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Responded outside of the NAG list originally to this, but thought it might be of use to others, so here it is: -----Original Message----- From: Steve Bogdanski [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 4:12 PM To: Lee A Duynslager Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Locking UP Problem with Dell Latitudes w/ SolidState Drives and Outlook Lee, Personally this doesn't seem to make sense for several reasons and it sounds like Dell might be giving you the run-around. First off I have a Dell XPS M1330 that is almost a year old with a 32GB SSD, meaning it definitely a 1st-generation solid state drive. I have never noticed this type of problem when dealing with excessively large files, or any-sized files actually. Also, while it is true that SSD write data in the manner described below, to increase the longevity of the drive and reduce data corruption, it shouldn't really make writing data slower than traditional drives. This is because, unlike a standard HDD, the write and read speeds are the same across all blocks. This is different from an HDD, where data closer to the center of the platter can be accessed faster and fragmented files take longer to access (why we defrag drives). The above is the reason not only for why you don't need to defrag a SSD, but why you shouldn't (it wears out cells faster). I have noticed the problem you mentioned with some newer laptops (last year or so), but it was specific to only SDD and also affected HDDs as well. The lock-up problem we noticed had to do with setting the drive to AHCI mode in the BIOS. It seemed to be a problem with how windows implementation and the interface in the bios wouldn't play together properly and it led to intermittent lock-ups in Windows linked to drive access. In our case we just set the drives back to legacy mode, because we didn't need/use any of the newer features present in AHCI and it didn't degrade performance for the drive. I could be completely wrong (wouldn't be the first time), but I figured I'd send this to you anyway just in case. Stephen Bogdanski Network Services College of Veterinary Medicine Michigan State University Stephen Bogdanski Network Services College of Veterinary Medicine Michigan State University >>> Lee Duynslager <[log in to unmask]> 7/18/2008 3:52 PM >>> I just worked through an issue with a Dell Lat 430 where it would lock up momentarily while using outlook. We purchased the laptop late last year. According to dell it has the first generation solid state drive. The problem is the Solid State Drive. It uses an algorithm to write to the drive to prevent excessive usage of memory locations, unlike conventional drives. In the nand type drive these locations wear out after continued usage. This pattern in which the data is written to prevent this premature failure of the drive does not work well with big Outlook ost files. Reading is according to dell 5 times faster, but writing is not that fast when having to write big files in these patterns on the drive. Hope this helps others on this list to know about this so they can avoid this problem in the future. LD Lee Duynslager Information Technology Professional Michigan State University 517-432-5296