Based on the size of SSD drives, they can be divided into two unequal groups: 2.5" and 3.5". 3.5-inch ones are practically never found in stores (only hybrid solutions). You can additionally purchase a special container for installation in the case of the computer system unit, or simply place it carefully inside and secure it with 2-sided tape wherever you want: the SSD does not heat up, does not vibrate, and the working position does not matter for it. You will also need a SATA interface cable to connect the device to the motherboard. To power an SSD drive, a standard flat connector on the power supply (SATA Power Connector) is usually used. Description of power supply connectors.
A method for transferring an operating system (OS) from an old HDD to a new one is described. The link to the article also discusses our option: transferring the OS from an IDE or SATA drive to an SSD drive using the special program Paragon Drive Copy 11 Professional and the included Paragon Migrate OS to SSD 2.0 (there is a link to the program), it is necessary, since most backup utilities save the clone in accordance with the old sector logic (the next paragraph discusses preparing an SSD drive for OS transfer in an alternative way if you do not want to use Paragon Drive Copy 11). After transferring the system to the SSD, you will only need to change the boot sequence in the BIOS. We set the SSD as the second device, and the CD/DVD as the first. After this, the operating system should boot. If you plan to install the operating system from scratch, then you will not need to transfer the OS.
Preparing the SSD for OS migration (alternative method)
Acronis Disk Director - this program will help you perform any hard disk operations described below. (Attention! A small feature of this program is that you must click the “perform operation” button after changing the disk settings [marked with a finishing flag]).
First, you need to initialize the SSD to create the MBR (Master Boot Record). You can do this using the above program. Next, you need to partition the SSD disk and create an active partition on it. In Windows 7, the active boot partition can be as small as 100 MB. So we'll use the section you just created. In the next step, you will need to reduce the original partition size to 100 MB (and not a byte less). This will be quite difficult to do using Disk Management, so I again recommend Acronis Disk Director 11.
In the free space of the hard drive, you need to create a partition C on which the operating system will be located. This partition should not be active and should not be the primary partition (because the previously created 100 MB partition already includes the operating system bootloader). After this, create drive C from the remaining disk space. It can be a simple logical partition. Also, your old HDD may have more than one partition, but several, which imposes certain restrictions due to inconsistencies in free disk space. Some information, including the factory reset section, can simply be burned to DVD.
After all the preparatory procedures are completed, you can proceed directly to copying the operating system. Next we will work with the hard disk image (system image). There are many imaging programs available (choose ) or you can use the standard Windows 7 tools (pretty easy, but a little more time consuming). Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Backup and Restore - Create a system image (in the left column).
Now you need to copy the system image to an external hard drive (you will probably have to assign a drive letter to the 100MB partition so that the program can identify it), and then to the SSD drive (using a bootable disk image program). Restore this way, section by section. Thus, you will have to perform recovery for the 100 MB partition and drive C.
Attention! Most free imaging programs do not know how to reduce the size of the source partition in order to rewrite it to the allocated space on an SSD, which has a very limited data capacity, even if the amount of recorded data corresponds to the allocated space. In this case, drive C on the HDD must be reduced to the appropriate size. For this work, I again recommend Acronis Disk Director, since it is more difficult to achieve the same effect using only seven.
The amount of data on your HDD on drive C should not exceed the capacity of the created drive C on the SSD. If the source partition contains a lot of user data, then you can simply try to move it to another partition of the hard drive or even write it to optical drives. When the system is written to the SSD, right-click on the user folders on the disk and include them in the appropriate library. With this approach, you won't be required to copy your folders later.
Now change the boot sequence in the BIOS (Boot section). We set the SSD as the second device, and the CD/DVD as the first, or vice versa. After this, the operating system should boot.
Attention! Before booting the operating system from the SSD, it is recommended to set the BIOS to AHCI mode. It is better to do this before you change the boot sequence of devices, and then set the appropriate settings in Windows 7.
Defragmenting partitions on SSDs makes no sense and, moreover, is very harmful. In the case of a laptop, go to Services, find Disk Defragmentation in the list, right-click on the entry, and the Properties window will open. Just disable this service.
In the case of a desktop computer, you can disable defragmentation only for the SSD drive, so that the HDDs running in the system do not lose performance.
While the defragmentation service is disabled, you will not be able to resize the partition. This process requires the operation of this service.
Hibernation Mode – Most of us do not use hibernation mode but prefer standby mode. However, the file still takes up precious space on your SSD, and its size depends on the amount of RAM in your computer. To get rid of this misunderstanding, enter the following at the command prompt:
powercfg –h off
If you need to return everything to its original state, then enter:
powercfg - h on
Copying user folders to your hard drive
This process is very simple. Create a partition on the HDD. Create appropriate folders on it (Documents, Music, Photos, and so on). The name can be anything, the system will rename them anyway.
Open Explorer and right-click on, for example, the My Documents folder on the left. Go to properties and click on the Location tab. Click Move and select the folder on the HDD in which you would like to store your documents.
Attention! You need to select a folder directly on the partition. You cannot select the root directory, otherwise there will be confusion.
Frequently asked questions about solid state drives
Before we answer any questions, we'd like to remind you that we are convinced that SSD storage for laptops and desktops (as well as for enterprise servers) has a bright future ahead of it. SSDs are truly capable of delivering high performance, improved system responsiveness, increased battery life, high reliability, faster boot times, and reduced vibration and noise. As prices come down and storage quality improves, we believe more and more computers will be sold with SSDs instead of traditional HDDs. With this in mind, we have focused the necessary engineering efforts to ensure that users can fully experience the benefits of working with a new type of storage device.
Q: Will Windows 7 support tweaking?
Oh yeah. This has already been discussed above.
Q: Will defragmentation be disabled by default for SSDs?
Oh yeah. Automatically running the defragmentation task will not include partitions created on the SSD or identifying themselves as such. In addition, if the system partition shows random read performance higher than 8 MB/s, it will also be excluded from the list for defragmentation. Performance levels were determined through internal testing.
The threshold performance level test was added to the final version due to the fact that only a few of the SSDs on the market identify themselves as SSDs in the system. 8 Mb/s is quite modest. SSD performance ranges from 11 to 130 MB/s. We tested 182 HDDs, and only 6 of them exceeded the 2 MB/s bar in the random read test. The results of the remaining 176 lie between 0.8 and 1.6 Mb/s.
Q: Will Superfetch be disabled for SSDs?
A: Yes, for most computers with SSD. If the drive is an SSD, and if it shows adequate random write/overwrite results, then Superfetch, Prefetch for loading and running applications, ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive will be disabled.
Initially, these features were supposed to be disabled for all SSDs, but we found that this resulted in poor performance on some systems. While investigating the possible causes of this situation, we found that some early SSD models have serious problems with random writes, ultimately leading to the fact that reading from the disk stops altogether and for a long period of time. With Superfetch and Prefetch enabled, performance in everyday use again improved noticeably.
A: Compressing files helps save disk space, but requires additional processor power for compression and decompression, which leads to increased power consumption on laptops. Strictly speaking, for folders and files that are used very rarely, compression can serve as a good tool for saving expensive SSD space - if the free space is really so necessary.
However, we do not recommend using compression in cases where folders and files are constantly in use. Your Documents folders and the files in them are not a problem, but temporary Internet folders and mail directories should not be compressed, since they are constantly writing and rewriting a large number of files in batch mode.
Q: Does the Windows Search Indexer work differently on an SSD?
Q: Is Bitlocker encryption optimized to work with SSDs?
A: Yes, on NTFS. When Bitlocker is first configured for a particular partition, it is read in its entirety, encrypted, and written back. As soon as this happens, the file system will issue a command to perform an adjustment that optimizes the operation of the drive.
We encourage all users concerned about the safety and protection of their data to use Bitlocker on their drives, including SSDs.
Q: Does Media Center do anything special when configured on an SSD?
Oh no. Although SSDs have advantages over traditional HDDs, the price per 1 GB for SSDs is still significantly higher than for conventional drives. For most users, an HDD optimized for multimedia content is still the best option, since such content requires a significant recording and playback load that has sequential read/write characteristics.
Q: Does write caching make sense for SSDs and how does Windows 7 help support write caching if the SSD supports it?
A: Some manufacturers install RAM chips on their devices not only to operate controllers; they should, as with traditional disks, cache reads and, if possible, writes. For drives that cache writes in fast, non-volatile memory, Windows 7 assumes that the presence of overwrite and write-queue commands will be no less effective than for HDDs. Additionally, Windows 7 assumes that user settings that disable caching will be treated by the SSD as if it were a regular drive.
Q: Does it make sense to configure RAID for an SSD?
Oh yeah. The reliability and performance gained by configuring RAID on traditional drives is maintained when using an SSD.
Q: Do I need to place the page file on the SSD?
Oh yeah. The main operations with the paging file are random writing of small volumes or sequential writing of large amounts of data. Both types of operations work fine on an SSD.
By analyzing telemetry focused on estimating writes and reads for the pagefile, we found that:
reading from Pagefile.sys takes precedence over writing to pagefile.sys in a 40:1 ratio,
The read blocks for Pagefile.sys are typically quite small, with 67% of them being less than or equal to 4 KB and 88% being less than 16 KB.
The write blocks in Pagefile.sys are quite large, 62% of them are greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% are almost exactly 1 MB.
Generally speaking, the typical page file usage patterns and SSD performance characteristics fit together very well, and it is the file that is highly recommended to be placed on the SSD.
Q: Are there any restrictions for using hibernation mode with an SSD?
A: No, hiberfile.sys is written and read sequentially in large blocks, and can be located on either an SSD or HDD.
Q: What changes have been made to the Windows Experience Index to correctly reflect SSD performance metrics?
A: In Windows 7, these are new criteria for evaluating random writes, overwrites, and reads. The best samples can receive an index from 6.5 to 7.9. To qualify for this range, drives must have outstanding performance for the specified types of operations and be able to withstand heavy loads of these types.
During the Windows 7 beta testing, there were cases where the index varied from 1.9 to 2.9, or as if the drive (SSD or HDD) was not performing as expected at all when running a performance benchmark. We received a lot of feedback on this issue, most objecting to such low ratings. As a result, we have simply banned SSDs with potential performance issues from competing for the 6.0+ and 7.0+ tier ratings that were recently added. SSDs that aren't among the favorites in this type of race will end up with indexes that are roughly the same as they would have been in Windows Vista, without benefiting much from the random write performance gains in Windows 7.
Michael Fortin
program manager of the Fundamentals team
In this article we will think about what can be made from a non-working hard drive and a couple of flash drives and memory cards lying around? You probably guessed that you should make your own SSD drive, and also with the ability to connect externally.
To do this, you need to remove all the insides of the old hard drive and install several flash drives into it along with a USB hub. You can see the best way to do this in the attached video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmHBLqYzimE
As you can see, making an external SSD is quite easy and any modder with a minimum set of tools can handle it. Of course, a homemade solid state drive (SSD) will be inferior in speed to commercial solutions due to the limitation of the USB interface. But the whole point is that our SSd propeller will be assembled from unnecessary parts, instead of just throwing them away. So let's save the environment by modding!
How to make your own SSD from CompactFlash cards
The idea of an adapter that connects CompactFlash cards to the SATA interface is not new. We draw your attention to a device manufactured by Addonics Technologies, with which you can turn one or two CompactFlash cards into a solid-state drive that connects to a standard interface.
Century engineers went further - their development allows you to connect three CompactFlash cards to the SATA port at once (as you can see in the picture, two of them are on one side of the adapter board). Of course, you can limit yourself to two or even one card. The total memory capacity can range from 2 GB to 2 TB. The device supports RAID 0 and RAID 5 configurations. The device complies with the SATA 1.0 specification (1.5 Gbit/s), supports exchange modes with IDE PIO Mode 0-6, Multiword DMA Mode 0-4 and Ultra DMA Mode 1-6 cards. The price of the product is approximately $200. Pre-orders are currently being accepted.
DIY SSD drive on SDHC cards
For now, solid-state drives based on flash memory integrated circuits are still too expensive to become a full-fledged alternative to traditional mobile, and not only mobile, hard drives. However, none of the users would refuse the advantages of solid-state drives - low noise level during operation, low power consumption, especially since this possibility is already present. The fact is that the Sharkoon company presents the Flexi-Drive S2S device, which is, in fact, an adapter for connecting up to six SDHC memory cards to a mobile computer.
The media are installed in special connectors on a printed circuit board, which in turn is installed in a metal case of a 2.5-inch form factor. To connect directly to a personal computer, the SATA interface is used.
Using Sharkoon Flexi-Drive S2S, the user can currently organize a drive with a capacity of up to 192 GB, while independently choosing memory cards with suitable characteristics for it: cost, speed, etc. Preliminary testing has shown that the performance of such a flash drive when used Class 6 cards are at the following level: 140 MB/s when reading data and up to 115 MB/s when writing information.
Repair of flash drives at the client's site
Prepared equipment and software for field data recovery work. This service is now quite in demand. Mainly for privacy reasons. People want to be sure that media with sensitive (intimate, secret, worth a lot of dollars - underline as appropriate) data does not physically leave the office or apartment and remains at the complete disposal of the owner.
The client is always right, and I am ready to perform repairs in front of him and on his computer. I don’t specifically bring a laptop so as not to plant a seed of doubt. Although this makes the work much more difficult. After all, the platform on which you have to work can be anything - from the ancient Windows 98 to Windows 7 or one of the representatives of the Linux family.
Of course, you can’t do without a programmer, a hair dryer and soldering accessories. The same with a multimeter, a set of running parts and laces. Everything is of high quality to ensure the result. There are the necessary optics (several magnifying glasses plus a pocket 40x microscope) and light, and technical fluids, where would we be without them - the contacts have to be cleaned regularly.
One of the first trips was to the then new product - a flash drive with a built-in fingerprint scanner. The client thought that this would give him impenetrable protection. Alas, the built-in utility for checking “fingers” froze after a month, burying two gigabytes of data. I remember fiddling with this for a long time
But the software and documentation are most important, because their selection is very specific. There are technological utilities from various manufacturers, in many versions totaling over 400, and a datasheet for the main controllers, and a database of memory chips, and a description of previous attempts (materialized experience, so to speak), and various auxiliary programs. A total of eight gigabytes, just enough for a decent flash drive or two DVDs. This entire set, plus the ability to use it, is the property of a repairman.
⇡ Flash drives are flying...
Every week a Transcend JetFlash V60 with a capacity of 16 GB is brought in for repair. This model is quite popular due to its compactness and low price, but its reliability leaves much to be desired. The batch was unsuccessful, or something, but after three or four months of operation, the flash drives are closed for writing - it is impossible to either create or edit the file, formatting also does not work.
This usually happens due to memory defects: if they grow, the controller blocks the write to prevent further damage (due to its design, flash memory is damaged mainly when writing). Low-level formatting restores functionality, however, at the cost of reducing the usable capacity by 200-600 KB. Several defective blocks are excluded from addressing.
Moral: when looking for a flash drive, look for reviews on the Internet. It happens that two neighboring models in a line differ noticeably in reliability. There is no need to dig into the reasons, just take a less capricious option, even if you don’t like it.
⇡ How important it is to be friends with your mother
They brought a computer and an 8 GB Kingston flash drive with an interesting problem - this flash drive works on other computers, but it doesn’t want to be friends with one of them. Reading goes fine, but as soon as you try to write something down, the writing speed drops almost to zero, the flash drive freezes, and then disappears from the list of devices. With other drives everything is fine. Motherboard Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3.
It seems that the timing diagrams of the Kingston controller and the southbridge do not match.
What to do? You can switch the USB host to 1.1 mode through the BIOS, but then the speed will not suit anyone. It is more profitable to carry out low-level formatting of a flash drive, increasing the access time to cells from 50 to 66 ns. After this operation, performance dropped, but only slightly, and the drive became noticeably more stable.
⇡ Expensive complications
The client brought an expensive Sony Vaio Z laptop. On the phone, he muttered inaudibly about a lost disk and categorically did not want to let go of his computer (he is the director of a raw materials company, and such people, as well as lawyers, are painfully suspicious). On site, it turned out that the device contains a 120 GB SSD, and it cannot be removed: the mounting screws are sealed with warranty stickers, and the warranty is still valid (the laptop was purchased six months ago). Here's an ambush from Aunt Sonya. And I already prepared the SATA fittings for connection to the stand...
I had to launch the LiveCD, and of the three options I had, only one worked, LamygoBoot - that’s what new hardware means. The SSD turned out to be somewhat outdated and did not give SMART any value. There are already dips in the speed graph, which means the wear of the flash memory is progressing. The proven R-Studio recovery program worked with an SSD only slightly less than with a traditional disk of the same capacity (about an hour and a half).
SSD with two interfaces - USB 2.0 and SATA II. Can be used both as an internal and external device (the latter is especially useful for laptops)
I extracted a huge number of files and recorded them on an external drive. The main problem is the 32 GB SDHC card inserted into the built-in card reader. The director drove her head and shoulders, recording 52,000 (!) working and archival files over several years. The total volume recorded is 24 GB. Yes, not everyone can do this. Moreover, the main files are neatly designed Excel tables, with dynamic graphics and much more.
The owner firmly believed that the card would not fail, despite the fact that he did not remove it from the slot (it is important to him that the edge does not stick out, and in case of force majeure it is easy to hide, I was embarrassed to ask where). I didn’t make backup copies - I didn’t know what was needed, and my system administrator didn’t insist ( attention, attention, professional incompetence has been detected!).
In the end, the card (a mediocre model from Transcend), as expected, failed. As always - at the most inopportune moment. Now there is no access to the data, you will need to take a physical dump and assemble the file system. The work is painstaking, something like putting together a mosaic of eight million pieces.
Unsoldering the memory chip from the SD card. The peculiarity of these drives is that the board is as thick as a sheet of paper; you must be extremely careful when working
Moral of the story: Don't keep all your years' worth of work on one weak card. Well, it is not intended for this, its life program is to take photographs during serial shooting on a SLR camera, then transfer all the content to a computer and format it with ease. All! Therefore, even if you wake up at night from nightmares in the style of “OBEP, let’s start a mask show!”, you still need to make backup copies.
⇡ Weak link
They brought another flash drive with the missing “most necessary” file. If you constantly edit the same file day after day, sooner or later it will “go bad.” It is enough for the power supply to become weak (for example, from connecting other USB devices) or for the controller to fail.
When a certain area is repeatedly rewritten, the wear of the involved cells increases, and to level it out, a procedure for rebuilding the translator is launched, which sometimes takes a noticeable amount of time (this does not appear externally at all - the activity LED does not light up). At this point, the data is very vulnerable. The controller firmware does not provide any protection mechanisms, unlike hard drives and even SSDs.
In this case, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t restore the xls file. The owner will have to type it again using paper documents. He will probably spend more than a day instead of ten seconds creating a backup copy.
⇡ How not to handle memory cards
The miniSD card was placed in the camera through an adapter; it was filled with frames while on vacation, and upon returning it was inserted into the card reader for reading. It looks like it was inserted incorrectly and the card is stuck. They pulled her out using force and sharp nail clippers.
This did not end well: the card case fell apart (miniSD has a very thin one), and the internal tracks on the board, which were as thick as a sheet of paper, were torn. After this, there was nothing left to do but give the fragments of the card to a specialist to extract the data.
The owner found some kind of “jack-of-all-trades”. After two weeks of suffering, he couldn’t find anything better than to unsolder the memory chip from the card and put it on the board of the first flash drive he came across. Of course, with a completely different controller, this did not help, and, as it turned out later, it did a lot of harm. They brought me the chip itself on someone else’s flash drive and half the fragments of the card body with the controller completely demolished. And this is important: by marking the latter, the file system assembly algorithm is determined.
Well, I considered the dump, I tried 4 assembly options. No FAT tables were found in all of them, although some JPEGs were visible. It turned out that someone else's controller simply reset the place where the FAT was located. If questionable experiments had not been carried out, all the images would have been restored. And so we managed to save less than half, and even twenty percent in varying degrees of cutting.
Moral: rarely move cards from the camera (player, navigator, etc.) to the card reader and back. It is safer to connect the gadget itself to the PC. Not only are mechanical failures possible, cards are often damaged by static, especially formats with open contacts are prone to this. Adapters (microSD-miniSD-SD) only complicate matters, adding another point of failure.
⇡ Non-standard form factor as a risk factor
We brought a PQI Card Drive U510 flash drive for repair. This is a flat aluminum plate in the format of a business card, from which a USB connector comes out on a flexible cable, and there is also an activity indicator on it. It was this cable that failed: a couple of tracks were frayed. It is not easy to restore a 7 mm wide cable; it is even more difficult to ensure its long life after repair. But there is nothing to replace it with - the part is non-standard. In general, the expensive drive was thrown away. To get the necessary data (as usual, there is an archive on a flash drive for two years without backups), I unsoldered the memory chips and counted the dumps. The design added problems here too: the board is glued with its entire surface to the aluminum cover. This is good for work (the heat dissipation is ideal), but bad for repairs - desoldering the chips is difficult. I had to take a powerful industrial hair dryer and heat it twice as long as usual, which significantly increases the risk of data damage. Indeed, there were a lot of errors on one of the two chips (however, memory is now completely error-free). Some files were not completely restored, but the client was satisfied.
The flash drive is in disassembled condition. A broken cable is visible
Only such a hefty hairdryer was able to unsolder the chips
Moral: keep it simple. Flash drives with an elaborate design are almost always less reliable and repairable than standard “whistles” and “sticks”. If the shaped cap gets lost or some part gets jammed (for example, a retractable connector), it’s not so bad. But in this case, the non-standard form factor caused the destruction of the drive and led to significant losses for the client (time, data, money). In the end, I still bought a regular flash drive. Leave the exotic ones for gifts (especially for enemies), and work with standard media, and of reasonable capacity. I have already explained why excess capacity is harmful. Greed—it destroys many people.
⇡ Typical faults
All flash drives (USB drives, memory cards and SSDs) are designed the same way, and their faults are similar. Let's look at the main causes of failure and measures to restore data in each case.
- Damage to the translator
Any modern flash drive has a translation system that shuffles data blocks in memory. Attached to each block is a translation table and a number of markers (in particular, a counter for the number of records in the block); they are updated simultaneously with the data being written. The serviceability of these service fields is critical for user access to data.And here we touch on the weak point of flash technologies. To change even one byte in flash memory, you need to read into the buffer, change (that same byte), erase and write the entire block. Any failure during recording (poor contact in a loose connector, unstable power supply, defective cells on the flash drive itself, etc.) can lead to a situation where the block did not have time to be recorded along with its markers and translation table.
My away gentleman's set. The black flash drive (on the right) was purchased recently (the leader in speed in its class), all the others are of advanced age, but do not complain about their health
In this case, the integrity of the translator is violated, and correct memory addressing is lost. This blocks the user’s access to it, which externally looks like a message like “Insert the disk into the drive”, “Device not recognized”, freeze, etc. From the point of view of the flash drive controller, this malfunction is purely software and can be cured by erasing the entire amount of memory and creating a new translator.
For this purpose, technological utilities are used in factories for the initial firmware of flash drives; many of them can be found, for example, on flashboot.ru. The term “firmware” is not entirely accurate, since the true firmware of a flash drive (that same firmware) is not located on the flash memory chips, but in the controller and is installed during its manufacture. Cases of firmware corruption with a working controller are extremely rare, and they can be ignored. Creating a new translator is more correctly called low-level formatting.
A “double-barreled” flash drive with two interfaces is fast, but expensive. With the advent of USB 3.0, the relevance of such solutions is fading
Obviously, such a procedure is detrimental to data, although there have been reports of cases where data on a flash drive was saved when formatting was interrupted.
However, there is no system in these messages, and they should not be taken into account. The most correct way to recover data in such cases is to unsolder the memory chips, read them on the programmer and add the resulting dumps into the required data. The last stage can be very non-trivial and lengthy.
- Hardware faults
This includes burnt controllers and stabilizers, broken connectors, torn current-carrying tracks on the board, cracked resistors and filters, dead crystals, etc.
Characteristic symptoms - the flash drive does not show signs of life when connected, or gets very hot, so that after a few seconds your hand can’t stand it.
If the controller is working properly, repair is quite possible by replacing parts and restoring contacts. The data remains in place. In other cases (and they are the majority), the data recovery technology is the same as described above.Previously, when this technology did not yet exist, many repairmen tried to resolder a burnt-out controller. It was possible to recover data in no more than 20% of cases, so this approach was abandoned. The reason is the difference in firmware in different versions of controllers and difficulties in obtaining the required version. In fact, for the success of the work, it was necessary to find a donor flash drive not only of the same model, but also from the same batch.
- Logic faults
The flash drive is working properly, is recognized and allows access according to logic, but the file system is damaged (it appears, for example, empty or unformatted). The main method of data recovery is to copy the entire flash memory into an image file and parse it using recovery programs. There are now a huge number of the latter, both paid and free; the choice of utility is determined by the experience and preferences of the repairman. A number of free utilities are reviewed in a review on 3DNews. Here (and only here) remote assistance is possible - from sending an image to launching a recovery agent that transfers the results to a remote computer.It is perhaps worth saying a few words about typical failures during data recovery.
- Mechanical damage to the memory chip
An unnoticeable crack is enough to break the thinnest conductors connecting the crystal to the terminals. Then there is nothing to catch. Fortunately, the chip is protected by the case, as well as the board itself, and it is located far from the USB connector - the most vulnerable spot. So chip damage is quite rare.
However, with strong impacts problems cannot be avoided. In my experience, there was an SD memory card that did not survive a car accident (the card was in the camera, and the device was in the glove compartment of the crashed car). The camera, of course, is in the trash. The card was bent by a screw, and the chip crumbled when trying to unsolder it. - Data encoding on the chip that could not be solved. This happened at an early stage, when there was little experience and statistics, and the most exotic controllers came across. Now there is no such obstacle: almost all encoding schemes have been dismantled, and the variety of controllers has decreased.
- Unsolved problem - hardware encryption(AES-128 and AES-256 standards).
For this purpose, special controllers are used; just a couple of years ago they were quite expensive and slow, they were installed in a few models of flash drives (Kingston Security Edition, etc.). Now the price has dropped sharply, the operating speed has increased, and an on-the-fly encrypting controller is included in many models (with a price, however, still above average). Encrypted data from the chip cannot be read. The key is hardwired into the controller; removing it even from a working chip is a problem. And they mostly bring them burnt. - Finally, sometimes The flash drive spoils itself. NAND flash memory has a bulk erase operation (typically 128 KB) that occurs in milliseconds. As a result of a power failure, an error in the operation of the translator, or other reasons, an erase signal may be sent to the memory, and then the data is over. The block will consist of FF bytes (the erased cell acquires the value of a logical one). Blocks in the area of file system tables (FAT) are especially often affected. Work with them is carried out most actively; FAT is updated every time any of the files on the flash drive are changed. And since people sometimes record thousands of files and edit them intensively, at some point the translator can’t handle it. The result is logical damage to the file system that can no longer be repaired. After all, the overwritten 128 KB is a lot for FAT. It’s especially annoying when tightly coupled databases like 1C collapse. Lost a couple of files out of a hundred, and hello.
Here, by the way, there is a significant difference with hard drives. Recording on magnetic plates occurs, although very quickly, but strictly sequentially, so spontaneous overwriting of large fragments practically does not occur. The only exception is the Security Erase command, which erases the entire user area of the disk without transferring it over the interface. But it is not used in regular (non-repair) software.
⇡ Counterfeits attack
Counterfeits are a big and long-standing problem in the world of flash drives. They became possible thanks to the extreme simplicity of the design of a typical flash drive: a controller, a dozen wiring parts, a couple of memory chips. All this is installed on a board measuring 3-4 cm, equipped with a USB connector and housed in a suitable case. The labeling and packaging, which are almost perfectly similar to the original, is also not a problem.
Pseudo-flash drives can be produced almost in makeshift conditions, which is what numerous Chinese (and other) scammers do. In addition, there is also a “third shift” in legal production. Night “drummers” use cheap scrap parts, placing them in original cases and providing them with branded packaging. The capacity of such a flash drive corresponds to the declared one, at first it even works, but defects quickly appear, the recorded files are spoiled, and then the controller is completely blocked, and the drive can be thrown away.
The point, of course, is not about lost money (not that much, although it is not superfluous), but about missing data. In defective chips, the cells “leak”, i.e. lose charge very quickly - recorded files become unreadable after a few days, or even hours. Let me remind you that normal flash memory should retain information for 10 years.
You can find out the location of defective areas and isolate them using a technological utility, unique for each controller model. I think that it is unlikely that any ordinary user will spend time on this. Those who are meticulous will find utilities and instructions on thematic sites and forums.
There are a lot of fakes in the memory card segment, especially those that are more expensive. This is especially true for the Memory Stick format produced by Sony: “non-original” cards occupy, according to estimates, up to half of our market. They are usually functional, but the speed and resource are noticeably lower than the original. In addition, cards may not be recognized in all devices (PDAs and game consoles are capricious; they used to even advise distinguishing fakes by the behavior of the card on the latter). It is possible to navigate the intricacies of packaging and labeling, but it is difficult: the qualifications of counterfeiters have grown so much that their products sometimes look better than the original. Thus, markings on the body can be applied with a laser, while Sony traditionally uses paint.
Fake Memory Stick Pro. It is recognized on the computer, but it never works on any mobile device (PDA or PSP). Pay attention to the wear and corrosion of the contacts: it looks like the gold plating is also fake
If we return to the main array of fakes, then their essence is a sharp increase in capacity, sometimes by an order of magnitude or more. It is clear that this allows you to make excess profits, even if the “product” is sold at half the regular price. A 2-4 GB flash drive is flashed using a technological utility (stolen, by the way, from a legal manufacturer) to a capacity of 16-32 GB, or even higher. There are no restrictions here: what you write in the INI file of the utility is what will be issued in response to a request from the operating system.
As you know, the task of any fraud is to prevent the deception from being revealed at the time of payment (and until the fraudster is removed to a safe distance from the disappointed client). In this case, this is supported by the property of flashed flash drives that writing to fictitious addresses exceeding the real capacity occurs apparently normally and without errors. This is exactly what sellers demonstrate by uploading large films or simply archives of considerable size into a fake flash drive. In reality, of course, there is no record, and the subsequent reading of the data returns only zeros. All files located outside the actual capacity of the flash drive will be “broken.” With a high probability, the flash drive itself will no longer be recognized. But the unlucky buyer will understand this much later...
I advise buyers to be careful, not to purchase flash drives from dubious places or from not very reliable sellers on eBay, and also to save receipts, warranty documents and packaging. At the first sign of problems, stop using the drive and replace it under warranty. I hope you don’t have to face a situation where a crafty seller interprets a “lifetime warranty” as a guarantee for the time until the first failure of the drive.
Restless scammers are increasingly offering not only USB flash drives on steroids, but also memory cards. Making the latter is technologically more difficult (reflashing requires special equipment), but, apparently, the profit is greater. Cards of the most popular SDHC/microSDHC format today are in great demand; they are used in a huge number of gadgets - from players and smartphones to video cameras and e-readers. So there are no problems with sales.
Most often, of course, expensive 32 and 64 GB cards are counterfeited. In addition to firmware for large capacity, counterfeiters also cheat with performance. High-speed models (class 6 and higher) with the same capacity are noticeably more expensive, so a banal relabeling to a higher class in itself gives a good gain. Not everyone will make a claim on a brake card, so the sale of such counterfeits is also relatively safe. In addition, you can always refer to unsuitable equipment, bad cables, etc. That’s why on eBay and other flea markets such “good” is a dime a dozen.
But let's get back to flash drives. New on the counterfeit market are models with enormous capacity, 256 GB and even 2 TB, at an absurdly low price. So, real 256 GB flash drives cost at least 15,000 rubles. and are quite rare to find on sale. Counterfeits, which look no different in appearance, are offered en masse for around a thousand.
The flash drive body is quite thick to accommodate all the memory chips. On a fake it is simply filled with air
Relying, as always, on the greed and laziness of buyers. Just look at the prices for flash memory to understand: chips of the required capacity alone will cost at least $50 (and this is at exchange prices, where they sell by the carload), not counting everything else. Some sellers, however, are already ashamed. Here is an advertisement from one of the auctions, at least honest:
« Selling flash drive256 GB Flash Memory Drive!New, sealed. Inexpensive!
Of course, there is no 256 GB (a little less), the flash drive is made in China, but you can safely count on 8-32 GB. It may need to be formatted, but that's not a problem.
I don’t know what the actual capacity is, I’m selling it as is. Negotiable!
An even more egregious case is a flash drive of the most ordinary type, supposedly with a capacity of 2 TB and a price of almost 4,000 rubles. Is this real? 32 memory chips of 64 GB each (the maximum available today) will definitely not fit into a standard case. The power consumption of such a kit is also quite large; power from the USB port (500 mA) is hardly enough.
In short, making a two-terabyte flash drive is unrealistic today. Terabyte internal SSDs in the format of a full-size PCI card (otherwise it would be impossible to fit all the chips) appeared quite recently and at a very inhumane price. There is no need to talk about an external solid-state drive of such capacity yet.
This is what a super fake looks like. Does anyone believe the numbers on the case?
And this is how it is determined in the computer. The thirteen-digit capacity is the fruit of the skill of Chinese-Israeli craftsmen (on the packaging the manufacturer is simply indicated: Israel)
So we have an extremely blatant fake. It would be interesting to know its real capacity (tera-flash drives have not yet reached Moscow; they all settle in Siberia). I'm guessing it's 32GB or so. This is a fairly large figure for an external drive, so the unlucky buyer will not go beyond its boundaries immediately. And then the corruption of files, the collapse of the file system and other joys will begin.
⇡ MLC on the march
All modern flash drives use memory chips built using MLC technology. Each cell stores 2 or even 3 bits of data (in the latter case, the technology is sometimes called TLC), in contrast to the previously used SLC memory with single-bit packaging. It is clear that such a thin structure is not very stable. The number of erase-write cycles in an MLC cell does not exceed 10-30 thousand, but in reality it is 2-3 times less (the SLC resource reached 100-300 thousand cycles).
Moreover, the storage time of recorded information decreases exponentially depending on the type of recording it is. Passports are guaranteed for 10 years only for a “fresh” cell. The exponent index is not a standardized thing; it strongly depends on the purity of the source materials, the technological process of chip manufacturing and, of course, the operating features. In general, it’s a lottery - it’s almost impossible to predict when files from a flash drive will stop being read. It happens that the cells “leak” after 2-3 months (degradation is 50 times, however).
In this sense, SLC chips with a guaranteed 100 thousand records per cell and a long shelf life win. However, their capacity does not suit many users. Indeed, with the same technological process and standard packaging, you can place only 2 GB on a chip and, accordingly, make an 8 GB flash drive in the usual design (4 chips on the board). There were attempts to release 16 GB models on eight chips, but they turned out to be bulky and expensive (about $200), were in little demand and were discontinued.
But everything is not so bad, we are witnesses to how sophisticated “software” (microprograms) overcomes the shortcomings of “silicon” (low resource and low performance of MLC memory). First of all, these are wear leveling algorithms used in modern controllers. They have advanced a lot lately, which allows MLC flash drives to last up to two years even with active use. It would be possible to provide an even greater resource, but, apparently, this is not necessary: no one has abolished obsolescence. All the same, in a year and a half, the drive will be replaced by an attractive new product.
As for the long time required by MLC chips for rewriting, current flash drives use two- or four-channel technology, when recording is performed simultaneously in 2 or 4 blocks (higher-speed SSDs have up to ten channels). Together with various caching disciplines, this brings the streaming write speed to 24 MB/s - just like the best SLC flash drives. Serious slowdown is observed only when writing randomly to widely spaced blocks, but how often does this occur in practice?
⇡ Murphy's Law for SSDs
Finally, a few words about solid-state drives, which use a unique memory management system. A dynamically reconfigured translator (in order to level out wear and increase recording speed) actually prevents confidential data from being reliably erased. On the other hand, the controller tries everything that can be cleared to form previously erased blocks, so it may not be possible to restore a recently deleted file. In short, if you want to recover deleted data, then you cannot do this. If you want to destroy them, then you cannot do that either. This is such a “Murphy’s law” for storing data on an SSD. It would seem that reliably destroying data is not a problem: you delete files, and then copy incompressible content like MPEG files to all the free space (this is a measure against SandForce-level controllers that compress on the fly), and that’s it. However, SSDs always have a capacity reserve of 20-30%, and the controller regularly rebuilds the translator to level out the wear of the blocks. It may turn out that some physical areas have already been excluded from addressing, and old versions of files remain in them.
And they cannot be erased by any copying - after all, logically there is no access to the files. But if you count the chips on the programmer, then everything rises perfectly. It turns out that a used SSD stores its entire backstory, and certain people in certain circumstances may be interested in it.
This problem is still far from being solved, except for such a radical remedy as a hammer. Therefore, selling used SSDs carries a certain risk. I note that buying them is not very wise: the flash memory resource may be running out, and finding out is not always easy (you need a computer with a diagnostic program). Therefore, it is better to take a new copy and keep the old ones under lock and key. From sin.
Recently, solid-state drives have been gaining considerable popularity and becoming more affordable. Considering that the speed of SSD drives is much higher than the speed of conventional HDD drives, it is quite logical that many people decided to increase the performance of their computer by purchasing this miracle of modern technology. A solid-state drive can really help your computer think faster, but there are a few things to consider that we'll talk about now.
Make an SSD your system drive
Performance gains can only be achieved by installing a solid state drive as a system drive. Otherwise, the speed will increase only in those applications that are installed directly on the SSD, and then not by much.
Update the drive firmware
The newer the firmware version, the faster your SSD drive will work. The latest firmware version can always be found on the manufacturer's official website. Download the driver and install it according to the instructions (must come with the driver).
Install the system from scratch
It is best to install the operating system on a new SSD drive from scratch rather than restore it from an image. This will help avoid compatibility conflicts in future operation.
Disable other drives
Before installing the operating system on an SSD drive, it is recommended to turn off the power or unplug the SATA cables from all other drives. This is necessary for Windows 7 to accurately determine the type of drive and reconfigure services to work with the SSD drive.
Install a clean image
Only the original and complete image of Windows 7 should be installed on the SSD drive. “Optimized” builds of Windows certainly take up less disk space, but they may disable or even remove services and functions that are vital for the stable operation of the operating system on the SSD.
Activate AHCI mode
Before installing Windows 7 on your SSD, enable recognition of SATA devices in AHCI mode in the BIOS settings. This option allows you to activate some new Windows features aimed at speeding up the disk subsystem.
Format the drive
If your SSD drive has been used before, you will need to completely format it before installing the operating system. Since the principle of recording data on HDD and SSD is significantly different, quick formatting for an SSD drive will not be enough
Mark up wisely
Partitioning a solid-state drive into partitions is more convenient and reliable using utilities from third-party developers, such as Acronis Disk Director.
Check
After installing Windows 7 on your SSD, it doesn’t hurt to check how correctly it is recognized by the system. To do this, it is best to use the free CrystalDiskInfo program. We launch the program and look at information about our disks. In line Rotational speed The disk type must be specified - SSD. Also in line Possibilities The TRIM function must be specified.
Now let's check if AHCI mode is active. We go to the Task Manager and in the item IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers We are looking for a controller called AHCI. If there is none, then restart the computer, go to the BIOS settings and try to activate the AHCI mode again.
Disable indexing
The indexing feature helps speed up searches in the Windows operating system environment. However, this option increases the load on the disk, thereby accelerating its wear and slowing down its operation (a little, but still). In addition, the solid-state drive, due to its high speed and without indexing, quickly finds the necessary files. Therefore, you can safely disable indexing. To do this, go to Explorer, right-click on the icon of our SSD drive and select the item in the context menu Properties. Then uncheck the option Allow the contents of files on this drive to be indexed in addition to file properties.
Disable the defragmentation service
Due to a different operating mechanism than HDDs, the defragmentation service is not needed for solid-state drives and is even contraindicated (NAND memory used in SSD drives has a limited number of rewrite cycles). As a rule, Windows 7 automatically disables the defragmentation service during installation on an SSD drive, but if this does not happen, then we can disable it manually. Open the menu Start, press Execute and write in the line: services.msc. Now we find the service in the list Disk Defragmenter, double-click on it with the mouse and in the field Startup type select a parameter Disabled.
Disable creation of restore points
When the function of creating Windows restore points is active, the TRIM function, which is very important for SSDs, is blocked, which ultimately leads to a gradual decrease in the speed of the SSD disk. To disable the function of the operating system creating restore points, right-click on the icon My computer, go to Properties and go to the tab System protection. Click on the button here Tune and select the item disable system protection.
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