![]() The one last cool feature of the SSD Guru is its SMART data monitor. The file includes a brief overview of the system with the necessary information that may be needed by the support staff for troubleshooting. One feature OCZ emphasized is the ability to save a 'support package' that can then be sent to OCZ support if the drive isn't operating properly. The SSD Guru also supports logging, which can be a useful feature if you ever have issues with the drive and need to contact OCZ's support. The SSD Guru will also show a notification on the desktop if there's a newer firmware available. The maintenance tab has the common firmware update and secure erase functions that were also present in the old OCZ toolbox. capacity option only disabled hibernation, whereas reliability disabled all four listed in the image above), although you can also customize the settings and disable what you see fit. Different settings will be disabled based on what you choose (e.g. By default the SSD Guru does nothing, but there are three preset options (reliability, performance and capacity) that you can choose from to optimize the OS. The OS Tuner includes a few basic OS features that can be disabled for higher performance and/or capacity. The SSD Tuner allows the user to issue a TRIM command to the drive to erase unused blocks to improve performance (although this should be unnecessary if you are running an OS with TRIM support) and it also includes a tool for increasing the over-provisioning for further performance gains. The 'Tuner' tab includes two separate functions: SSD and OS Tuner. All Barefoot 3 based drives are supported along with the RevoDrive 350, but the older Indilinx and SandForce based drives are not (although you can still use the old toolbox if you wish). The SSD Guru is available as both Windows and Linux installers as well as a separate bootable tool for Mac users. The overall design of the SSD Guru is much more user friendly and, as we've seen in other toolboxes, the welcoming screen already includes all the essential information about the drive so the user doesn't have to dig through the different tabs to find the important data. Today, along with the Vector 180 release OCZ is launching its fully redesigned toolbox called the SSD Guru. I guess my original Vector is in need of a firmware update It did have the critical functionality (firmware update, secure erase, SMART data), but given what the competitors have put out to the market it was certainly lacking in both features and usability. OCZ has had a toolbox for as long as I can remember, but to be honest it looked more like an engineering tool rather than something that was aimed for the end-user. (It is worth noting that the motherboard industry went through the same process, whereby most motherboards in a price bracket had a flat feature set and software became a differentiating factor. As a result, the SSD manufacturers have had to seek for other opportunities that can increase the value for the customer and software has lately become one of the key aspects in doing so. The reason lies in the ability to differentiate because SATA 6Gbps has already been saturated for so long and being substantially different in the performance department has become practically impossible (although that will soon change with PCIe and NVMe). During the past couple of years we've seen a big push for better toolbox-like software for SSDs from nearly every major vendor.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |