
When you first load the SSD Toolbox, it scans your computer for hard drives, including non-Intel SSDs and HDDs. There’s a lot more you can do other than updating the firmware. Overall, the experience was simple Intel has done well to create a good application that works across almost all of both their consumer and enterprise SSDs. Though the Toolbox’s GUI hasn’t been updated in quite some time, it is still fairly clean and provides features for users who want to tune their drive or view information such as the SMART details. Even for someone without any experience doing so previously, it should only take a few minutes (outside of data backup if that has yet to be done). The process Intel provides users is highly intuitive and can be completed without any hassle. Thankfully, Intel provides the option to restart manually.Īfter the restart, the SSD has the latest firmware on it, and you’re all set.

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In some firmware update clients, the restart is performed immediately and automatically. The system needs to restart for the process to complete. When we clicked on firmware update, Intel alerts you to back up your data, which we already had done on another SSD (see below).Īfter clicking Run, the update took roughly a couple to complete.
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(Note: Only Windows 7 supports secure erase, newer operating systems like Windows 8/8,1 and 10 block Secure Erase.) To secure erase through a newer operating system users will need to create a bootable thumbdrive to perform the task outside of the OS.Ī “!” icon displays on the Firmware Update button if an update is available, as seen above.Įven if you have non-Intel SSDs installed, you can still look at the Drive and SMART details, which isn’t always an option in other firmware upgrade applications (e.g., the Kingston SSD Manager). If you select an Intel SSD, you can utilize the Intel SSD Optimizer, perform diagnostic scans, run the firmware updates and execute a Secure Erase. From the outset, you can select any installed SSD. We downloaded the Intel SSD Toolbox and got started. After we complete this step, it was time for us to move on to running the client.įor those that prefer a video walkthrough of Intel’s SSD Toolbox, please see below from our YouTube channel.įor the purposes of this guide, we’re managing an Intel SSD 545s Series.

While updates will specify if they are destructive, step number one when updating the firmware is to always backup important data just to be safe. Almost all of those SSDs can be upgraded and managed with a single application called the Intel SSD Toolbox.Īs always, we’ll note that firmware updates are generally non-destructive, but can sometimes adversely affect your data (e.g., unexpected errors or faults). Intel has an advantage in the space by engineering some of their components in-house such as their NAND and controllers, and when you couple this with their vast industry knowledge, experience and IP, Intel is in a highly advantageous spot for producing SSDs.

Intel consistently releases firmware updates to their SSDs to correct issues that may arise with operation, and perhaps more importantly for consumers, to occasionally deliver even greater performance and reliability to their SSDs.
