SSD Utility Suite™

User Guide

Table of Contents

Overview

Features

System Requirements

Setup

Installation

Interface

Drive Information Tool

Overprovision Tool

S.M.A.R.T. Status Tool

Disk Clone Tool

Optimize (TRIM) Tool

Secure Wipe Tool

Overview

Solid State Doctor™ is a software suite intended to enhance the user experience for customers using SSD (Solid State Drive) products by providing them a set of “tools” to monitor, maintain, and enhance the performance of their SSD. The tools provided will include drive information, S.M.A.R.T. status and monitoring, overprovisioning, performance optimization (TRIM), firmware updater, disk cloning, and secure data wiping.

Features

· Drive Information Tool – This will show you the basic information of every drive in your system. The information displayed will include the drive model number, serial number, firmware version, port number, drive size, ATA version, supported features, drive temperature, lifetime drive usage. The Drive Information Tool is enabled for all drives in the system.

· Overprovision Tool – The overprovision tool will allow the user to allocate a portion of the free space on the SSD to be used by the controller in the SSD within certain guidelines. This overprovisioned space created on the drive will allow the controller to better manage and maintain the performance and longevity of the SSD drive.

· S.M.A.R.T. Status Tool – This will display the current S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status of the drive overall as well as the status of individual attributes of the drive. The S.M.A.R.T. Status Tool is enabled for all drives in the system.

o The Quick and Full Diagnostic self-tests can be performed that are built into the drive controller.

o The S.M.A.R.T. Polling feature allows the user to configure alerts via e-mail in the event one or more of the individual S.M.A.R.T. attributes have been exceeded indicating a failure occurring with the SSD drive.

· Disk Clone Tool – This tool copies the contents of the selected source drive to the selected destination drive. The Clone Tool will only be enabled if a SSD is detected in the system and is selected as the source or destination drive for the cloning. The cloning function supports upsizing and downsizing of partitions to be cloned to the destination drive allowing you to clone a larger capacity drive to a smaller capacity drive and vice versa.

· Optimize (TRIM) Tool – The Optimize Tool issues a TRIM command to the SSD which tells the SSD which data blocks are no longer in use, such as those left by deleted files. Regular use of the TRIM command will help the SSD maintain maximum performance. TRIM can be run manually or auto-scheduled.

· Secure Wipe Tool – The Secure Wipe Tool will allow the user to securely delete the entire contents of the drive. This feature will place the drive in its original unformatted RAW state without any file system. The data on your drive cannot be recovered after running a secure wipe. As a safety feature, the Secure Wipe Tool will NOT allow the user to erase the contents of their boot drive.

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System Requirements

· The Solid State Doctor™ runs on Windows® XP SP3, Windows® Vista, Windows® 7, Windows® 8, and Server 2008, including both 32 and 64 bit versions, and all released Service Packs on all Microsoft® file systems. Supports SSD drives running on Intel, AMD, and nVidia chipset based systems with TRIM capable storage drivers on SATA host controllers operating in both IDE and AHCI modes and SSDs connected though USB ports using SAT-capable cables and enclosures.

· Note1: Some nVidia storage drivers will not properly pass ATA commands to the SSD drive affecting certain functions of the Solid State Doctor™. Make sure that your SSD drive is listed as an ATA/SATA device in “Device Manager” – in some cases, your SATA drive may display as a SCSI device in “Device Manager” due to incompatible storage drivers. If you experience these issues, it may be necessary to change your storage drivers to the Microsoft defaults or contact the chipset manufacturer for updated drivers.

Setup

The software is installed on the system using standard Windows® supported installation software. The software must be installed and run from an account with full administrator account privileges. If your account does not have these privileges, you should contact your system administrator to have these privileges granted to your account. You will need at least local administrator privileges on the computer. This utility only runs on local SSD drives. On Windows® Vista and higher systems, if your account does not have full administrator privileges, you may receive an error that the program requires elevation. You can ignore this error and run the software from the Start Menu by right-clicking the program icon and choose “Run as Administrator”.

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Interface

When you launch Solid State Doctor™, you will be given a list of the available drives. You first select the drive you wish to work on, and then select the tool you would like to use, or the test you would like to perform.

Drive Information

The Drive Information Tool will provide you general information on the selected drive. This includes the items listed below:

· Model Number

· Serial Number

· Firmware Version

· Port Number

· Drive Size

· ATA Version

· Supported Features

· SSD Temperature

· Lifetime Usage

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Overprovision Tool

The overprovision tool will allow the user to shrink an existing volume and allocate a portion of the free space on the SSD drive to be used by the SSD controller within certain guidelines. This overprovisioned space created on the drive will allow the controller to better manage and maintain the performance and longevity of the SSD drive.

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S.M.A.R.T. Status

Current Status Configure Alerts (Polling)

The S.M.A.R.T. Info tool will show you the current S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive overall as well as the status of individual attributes of the drive. The S.M.A.R.T. Polling feature allows the user to configure alerts via e-mail in the event one or more of the individual S.M.A.R.T. attributes have been exceeded indicating a failure occurring with the SSD drive. Solid State Doctor will poll the drive(s) every 60 minutes for any change to the attributes and will send an alert if any attributes are out of normal range.

Quick Diagnostic Self-Test Full Diagnostic Self-Test

The Quick Diagnostics test will perform a basic SMART test. The test will run the built in manufacturer’s “short test”, and then report back the SMART status of the drive based on this quick test. This test can provide reasonably high confidence that the drive is in good working order. For more in depth testing of the drive, the Full Diagnostics test should be performed.

The Full Diagnostics test will perform a detailed SMART test. The test will run the built in manufacturer’s “full test”, and then report back the SMART status of the drive based on this full test. This test can provide very high confidence that the drive is in good working order.

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Disk Clone Tool

The Disk Clone Tool will copy the contents of the selected source drive to the selected destination drive. The Clone Tool will only be enabled if a SSD is detected in the system and is selected as the source or destination drive for the cloning. The cloning function supports upsizing and downsizing of partitions to be cloned to the destination drive allowing you to clone a larger capacity drive to a smaller capacity drive and vice versa. Simply change the partition size to accommodate the available drive capacity.

1. Select the source drive (i.e. existing system drive) you want to clone.

2. Next, select the destination drive that the source drive will be copied to. The destination drive should be “raw” (new/unused) with no file system or partitions on the drive. Make any adjustments to the partition size(s) to be cloned to the destination drive to accommodate the available capacity and select “Start”.

3. After cloning is finished, shutdown the system first, then disconnect the old system drive (source), and move/connect the new system drive (destination) to the same SATA port as the old one.

When booting from the new drive for the first time, Windows may say that it did not shutdown properly – this is normal so don’t be alarmed. If you get that message, select “Start Windows Normally”.

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Optimize (TRIM) Tool

Manual Optimization Scheduled Optimization

The Optimize Drive tool allows you to tell the SSD which data blocks are no longer in use, such as those left by deleted files. Normally, operations such as delete generally only means the data blocks involved are flagged as not in use. By passing this information down to the SSD controller, these blocks are cleared. This, in turn helps maintain the write speed of the SSD.

To auto-schedule TRIM, select the “Scheduled TRIM” box and set the frequency and time to run the TRIM process. The system will optimize your SSD drive(s) automatically based on the schedule set. Once the schedule has been set, the Solid State Doctor™ does not have to be running for the automatic operation to take place.

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Secure Wipe Tool

Disabled for system drives Confirmation dialog on non-system drives

The Secure Wipe tool will completely and permanently erase the entire drive contents including partitions and file systems returning it to a raw state. Any data that was previously on the SSD drive will be non-recoverable at the end of this process.

NOTE: The wipe function is disabled for system drives as a safety mechanism.

In addition, for non-system drives, you will receive a warning dialog to make sure that you want to permanently erase the contents of the selected drive. This warning will be your last chance to cancel/exit out of the operation.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DATA IS NON-RECOVERABLE AFTER THIS HAS BEEN RUN. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE CERTAIN OF THE DATA YOU ARE ERASING BEFORE RUNNING THIS TOOL.

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