Show us your SSD performance

[carwiz]

Hey guys I just tested mine with ATTO an AS SSD. I got completely different results.

Can anyone give some input? I also see my disk under Defrag (shouldn't it be hidden?)
I have a Corsair Force GT 60, stock FW.

It's not uncommon to see different results among the various benchmark programs. You'll most likely see different results from the SAME benchmark too, even if run back to back. The benchmark programs use-up valuable "wear" so it's not a good idea to be a frequent user of benchmarks on the SSD.

Your SSD will appear in the list of drives in Defrag but the Last Run date should say Never* and the scheduler should not allow a setting for the SSD.

*Note - You can run an Analyze on a SSD and the date of that run will appear but, as already stated, the SSD should not appear in the drive list for the Defrag Scheduler. Also, you can force a Defrag on a SSD but it's probably not a good idea. SSDs operate differently than a HDD and the fragmentation is part of the SSD's wear leveling function. That is, the SSD firmware will try to always use "new" areas to write data before re-using old (deleted) areas. At least that's my understanding. (CYA statement.)

 

[Dave76]

Hey guys I just tested mine with ATTO an AS SSD. I got completely different results.

Can anyone give some input? I also see my disk under Defrag (shouldnt it be hidden?)
I have a Corsair Force GT 60, stock FW.

As mentioned, different benchmark programs test differently.
AS SSD uses incompressible data, so sandforce drives will have lower numbers than on ATTO.
ATTO uses compressible data, so the sandforce compression feature works on these SSDs and will give higher numbers.

If you want to compare AS SSD scores, look at this: AS SSD Benchmark thread

The only other Corsair Force GT I found there is a 120GB drive, this may have more channels and therefore get a higher score than a 60GB.
The Corsair Force GT 120GB got a 404.

You might consider updating the FW, as sandforce was having some FW issues and they have a new FW out, I think Corsair has it for theirs.

Make sure your SSD is not on the defrag list/schedule.

 

[StupidUser]

You see the red where it says pciide - BAD in the upper left? This usually means you don't have AHCI enabled. Right now your numbers are very bad I hate to say. Have a look here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html

A Guy

Stu, your score should be in the 300+ range, those access times are very bad.

AHCI mode will help.

What are your system specs?

Let us know if you have any questions.

OK, I finally got back to this, but I have a problem.

I went into my BIOS utility and there is a choice for "something ATA something..." which is currently set to Native-PCI. The other choices are Compatibility, AHCI, and RAID. I assume you think I switch to AHCI. I am all ready to do that except, in the case of a problem, there is no way to switch back to Native-PCI! That is not one of the choices.

Should I be concerned about that? Should I make the switch anyway? What if there's trouble and I have to switch back?

If it still seems I should switch, I'll do it after the Super Bowl and report back. Thanks for helpin'.

Stu, your score should be in the 300+ range, those access times are very bad.

AHCI mode will help.

What are your system specs?

Let us know if you have any questions.

I just updated my system specs - well, the ones I knew how to get an answer for - in my CP. I will have to pick this up tomorrow. I must sleep now.

Nice user name

Mine or Dave's?

 

[essenbe]

You shouldn't have a problem switching back, if necessary. I have done it for updating firmware temporarially. But, I don't think you will want or need to switch back. AHCI is what every SSD manufacturer I am aware of recomends for best performance.

 

[StupidUser]

You see the red where it says pciide - BAD in the upper left? This usually means you don't have AHCI enabled. Right now your numbers are very bad I hate to say. Have a look here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html

A Guy

You shouldn't have a problem switching back, if necessary. I have done it for updating firmware temporarially. But, I don't think you will want or need to switch back. AHCI is what every SSD manufacturer I am aware of recomends for best performance.

OK. I let it run during the Super Bowl (goyay Giants!) and I got much better results with AHDI on:

Pretty impressive gain, huh? Thanks for the advice, all. Feel free to explain what some of those numbers mean, anyone.

But notice the pciide-BAD is still there, and still red. Do I have some bad hardware? (Also, notice that some of my readings got a little worse. That ain't right, is it?)

 

[whs]

The 4K read improved 6 times. The rest is so, so. What is not good is the 41ms access time. That is not normal. There must be a problem with the controller or a BIG problem with Trim. It should be around 0.1ms - but 41ms is 410 times worse. That is a lot worse than a HDD which is between 10 and 15ms.

 

[essenbe]

You are still in IDE mode. Tell us what you did in following the tutorial. You did the registry edits then rebooted, on startup did you change the sata mode in bios to AHCI? When you booted back into windows, you should have seen windows loading drivers, then rebooted again. Is that what happened?

 

[A Guy]

Did you also make the registry change as laid out in the tutorial? Check to see if you have the latest driver. I believe this is the one for your laptop:

Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver for Windows 7 (64-bit), Vista (64-bit) and XP (64-bit) - ThinkPad

A Guy

 

[essenbe]

Isn't it in the IRST package? That is only for IaStor though, otherwise it should be MSAHCI.

 

[A Guy]

This was all I was able to find.

Newly Released Drivers

A Guy

 

[essenbe]

There are 2 Intel AHCI sata controllers in there. But, even without them it will run good with the Microsoft sata controller, MSAHCI.

 

[A Guy]

One was for his model, the other wasn't. Where would he get the MSAHCI?

A Guy

 

[essenbe]

Windows automatically loads it during the change to AHCI, when you boot after the registry changes and BIOS changes, those are the drivers it downloads.

 

[StupidUser]

The 4K read improved 6 times. The rest is so, so. What is not good is the 41ms access time. That is not normal. There must be a problem with the controller or a BIG problem with Trim. It should be around 0.1ms - but 41ms is 410 times worse. That is a lot worse than a HDD which is between 10 and 15ms.

You are still in IDE mode. Tell us what you did in following the tutorial. You did the registry edits then rebooted, on startup did you change the sata mode in bios to AHCI? When you booted back into windows, you should have seen windows loading drivers, then rebooted again. Is that what happened?

No, that's not what happened.

First, I forgot to change the registry.

So I just went back now and changed the registry setting to 0, then I rebooted into the BIOS. The BIOS change I made last time did not "stick". That is, the SATA controller setting went back to "Native-PCI". I figure that's because I hadn't made the registry change.

So I changed the SATA to "AHCI", pressed "Save & Exit" and restarted Windows. Windows did not load differently and did not force a restart. Just to be sure, I restarted Windows again myself.

Windows restarted and so I started AS SSD Benchmark again. It's running right now. The text pciide - BAD is still there, and it's still red.

 

[essenbe]

Go back to the tutorial and do everything in order exactly like the tutorial says. It is really easy and you will be happy with the performance gains. It's just that the tutorial has to be followed step by step.

 

[StupidUser]

Go back to the tutorial and do everything in order exactly like the tutorial says. It is really easy and you will be happy with the performance gains. It's just that the tutorial has to be followed step by step.

I think I did do it right the last time. I set the regedit key to 0; booted to the BIOS and changed the SATA Controller setting to AHCI; started Windows. Right? What am I missing?

 

[essenbe]

It's up to you, but why not try it again. I've done it 3 or 4 times and it has worked every time. What you are doing is forcing Windows to load the AHCI drivers. Then when you reboot after loading drivers, you should be in AHCI mode. Maybe I mis-read what you said, but it just looked like it was in the wrong order.

 

[StupidUser]

It's up to you, but why not try it again. I've done it 3 or 4 times and it has worked every time. What you are doing is forcing Windows to load the AHCI drivers. Then when you reboot after loading drivers, you should be in AHCI mode. Maybe I mis-read what you said, but it just looked like it was in the wrong order.

OK. No luck, unfortunately. I set the regedit key to 0, saved and shutdown.

In the BIOS, the AHCI setting did not stick, so I set it again, saved and exited, but went straight into the BIOS. The AHCI setting still didn't stick.

So this time, I set the SATA controller to Compatibility, saved and shut down, and then went straight back into the BIOS. Compatibility mode stuck, so I changed the SATA again to ACHI, saved and shut down.

Then went straight into the BIOS again and saw that AHCI setting was retained. So I shutdown and tried to boot Windows. But Windows would not start.

Windows said there was a problem and it would only boot into Repair Mode. Repair mode ran for about 15 minutes and then said it could not find the problem.

I rebooted into BIOS and went back to Compatbility mode. I could no longer return to the original setting, Native-PCI.

I rebooted and Windows started normally. But when I start AS SSD Benchmark, it still shows pciiide - BAD in red.

I'm looking for more advice at this point. Any ideas what's wrong?

Thanks.

 

[StupidUser]

One was for his model, the other wasn't. Where would he get the MSAHCI?

A Guy

Windows automatically loads it during the change to AHCI, when you boot after the registry changes and BIOS changes, those are the drivers it downloads.

So what is the consensus? Should I try to upgrade my drivers or not?

 

[essenbe]

It is always good to have updated drivers. But, I really don't understand the problem you are having. But, you can use Microsoft's AHCI driver or Intel's AHCI driver.It will work very well either eay. Microsofts drivers are provided by the OS. The registry edits and changing bios is what is supposed to make those drivers load. Microsoft's drivers (MSAHCI) will do well. I ran my SSD with them for about a year and was very happy with it. If I understand the problem correctly, it appears the problem is in your bios. The issue seems to be you setting AHCI in bios and bios not saving the settings. The honest answer is I really don't know. Bios should save whatever settings you change if you save and exit after making them.