The update worked flawlessly on our drive, and the already present installation of Windows Vista, the apps and the files were all left intact.

HDTach 3.0.1

Firmware 8610
Click for full-size screengrab

Firmware 8820
Click for full-size screengrab

We tested the X25-M with both firmware versions 8610 and 8820, and were generally impressed by the update. Bizarrely, according to the synthetic HD Tach benchmark, the new firmware slows the read and write speeds by ten per cent.

CrystalDiskMark

Firmware 8610 (top) and 8820

On the other hand, CrystalDiskMark shows that the write speed doubled from 35MB/s to 70MB/s. It was a similar story in ATTO Disk Benchmark, where the write speed also jumped forward. The read speeds evened out where they had previously been a touch erratic.