SSD Performance

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WasntMe

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
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My Intel X-25M 80GB seems much slower than it did when I first got it about a year ago. Is there anyway to tune it up for increased performance that doesn't include reinstalling Windows 7?

Example: Firefox opened in a second when I first got it (and the months that followed). Now it takes several seconds, especially after reboot.

AHCI and trim are running. Intel Toolbox says everything is good.
 
there is a new firmware that came out a few days ago. try that. and hdderase it if you dont try that. hdderase will make it 'new' again.
 
Have you tried running Crystal DiskMark or AS-SSD on it? I think the Intel Toolbox lets you force a manual TRIM on the drive, you could try that. Otherwise, create an image and then HDDerase and reload.
 
Sendou said:
You could also look in to trying out HyperFast by Diskeeper Corporation.

They've got a white paper on it below:

http://downloads.diskeeper.com/pdf/Optimizing-Solid-State-Storage-with-HyperFast-Technology.pdf

Their defrag program is more designed towards corporate/enterprise environments, but this little add-on has kept my SSD's in great shape. :cool:
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interesting article despite being counter to everything we (the consumer) have learnt about flash memory. the idea of running any defrag routine (no matter how intelligent its implementation) on such a device is unsettling.

personally i've only had a SSD for maybe 6 mths. in that time i've learnt;
-manufactures claims and reviewer benchmarks are only indicative of out-of-box performance before drive settles into real world performance levels
-repetitive benchmarking steadily reduces drives throughput and life span (CrystalDiskMark and AS-SSD being the worst)
-repetitive writes are BAD. it's performance is the main reason for use is as a boot drive but a os executes lots of writes during normal operation, steadily reducing its speed & life
-defragging is BAD
-special circumstances must be observed to maintain drives correct operation (AHCI enabled at bios and os for TRIM/GC to operate properly)
-the SSD logic actively reduces its own performance when in heavy write/read states to preserve its longevity.

it fairly annoying as a user that any form of testing is detrimental device thus not encouraged. i wouldn't go back to using a magnetic drive for a booting windows but the fact the damn thing requires kid cloves during normal use. frustrating that we have to find ways to reduce any form of writing to the drive to maintain some semblance of advertised performance. kinda makes its purpose as a storage medium somewhat superfluous

there is a good article here regarding SSD slow downs, general use, TRIM/GC, benchmarking etc (details mainly SF controllers but discusses others + SSD's in general);
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...Vertex2)-expected-Benchmarks-and-General-Info

hopefully 3rd gen SSDs + better OS support will address some of these issues
 
You have been mislead by OCZ / Sandforce propaganda. Many of the things you have "learnt" are either wrong, or only apply to SSDs with Sandforce controllers.
 
hi john4200, i'll be happy to address the error(s) in my understanding of the subject. if you would be so kind to point me in the right direction, i'll endevour to re-educate myself..
 
aphasia said:
hi john4200, i'll be happy to address the error(s) in my understanding of the subject. if you would be so kind to point me in the right direction, i'll endevour to re-educate myself..
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I'd love to hear it as well. SSDs are so new, and there is always a lot of rumors and false information out there with new technologies.
 
aphasia said:
-manufactures claims and reviewer benchmarks are only indicative of out-of-box performance before drive settles into real world performance levels

-repetitive benchmarking steadily reduces drives throughput and life span (CrystalDiskMark and AS-SSD being the worst)

-the SSD logic actively reduces its own performance when in heavy write/read states to preserve its longevity.
Click to expand...
these are more or less specific to sandforce controller based drives, and it has to do with the way they compress the data. if you are writing compressable data, sandforce drives will be faster than intel. uncompressable (random) data gives intel the advantage. benchmark programs either write all one type of data or the other. Crystal and AS-SSD write random data, which makes intel look better. ATTO and others that write 100% compressable data (all zeros) make sandforce look better. the problem is that real world data is not 100% one or the other, and using those programs as a comparison between types of drives is not indicitive of "real world user experience".

furthermore, sandforce controlers have a protection routein built in that, when writing large amounts of data in short periods of time (benchmarking), it will artificially slow the drives down to prolong the life of the NAND. then after a period of time the drive will come out of protection mode and operate normally. this can further complicate trying to benchmark a sandforce SSD. unfortunately sandforce doesnt publish the thresholds of when this kicks in, for how long, etc. probably because its part of their proprietary algorithms. intel doesnt do this from what i understand.

-repetitive writes are BAD. it's performance is the main reason for use is as a boot drive but a os executes lots of writes during normal operation, steadily reducing its speed & life

-defragging is BAD

-special circumstances must be observed to maintain drives correct operation (AHCI enabled at bios and os for TRIM/GC to operate properly)
Click to expand...

defragging is just unnecessary. it gains nothing and wears out the NAND cells. writing to a SSD is not necessarily bad. yes the flash has a definite lifetime, but so do hard disks. under "normal" usage, you can expect a SSD to last many years. its perfectly fine to use as a boot drive, and the OS reads way more then it writes. infact that is where it shines; small random reads/writes of the file system. unless you are low on RAM and are constantly paging, windows does not write large volumes of information regularly. copying a 700mb movie file is going to wear the drive way more than a month or two of running windows.
 
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ghost6303 said:
small random reads/writes of the file system. unless you are low on RAM and are constantly paging, windows does not write large volumes of information regularly. copying a 700mb movie file is going to wear the drive way more than a month or two of running windows.
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Rubbish:

source please?

The average user probably has at least 700MB's of data swapping in the temp internet files alone with a month or two of OS usage, not to mention all the backgroup paging, downloads, etc etc etc.
 
I think the best advice is to just stop worrying about it. Use the drive as you would a normal drive (Win 7 automatically turns off the things that are unnecessary, like defrag) and enjoy the speed. The lifespan on a normal SSD is plenty sufficient for normal use for years - the small size of the drive will reduce its usefulness long before it runs out of NAND writes.
 
Archaea said:
The average user probably has at least 700MB's of data swapping in the temp internet files alone with a month or two of OS usage, not to mention all the backgroup paging, downloads, etc etc etc.
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While I don't know about the 700MB figure, his main point is correct. The amount of writes from typical usage (web browsing, paging, etc.) is not a problem for SSDs. An Intel X25-M SSD can write 20GB per day for five years. It would be highly unusual for most users to write anywhere near to 20GB per day to their system drive.
 
aphasia said:
hi john4200, i'll be happy to address the error(s) in my understanding of the subject. if you would be so kind to point me in the right direction, i'll endevour to re-educate myself..
Click to expand...

These topics have been discussed at great length in this very forum in past months. ghost6303 gave a reasonable summary of some of these discussions. If you want more, review the old threads and then ask specific question(s) if something is unclear.
 
dude we need some stickies BADLY> no offense to the OP, and maybe the mods need to get on this STAT, but this subforum is devolving into the same seven or eight questions asked over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

GAH ITS fucking killing me! Im going to claw my own eyes out with a fucking claw hammer:mad:

if we had some stickies, this thread would have been a one post reply: a link to a sticky.
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Is this a G1 (no TRIM) or G2 (TRIM)?

If you are using Windows 7, it has a built in image backup utility that would allow you to save the image of the drive to another drive. That way you can do whatever you want to the drive as far as clearing the NAND and then just put the image back on it. If you want to use the utility just open the Start menu and in Search type "backup" and select Backup and Restore. Great utility that has helped me recover from Harddrive issues.

I've had my 160GB for a little over a year and I think its at 1.5TB of disk writes (as read from SMART in the Intel Toolbox).
 
interesting article despite being counter to everything we (the consumer) have learnt about flash memory. the idea of running any defrag routine (no matter how intelligent its implementation) on such a device is unsettling.
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I used the HyperFast program with my Intel G1 SSDs and it worked well.

It's not a true defrag program but instead consolidates free space which is also used by other SSD utilities.

Using Windows FSCTLs (file system controls), originally co-written by Diskeeper Corporation and Microsoft,
HyperFast delivers 100% safe automatic maintenance of the file system,
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BTW, since MS had it's fingers in the development of this product I doubt it would be detrimental to an SSD.
 
Can anyone tell me is it worth owning an SSD if all it does is boot my apps fast? Will my normal SATA drives become the bottleneck? All of my working files are off the C:/OS drive. So far on other forums no one has given me a straight answer. So if it's not on the SSD, it's normal speed, a slight bump (since the OS is on the SSD) or not?
 
As with anything, your system can only be as fast as it's slowest component.

If all your data resides on a Sata 1.5GB/s 7200rpm 8mb cache drive from 5 years ago then sure all the SSD in the world won't speed up that data movement.

I opted to go the SSD / VelociRaptor route to maximize speed between my drives as much as possible.
 
DisrupTer911 said:
As with anything, your system can only be as fast as it's slowest component.

If all your data resides on a Sata 1.5GB/s 7200rpm 8mb cache drive from 5 years ago then sure all the SSD in the world won't speed up that data movement.

I opted to go the SSD / VelociRaptor route to maximize speed between my drives as much as possible.
Click to expand...

Actually, I disagree. Things like movies/MP3 aren't really helped by SSD. OS operations, loading programs, etc., are noticeably faster with SSD. If I had a database going on, that would also benefit.

Possibly editing files like large photoshop files would benefit, or word processing/spreadsheets (having the programs load up from SSD helps a lot) I haven't really tried yet.

Having another SSD to run your virtual machines OS also makes a lot of sense (and data virtual disks on spinning platters).

In that case, you can actively edit in an SSD, and archive to spinning platters.

SSD is too expensive to replace all data storage right now, but there's a compelling cost/benefit for SSD as OS.
 
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