Someone please help! SSD not performing

[island55]

hello everyone!

im desperate for help, ive searched high and low and i checked and double checked to make sure all the settings are correct to have an SSD drive run at optimal speeds. i built my computer in January and ordered my first SSD drive last month so i still have time to RMA the drive if necessary.

asus sabertooth p67 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131702
intel i7 2600k @ STOCK
mushkin enhanced chronos 120GB SSD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226236

ive done a benchmark with CrystalDiskMark, ATTO and HD Tune however i am at work right now so ill post the results when i get home BUT
with the CrystalDiskMark program is says my SSD Sequential Read speed is 202mb/s and my Sequential Write is 125mb/s
i also have a secondary mechanical drive(Seagate Barracuda 1TB @ 7200RPM) so i tested it to compare and the mechanical Sequential Read
speed was 103mb/s and the Sequential Write was also around 100mb/s

so im kinda sad that im not getting the same results as other people, like 300+ mb/s read times, im running in AHCI mode and im plugged into
the intel sata6g_1 port on the mobo(not marvel) and im using a sata 6gb/s cable to connect the SSD to the mobo. i also updated the firmware
to the most recent version and got the same results.
i have noticed that windows and games load quicker but according to the test its not performing like it should 🙁

someon please help!

 

[RetiredChief]

Tell me you did a clean install to the SSD, WITH the HDD disconnected.

1) download AS SSD. Open it, don't run the benchmarks (will again be disapointed).
But verify (upper left) that:
A) Controller is iaStor, (slightly better than msahci)
B) verify that partition is correctly aligned (will show OK)

Is your system partition on the SSD - Rt click MyCompute, select management, then on left side select diskmanagement. The SSD (should be drive0) should show a tiny 100mb system partition, with a 2nd partition as C-Drive.

If you did a "clone" then need to verify that trim is enabled.
Clonning may, or may not, properly align your partitions and may have left the system partition on the HDD (not desirable).

On performance.
Your drive is somewhat simular to the Agility III (Have two 128 gig aglility III's) and I like to refer to them as a SATA II SSD with a SATA III wrapper. While they are much faster than a HDD, there true performance is not the best when compared to other SATA III SSDs.

1) On Sequencial performance. Short verbage - BAA HUM BUG.
Long winded verbage
Sequencial performance is (A) the LEAST important perameter for a OS + Program drive. It's the small 4K random performance that is important. (B) Manuf love using ATTO Sequencials as a marketing tool. - ATTO (Developed for HDD) uses data that is Highly compressable (which SF drives LOVE), but this is far from real life for a OS + Program drive. Crystal diskmark, by default, uses compressed data, same as AS SSD. SF based drives will score much lower when Benchmark uses compressed data - SO DON'T Worry. If concerned about getting manuf spec then run ATTO ( think you can switch Xstalldiskmark to use uncompressed data).

Personnally I use AS SSD and compare my scores to reviews that show AS SSD.

 

[island55]

to the questions i can answer before i get home, when i got the SSD i did a fresh install of windows 7 ultimate and yes i partition correctly because theres a 100MB partition like you stated then the C drive. i did NOT clone or copy from the mechanical.
and as soon as i get to the house ill check those things and post the outcome/results.

i have a question now, would it be better to have 2 smaller SSD drives in RAID0 or have a single larger SSD as primary with my 1TB mechanical as secondary?
because if my current SSD drive is performing like its supposed to then im going to give it to my brother and buy either the 2smaller SSD's or the single larger SSD that perform a lot better than my current SSD

 

[RetiredChief]

1) A single larger SSD performs faster than it's smaller brother. That is a 128 gig Samsung 830 is slightly faster than the samsung 830 64 gig.

Not a lover of Raid0 for SSDs:
1) You lose trim support. while newer SSDs have improved on garbage collectio - IT STILL works better with trim support.
2) Raid0 primarily benefits Sequencial read/write performance for Large files. IT DOES not improve access time, and has limited performance boost to random 4 K performance. Raid0 - Hense No real advantage for a OS + Program drive. Great for a HDD that you use to work with LARGE file structures. fase it how many Blu-ray video files are you going to put on a SSD and encode them - Blu-ray Video file are 10 _> 40 gigs for a single file.

 

[smorizio]

make sure loaded the newest intel chipset drivers...have the newer intel rapid storage drivers. the brown ports and the intel 6g ports. also check that you got the newest firmware on the ssd.

 

[RetiredChief]

^ also lated Bios revision

 

[island55]

Tell me you did a clean install to the SSD, WITH the HDD disconnected.

1) download AS SSD. Open it, don't run the benchmarks (will again be disapointed).
But verify (upper left) that:
A) Controller is iaStor, (slightly better than msahci)
B) verify that partition is correctly aligned (will show OK)

Is your system partition on the SSD - Rt click MyCompute, select management, then on left side select diskmanagement. The SSD (should be drive0) should show a tiny 100mb system partition, with a 2nd partition as C-Drive.

If you did a "clone" then need to verify that trim is enabled.
Clonning may, or may not, properly align your partitions and may have left the system partition on the HDD (not desirable).

On performance.
Your drive is somewhat simular to the Agility III (Have two 128 gig aglility III's) and I like to refer to them as a SATA II SSD with a SATA III wrapper. While they are much faster than a HDD, there true performance is not the best when compared to other SATA III SSDs.

1) On Sequencial performance. Short verbage - BAA HUM BUG.
Long winded verbage
Sequencial performance is (A) the LEAST important perameter for a OS + Program drive. It's the small 4K random performance that is important. (B) Manuf love using ATTO Sequencials as a marketing tool. - ATTO (Developed for HDD) uses data that is Highly compressable (which SF drives LOVE), but this is far from real life for a OS + Program drive. Crystal diskmark, by default, uses compressed data, same as AS SSD. SF based drives will score much lower when Benchmark uses compressed data - SO DON'T Worry. If concerned about getting manuf spec then run ATTO ( think you can switch Xstalldiskmark to use uncompressed data).

Personnally I use AS SSD and compare my scores to reviews that show AS SSD.

so the AS SSD says "iaStor - OK" and below that it says "103424 K - OK" for the SSD drive
and in the drive management the SSD is disk0 with 'System Reserved @ 100MB NTFS' and the rest of the SSD drive is (C

 

[RetiredChief]

All sounds good.
Low performance on sequencial read/writes, Compared to "advertize" are most likely simply the difference between using compressed data vs Data that is highly compressable.
My Agility III scores low when benched with AS SSD, But I checked a review and and my AS SSD scores are about norm for the Agility III. Interesting to note that the Agillity IIIs work Just as well on sata II port as it does on sata III. The Muchkins Enhanced uses very simular async NAND and perform about the same.

 

[vrumor]

Run Crystal Disk Mark with zero fill turned on and youll see closer to your advertised speeds.

 

[island55]

thanks guys for the responses!!

according to ATTO and from other benchmark tests on the Mushkin website, my SSD drive is performing properly and at advertised speeds.

again thanks for all your responses and help - much appreciated guys!