What's up with my new SSD?

Joined
Dec 2, 2009
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Installed my X-25M G2 80GB earlier today and noted erratic benchmark performance over the first 10% of the drive.

Sequence...

1. Installed drive
2. Initialized and formatted drive from Disk Management...the application actually stopped responding and the drive disappeared from Windows, although upon reboot it was there with the partition size I specified of 40GB (i'm wondering if this isn't the cause)
3. Installed Windows 7 64-bit (AHCI enabled) and formatted the 40GB partition again, this time without issue
4. Ran benchmarks, noted odd performance over the first 10% of the drive
5. Realized it didn't have a TRIM enabled firmware, thought maybe the installation of Windows caused fragmentation (although that would be very quick!)
6. Successfully updated firmware to HD (whatever one Intel released a few days ago)
7. Ran benchmarks again, same thing
8. Reinstalled Windows again, ran benchmarks, same thing

Benchmarks aside, it seems fine...no weird errors in the Event Viewer and Windows is behaving...the benchmark thing just bugs me - same thing happens in HD Tach and HD Tune.

I tried zero'ing out the drive with HDDErase 3.3 ISO and "hdparm --security-erase" via Parted Magic with no success, my BIOS is locking the drive from such low level access. Intel has pulled their "manual TRIM" utility for the time being, so I can only assume TRIM is enabled and working, although even if that's the case, I'm not sure if TRIM is retroactive to my first install with the non-TRIM firmware.

So is this normal? I've seen hdtach screens from G1 and G2 reviews where it's pretty much a straight line across.

My G2 on the right, G1 on the left.
kd7bqw.jpg
 
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I tried zero'ing out the drive with HDDErase 3.3 ISO and "hdparm --security-erase" via Parted Magic with no success, my BIOS is locking the drive from such low level access. Intel has pulled their "manual TRIM" utility for the time being, so I can only assume TRIM is enabled and working, although even if that's the case, I'm not sure if TRIM is retroactive to my first install with the non-TRIM firmware.

Boot up without the drive connected, then connect it after you're past the BIOS.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1034928811#post1034928811 can get you the SSD Toolbox.
 
My 80 G2 behaves the same. Why would you worry about this anyway?
 
X-axis are on different scales in these pictures, so they are not useful for comparison purposes (one appears to start at zero GB, while the other appears to start at 0.2GB. I think the graph on the right is probably more accurate, because small "sequential" IO is essentially "random" IO, if you think about it.
 
My 80 G2 behaves the same. Why would you worry about this anyway?

Because...

1. I'm not sure if it's normal...I've seen essentially flat lines in reviews
2. Over the first 8GB of the drive, I'm getting subpar performance

Can you post your graph?
 
Here is my G2. It arrived yesterday from Newegg.

intelssd.JPG


Upgraded the firmwire and running IDE mode in WinXP. However there is NO DATA on the drive. I'm waiting for a copy of win7 pro x64 before installing anything on it and will use AHCI. Maybe the drive is getting the low scores during the first 10GB because there is data?
 
Here is my G2. It arrived yesterday from Newegg.

intelssd.JPG


Upgraded the firmwire and running IDE mode in WinXP. However there is NO DATA on the drive. I'm waiting for a copy of win7 pro x64 before installing anything on it and will use AHCI. Maybe the drive is getting the low scores during the first 10GB because there is data?

Rawr! You have my drive. :(

It will be interesting to see if it stays that way after you install the OS.

Can't download the Intel Toolbox from that site because it hit the 10 download limit. I guess I'll just wait for Intel to re-release it.
 
Here is my G2. It arrived yesterday from Newegg.

intelssd.JPG


Upgraded the firmwire and running IDE mode in WinXP. However there is NO DATA on the drive. I'm waiting for a copy of win7 pro x64 before installing anything on it and will use AHCI. Maybe the drive is getting the low scores during the first 10GB because there is data?

Wow, this is nice :)
 
Tried a few things...

1. Disabled swap file/indexing/some other disk related things - no difference
2. Switched to IDE mode - the dip pattern over the first 10% changed in appearance, but still existed
3. Installed Windows to my WD 640GB and benched the Intel...

Tada
2nktpo6.png


So I guess it's related to the OS installation. The interesting thing is that on my previous SSD install, the spikes only effected the first 10% or 8GB of the drive, although there was over 20GB of data on there, so it's not a 1:1 correlation with data simply being there..
 
^^^ correct. After installing w7 on the ssd the perfect g2 is getting the same results as everyone else! I popped my Raptor in as my primary OS and the ssd (with w7 on it) is still getting the bad results.
 
It's quite bizarre...I hope Intel can address it.

SSD's are not like hearts, flat lines are best...---------------------------------------------------------- :)
 
Mine looks exactly the same, I have a 160G2.

I think it has to do with whats on the HD for instance a whole bunch of small files (windows installation) are going to read slower and therefore yeild lower read speed.
 
It's an idea, but wouldn't the same apply to mechanical drives? My mechanical drives all produce a relatively clean downward arc, with the front (where Windows is located), offering up the highest read speeds.
 
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