Intel 520 Series SSD performance problem

[v1sper]

Hi TomsHardware community!

I'm experiencing a bit of a snag with my newest hardware purchase, namely an Intel 520 Series 240Gb SSD. I saw reviews all over the place praising this unit and showing benchmarks that were very good. Screenshots of 520 mb/sek write / 550 mb/sek read in ATTO Disk benchmark were on all serious review sites, yet when I benchmark mine..

And in AS SSD benchmark..

I've hooked it up to the Marvell controller on my Asus P8Z68 Deluxe motherboard;

I'm by no means an expert on this, it's my first SSD unit. What have I done wrong? Speeds are not where they should be.

Thanks for reading, hoping someone can give me a hint or two to what I can do to improve upon my situation.

 

[cin19]

You connected the 520 into the Marvell controller(NAVY BLUE) SATAIII, which has a maximum data bandwidth of PCIe x1 at 5Gb/s (500MB/s). That is why you are get low rate.

You should re-connect the 520 into the gray one SATA III (not the NAVY BLUE) and you should get the high benchmark.

 

[v1sper]

Worked like a charm, excellent stuff my friend! Thank you

(But why is the Marvell controller labeled SATA_6G_E1 and _E2 on the motherboard..? The gray SATA ports are labeled the same. This is what confused me originally. Today I learned, and I'm glad!)

 

[v1sper]

Best answer selected by v1sper.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

Hey there I have the same SSD (520 180GB version but Intel site states it's the same speed and IOPS) and getting similar disappointing benchmark results. I have a similar motherboard that you have also. I have the Asus P8P67 deluxe.

I made sure the SSD is in the grey 6g slot. I have the other drive connected to the 3g blue slot. I have my optical and a 2TB WD green drive on the Asus U3S6 controller card.

I just wanted to share my results and it's no where near the benchmarks I've seen either. I'm wondering if its a limitation to that chipset??? I'm not like dissapointed in a sense of "omg this sucks" - no this is amazing speed! Just wondering what I need to do to get the speeds that intel specs say it should be is all.

Anyway just wanted to share since we have similar setup. Benchmarks are the same using AS SSD

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 471.058 MB/s
Sequential Write : 258.206 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 402.831 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 252.313 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 26.284 MB/s [ 6417.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 105.915 MB/s [ 25858.0 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 233.364 MB/s [ 56973.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 237.306 MB/s [ 57936.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 7.7% (12.9/167.5 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/04/25 23:13:54
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)