SSD not up to speed

Why so slow? The reviews I read said burst up to 230 MB/s, sustained 170-200 MB/s. I'm getting a max of 157 MB/s!

 

looks like you have a sata1 drive. anything in your system blocks down to sata1 speeds? bios? actual controller?

 

try ATTO benchmark: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1137/ATTO_Disk_Benchmark_v2.34.html

 

Sata1 cannot do 157MB/s.

 

it could if you have some burst. benchmarks can easily overburst above the possible limits. the benchmark tool itself idles for a moment while getting data (some other process might have blocked it for a moment), and bam, it got more data than expected, extrapolates this into more speed, and your wrong number is there. very easy to produce.

if you look, he's exactly pendling around the 150MB/s mark, which signals sata1.

but yeah, OP, try some different tool

 

HDTune sucks for SSDs. Use CrystalDiskMark and repost 100MB and/or 1000MB tests.

 

davepermen,

No. Not even in bursts (unless your test fits in the controllers memory cache).

Sata1 has a real-life ceiling of around 127MB/s or 137MB/s if I'm not mistaken.

(Too lazy to search).

 

nah, seen some guys (buying intel ssds) that got limited by sata1. they got exactly the same picture: fluctuating at around 150MB/s, with, thanks to some random caching, some peaks above.

the ceiling of 150MB/s can be reached depending on how big the data packages are that you try to read.

 

Although burst isn't near 200 MB/s+, this does seem better.

 

yes that looks quite okay. maybe try updating your sata drivers, that might give you the last boost. it did some 20MB/s more for my intel in read speeds.

 

How do you update SATA drivers? Device Manager > right-click Update doesn't do anthing.

 

Those are normal results (CDM). You're fine. If you want search for comparable CDM's for your Samsung on NBR.

 

just download the actual ones from the facturer of your your sata controller (in my case, about always intel).

but as gogeta says, this looks like normal numbers for your drive. so you don't need to update most likely.

 

What's CDM and what's the left column of the graph in the 1st screenshot of my previous post?

 

CDM == Crystal Disk Mark, the tool you ran.

 

Your first screenshot is of ATTO. Your second screen shot is CDM. They essentially show the same thing. CDM shows sequential R/W as first row, which is slightly lower than Samsung's rated 220/200 MB/s. The last row is typically the most important and unstated 4K (essentially random) R/W with a respectable 14/6 MB/s (Samsungs are typically 10-20 MB/s for random reads and 5-10 MB/s for random writes). HDDs usually get <0.5MB/s for random R/W, Intel and Indilinx can get about the same for random reads and 30-40 MB/s and 10-20 MB/s in random writes, respectively. This is going from memory, so my figures might not be 100% accurate but I believe they're in the general ballpark figure.

 

fred2028, but of course my question is; Does the drive 'feel' slow? What are you using that speed for?

 

Oh OK, thanks, CDM is the name of that program! lol didn't realize that.

Drive feels OK, tbh I feel very little difference compared to my 500 GB 7200 RPM, since shut down time is like 7 seconds, bootup is like 30 seconds (35 processes on boot), and Office still shows the splash screen for a bit on load. I notice it when coming out of sleep mode (instantaneous) and when loading levels in MW1 since the levels' loading bar just keep going and never stop.

 

Something is definitely wrong with your benchmarks--can you show a screenshot of device manager with SATA controller expanded?

 

Thanks fred2028, for this sanity check.

This mirrors my direct experience too with 3 different SSD's on three different systems so far (and I'm just on a 5400 RPM, 500GB drive).

 

And voila. Dunno why you seem to have more than me.

 

Do you have the Intel matrix storage manager? Not sure if that is it but something is definitely bottlenecking your ssd and it will be worth it to track it down. My SSD was bottlenecked by Nvidia's Nforce serial ATA controller--had to uninstall it and let Microsoft SATA driver install.

 

see.. spreading your personal knowledge to other threads of people having issues like that should be normal and expected. surfasb, he did that often, do you maybe now understand a bit the issue?

and even so, i can add that, yes, this happens to be reported even by people who like ssds to be normal for samsung ssds. so you might have chosen a better one.

 

davepermen,

And what, may I ask, is the knowledge that you spread? Impersonal knowledge? Just exactly what kind of knowledge are we supposed to be sharing here? Yours?

 

look. a very simple thing:

some have gains with ssds. some don't.

can those, that don't, in any form invalidate, that others did? no.
can those, that did, in any form invalida, that others did NOT? yes, as they show that they CAN work very well.

i know they can work very well. and this makes it a truth that is not attackable (except by considering me a liar). i know as well, that sometimes, they don't work very well (like your case). but your situation doesn't change, that they can work well.

you can't just go out and say, yeah, that's probably normal. because it isn't. tons of people pop it in and are blown away by the speed. check the huge 3rd ssd thread by now. they all have gains from it, they all feel the difference very much.

your statement about this being a sanity check just shows that you don't want to accept that the sane conclusion is, those that don't get it working fast have
a) a bad ssd (which samsung in my experience is, too.. and there are some physical reasons to this, based on their controller technology), or
b) a bad installation or
c) a bad sense for speed. i know people who can't see a difference between fullhd and an ordinary dvd. does that make the difference non-existant? no. it just shows that some 'just don't see it'.

 

While your response seems reasonable (except that you're basically calling me a liar), I didn't know I had a bad SSD until it was used for a couple of (whole) days.

No need for me to be sensitive to speed - I timed it - and a watch is insensitive to time, it just reports it.

 

i don't call you a liar for having a bad experience with an ssd. i just say "someone having a bad experience" does not make it a generic truth that this should be the default. it shouldn't. the good experience should. that's what we pay for, not? and some get it. so why don't the others? because something went wrong in their case. so it did in yours. or your expectation was wrong, or what ever.

 

davepermen, circular reasoning, circular reasoning... tsk tsk tsk...

 

well.. not really, but yeah, we turn in circles mostly.

can we agree on 'i don't call you a liar'? because i don't.

things that went wrong on your side:
you made a test that has shown no difference => you concluded there never is, not that the test might just be wrong
you've seen that your ssd fails to live up the hype => you concluded, that should be the default. which again, is wrong.

these are my issues. that's not calling you a liar at all.

i can't even fully say that samsungs suck, while i'd like to. some have good experiences. it's just more often than not that people are unimpressed by it. and i do know why. but that doesn't mean that this should be the general consus, even while i would like to (as i experienced the same). one thing i can support is, that, in benches, they show lack of random writes, and a higher latency than others.

 

davepermen,

Okay, I'll accept my non-lying status, but you still seem 'blind' to the facts I presented and the framework I presented them in.

I also agree about the Samsung's - they're not horrible - it's just when I pay big $$$$, I expect things perfect and even a minor glitch is all it takes to move a 'thing' from 'perfection' to 'garbage'.

They are easily the least impressive SSD I have had the chance to use - but they still offer silent operation, low heat, and much more dependable and shockproof performance than a mechanical HD does. However, that is not what draws me to SSD's - raw performance is their allure for me and so far it seems just out of my reach.

I just hope that I can test an Intel soon so that I'll know once and for all if SSD's are to be considered and used by me in the very near future.

 

OK I'll download it from Intel's driver site. Do note that I have a Samsung SSD, not Intel. New results:

 

I was going to suggest uninstalling the Intel storage drivers and letting the default Windows 7 drivers install. Even though the default Win 7 storage drivers are also from Intel, SSD users are getting better results with those than what comes in the default chipset driver package.

You can't really use ATTO for determining performance in this case as it has shown good performance with my SSD with Nforce serial ATA controller when in fact the performance was poor with that storage driver.

 

new driver from intel: http://www.x-drivers.com/catalog/drivers/sata_controllers/companies/intel/models/ich10/13984.html

 

Thanks! Installed and running on my VAIO + Scorpio Blue.

 

in HDTune 'Options': click 'Benchmark', change 'Block size' into 1MB, retest it, you will see a big jump