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    Really really slow G.Skill Falcon

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Xiphias, May 26, 2009.

  1. Xiphias

    Xiphias Notebook Evangelist

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    Hey guys. I bought a G.Skill Falcon 64GB SSD, but I think there's something wrong. So I ran HDtune, I only get a max read speed of 80Mb/s. Anyone know what's up?
     

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    Xiphias, May 26, 2009
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  2. Xiphias

    Xiphias Notebook Evangelist

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    I have AHCI enabled, Advanced write caching enabled, disabled pre-fetch and superfetch. This running on a clean install of Vista 32-bit, with a brand new SSD (no expected degradation). Laptop specs can be seen in my sig.
     
    Xiphias, May 26, 2009
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  3. dalamchops

    dalamchops Notebook Evangelist

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    ur access time is very slow also (relatively compared to 0.1ms usually) It's probably just a bad drive. I'd suggest RMAing it.
     
    dalamchops, May 26, 2009
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  4. goofball

    goofball Notebook Deity

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    do you have another machine you can run a test on with that drive?
     
    goofball, May 26, 2009
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  5. Xiphias

    Xiphias Notebook Evangelist

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    Not right now. Until I do, is there any possible explanation for this decreased performance? I've been following SSDs pretty closely, but I never read about anyone encountering this problem.

    Nothing that I know of can explain the slow access time, or the 80Mb/s read speed, considering that this is a brand new drive and that even if my computer was SATA I limited (which it isn't) I should still be getting better performance.
     
    Xiphias, May 26, 2009
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  6. Xiphias

    Xiphias Notebook Evangelist

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    Just tried it on another laptop (Dell Inspiron 1525). Access time is still the same (0.4ms), but read speed has increased to 120Mb/s.
     
    Xiphias, May 26, 2009
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  7. Xiphias

    Xiphias Notebook Evangelist

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    Just ran a Crystal Mark. See attached.
     

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    Xiphias, May 27, 2009
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  8. ViciousXUSMC

    ViciousXUSMC Master Viking NBR Reviewer

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    These faster SSD drives are getting fast enough now to push the limits of a systems internal bandwidth, older machines probably will end up limiting the speed of the SSD in many cases.

    The very idea of getting a bottleneck at 80 and then seeing 120 in another machine shows your machine was what limited it to that speed.

    The access time, I dont know. It could be the drive (the controller I would guess) but also looks like it was tested as the active OS drive and had high cpu usage, so those things may throw off numbers.
     
    ViciousXUSMC, May 27, 2009
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  9. JohnnyFlash

    JohnnyFlash Notebook Virtuoso

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    21% cpu doesn't look good to me. Are you sure something else wasn't accessing it?
     
    JohnnyFlash, May 27, 2009
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  10. davepermen

    davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    0.4ms access time is okay for the cheaper-end ssds. and the rest, i guess is a hw limit of your notebook, or a driver limit. try different bios modes, and possibly updating your sata drivers. else, i guess, that's it..

    but there shouldn't be a cpu usage at all.

    you should re-enable prefetch and superfetch after testing again, just don't forget it.
     
    davepermen, May 27, 2009
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  11. Xiphias

    Xiphias Notebook Evangelist

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    Alright, thanks guys. I'll just tinker with it a bit more, do another fresh install. The 4kb Read/Writes aren't too far off the mark, so I'm gonna investigate this a bit more.
     
    Xiphias, May 27, 2009
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  12. ViciousXUSMC

    ViciousXUSMC Master Viking NBR Reviewer

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    Id try to get an adapter and plug it into your desktop and test it.
     
    ViciousXUSMC, May 27, 2009
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  13. davepermen

    davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    should not need an adapter if you have sata on both notebook and desktop. just drop it in and test.
     
    davepermen, May 27, 2009
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  14. laststop311

    laststop311 Notebook Deity

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    i read in another thread the g skill falcon was internally the same as the ocz vertex meaning that .4ms access time is high and should be more like .1.
     
    laststop311, May 27, 2009
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  15. Xiphias

    Xiphias Notebook Evangelist

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    So, it looks like I'm running SATA I...which is weird, cause I swore the Studio 1535 is SATA II. Can this explain my slow read/write speeds?

    Managed to get access times down to 0.2ms according to HDtune.
     

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    Xiphias, May 29, 2009
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  16. goofball

    goofball Notebook Deity

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    Yep, that would make sense.
    Most laptop chipsets are SATA II capable but set to SATA I for power saving.
     
    goofball, May 29, 2009
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  17. Xiphias

    Xiphias Notebook Evangelist

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    Is there a way I can enable SATA II?
     
    Xiphias, May 30, 2009
    #17