SSD Thread (Benchmarks, Brands, News, and Advice)

Why do my read speeds suck? On crystal mark they top out at 170mb/s, I have the OS installed but should it take that large of a hit?

 

no it shouldn't. maybe try another tool, other settings.

oh, and update the sata drivers, check you're in asci mode (how's that called again? sorry ), etc...

 

No, nothing happened at all.
It's not like the update failed.
The update didn't even happen.
So, yeah, the SSD was the same as before.

 

Worlds First Native 6Gbps SATA Solid State Drive

a new kid on the block!

 

Okay, I got Windows Experience Index to work with my Intel SSD. I switched it to the primary SATA port, formatted the secondary hard drive, and reinstalled Windows. What a pain!

The SSD gets a 7.8 rating from the WEI. Does that sound okay?

 

I think 7.9 is the maximum possible - so I'd say yes?

 

@eastx

my WEI is 7.7 with 80 GB
so you have 160 GB, right?

 

My read speeds are still awfully low, write is normal, but they cap at about 160mb/s. Maybe update firmware?

EDIT: Your right about the AHCI, I should enable it, W7 takes a dump if you change it from IDE after install though, so I found I way to hack the registry so it works. Will try it out after installing MWF2.

 

__________________
Boot to the installation cd after switching to AHCI and use startup repair.

 

It worked with the reg hack, hdtune still reporting 175ish as max read.

 

Which SATA drivers are you using, default with Windows or IMSM? I installed nforce serial ata controller with Toshibas chipset package and it bottlenecked my ssd. Couldn't tell the difference with mechanical hdd.

 

OK another problem was I was on the GSATA raid ports, so I moved over to the proper ports, will report back in a minute with the read results. Pretty sure just the standard windows SATA drivers.

EDIT: Maxing at 230mb/s for read now, much better but still not as high as they should be. What are these IMSM SATA drivers you speak of? Pretty new to SSD's here..

EDIT2: I was smrt and googled, finding the Intel Matrix Storage drivers, anyways, installed latest of them.

 

355MB/s read, hmm. Remember the X25-V based Kingston drive can do 170MB/s read with 5 channels? Well X25-M and X25-E should be able to do 340MB/s when the SATAII-300 cap is lifted. The Micron controller seems to be somewhat related to the Intel controller. Well they are partners anyway.

 

Ok everything is fine now, not sure what firmware im at, but I see no reason as of now to update, TRIM support is a big deal though.

 

That is some very nice numbers!

 

So if I am to understand the last two pages right, m17x users can run the OS on the Intel g2 just fine, but can't upgrade the firmware with the new toolbox/20 mb/s increase in sequential write speeds?

 

You can.
I found that you can upgrade from a flash drive.
See here.

 

Yep, the 160 GB. Cost a bunch. So glad I can finally use it without worrying about TRIM and stuff.

 

Thanks thatoe. I figured there'd be some kind of fix, and not the nVidia chipset incompatibility. Because that would have sucked.

And KILLER av eastx. That's old school Bomber Man! One of my favorite 32 bit games EVER.

 

Here is the original firmware


And updated to the latest


Pretty pleased, TRIM support and most of my write speeds got upped slightly. Reads are not too different but they were so high im sure I wouldn't even be able to notice the difference.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/183515/micron_announces_its_fastest_notebook_desktop_ssd.html

The new C300 drives will be available in 1.8-in. and 2.5-in. models. Both models will come in 128GB and 256GB capacities and will ship in the first quarter of 2010.

Micron is targeting its drive at equipment manufacturers and said volume pricing for the C300 SSD in quantities greater than 1,000 units would be $350 for the 128GB model and $715 for the 256GB drive.

 

Sounds like they are pricing it to be in the same segment as the X-25 G2.

 

Wow, I'm away for a few hours and look what happens!

narsnail,

Just to confirm,

you have the 80GB G2, now with latest firmware, running Win 7 x64 and Intel Matrix Storage Manager version 8.9?

Those are the best numbers of the 80GB G2 I've seen. Congrats!

 

Yes what you say is correct except I am running W7 32bit, I am very impressed so far though, I wasnt expecting almost 100mb/s write speeds, more like 70, not complaining though

I am also assuming most of the people on NBR are using laptops which are usually limited at 1.5gbps, whereas im using SATA2 at 3gbps.

 

I wonder if I will be able to get the new drivers working on my desktop? Still got work to do that I need a working computer for so I/we will have to wait.

 

^ I was worried about that but it seems Intel has fixed any issues, as ive had none, but I have only been updated for a few hours, maybe too early to tell.

 

narsnail, thanks for the quick reply!

You may want to try these drivers - would be very interested to see your CDM 3.0 beta1 scores with these as they are meant to pass the TRIM command to the drive and basically allow you to enjoy those nice speeds over the life of the drive (these are the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers, instead of the IMSM you're currently using now - basically a name change from Intel, again).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5565901&postcount=999

 

Tiller....curious to know why you still recommend those drivers even when you have acknowledged that they aren't as reliable as they should be.

Also, EVERYONE please make sure that the drivers you are installing are actually Windows TRIM compatible - I mean drivers that actually pass on the Windows 7 TRIM commands onto the SSD.
AFAIK, the only TRIM compatible drivers are the default Windows 7 drivers.

TRIM is important as it makes sure the speed of your SSD's do not deteriorate over time.

 

Nice to know the all-important pricing info for these. If this drive is as good as it looks to be, this will put more pressure on Intel to drop prices further.

I just watched the demo videos from Micron where they compare the new drives to the "leading competitive SSD" which I assume to be Intel's G2 (but we don't know for sure).

In summary, they used PCMark to compare the 2 drives and the Micron drive comes out ahead when connected at 3GB/s and is significantly faster when connected at 6GB/s.

The sequential read/write speeds look amazing...but of course we need to know more about random access speeds and power consumption.

 

Micron videos:
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nev_neo, I still recommend those drivers of course, especially for anyone running a TRIM enabled SSD! Why wouldn't I?

The one system that they didn't work on (which I may see tomorrow in person - its still Blue Screening even with the IRST drivers uninstalled), is a two or three year old Acer TravelMate running a Hitachi mechanical HD under XP Pro.

So the only issue (which I guessed was the IRST drivers - over the phone) may actually not be an issue with these drivers. We'll see.

To slightly correct your statement above - the only TRIM compatible drivers are the MS default ones (who knows what Windows Update may install).

I hope narsnail at least tries them - the current drivers he's using IMSM 8.9 definitely do not pass on the TRIM command to the SSD - so his awesome performance he showed will deteriorate over time. Just keep an eye out that everything is working as it should (if there is a problem, he can always uninstall or Roll Back the drivers) - but from other's reports here (specifically with SSD's) these are the drivers to be using, right now.

 

Boy I wish Justin would have taken the time instead of drawing ugly blocks of nonsensical graphs to maybe explain what the random reads/writes are like, what the power consumption is, or perhaps the relevance of a 6 GB/s drive in a still 3 GB/s market.

 

You, Sir, are a superstar.

 

if you have any comments, post down on micron blogs dot com!

i suggest you to suggest him to suggest random read/writes

 

it looks you have the best possible hardware such as motherboard , CPU and ICHM10, right? e.g. you have i7

 

Yea spot on there mesarmath, I have a pretty high end X58 motherboard, triple channel 1333mhz ram, the works basically, and of course the i7.

 

And heres with the new Intel Rapid provided, my writes seem to be staying about the same, reads dropped a bit but I doubt I will notice it.



Also how do I know if TRIM is active? Are there settings for it?

 

narsnail, thanks again!

Don't forget as you use more and more % of the capacity, the drive will bench slower - you're using 1GB more (3%) than your previous tests.

To test for TRIM, try this; fill the remainder of the free space (38GB) with 'junk' files - then simply delete them. If anything, the benches might even go up again.

 

The Thinkpad W7 drivers are a bit temperamental right now so I will be staying with Vista until that is sorted out. I will obviously install the SSD Toolbox for manual TRIM. I guess that also means I need to roll back my SATA driver to the M$ one.

Slight bad news apparently. The Toolbox doesn't play nice with previous System Restore Points or I guess I should say it still is a problem. The old fix still works though http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-031073.htm

 

I appreciate that some people use System Restore, but to me this is a non-issue as the first thing I disable is System Restore with each new clean install.

Of, course, the bigger non-issue to me is the fact that I don't have a G2 to be worried about this in the first place!

Jayayess1190, thanks for those vid's! We know Sata3 will be good...

 

Does anybody have an idea when the new toolbox comes out?
On my Intel G2 SSD I disabled system restore... but it would be nice to know that I could manually run trim...

(as its not built into Vista...)

 

I would expect it real soon - probably to coincide with the official release of the IRST drivers (probably Intel is waiting to see if the firmware update is going without glitches first).

 

Hopefully.

It would be good to know that its available when I feel like using it

 

what kind of an power advantage could I get by using an 64-80GB SSD in a laptop? the original drive is a 500GB 5400rpm. is it a big difference in power consumption?

 

depends on the laptop, how much the rest of the system consumes. but normally, it's mostly not a big difference in battery life. but it can be (espencially on ultralowvoltage ultraportable laptops)

 

the laptop I'm talking about is the MSI X600
Intel SU3500 low lovtage CPU
ATi 4330
15" (I think LED)
4GB RAM

I think this laptop manages about 3-4 hours of batterylife, but I would like to know if an SSD drive would help it?

 

Since you have a newer 500GB HDD it probably is pretty power efficient. One of the better SSDs will likely save some watts. A bit less power consumption, plus it is faster to gets tasks done and drop back to the idle power draw. Overall, maybe a watt or two at the most.

How much runtime this gives you will depend upon the particulars of the current drive vs the SSD, and how much your laptop consumes now. It's just a matter of math. If your laptop draws 15 watts average and your battery is a 60 watt-hour capacity, then you will get 60/15 = 4 hours of life. If the SSD saves you 1 watt then you will then get 60/14 = 4.285 hours, or 4:17. Obviously there are several variables so YMMV.

If you think about the math, an SSD will add more runtime to a low-voltage netbook than a 30 watt 17" gaming rig.

 

System restore sucks the big one. Waste of space and resources. BACKUP!

 

Faster 34nm Intel SSD's on the way in Q2, features ONFI 2.1 chips(think of the Micron's SATA III-600 SSD, maybe even faster )

 

just curious which benchmark is more close to real-world application:ATTO, Crystal, HD Tune, or PCMark Vantage?
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Intel-34nm-X25M-Gen-2-SSD-Performance-Review/?page=6