Show us your SSD performance

[nate42nd]

Yeah and even among all the currently selling SSDs the technology ranges widly. Some are current and robust and there are still others for sale that have all the same old problems.

Definately an area to research before buying.

The Intel drives and the OCZ Vertex drives seem top notch (I have an Intel one). There may be others that have caught up as well, But definately research and seek out the good reivew sites for reviews of any particular model before buying.

Just to clarify...ANY Indilinx controlled drive is acceptable. There are 10-20 companies that put these together. They may use different NAND or other parts, but if they have an Indilinx controller, you're good to go (if you're willing to update firmware and make sure you're running TRIM with the correct drivers)

Intel is the standard NOW but from what I hear...SandForce is the next controller that will be acceptable or better.

So, If you buy, make sure you get an Intel, or any drive controlled by Indilinx or SandForce. (any JMicron drive IS NOT acceptable) Here is one of the best lists I have found. Most of it is right on. You can see how the different models have different controllers.

SSD "which controller?" list - Overclockers Australia Forums

 

[whs]

I draw your attention to this deal at Newegg right now. It is an 80GB Intel which comes with adaptor kit and migration program on a USB stick as well as an enclosure so that you can use your old HDD as an external drive. The whole package for $190. I just ordered another one because I already have the same where I installed Win7 and a data partition (40GB each). It works extremely well and the new unit will go into one of my laptops.

PS: It should be said though, that this is a G1 unit without Trim. I did not find that to be a particular problem though. I have an OCZ Vertex with Trim and that is not any faster (just gut feel, not measured). Further down on this page, you can find some HD Tune performance data.

 

[tw33k]

My Kingston SSD: http://www.sevenforums.com/attachme...ow-us-your-hard-drive-performance-hd-tune.png

 

[whs]

My Kingston SSD: http://www.sevenforums.com/attachme...ow-us-your-hard-drive-performance-hd-tune.png

That's another Intel, I believe.

 

[tw33k]

My Kingston SSD: http://www.sevenforums.com/attachme...ow-us-your-hard-drive-performance-hd-tune.png

That's another Intel, I believe.

Sure is

 

[Gildor]

PS: It should be said though, that this is a G1 unit without Trim. I did not find that to be a particular problem though. I have an OCZ Vertex with Trim and that is not any faster (just gut feel, not measured). Further down on this page, you can find some HD Tune performance data.

The problem is not that the G1 drives are slower out of the box (you are correct, they are not), but that they degrade in performance faster and farther than the TRIM-enabled drives as time goes on. That is the real advantage that TRIM gives you. It keeps the performance up for a much, much longer period of time. Of course, even with this degradation, even G1 drives still eat mechanical drives for breakfast in terms of performance.

 

[whs]

PS: It should be said though, that this is a G1 unit without Trim. I did not find that to be a particular problem though. I have an OCZ Vertex with Trim and that is not any faster (just gut feel, not measured). Further down on this page, you can find some HD Tune performance data.

The problem is not that the G1 drives are slower out of the box (you are correct, they are not), but that they degrade in performance faster and farther than the TRIM-enabled drives as time goes on. That is the real advantage that TRIM gives you. It keeps the performance up for a much, much longer period of time. Of course, even with this degradation, even G1 drives still eat mechanical drives for breakfast in terms of performance.

That is a correct observation. The way to combat this effect is to image your disk and wipe it. Then you pull the image back in and you are quasi new. But I am still scouting for the Intel wiper. I found one for OCZ, but I am not sure whether that would work on an Intel. Have to ask the boys on the Intel forum.

 

[tw33k]

I enabled AHCI on my board and only gained a slight increase in performance however it slowed boot time right down so I went back to IDE mode. (see attached)

 

[whs]

How come your access time is so high. It is usually 0.1ms - which means it is probably in the nano range. I have a USB stick that does about that.

 

[Gildor]

PS: It should be said though, that this is a G1 unit without Trim. I did not find that to be a particular problem though. I have an OCZ Vertex with Trim and that is not any faster (just gut feel, not measured). Further down on this page, you can find some HD Tune performance data.

The problem is not that the G1 drives are slower out of the box (you are correct, they are not), but that they degrade in performance faster and farther than the TRIM-enabled drives as time goes on. That is the real advantage that TRIM gives you. It keeps the performance up for a much, much longer period of time. Of course, even with this degradation, even G1 drives still eat mechanical drives for breakfast in terms of performance.

That is a correct observation. The way to combat this effect is to image your disk and wipe it. Then you pull the image back in and you are quasi new. But I am still scouting for the Intel wiper. I found one for OCZ, but I am not sure whether that would work on an Intel. Have to ask the boys on the Intel forum.

Certainly, you are correct that a wiper utility will perform the same function as TRIM. The difference is that TRIM is automatic (when enabled properly) and the wiper programs are manual. When I was researching SSD's, I decided early on I did not want Yet Another manual maintenance task to perform, so I opted for the G2, which is TRIM-enabled.

 

[whs]

Fair enough.

 

[Gildor]

I enabled AHCI on my board and only gained a slight increase in performance however it slowed boot time right down so I went back to IDE mode. (see attached)

If the OS was not installed with AHCI enabled, enabling it after the fact will not help you. Indeed, as you have seen, it can actually hurt your machine's performance.

I had the same issue when I recently built my new system. I first installed Win7 onto my SSD with IDE enabled. After installation I tried switching to AHCI. My system would not even boot. I wound up wiping my drive and starting the install process over from scratch.

 

[tw33k]

If the OS was not installed with AHCI enabled, enabling it after the fact will not help you. Indeed, as you have seen, it can actually hurt your machine's performance.

I had the same issue when I recently built my new system. I first installed Win7 onto my SSD with IDE enabled. After installation I tried switching to AHCI. My system would not even boot. I wound up wiping my drive and starting the install process over from scratch.

I was curious to see the effect. Regardless of whether I enable it before installing the OS or not, the boot time will be slower with AHCI as the mobo does it's thing prior to loading windows. I might still try it but does anyone really think performance will improve? As it stands the ssd is performing very well. I can't see the benefit of enabling AHCI. Perhaps I just don't understand it properly.

 

[Gildor]

If the OS was not installed with AHCI enabled, enabling it after the fact will not help you. Indeed, as you have seen, it can actually hurt your machine's performance.

I had the same issue when I recently built my new system. I first installed Win7 onto my SSD with IDE enabled. After installation I tried switching to AHCI. My system would not even boot. I wound up wiping my drive and starting the install process over from scratch.

I was curious to see the effect. Regardless of whether I enable it before installing the OS or not, the boot time will be slower with AHCI as the mobo does it's thing prior to loading windows. I might still try it but does anyone really think performance will improve? As it stands the ssd is performing very well. I can't see the benefit of enabling AHCI. Perhaps I just don't understand it properly.

I saw no difference in the BIOS part of the boot process whether IDE or AHCI was enabled. The difference for me was in Windows booting.

The benefit is that TRIM is passed along to the SSD only in AHCI mode, so you will not get the advantage of auto TRIM in IDE mode.

 

[zrtom]

Here's an interesting article that was just published a couple days ago. The Kingston folks talk a little about how they consider SSDs actually having increased reliability over dino drives. And gives some encouraging information of what happens when SSDs ultimately wear out (they are still readable, just not writeable, so data recovery is possible). It also references some of their antics trying to destroy SSDs (baseball bat, auto, blowtorch....).

Q&A: Tom's Hardware And Kingston On SSD Technology : Kingston Up Close - Review Tom's Hardware

 

[pparks1]

I was curious to see the effect. Regardless of whether I enable it before installing the OS or not, the boot time will be slower with AHCI as the mobo does it's thing prior to loading windows. I might still try it but does anyone really think performance will improve? As it stands the ssd is performing very well. I can't see the benefit of enabling AHCI. Perhaps I just don't understand it properly.

I tested performance with my standard 7,200RPM Western Digital Caviar Black and my 80GB Intel X25-M G2 SSD drive on my box and the performance difference equated to nothing between IDE mode and AHCI mode, In test utilities like HDTune, my performance actually dropped by 2-3MB/s...but that is honestly imperceivable when booting, launching apps or using the computer.

However, with my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Rev 1.1 motherboard, when AHCI is enabled, there is an 8 second delay as the AHCI components are initializing during the POST of my machine at every boot. Unfortunately, with AHCI enabled, it costs me 8 seconds at every boot. Any my stopwatch and testing methods show that I'm not really able to gain that 8 seconds back from performance increases with the drive in a few hour period of time.

Therefore, I leave my box on IDE mode.

The benefit is that TRIM is passed along to the SSD only in AHCI mode, so you will not get the advantage of auto TRIM in IDE mode.

From what I have read, this is not true when using the default Windows 7 drivers for TRIM support. I believe this is true with I install the Intel drivers for my SATA controllers according to the Intel website...therefore I just stuck with the Windows drivers and things seem to be just fine.

 

[Gildor]

However, with my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Rev 1.1 motherboard, when AHCI is enabled, there is an 8 second delay as the AHCI components are initializing during the POST of my machine at every boot. Unfortunately, with AHCI enabled, it costs me 8 seconds at every boot. Any my stopwatch and testing methods show that I'm not really able to gain that 8 seconds back from performance increases with the drive in a few hour period of time.

I did not do any stopwatch measuring using IDE and AHCI, but I did not percieve any diifferences in boot time on my system. Whether that means I had it and did not not notice it or maybe my MSI Pro-E motherboard acts differently I don't know. I assume you installed the OS with AHCI enabled?

The benefit is that TRIM is passed along to the SSD only in AHCI mode, so you will not get the advantage of auto TRIM in IDE mode.

From what I have read, this is not true when using the default Windows 7 drivers for TRIM support. I believe this is true with I install the Intel drivers for my SATA controllers according to the Intel website...therefore I just stuck with the Windows drivers and things seem to be just fine.

As an aside, Intel is supposed to be releasing a version of their drivers which do support auto TRIM "real soon now".

 

[Gildor]

But I am still scouting for the Intel wiper. I found one for OCZ, but I am not sure whether that would work on an Intel. Have to ask the boys on the Intel forum.

Check out the Intel SSD Toolbox. It has an optimizer just for that purpose.

 

[tw33k]

However, with my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Rev 1.1 motherboard, when AHCI is enabled, there is an 8 second delay as the AHCI components are initializing during the POST of my machine at every boot. Unfortunately, with AHCI enabled, it costs me 8 seconds at every boot. Any my stopwatch and testing methods show that I'm not really able to gain that 8 seconds back from performance increases with the drive in a few hour period of time.

Therefore, I leave my box on IDE mode.

That's exactly my position

 

[nate42nd]

However, with my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Rev 1.1 motherboard, when AHCI is enabled, there is an 8 second delay as the AHCI components are initializing during the POST of my machine at every boot. Unfortunately, with AHCI enabled, it costs me 8 seconds at every boot. Any my stopwatch and testing methods show that I'm not really able to gain that 8 seconds back from performance increases with the drive in a few hour period of time.

Therefore, I leave my box on IDE mode.

That's exactly my position

Not to mention a lot of manufacturers recommend IDE and you will have problems running F/W updates and wiper.exe in AHCI

FYI