Installing an SSD? tips/tricks/benchmarks

MoBe, the Intel X25-E won't slow down noticeably after use.
The only reason that the write speeds will drop a few MB/s is that the NANDs are SLC and SLC drives don't support TRIM. (It will write extremely fast till all the NANDs are filled with data, after that it will start writing over them and that's when the slow down occurs) It will sustain though that speed no matter what kind of usage or OS you are running. In my case it sustains the write speed at 185MB/s compared to the 200MB/s after a secure erase. And for random writes from 70MB/s to 60MB/s (the numbers are indicative)

The MTBF is a statistical term that is pretty much self explanatory, it tells you after how many hours of continuous usage there is a good chance the NANDs start failing. This is a mean time, roughly think about it is an average, which means that it can fail after 1.9 million hours or 2.1 etc.... Still this number is huge for everyday usage and you will probably have changed at least a couple of laptops before the drive's NANDs start failing.
The X25-E (enterprise) is basically for servers with very intense and continuous work load. For sure, it will go longer and faster than any of your HDDs

 

Thanks for the info. stamatisx.

 

Thanks, ya I guess I'll try to PM him.

 

Well I PM'ed him and didn't get a response. Anyone else able to help? I just received the SSD and would really like to install it and play SC2. Been holding off on installing/playing the game till I get the Intel drive installed.

 

OK this is with the R1 (nvidia chipset)


and this is after a secure erase and a clean windows installation with the same tweaks applied as the R1.


The best performance I can get is the one you see above with the MS default drivers. Any other driver (chipset or storage) I install (Dell or latest from Intel) will lower even more the scores.
I have tried to use the RAID mode and the results were the same. (To be honest I have tried every possible combination using secure erase and clean windows installation first)

This leaves me with the chipset being crappy when it comes to SSD performance.

To those that are not aware of this SSD, it's an SLC with no TRIM support.

 

Did you get the OS set to ATA then boot in ATA and run the test? This may help some but you lose the hot-plugging ability of SATA when enabled in AHCI

And Raid==AHCI thus the similar performance

Go here in your registries and change the value from 1 to 0 or vice versa depending what you want to do (for you StamatisX what ever is there should be to enable AHCI)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Msahci

Remember, you have to change the OS BEFORE you change the BIOS

 

Ok, I will give a shot in a few minutes

 

I tried what Scook said and it doesn't work. Probably the DVD drive when on ATA mode is causing problems. In any case it ends up with a BSOD.

Anyways I reformated the disk and this is a screenshot with the default drivers, no tweaks, AHCI mode



Does anybody else experience slow performance with the SSD?

*EDIT*

This is with the latest drivers from Intel (even worse)

 

Did it ever work faster than this for you in a R2?

 

Nope, never, that is the fastest I can make it go. The random reads/writes are slower than the X25-M. That's insane

 

those are my 4k r/w results on a new x25-m drive with fresh windows install (the image on the right is the HDD that was in the lappy before, disregard it) :


can't say yours is slower but it's not faster either.

i hope you can uncover the reason and share it with us, if i can be of any help just let me know...

 

You have the exact same numbers concerning random reads and writes. As if the drivers are limiting the SSD to that specific threshold. That's really weird. I definitely will try to find out what's going on. I just need more people to confirm those numbers
Because two different drives to have the exact same numbers cannot be a coincidence...

 

Well, the chipset and ssd are both Intel...shoot them an email and get them talking to Dell to fix this

This makes both companies look bad

 

chipset is intel's but it would be interesting to verify this on other platforms running that chipset.
my gut tells me it's a R2 specific issue.
Email to Intel is a good idea anyway

 

ARRGGGHHH I IS SOOO CONFUSEDDDD
Damn my puny brain...

 

Quick question guys, getting ready to install my RAID setup. Whats the latest firmware release from Intel for the X25-M? On the website it's dated Dec 2009. Is that the latest? I know it's a dumb question, but I figured I'd ask in case I was missing something which has been known to happen.

 

Hey DR!
Yep, Dec 2009 is the latest f/w, you're good

 

Alienware m11x R2 (Samsung 256gb SSD)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 194.921 MB/s
Sequential Write : 142.877 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 157.208 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 92.055 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 12.526 MB/s [ 3058.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 7.259 MB/s [ 1772.2 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 22.630 MB/s [ 5524.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 5.183 MB/s [ 1265.4 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 29.2% (69.6/238.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/07/23 17:31:10
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

ALIENWARE m17x (2x Samsung SSD RAID 0)

WRITEBACK CACHE DISABLED
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 334.154 MB/s
Sequential Write : 279.174 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 236.966 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 167.925 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 10.614 MB/s [ 2591.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 6.456 MB/s [ 1576.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 33.833 MB/s [ 8260.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 12.182 MB/s [ 2974.2 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 5.4% (25.9/476.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/07/27 18:39:45
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

WRITEBACK CACHE ENABLED
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 388.938 MB/s
Sequential Write : 258.525 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 201.984 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 103.172 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 10.479 MB/s [ 2558.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 11.323 MB/s [ 2764.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 50.123 MB/s [ 12237.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 11.000 MB/s [ 2685.5 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 14.8% (70.8/476.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/08/01 0:19:25
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

It is REALLY alot easier for us to make sense of your results if you just do a screenshot dude.....you know, like the rest of us have been doing?

 

If that was a posted rule, then I apologize for not seeing it. But text is easier for me to read (& others I'm sure), but if you like pretty colors on a bar chart, I'll consider including them next time just for you, your majesty

 

It is not a rule, but will make it easier for people to make a quick comparison since the screenshots are what everyone else is used to seeing.

And you can just call me sir (jk of course lol)

 

Thanks! +1 Thats what I thought, And the drives I got a few months back have a pack date of 18JAN2010 so I'm guessing they will have up to date firmware. If not I downloaded and burned an iso of the firmware already.

 

To all the owners of Samsung SSDs by Dell.
There's a new firmware available.

 

Hmmm, when my new M11x screen comes I gotta do a firmware update

 

what happened to your screen buddy ?

 

M11x's have a weak hinge. Mine gave out and the screen is now all floppy and the hinge is split open. Not to mention some dead pixels

 

My S-XPS16 is about to arrive with a 256GB Samsung SSD, but I noticed the Studio XPS 1645 is not one of the systems the update is compatible with. Is this one of Dell's all-too-common errors and they just left my system out?

Should I use this firmware update, or should I wait for a S-XPS specific update?

 

Sorry to hear your screen. Btw, just wondering since you are deployed in Iraq, how did you manage to ask them to ship the screen instead sending back the whole machine?

Would be better to use its current firmware if its TRIM enabled. None here have tried the latest firmware update yet.

 

Thanks, they actually said I had the two options, wait till I get home or they can send it out and let me do it by myself. Really was that simple. No fuss which was nice. It'll be nice to get a screen though, then I can get back to using the system. As of now it's mostly sitting on the shelf.

 

Hello, I have read this thread since I just ordered a new Intel x25 G2 SSD 80GB and Windows 7. I have applied most of the tweaks of the first page, except largesystemcache pagefile export and the user directory export. I am using a desktop, but this thread was so helpful, I just had to register and share my results as a sort of thank you.



I am pretty happy with the SSD speed, what really helped for the boottime was to set windows update in services.msc to manual, that reduced the boottime by 6 seconds alone.
The rest of the computer is 4 years old, and before this upgrade it took like 3 minutes to boot, this is so great.
Now I still have to install security essentials and nvidia drivers, so I expect some slowdown from that.

 

SSD is the best upgrade your computer could have! Glad this thread helped you, oh, and welcome!

 

Here are some screenshots on my 160 x-25m.. TBH I think the slowdown on the most recent one is with my antivirus/havent rebooted all week ect..

System info



I am using the windows 7 controller driver



This one was done on 4/17/2010 around the fresh install on the R2. I had it in the r1 but cant find those screenshots.



This test was done on 7/15/2010



This one today. I honestly think the slow down is from antivirus or some software running.. Guess I should reboot and re run since I havent rebooted all week. lol

 

Unfortunately it's not from the antivirus... trust me, everybody has the exact same numbers with you (4K random reads/writes)

Kilthro, could you please post them exactly like that on the link below as well?
it's the official Dell support forum
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19340601/19727976.aspx#19727976

 

Yes I will.. Actually I know why the regular reads and writes were low.. I just checked the driver for the controller and for some reason (possibly windows update) the intel driver was installed.. I am like WTH... I never installed that crap knowingly.. I just removed it and am back up to where the other screenshots show..

I know that doesnt improve the 4k area.. That i agree, that isnt antivirus ect.. its the issue that everyone has experienced.. I was refering to the SEQ writes and 512 decrease compared to the earlier screen shots..
Guess I am going back to maunal windows updates.. I dont want that crap happening agian..

 

Hey! Still, please post in Dell's official forum thread, we are hoping that if lots of ppl report that issue Dell might do something about it.

 

Oh I will.. Gotta run atm.. will do once I get back.

 

well here's my speeds. looks like ive got around the same speeds as everyone else but I have a few questions:

In the management tools tab it says I need the latest firmware in order to use TRIM. My firmwire version is 2CV102HD. Is mine the latest and if not where do I find the latest firmware download? Also just running the Intel SSD Optimizer will manually envoke TRIM right? Sorry this is my first SSD

 

this is the latest firmware, you're good. If you are on windows 7 you don't need to invoke TRIM manually or anything, it just works
Do you mind posting your numbers in the thread that stamatisx posted three posts above you ?

 

Can you bench using AS SSD?

Thanks!

 

@mfractal: thanks for the explanation. I also posted in the thread. i wonder why the 4k speeds are so slow

@lousy: here you go:

 

Is your system restore turned on?

 

No, I did everything outlined on the first page of this thread.

 

I order a 80gb hard drive. I was thinking the 160gb but all my games can fit on the 80gb and if not I can uninstall them and move them to a secondary hard drive.

 

Thanks bro!

 

Looking at getting a ssd for my desktop, just to act as a system drive. Any recommendations guys? The largest I think I would need is the Intel 80GB but the price is VERY appealing for the vertex stuff at 30-60GB haha

 

i am thinking of getting one myself for my htpc, i was thinking the x25-v 40gb as a boot drive.
Not that i really need it in a HTPC but being the power junkie that i am i can justify it to myself.

Never even thought about the vertex until you mentioned it, i checked and the 30gb vertex2 is about the same price as the intel V 40gb... the ocz should be faster right ?

 

it should be a lot faster

And I am no stranger to overpowered HTPC's (mine has a watercooled Q9550 and a 4890 in it lol)

 

I know there is a guide but I can find it i want to do a secure erase on my ssds because I just switched from a raid setup to a two drive setup. Does anyone know where it is?

 

OCZ is one of the best speacially in RAID0.... i own one my self on my desktop. its the colossus series 120gb and heres the test
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