It’s Flashed. How’s it Look?!?!?
As flashing was a non-event.  I booted straight back into the OS and ran ATTO.

Intel Responds to Fragmentation with New X25-M Firmware - Storage 17
ATTO showed a nearly new drive with some minor hiccups.

My jaw dropped.  There was no way the old firmware would have given this result.  Sure there were a few odd bumps, but overall performance was nearly ‘new’.  After composing myself, I did the same file copy I had tried earlier.  76 MB/sec.  Wow.  I then switched OS duties to a different drive for some more in depth testing of the used yet flashed unit.

Intel Responds to Fragmentation with New X25-M Firmware - Storage 18
HDTach full read/write pass of my ‘used’ drive flashed to 8820.

This is amazing to say the least.  The 8820 firmware enables the X25 to power through any preexisting fragmentation, keeping write speeds *way* closer to 80 MB/sec.  While write speeds very briefly dipped to less than 10 MB/sec, I suspect it was working particularly hard to defragment that particular area.  A subsequent HDTach pass showed all fragmentation effects had been vaporized by the first pass.

Intel Responds to Fragmentation with New X25-M Firmware - Storage 19
(HDTach showing the new ‘clean’ read/write speeds of 8820.  Writes averaged just a tad slower than a similar run of 8610.).

Intel Responds to Fragmentation with New X25-M Firmware - Storage 20
One last ATTO pass confirms a happy drive.

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