How do you test SSD for errors?

[c627627]

Mechanical drives have manufacturer utilities to do long extended test scans of mechanical drives, are there SSD equivalents of those?

OCZ Agility 60GB SSD


_____________________
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ASUS ATI Radeon HD 5450 [used for HDMI HD sound only]
OCZ Agility 60GB SSD
Asus Xonar DX sound card
Antec nine hundred case, two front 120mm fans, one back 120mm Fan, one top 200mm fan
Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750W

 

[Mr Alpha]

I suppose it depends on the SSD, but at least my Intel SSD has equivalents to the short and long tests that hard drives have.

 

[deathman20]

Yeah not sure if there is one actually. Think if it fails on a cell it will just block it and replace it with one in reserve.

 

[c627627]

Well I do a regular Windows scan on my OCZ Agility 60GB SSD and Windows is finding and fixing errors.

Is there a manufacturer extended test for the OCZ Agility line?

 

[Mr Alpha]

You could try with some SMART tool and see if it can perform the long test.

 

[c627627]

There has to be a standard way to do this, how do people tell if their SSD is failing?

One of the reasons it exists for mechanical drives is they want you to run it to see if it really needs to be RMA'd. OCZ has no tool?

 

[EarthDog]

OCZ has the OCZ Tool Box that shows errors with their drives... But I dont think it 'tests' it per say so much as it reads that information off the drive. Personally, not knowing much at all on the subject, I would stay away from windows tools checking drives for errors. Not sure if that is OK for SSD's. But again know little on that side.

 

[c627627]

I would stay away from windows tools checking drives for errors. Not sure if that is OK for SSD's.

Since this is a serious warning, do you have anything to back this up?


"OCZ Toolbox is designed to enable viewing of SMART attributes/Identify Data, secure erase, and firmware updates for select enterprise SSDs."

Doesn't sound like it tests SSDs.

 

[RGone]

Ocz forum. I would give shout over there since they are always in the midst of their SSD stuff.

 

[EarthDog]

Since this is a serious warning, do you have anything to back this up?


"OCZ Toolbox is designed to enable viewing of SMART attributes/Identify Data, secure erase, and firmware updates for select enterprise SSDs."

Doesn't sound like it tests SSDs.

There was a disclaimer in the sentence previous to that.. Its based off nothing outside of a hunch (chinkees!)

Right, I also said it didnt test anything (are you reading my entire post? ). It does give the SMART data though like bad cells, use, life left, etc.

 

[c627627]

I refused to read that EarthDog knows not much, EarthDog knows all.


SMART data would be useful if it includes bad cells, use, life left.

 

[c627627]

But there is nothing like that listed for my OCZ Agility 60GB SSD:


http://www.ocztechnology.com/ssd_tools/OCZ_Vertex,_Agility,_Vertex_Turbo,_Vertex_EX,_Solid_2/

 

[EarthDog]

Sorry, ED knows nothing it seems. Maybe OCZ Toolbox isnt for your drive? Try DL it and see if it reads the drive and reports back. Couldnt hurt?

Mr. Alpha, save meh!

 

[c627627]

It's only available if you click on other drive's downloads, not my OCZ Agility 60GB SSD. Really, I'm curious what other people do, this question must have come up at some point with them?

 

[clash]

From what i've read, you don't use any of those scanning programs at all.. Trim does it's thing and you don't fool with it. But then, mine is dead so wadda i know.

 

[c627627]

Hm. I have a Win7/WinXP dual on this SSD and have found myself using WinXP 90% of the time now.

Obviusly there's TRIM on Win7 but not on WinXP.


It appears you can boot into Win7 and from Win7 run this for the WinXP partition:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...Here-s-a-tool-to-force-TRIM-your-entire-drive

 

[Mr Alpha]

There has to be a standard way to do this, how do people tell if their SSD is failing?

Usually they way SSDs fail it is pretty obvious that the SSD has failed since it is bricked.

Also, since the failure is usually of the controller and/or firmware any test you run on the drive are going to be unreliable. So the usefulness of the tests are limited.

That said, there are standard ways of doing this, for both hard drives and SSDs. When you test a hard drive, the test is not on utility you download, but is part of the SMART functionality of the drive. You just need the utility to interface with the drive. But since these interfaces are quite standard other sophisticated SMART utilities are run those test as well, on both hard drives and SSDs.

That is what I was getting at earlier. Provided that the test have been implemented in your Agility drive, a SMART tool should be able to run them. I've verified this does work on my Intel SSD.

So you should be able to run those test, assuming they are implemented, with something like GSmartControl.

 

[Ivy]

Its extremely difficult to test a SSD. I found most useful to stress the SSD by doing multiple stream downloads at the same time over a entire day. A weak controller or firmware usualy will bust up (lock or freeze) at that point. Its pretty reliable when being done like that. A drive have to handle multiple downloads without issues, else its NOT stable and not healthy.

In term failure is harder than that, its usualy bricked... so no need to test at all.

SMART says nothing. Its usualy focussed on the NAND but NAND is rarely the issue.

 

[c627627]

ForceTrim
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...Here-s-a-tool-to-force-TRIM-your-entire-drive


This program allows you to force-TRIM an entire drive.

This tool is not necessary for Windows 7 / Vista, however, since there is no TRIM under Windows XP, that's when this tool can come in handy. It still has to be run from Windows 7 / Vista - it cannot be run under Windows XP.

So, on multi-boot systems, you can boot into Windows 7 / Vista and select Windows XP partition in ForceTrim.exe's menu -- then force-TRIM it.



Run with Administrator permission settings.
Double click on ForceTrim.exe to start the program.

Select the correct drive first before clicking on TRIM!
It should only take a few seconds to execute.


In case of any problems, simply delete the directory \_TRIM_ with all its contents.
(Delete directly, do not delete to the Recycle Bin.)


Every time you restore a Windows XP partition, reboot into Windows 7 / Vista and run this tool on just restored Windows XP partition.

 

[crashnburn]

Will this run on a non OCZ SSD? e.g. Crucial m4

ForceTrim
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...Here-s-a-tool-to-force-TRIM-your-entire-drive


This program allows you to force-TRIM an entire drive.

This tool is not necessary for Windows 7 / Vista, however, since there is no TRIM under Windows XP, that's when this tool can come in handy. It still has to be run from Windows 7 / Vista - it cannot be run under Windows XP.

So, on multi-boot systems, you can boot into Windows 7 / Vista and select Windows XP partition in ForceTrim.exe's menu -- then force-TRIM it.



Run with Administrator permission settings.
Double click on ForceTrim.exe to start the program.

Select the correct drive first before clicking on TRIM!
It should only take a few seconds to execute.


In case of any problems, simply delete the directory \_TRIM_ with all its contents.
(Delete directly, do not delete to the Recycle Bin.)


Every time you restore a Windows XP partition, reboot into Windows 7 / Vista and run this tool on just restored Windows XP partition.