Installing an SSD? tips/tricks/benchmarks

oops your was definately more detailed than mine.

finally another point for you to try and I will have to try it myself also to see if Intel X25-M G2 benefits from this; at least you don't have to format or reinstall anything to test this. Try compressing your SSD with the NTFS compression and see if that increases throughput or just slows things down with the added processing? I'm hypothesizing it will boost performace and reduce actual written data same as what the SandForce controllers are doing.

 

I think the NTFS compression and the compression performed by the SSD controller are two different thing. NTFS compression will utilize more the CPU and I don't think it will give any performance to the SSD especially for the small files that have to be accessed frequently

taka a look at this:

" Is NTFS Compression of Files and Directories recommended on SSDs? Compressing files help save space, but the effort of compressing and decompressing requires extra CPU cycles and therefore power on mobile systems. That said, for infrequently modified directories and files, compression is a fine way to conserve valuable SSD space and can be a good tradeoff if space is truly a premium.
We do not, however, recommend compressing files or directories that will be written to with great frequency. Your Documents directory and files are likely to be fine, but temporary internet directories or mail folder directories aren’t such a good idea because they get large number of file writes in bursts."

source: Engineering Windows 7 : Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives

 

Guys quick question. Working on tweaking the 256GB SSD's in both my Inspiron 1720 and M11x. That said, performance isn't terrible,but not what it could be. Going to have to do a secure erase and re-install of Win 7 on both systems.

Questions, I have Achronis True Image. POne of the options is to wipe the drive doing a quick wipe, which writes "0" to every sector. Is this wise or should I use a differant program? I know the DoD wipe is a bad idea as the others. There is an option for a custom algorythm, but I'd be clueless there. I've tried HDD erase in the past and didn't get it working. What program do you suggest?

Also how do I know if my alignment it set properly? On the Inspiron 1720 the "Partitioning Starting Offset" is 32,256 bytes, and the M11x has a "Partioning Starting Offset" of 1,048,576 bytes.

The Inspiron I have to wipe and re-install because I acidentally installed in ATA mode and not ACHI. Does that really make a differance? Thanks for the help, still working on understanding the SSDs at the most basic levels.

 

stamatisx thank you immensely for all your finger work and time testing everything

 

+1 on that
Excellent content!

 

Don't even mention it guys, always a pleasure.

DR650SE, I would advice you against using programs that write 0s or 1s in order to wipe the disk because this will degrade even more your SSD's performance. That's a good tactic for HDDs but in our case it will make things worse.
Your options are two actually, either use HDDerase in a computer that its BIOS wont lock out the SSD or use Ubuntu and the hdparm command from this guide:
https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

On Step 1a your SSD will show locked
The only way to come around this is to remove the SSD and plug it back in.
This will override the BIOS lock and you will be able to proceed with the guide. I have done it more than 5 times so far without any problem.(It's still dangerous though...)

To check your alignment use this: techPowerUp! :: SSD Alignment Calculator
I haven't done any installation using ATA mode so I can't confirm that it makes a difference on the written data other than that the installation must have taken longer (I guess)
In case you will do a clean installation I suggest to try the 64K for cluster size (unless you want to encrypt your disk, and you should keep the 4K default cluster size).
I will attach a couple of screenshots I took, I hope you will find them helpful.

Step 1
Imageshack - imag0142wv.jpg
If you have one partition (it's not the default) for windows like me (the other partitions that you see are form the external drive) click drive options (advanced) and delete the partition. If you have two (the default for windows installations), delete first the big partition and then the small 100MB System reserved one.

Step 2
Imageshack - imag0145q.jpg
After delete the partitions you will have one big Unallocated Space on Disk 0
Click new and apply
You will have something like this
Imageshack - imag0147e.jpg

Step 3
Press Shift - F10 to open the console and type: diskpart
Imageshack - imag0152g.jpg
Then type: select disk 0
Imageshack - imag0154x.jpg
Then type: select partition 1
Imageshack - imag0155z.jpg
Then type: active
Imageshack - imag0156.jpg
Then type: select partition 2
Imageshack - imag0157b.jpg
Then type: format fs=ntfs quick unit=64k
Imageshack - imag0158m.jpg
Then type: exit and again exit
Imageshack - imag0161z.jpg

Step 4
Click Refresh and then click on the Disk 0 partition 2 and press next
Imageshack - imag0162r.jpg

Step 5
After you finish with windows installation open a command promt as administrator and type: fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo C:
Imageshack - info64k.png
If it says Bytes per cluster: 65536 then your installation was successful and your cluster size (or else allocation unit size) is 64K instead of 4K.

 

Thanks for the great info! I think I'm going to go with the Ubuntu, as I've tried HDDerase with no luck. Probably was doing something wrong. But this helps quite a bit. Is there any advantage to going with 64k clusters rather then 4k? Was reading a little, but not sure I understood it. Thanks again.

 

there has been a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of a bigger cluster size. so far i haven't seen any disadvantage concerning random reads or writes. there has been an increase on 64k reads and writes and much lower access times. according to winsat the times where almost half or more. the disadvantage is that you can't encrypt the disc because it requires 4k cluster size and also you cannot install windows without having that 100MB recovery partition you see at the beginning.
sory for the format of the text but I write from my cell.

 

Ahh ok thanks. Downloading Unbuntu right now. Going to take a few hours since the connection is slow. I don't plan on using any encrytion at all.

How do I get the 100mb recovery partition there? Any install I've ever done, I've done without a recovery partition.

 

weird, all the installations I have done, all of them create by default a 100MB partition. There is a workaround to remove it but it takes extra steps. That's why i find it weird. this partition is not visible within windows though, maybe that's why.

 

Yea all win7 installs that I have done include that system partition..

 

and windows can see that it is occupied but not what is in it lol

 

Ahh ok. Maybe I just never noticed it. I know I havn't looked for it after reinstalling. I've just wiped the drive to one unallocated partion and then reinstalled. It was probably there.

 

Ok, I got a bootable unbuntu usb drive, not really sure where to go from here though. I can boot from it, but the following steps confuse me

aI'm a total n00b when it comes to linux based systems and dos...

 

Hey mate, have you seen the link that stamatisx provided ?
( https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase)

In case you did and you still need help report back

 

Don't worry that's easy.
Go to:
Applications-->Accessories-->Terminal
Imageshack - step1g.png

Then type:
sudo su
Imageshack - sudo.png follow the rest of the steps from here:
https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase
(on this Guide for instance it says hdparm -I /dev/X, you will type hdparm -I /dev/sda)

 

Wow?? Thats it 1m 33s to do the security erase? That was easy enough. Thanks again guys. Teach a man to fish...

If I could rep you guys again I would. Thanks for the patience. Now all I have to do is the install by the the steps in the previous post correct?

EDIT: Installing Win 7 Pro now with 64k clusters on the Inspiron 1720 256GB Samsung SSD. Probably will redo the intall tommorrow on the M11x after doing the secure erase again. I'm pretty sure I ran these into the ground performance wise from my n00bish ways. Wiped them a few times through Acronis. Well, once for the Inspirons 256GB and maybe 5-6 times with the M11x one... At least I know what I'm doing before I put the Intel SSDs into the M17x...whenever 5870's appear

 

OK, apparently I did something wrong. Bytes per cluster is still set at 4096 rather then the 64K size. Also I ran the crystal mark tests right after the Win 7 installation. The first one is two days ago and the second one is a few min. ago

 

Yeah the performance is not as it supposed to be. It should be at least equal to what it was before the secure erase.
It took me a couple of formats to get it right... (I am pretty sure my guide has all the steps I will check again )
Before reinstalling windows do again the secure erase (just in case.. The time it took to complete though was normal...)
Is the partition aligned correctly btw?
What worries me is that it didn't install with a 64K cluster size

*EDIT*
On step 4
can you press refresh before clicking next

 

Hmm, Should I execute the secure erase a few times? And do I need to format it prior to the installation? I'll give it another shot this evening. I'll also try the refresh thing. Once I get this worked out on then Inspiron 1720, I'm moving on to the M11x. That drive has been wiped the wrong way a few times, and as of now everything is faster than the drive in the 1720 with the exception of 4K speeds.

 

so my new r2 is giving me problems?when I run a benchmark for the ssd it says the 4k cluster is out of alignment. how would I fix this?

 

Now I'm just depressing myself. Tried it again and I think I'm doing more harm then good with trying to wipe this drive. I'm not going to touch the M11x drive till I can figure out what I'm doing wrong here.

 

Why do you have it set to 1000 mb rather than 100mb as most of our tests were defaulted to?

 

I want to say it yields more accurate numbers but not 100% sure either here are the 100MB test results

 

you don't have to secure erase the drive every time you will format the disk, but it is advisable when you run many benchmarks. Unlike other parts of the laptop, benching the SSD extensively it will degrade its performance.
also try to compare results after you have achieved a 64k cluster size and after you have applied all the tweaks. Benching right after a clean windows installation will give you worse results

 

there are a couple of ways to fix it. I would install windows again (I would delete the existing partitions on the SSD and let the windows create the default aligned ones)

 

so here is my first ssd benchmark.

 

wow, those sequential reads are amazing, 2 ssds in raid will do that
4k are on the low side though, is this before or after realignment ?

 

Now that I remembered, when you have them on a RAID setup, you have to check the stripe size divided by the cluster size to be integer

 

and use the new intel rapid storage so that trim commands can be passed to the raided drives.

 

I have not realigned yet. I installed the new Intel rapid storage manager first thing.

 

just to be sure, while I'm installing Win 7, I don't click the format button right? I just use the "Shift+f10" to format, correct? My last install worked for getting it to 64k clusters, and the benches were not really any better is I'm going to retry the process, and then apply the tweaks and let it download drivers overnight. Do I need to give it time so that Win 7 can pass the TRIM commands as well?

 

correct

Don't expect a huge difference, the advantages and the disadvantages of a bigger cluster size are still under debate. Drivers can do the difference though.

That's a good question but I don't know the answer. My SSD doesn't support TRIM so I can't really tell.

 

Any suggestions? I did the tweaks, gave it some time and did the updates. Still no improvement. the one on the left is the 256GB Samsung SSD giving me headaches in the Inspiron 1720. The one on the right is the M11x Samsung 256GB SSD

 

If the same SSD(including the firmware) on winows 7, with the exact same tweaks applied gives you different results, two things come to my mind, one is drivers and the other is the settings on the bios. Sometimes the results vary according to the specs of the rig. The faster the better, but this doesn't apply in your case for a reason... ???

 

Hmm, I'm thinking drivers. Both are running windows 7 64 bit. The M11x is running Win 7 Home, and the Inspiron is running Win 7 Pro. It looks like the default Win 7 driver on the 1720 (Slower SSD) is the intell driver. I can't seem to get rid of it. It also may be good to note that the M11x SSD performance should be degraded since I did a number of wipes on it prior to installing and knowing what I was doing. DoD wipes where it wipes it three times, "00" algorythms, ect. Abused. The 1720 drive (slow) has wiped with a secure erase through ubuntu. First pic is the Inspiron 1720 drive. Second is the M11x drive. (Faster) Also both have differant Firmware and look like differant models. Maybe I didn't get as good a deal as I thought. The thing that gets me is prior to the secure erase the drives speed was faster. To do the secure erase I followed the steps using Ununtu 9.10.

Also both drives are in AHCI mode.

EDIT: Let me check alignment... Both appear aligned.

Inspiron 1720 (Slow Drive)



M11x (Faster drive)

 

I see two different firmware versions, VBM9LD1Q for the inspiron and VBM19C1Q for the M11x
Maybe you should check this out...

 

Yea, I'm not sure that's part of the problem, though I'm sure it could be. The thing that gets me is I had read to make sure to uninstall the intel driver, but for some reason I can't on the 1720. The default Win 7 driver is supposed to be the one to use. Like i'm doing on the M11x. I might try a reinstall not connected to the internet and see if the numbers improve. Perhaps it downloaded the driver though windows update.

 

I believe it's the different firmware versions on those SSDs the reason you see difference in their performance.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ers-samsung-pm800-ssd-trim-now-available.html

 

Would that explain the significant drop in speed from this to this? It was only after a single install as well?

 

firmware makes a big difference and the lack of TRIM could very well explain those numbers.
To exclude the drivers, if you have a desktop plug those SSDs in, one at a time and benchmark them as secondary disks (they won't load the OS, your desktop's primary disk will). If they have different performances it's the firmware since the drivers will be the same for both of them

 

Ummm is system restore on???

 

Are the 4k speeds what sells the Intel drive? I was looking at buying one but the write speeds seem to fall behind similar drives. What's everyones opinion on the best 80-160gb drive for the M17x considering I just want to play/load/install games as fast as possible.

 

When buying an SSD you have to think what's going to be it's main purpose. Is it going to be for storage, for the OS or for both?
For storage you don't need huge random reads and writes, rather sequential ones.
For the OS you need fast random reads and writes and low access times.
For a mixed environment you need both
Consider cost, size, reliability and usage before you buy
For more info about similar questions I think this is a better thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ssd-thread-benchmarks-brands-news-advice.html

 

Nah, System restore is turned off and I used the tweaks in the first few pages. I'm thinking it may be the firmware as stamatisx stated. But I would have thought being TRIM enabled, it retain its performance a little better. Tonight I'm going to remove the SSD and install it in the M11x and remove the Intel Storage driver. I have a guess that may be the problem and it's not allowing the TRIM command to pass. If I can get that off and let the default windows driver work and let it sit idle in the M11x it may bosst the performance. I've never wiped the SSD in the M11x and it's been pretty abused but the performance isn't as bad. Not sure the test will get me anything, but I thought I may try it. On the M11x I was able to remove the Intel Driver, but it just keeps reinstalling on the 1720

 

I am curious to see the outcome
One question though, don't both Inspiron and M11x have the intel storage matrix installed? If yes why would TRIM work with the M11x and not with the Inspiron?

 

Thats a good question that I don't have the answer too. I'm hoping to figure it out. I know the Intel storage matrix was in the M11x, and one of the first things I was told was remove that driver. Just bothers me that I can't remove it in the Inspiron. Hopefully tonight will give me a better understanding. Or at least some answers or new lead.

 

@ DR650SE
If you remember I mentioned it on the other thread that your VBM9LD1Q firmware is good. (You don't have to worry its firmware)

Disable the auto Windows Update feature first before uninstalling the Intel Storage Driver to stop it from going back to Intel Storage driver.

Let your laptop idle (do not run any apps) for 30 minutes then run the CDM again.

That should do the trick if your SSD was secure erased correctly.

 

if the os is on a ssd and put most of the programs on a standard hard drive should anything be done differently?

 

If you mean the tweaks would be different, the answer is no, they apply either way.
Consider though that if you put the programs that you use very frequently on a slow HDD leaving the SSD only for the OS won't benefit you. At least you won't take advantage of the SSD's potentials. An HDD should be for storage of big files like music of video while the SSD should be for the OS and the programs you use.