wrote:
SSD has Toolbox software, and will tell you "Percent Life".


I have no idea how to access this if it's there. Certainly not anything obvious.

Exact make and model number, please.

If Kingston made it, you'd Google on

site:kingston.com ABCD1234

and see if the Toolbox software is offered as
a download from the site.

If your drive is OCZtechnology, they went out of
business and the materials were acquired by Toshiba
(a maker of flash memory).

It would not be normal for them to make the toolbox
easy to find. Like put a CD in the box or a miniCD.
It's more fun to "bob for apples" on the Internet,
apparently.

When I bought the Corsair Neutron (only to return it to
the store), the Toolbox for that "worked excellent" :-)
Other brands have been less than exemplary (usually
Secure Erase doesn't work, because nobody seems to
test this stuff properly).

But we won't know this, until you track down the
maker and the model number, and see what software
is offered.

Some companies are weird - they might sell ten
different drive models, eight of them are covered
by the Toolbox, and two are not! Imagine being a
customer who bought one of the losers. That's not
a happy customer.

These things happen when a company adds an
ODM product to their portfolio or something.

For example, Plextor probably does not solder
Flash chips on a PCB themselves, and they buy drives
from somewhere else and paint "Plextor" on the lid.
There is an opportunity in such situations then,
to not do the extra work, and code up a Toolbox entry.
Plextor is an OEM, just like Dell is an OEM.
The company providing raw materials to the
companies is called an ODM. When a company makes its
own materials (Toshiba), it gets neither of those
names and is undistinguished. Toshiba is the
"third hard disk maker", besides WDC and Seagate,
so they are in a sense, a competitor. Even if they're
not particularly visible at KMart.

Paul