I have an Intel 320 SSD which is supposedly able to flush its cache during a power loss.
Rarely seen in a consumer SSD, Intel uses an array of capacitors to
make sure data gets saved to the drive in the event of an unsafe
shutdown as the result of power loss.
The Intel SSD 320 Series contains hardware- and firmware-based
power-loss data protection features. The SSD includes a power-fail
detection circuit, which sends a signal to the ASIC controller in the
SSD indicating there is an imminent drop in power level. Triggered
by this, SSD firmware disconnects the input power from the SSD.The SSD then relies on its on-board power-loss protection capacitance
to provide enough energy for the SSD firmware to move data from the
transfer buffer and other temporary buffers to the NAND.
Does it mean I can safely turn off "Windows write-cache buffer flushing"? My primary motivation is to improve performance, although I'm aware that this might not make a big change for desktop workload.
Best Answer
This doesnt make a lot of sense to me. Sure, they can have a capacitor in the drive to allow the SSD to flush its buffer to disk. But that doesnt mean the buffer had received all the data from the OS cache.