A-DATA S592 128GB SSD Review

TRIM, Firmware & NAND Launderer

For anyone wondering if the wiper.exe program works on the S592 or if it reports the life expectancy data like other Indilinx SSDs we have reviewed or if it ships with NAND Launder the answer is: no, no and no. At least not with the firmware that we received on our sample drive.

As we have said in the past, an Indilinx Barefoot controller-based SSD is an Indilinx Barefoot controller based SSD irregardless of the firmware tweaks overlaid onto the base firmware. However, you need the base firmware which supports these tools in order for them to work.

As wiper.exe support was added to version 1.1 it won’t work on the drive we received since it sported ancient, pre-version 1.1 firmware. However even 1.1 (the update to this drive’s firmware) did not have average cell usage reporting (added in 1.3) nor true TRIM support (recently added in 1.4). To put it bluntly this drive shipped with horribly outdated firmware and we were not amused. To make matters worse, as you will see below there is literally no way to update the firmware short of sending the drive in to A-Data.


Since the S592 does not come with the exposed Jumper pins, the normal way of updating the firmware is not an option. Will A-Data find a way with Indilinx to overcome this built-in limitation? It is possible, as OCZ proved it is possible with recent firmwares.

Before out right condemning the S592 as an soon to be obsolete version of the Barefoot drive, we are going say that things do not look good. Many months ago we asked our A-Data rep for an official word on this issue and they stated that there was no plan to make the firmware on these drives user-upgradeable. Sure, some of the drives may come with updated firmware pre-installed but you are taking a serious risk of being saddled with an outdated drive before you even stick it into your system.

Update Oct. 28th: A-Data has contacted us expressing some additional facts which were unfortunately not apparent before this review went live. First of all, even though the firmware of the S592 is not user-upgradeable we were told that as new firmwares are released by Indilinx, A-Data is implementing them directly onto their production lines.

IN ADDITION, A-Data has announced that as of the upcoming 1819 firmware (sometime in November), they will have a method in place for users to upgrade the firmware on the S592 WITHOUT the need for jumper pins.