Why is my SSD so slow?

do you use Visual studio, and if so what version? The reason I ask is with Vista or Win7 for some reason and Dot net 1.1 VS 2003 I have found it can WAY slow down any program that accesses those libraries.......

 

ZaZ, did you do Windows installation using ATA/IDE mode in the BIOS or AHCI/RAID (those too will give you similar results)?
Also it would help to run a benchmark without any driver installed, right after the clean windows installation so you can see how the disk performs with the MS default drivers (actually run one with the Windows write-cache off and one with it on). After you get a screenshot install the chipset drivers. Reboot and run a benchmark (again with and without the write-cache). Compare it to the default drivers. If they remain the same or increase you can exclude the chipset drivers. Then download and install the latest Intel RST drivers from their website. Run again a benchmark and compare the results like you did before. After doing this you can safely exclude what driver is causing a problem or not. (It could be a BIOS setting as well so try all the possible combinations before you proceed with the drivers installation, ie CPU speedstep, if you have the option to enable it or not, or any other powersaving feature)
Also make sure that you have set the power plan to high performance
I know it's a pain in the... but you can't be sure unless you take discreet steps till you are able to isolate the culprit.
Unfortunately you need to find someone with a similar laptop with an SSD and ask him to run a couple of benchmarks. If he/she can achieve numbers similar to those from all these reviewing sites/blogs then it is a misconfiguration on your laptop. On the opposite case, if the numbers are similarly low then you can blame the chipset itself or the BIOS or the drivers if this degradation in performance occurs after their installation.

The 4K random reads and writes are low, period (safe mode numbers speak for themselves) this SSD should feel like a Ferrari next to a fiat

I hope that helps

*always try on a clean installion, no cloning or stuff..., secure erase it if necessary*

*EDIT*
As far as I know Vista contrary to XP align the disk properly, but you can always check your alignment after the installation is done from here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/157

 

Check partition alignment, or erase all partitions and then use Windows 7 or Vista setup to create a new one.

 

Here's my alignment. I'm not sure if I put the numbers in correctly so I added the other parts.

 

It is misaligned, since your cluster size is 4096, your partition starting offset has to be divisible by 4096 which is not in your case. You need to install windows again.
Use the Vista/Win 7 DVD, delete all the partitions so you will have only one big unallocated space. Then let windows create the necessary partitions and continue with the installation.
Hopefully you won't have any problem

 

Zaz, do you realize how far back we go? I was just looking back and you were the first to comment on my first review in 07. We are old timers.

 

I've done this many times, but it hasn't done much so far. I'll make a new partition with the Window 7 disc and re-image it to see if that helps, but a new clean install takes the better part of a day for me.

Yes, we been here a long time. There's no denying it.

 

Formatting the whole disk and letting Windows do the partitioning is the only way to make sure the alignment will be correct. Formating the disk and clone a partition that was not aligned in the first place, will result in a new misalignment and you will end up doing it again wasting double the time

 

That may very well be true, but while not in this instance, I've done this many times and it hasn't made a discernible difference to me. If I made the partition and formatted, then laid down the image, would that help?

 

To be honest I am not sure cause there is a very good chance the program to place data in the wrong possition. If I were you I would spend a couple more minutes to do it from scratch and before you start installing everything else check first the SSD performance and the alignment

 

What utility is that?

NM: Need to read more, thanks to stamatisx

 

OK, here's my AS SSD Benchmark on a clean install with just drivers. I don't know how to read it, but it's as pure as it gets. I did twice:

 

4kb-64thrd results are underpar. Again should be ~150MB/s. Can you double-check you are running AHCI mode in the bios?

 

Zaz did you check the performance of the SSD before the installation of any driver?
The procedure goes as mentioned here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6566936-post53.html

 

I did check and it is running in AHCI mode. I did not do it before installing any drivers.

 

Just wondering ZaZ, before you installed Windows did you load the Intel Rapid Storage Drivers first or did you load the Intel drivers after installing Windows? I read some SSD forums saying that it's ideal loading the drivers first before installing Windows but I don't know whether it's true that it affects the Windows install in terms of performance.

 

Zaz, you need to stick with the instructions and the order that they were provided, because right now I can't really help you. The reason I asked for a benchmark with that specific order is to eliminate possible factors like drivers. Once you eliminate that factor you can continue to the next one, etc...
On you next format and clean windows installation try to follow that order and there is a good chance we will figure out what's wrong.

 

It can be hard when several people give different advice. If it were my SSD I'd follow stamatisx advice, to the letter.

 

Can I get a short synopsis of that? I did not load the Intel drivers during installation, but afterwards.

 

- Try loading the Intel Rapid Storage Drivers first before installing Windows, download the relevant package (32 bit or 64 bit) and extract the drivers on a USB stick. During WinPE where it asks which drive partition you want to install go to Drive Options (Advanced) and load the driver from your USB stick.

- Stamatisx suggests a clean install (starting off from a clean slate) and I would recommend this as well on a SSD, the problem using a cloned image is that it will probably dump it randomly on the drive rather than being aligned hence the earlier problem. Doing the "long-winded" just means less things can go wrong really.

- You can check if TRIM mode is set correctly by typing (no quotes) "fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify" on Windows. A response of "DisableDeleteNotify = 0" means its enabled. Otherwise type in "fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0" to turn it on.

Try benchmarking it after and see how it goes.

 

Ok.. I would like to share my experience with OP. My OCZ agility had ~100mb sequential read speed and ~20mb sequential write. My SSD was properly aligned, health of it is Good, and I installed the Intel Rapid Storage drivers afterwards too.

I don't want to waste my SSD performance like this so I backed up my files. I re-installed Windows 7 and loaded the Intel Rapid Storage F6 Drivers during the installation after I formatted my SSD. After installing my drivers I ran the Crystal Disk Mark. Sequentials speed went to ~200mb and write ~100mb. That's a HUGE difference! The 4k writes also doubled.

EDIT: Thank you Hearst555 for helping me out Repped!

 

Ah you fixed your problem, glad it worked out for you in the end. Glad to be of service!

 

So it really makes a difference if you do an F6 driver install? That's odd.

 

I did not do it with F6, I just installed it a while after a clean install. Performance looks fine to me though (Crucial C300 64GB).

 

First Picture is my first run without Intel Rapid Storage driver.
Second pic is after installing the driver on my old OS with all my programs.
Third pic is after re-installing windows with the driver loaded and with Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 downloading updates in background.

I'm not sure if my 4k writes are normal or not, but at least it is better than before xD lol. I have 25% SSD wear on my Agility drive. I think it is because I didn't turn write cache off for 6 months.

 

OK here's AS SSD Benchmark with just Vista and only the F6 Intel drivers loaded during install. It doesn't seem much better:

 

OK, after posting at the Intel forum where they suggested some stuff, they're basically trying to tell me my notebook's SATA controller may be the problem. I find this to be odd because my X200 uses an Intel Chipset and SATA controller. Does this seem odd to anyone else or could there be something to this.

 

You could try asking fellow X200 owners if they have similar results to pinpoint the problem. I believe the R and T-series around the same generation (i.e. T400) should also use the same chipset and SATA bus as your X200 so you can ask them as well for some results.

 

OK, it's definitely Vista. Whew, I'm not going nutty. I installed Win 7 on the machine. According to AS SSD Benchmark, it's doing much better and it felt much snappier, but the question remains, why is Vista so much slower? Here's the bench from Win 7:

 

Zaz, since you saw those specific numbers, I can only say one thing:

Welcome to my world
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19340601/19727976.aspx#19727976

 

I take it yours is underperforming? I don't know what the numbers really mean. If it was performing optimally, what should the numbers look like? I'd really like to get this to work right in Vista cause I don't like Win 7.

 

OT: What don't you like about Windows 7? I'm just curious because I to me, both Windows 7 and Vista are pretty much the same. I can't even imagine what 'Windows 8' would look like.

You could try format the partition and then clean install Windows Vista back on as long as you don't delete any partitions.

 

I don't know if you checked the link I provided, but there you will clearly see the difference in the performance of the same SSD between the intel based chipset and the nvidia one.
In your case your 4K random should be at least 22MB/s and 45MB/s respectively.

Vista and Win 7 are very similar so you won't see any dramatic difference
If you want to increase the performance read the following thread
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/474521-installing-ssd-tips-tricks-benchmarks.html

 

Zaz your 4k-64K has improved a lot but 12,9 MB/sec 4K random read seems very low, it should be about 20 MB/sec.

Is AHCI enabled in BIOS and did you install the Intel RST driver this time?

Edit: Have a look at this! http://communities.intel.com/message/84134;jsessionid=A54D51AC99FDA5FD7D549AA233E10D7D.node7COM

"i did a raw install of windows 7 with AHCI and NATIVE turned on in the bios and ran it right away... all better:"

After going through the advice they all come at 20MB/sec 4K random reads.

 

Yes, AHCI is enabled in the BIOS and I did install the rapid drivers during install. It's amazing to me you have to jump through this many hoops to get this thing working correctly. There's some many metrics and things you got to do. I can understand having to install a driver, but this is just insane. I'm lost too. Do I use the rapid restore or the MSAHCI driver. Plus it takes me the better of a day to do a clean install. Maybe I'll just sell the thing and get a platter drive as I'm not that unhappy with the present performance of my drive. Plus I'll get more space too.

I don't like Windows 7 because I hate tooltips. I know how to get rid of them in Vista, but my trick doesn't work in Windows 7.

 

I agree it's strange that you have to do so much to get normal performance. With Windows 7 a clean install + Intel RST is usually enough.

We never even talked about firmware iirc. Running the latest Intel firmware might also help.

 

I already checked, it's running the latest and my BIOS is up to date.

This just blows that I spent this money and am not getting what my money's worth. I like the drive cause it's quite. I wonder if any other drives like OCZ or Crucial would preform better, being that they're not Intel drives or is this a SATA controller issue? I had the Agility drive and it seemed about the same, but I didn't really do much to make it better.

 

OK, just for fun, I tried with a fresh install with the Intel drivers and I got this:





That's a marked improvement from before, but still not where it should be. It definitely seemed more snappy and the boot times were much quicker, but now after spending a few hours installing some stuff mostly the drive and whatnot, my scores have dropped into the 320 range. While that's still a lot better than before, I'm not sure why they've dropped and the boot times seem to have slowed quite a bit, though it still seems snappier than before. Anyone got a clue here?

 

Install the Intel Toolbox and see if that will help to restore the lost performance

 

You are always installing a new copy of Vista And Windows7 before you try out new drivers. Now don't forget that, a clean install of Vista/Win7 will perform indexing service, which can couse slowdown. Try to disable this from services.msc next time. It is worth a try
I have read through all the pages, quite strange problem you got here...

 

Zaz, to show you how the Intel X25-M performs on the Alienware M17x - R1 (the difference is the nvidia chipset instead of the Intel one you have) take a look at the screenshot
These are the numbers you should see with this SSD on your laptop too, theoretically


*EDIT*

The screenshot was taken from another NBR member, Scook

 

Yup and thats pulling every bit of juice ot of the drive but mine are very similar as well.

 

That's the 160GB guys. Zaz has an 80GB.

Here's an 80GB.


Some guys here are getting 24MB/sec 4K random reads.
http://www.overclock.net/ssd/658949-crystaldiskmark-ssd-bench-thread-13.html

 

Ops, good catch Phil

 

So, is my drive performing fairly good, poorly or something in between? I don't understand why it scores dropped. I don't really care about the scores, but the slowed boot time is what concerned me more.

This is on a clean install of Vista with the rapid drivers installed. I had the Intel SSD toolbox installed and optimized it before running the benchmark.

 

Comparing the scores Phil provided with yours, the performance is poor. I have concluded that the laptop is capping the SSD performance (could be the chipset or the BIOS)

 

A normal performing Intel X-25M 80GB should deliver over 20 MB/sec 4K random read and over 250 MB/sec sequential read.

Now in your last shot you got 15.7 MB/sec and 214 MB sequential read. That's your best sofar.

Actually I doubt there is a noticeable difference with a normal performing one.

I agree with stamatisx, I think it's your laptop.

 

If it weren't so noisy, I'd have one. My machine shields very little noise. I might buy one anyway.

 

Zaz, did you try this yet:

 

To help understand what restore was doing - doing a manual trim with the Intel toolbox would takes several minutes to several hours - after system restore was turned off it takes it's normal 1-2 seconds. I use another program to provide my back-ups so was not concerned with switching it off. Worth a try...