SAMSUNG MAGICIAN

Once again although the drive comes with a software CD that has the latest program version we do recommend checking out the official Samsung support page just in case an updated version is available.

The software CD includes both the Samsung Magician software version 4.5 and the Data Migration version 2.7.

As always the very first screen you will see of the Samsung Magician software is basically an overview of the drive.

Typically i suggest checking the firmware tab before everything else to see if Samsung has released a new firmware for the drive.

The Magician Software gives you the option to perform a fast benchmark to check the speed of the drive and also allows you to "optimize" the OS for SSD use via this easy to use tab. However if you have a system that also features regular HDDs i don't suggest using the SSD option since it will reduce their performance.

Another great feature of the Samsung Magician software is that it allows you to set extra overprovisioning space (improves TRIM and garbage collection).

RAPID (Real Time Acceleration Processing of I/O Data) mode basically uses up to 4GB (or 25% whichever comes first) of system RAM (DRAM is much faster compared to NAND flash) to cache frequently accessed data (in short it works like a RAM disk).

Unfortunately we tried enabling RAPID twice, once we ended up with a BSOD and upon the 2nd restart Windows 7 Ultimate loaded fine but without RAPID enabled while the second we had a total system failure with continuous BSODs so we had to use our 2 days old OS image to get up and running again. Bottom line prior to using it i strongly recommend creating a system restore point just to be on the safe side (if not an image of the entire OS onto another drive like we do).