Crucial 128GB SSD Solid State Hard Drive

A Closer Look:

One of the first things you notice when looking at this drive, is that the label is on the opposite side. This is probably due to the fact that on many laptops the bottom of the drive is visible while installing it. This was a neat idea on their part.

Like I said earlier, this drive has an Indilinx Barefoot storage controller. It is the same kind that appear in pretty much all of the current performance geared SSD’s (sans Intel, they’re doing their own thing). The only thing that sets these drives apart from each other is their price point and minor hardware tweaks (using different NAND flash chips that may or may not be faster). The firmware can make or break a drive when it comes to performance. One great feature that this drive has, is that the firmware is upgradable. This means when Windows 7 is released the drive will have full support for the TRIM feature after a firmware upgrade from version 1571 that comes with it. From reading different accounts across the internet, it seems that the M225 is compatible with the tool that OCZ released (wiper.exe). The program basically accomplishes the same thing that the TRIM feature does in Windows 7, only for Windows XP and Vista. The link for the tool is here, use it at your own risk. There also seems to be an incompatibility between the current Intel Storage Matrix drivers not performing proper ATA pass through, which allows the drive to receive the TRIM function. Intel is working on the problem and it should be fixed in their next driver update. (UPDATE) I can report that the wiper.exe tool does work for this drive, as I was able to successfully use it on my test rig.