
Corsair Neutron Series GTX SSD Firmware Testing Results
Veröffentlicht am 05/14/2013VonMike Clements
Force Series&trade, 3 Notebook Upgrade KitGet the amazing solid-state storage performance of the Force Series™ 3 SSD in a convenient kit that has everything you need to swap out your notebook&rsquo,s mechanical hard drive.
In addition to being great productivity tools, notebook PCs do two things well — take abuse, and run down their batteries. A solid-state drive can give you the confidence that your data is safe if your computer takes a spill, and since they have no moving parts, their power consumption is lower than typical hard drives. You'll go longer without recharging.
If you want to upgrade your laptop PC's performance and reliability with minimal hassle, the Force Series 3 Notebook Upgrade Kit is for you.
The kit's SSD uses the universal SATA interface and is compatible with the vast majority of notebooks that have removable hard drives. This includes not only notebooks designed to work with drives that are 9mm in height, but also the newer, slimmer notebooks that require the new 7mm standard.
The included USB-to-SATA cable connects to your notebook's USB 2 or USB 3 port. Insert the included disc into your optical drive, run the software (it's compatible with both Windows and Mac OS X), and it will copy the entire contents of your hard drive to your new SSD. You won't need to reinstall your operating system or applications.
Remove your old hard drive and snap in the Force Series 3 SSD and restart. On most notebooks, the only tool you'll need is a screwdriver. You're done!
You'll be amazed at the improvement over traditional hard drive access times the first time you restart your notebook, and for virtually everything you do with it. System startup, application load times, data transfers, and even shutdown times are all faster.
Add up all the time you spend all day waiting for your computer — starting up, launching applications, saving large files and documents — and it can be significant. Using a PC can be a lot more enjoyable when it's not always making you wait.
Much has been written about overprovisioning and its implementation on SSDs. In short, overprovisioning, or OP, is a portion of storage space on an SSD that is reserved for use only by the SSD controller. The three most common uses for this space are wear leveling, the replacement of bad blocks, and read-modify-writes. Overprovisioning serves to help increase both the longevity and performance of SSDs and it is a very common practice among SSD manufacturers.
However, some users would like to be able to buy their SSDs without the built in overprovisioning and make the decision to OP, or not to OP for themselves. They prefer the flexibility of deciding for themselves when to OP and how much space to use based on their specific needs. Corsair has announced and is now offering SSDs without this overprovisioned space.
Corsair SSDs with overprovisioning space typically have used 7% of the total SSD storage capacity. This means that users now have a choice with these new drives to use them with or without overprovisioning. Users can manually overprovision the drives if they wish or, they can leave them at their full capacity with no overprovisioning and enjoy the extra space.
For users of 256GB SSDs, this means they can have an extra 16GB of storage capacity on their drive over the equivalent 240GB overprovisioned SSD. Of course, RAID users will benefit even more as the number of drives is increased.
In reading some of that aforementioned information about overprovisioning, I've found a great deal of very useful information over at Anandtech. Here's a diagram from one of Anand's SSD articles highlighting how overprovisioning works.
Our initial offerings in the non-OP drive arena are in the Force Series GS and the Neutron Series with more to come. For more information on our SSD lineup, please visit our Corsair website SSD page.
To OP, or not to OP. That is the question. Whether tis nobler to the PC performance...
Corsair proudly brings you the Corsair SSD Toolbox. This helpful utility provides users with several powerful and useful tools for use with Corsair SSDs. Let's take a look. Download the Corsair SSD Toolbox HERE.
The Corsair SSD Toolbox will run on:
We have provided a detailed help file which can be accessed by clicking on the question mark symbol shown here circled in red on the upper left side of the screen.
After you select firmware update the tool will scan your drive and check for firmware updates. If there is an update available, the dialogue will prompt you to update the firmware or cancel the operation.
Note: Firmware updates can only be executed when the SSD controller is in AHCI mode. Firmware updating via this toolbox is enabled for The Corsair Series Force 3, Force Series GT, Force Series GS, Neutron Series, and Neutron Series GTX SSDs. Earlier and EOL Corsair drives with firmware updates can be updated manually using the tools supplied on our website.
Note: Corsair recommends that users update their OS drive as attached storage when possible. Some systems will require the SSD to be disconnected briefly before the new firmware version will appear in the Drive Information window.
Additional functions can be activated with the column of buttons down the left side of the toolbox. Corsair is now producing SSDs that do not have factory overprovisioning. For users that desire to manually overprovision their drives, we have provided a function for this. Overprovisioning your drive can contribute to maintaining better performance and adding longevity to your SSD.