Very slow Kingston SSD

[Thalandros]

So earlier this year I bought a Kingston 120GB SSDNOW SSD, it was cheap on Amazon and I had family over there to bring it back here (netherlands)

I ran benchmarks then and they seemed a bit weird but I didn't really investigate. Now I'm really confused and a bit disappointed because I compared my SSD to others. The read and write speeds are TERRIBLE. AHCI is enabled and all that, so that should all be good. I just kind of worry and not sure what I'm missing out on. The purpose of the SSD was to boot up Windows quickly (which it does in about 12 seconds, Windows 7 SP1) and run games like StarCraft II real quick, as in boot them up and load maps. It still takes a good 12-15 seconds to boot the program up. Should I expect more and want more, does it really matter? And if so, what is to be done? There are no firmware updates available for my SSD so that can't be the problem either. I've also benchmarked with AS SSD, and similar results came out of it. Both SSDlife and Kingston tell me my SSD is 100% healthy, too.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

[Freakboi_pa]

Verify the drive is plugged into the correct SATA port. You should be using a SATA 3.0 port <6Gbps>

 

[Thalandros]

Verify the drive is plugged into the correct SATA port. You should be using a SATA 3.0 port <6Gbps>

It is, I have checked that.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Any chance your ssd is the Kingston SSDNow V300 model? If it is, then I have some bad news. About 6 months ago Kingston changed the brand and type of flash memory from Toshiba to Micron. The Micron flash memory is slower than the Toshiba memory. Kingston switched the flash memory to keep costs down. In addition, a corresponding firmware update (505) developed glitches. There have been several firmware updates since then. Kingston was slow to admit they changed flash memory which led to accusations of Kingston using bait and switch tactics.

To be fair I should point out that the practice of changing components is nothing new. It usually happens with low budget, entry level models. For example, PNY uses several types of flash memory in their Optima series ssd's. The difference between Kingston and PNY is that PNY published the fact in their specifications while Kingston did not. Veteran posters might remember what happened when OCZ changed the flash memory in one of their models. It also happens with DDR3 memory modules. No telling which chips you're liable to find when you remove those fancy heats spreaders that gamers and enthusiasts like. Veterans who have been here for a few years might also remember what happened when companies changed panels in monitors and components in power supplies. Companies typically have a clause stating that specifications and components are subject to change.

 

[Y0GI]

If your CPU is AMD, try updating your chipset drivers, as this has been shown to provide definite benefits to ppl with slow SSD performance.

Yogi

 

[JohnnyLucky]

If your CPU is AMD, try updating your chipset drivers, as this has been shown to provide definite benefits to ppl with slow SSD performance.

Yogi

Good point!

Thalandros - What is the brand and model of your motherboard? Sometimes there are older motherboards that do not properly support modern 3rd generation SATA 3 6Gb/s solid state drives.

 

[Thalandros]

If your CPU is AMD, try updating your chipset drivers, as this has been shown to provide definite benefits to ppl with slow SSD performance.

Yogi

Good point!

Thalandros - What is the brand and model of your motherboard? Sometimes there are older motherboards that do not properly support modern 3rd generation SATA 3 6Gb/s solid state drives.

Thanks for you guys's reply. I'll just post my specs:


HD Radeon 6950 2GB
Intel i5 4670 @ 3.4Ghz
Gigabyte B85 HD3
8GB of Kingston RAM
1TB HDD


I've had this issue back when I had an old ASrock motherboard with my AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.8Ghz, so I don't think any of those two things have/had an impact.

 

[Thalandros]

Any chance your ssd is the Kingston SSDNow V300 model? If it is, then I have some bad news. About 6 months ago Kingston changed the brand and type of flash memory from Toshiba to Micron. The Micron flash memory is slower than the Toshiba memory. Kingston switched the flash memory to keep costs down. In addition, a corresponding firmware update (505) developed glitches. There have been several firmware updates since then. Kingston was slow to admit they changed flash memory which led to accusations of Kingston using bait and switch tactics.

To be fair I should point out that the practice of changing components is nothing new. It usually happens with low budget, entry level models. For example, PNY uses several types of flash memory in their Optima series ssd's. The difference between Kingston and PNY is that PNY published the fact in their specifications while Kingston did not. Veteran posters might remember what happened when OCZ changed the flash memory in one of their models. It also happens with DDR3 memory modules. No telling which chips you're liable to find when you remove those fancy heats spreaders that gamers and enthusiasts like. Veterans who have been here for a few years might also remember what happened when companies changed panels in monitors and components in power supplies. Companies typically have a clause stating that specifications and components are subject to change.

Thanks, that is indeed the model I have. If this is the case, there is nothing I can do? :/ Should I go and try to RMA it or won't that actually make a difference? And the most important question is if I should notice a difference from a non-worsened SSD with actual 300+ MB sequentual read/writing speeds? As said it's mostly for booting up Windows and some applications/games.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

The first thing to do is to identify which firmware you have. The 505 series firmware was the bad boy. Kingston published several firmware updates after that. One of them had problems. The latest version is firmware update 525ABBFO. It is supposed to be okay. Here is the link:

http://www.kingston.com/us/support/technical/downloads?product=SV300S3&filename=V300_525fw_Win

Be sure to read the instructions before proceeding with the update.

While you are at it, download and install the latest version of the Kingston Toolbox 2.0:

http://www.kingston.com/us/support/technical/sandforce_ssd_toolbox.aspx

Finally, make sure you have the latest driver update for the Intel B85 Express chipset:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20775&ProdId=816&lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows%207%20(64-bit)*&DownloadType=Drivers

If that does not solve the problem, then the next step is to rma the ssd.

 

[Thalandros]

- snip -

 

[Thalandros]

The first thing to do is to identify which firmware you have. The 505 series firmware was the bad boy. Kingston published several firmware updates after that. One of them had problems. The latest version is firmware update 525ABBFO. It is supposed to be okay. Here is the link:

http://www.kingston.com/us/support/technical/downloads?product=SV300S3&filename=V300_525fw_Win

Be sure to read the instructions before proceeding with the update.

While you are at it, download and install the latest version of the Kingston Toolbox 2.0:

http://www.kingston.com/us/support/technical/sandforce_ssd_toolbox.aspx

Finally, make sure you have the latest driver update for the Intel B85 Express chipset:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20775&ProdId=816&lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows%207%20(64-bit)*&DownloadType=Drivers

If that does not solve the problem, then the next step is to rma the ssd.

None of this seemed to help :/ My speeds are still the same. And I'm just reading Kingston's website:

''2. This service is only available within the USA due to import/export requirements.
Product purchased outside the USA must be returned through the company from
which it was purchased. ''

I purchased it through Amazon US, but live in the Netherlands. That's going to be a LONG hassle I'm not sure I want to go through. Is the change so significant I should try and RMA it still?


Edit: I looked up some things on Amazon and some reviews as well as replies from Kingston to those.

Apparently if I run the ATTO benchmark, it should meet/exceed the 450 mb/s read/write - I did the test, and yes, it does meet and exceed the seq. read/write speed. Turns out the stuff ATTO uses to benchmark is highly compressable, and not in any way realistic. :/ I guess an RMA might not even be possible then.

 

[popatim]

Probably not and its also probably too late to return it for a refund though you could try, they may give you an RMA that would give you 30 days to get it back to them.

I would say you probably wouldnt get much better speeds with another SSD but evo's have RAPID going for them which uses ram to cache the drive and give you 1000mb/s speeds...