a total load of 30 users. We shot this CD earlier this week. All subsequent operations were performed on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit.

Two parameters were of primary interest to us: the degree of wear of the SSD and the level of performance after prolonged use of the system without TRIM support. Since an SSD has a finite number of write cycles, many people have legitimate concerns about the suitability of an SSD for highly loaded disk subsystems. This indicator can be found in S.M.A.R.T. storage tables. To do this, we used the handy CrystalDiskInfo utility:

As you can see, you don’t have to worry about the resource, after working for 4 months in the active use mode, the disk still has this value at the level of 100% and, as practice shows, the disk will be replaced as obsolete before it runs out of its resource.

Now let's move on to performance, in our February tests, the drive showed the following results:

Let's see what it shows now:

The result of working without TRIM is obvious: the performance of write operations has decreased by 15-40%, which is quite significant. The attentive reader will notice that we tested in an OS that supports TRIM, but the performance remained low. That's right, the OS does not know which blocks are free and which are not, so the presence of TRIM will only work for newly deleted data.

However, in practice, things are much worse. Neither quick, nor full format, nor filling the disk with zeros using special utilities did not lead to the desired result:

Yes, there is something to despair of, the bright future of SSD ceases to seem so bright and makes you think about the right investment. Today, the only really working way to return the SSD to its former performance is to use proprietary utilities, but this is associated with the complete destruction of data on the disk. We have used the utility OCZ Toolbox, namely the function Secure Erase.

After using this function, you need to restart the PC and re-create the partition on the SSD (the current one will be automatically deleted), formatting the new partition, despite the "Quick Format" checkbox, will take quite a while. long time, as a result, the SSD will be completely cleaned. Let's check the performance:

Finally! Performance returned to baseline.

Conclusions:

What can be said about this? There is no practical point in purchasing an SSD for systems that do not support TRIM, it is better to spend this money on creating a productive RAID array from SATA/SAS disks. When using used SSDs, be sure to clean up the disk with a proprietary utility and do not forget to check the remaining disk life. For the rest, it remains to wish you prudence and use an SSD only in cases where it really makes sense.