New SanDisk Extreme SSD Firmware Fixes TRIM

We took a look at the SanDisk Extreme a few months ago, and found it to be one of the fastest drives on the market, combining the tried-and-true SandForce 2281 with Toshiba’s 24nm Toggle NAND.

A new FW update for the Extreme promises to fix TRIM for the drive. When being used in IDE mode the TRIM command would not get passed from the OS to the drive. Further, TRIM “throughput” has also been improved.

Owners of the SanDisk Extreme can get more information from SanDisk’s website, but here are the highlights:

Release Notes for SSD Toolkit 1.0.0.0

• SSD Toolkit software only works with SanDisk Solid State Drive.
• Administrator rights are required to install and run SSD Toolkit Software.
• Current firmware update(s) are available for the below listed model(s):- SanDisk Extreme SSD (120G, 240G and 480GB): version R201

Changes from R112 to R201:

• Improved the robustness of the recovery procedure during power cycles and secure erases
• Fixed an issue that would block a TRIM command sent by an application while in IDE mode using Windows XP or Windows 7
• Improved TRIM throughput, write performance, resume from slumber and checkpoints

The most interesting tidbid from above is the fix for IDE and TRIM. It seems to work for both Windows 7 and XP, but Windows XP doesn’t support TRIM, period. Neither does Windows Vista, which is not listed. Only Windows 7 and it’s Server brethren have the ability to initiate TRIM, and only if both the drive and storage drivers support it.

The SanDisk Toolkit firmware updater software can be downloaded here.