Slow SSD speeds

chipachap · 18 Sep 2012 at 18:44

After running CrystalDiskMark I get seq. speeds of 217/281 mb/s. This is a far cry from the 502/528 mb/s I was getting before the original drive failed on me.

Windows is installed in AHCI mode, and it is in the SATA 3_0 port on the mobo. Why are the speeds so slow? Could they have sent me out a brand new faulty drive?

When I installed the original rive I was getting 320/380 mb/s in IDE mode before I changed it to AHCI in the registry. I haven't changed anything except install the OS on it since I got the replacement.

It's like it's stuck on SATA 2 speeds or something, any help is appreciated as I am stumped.

I've tried setting Windows power mode to High Performance and I've tried all the tweaks online.

Is it possible it didn't install properly and I've to re-install Windows again?

wazza300 · 18 Sep 2012 at 19:48

use atto benchmark

chipachap · 18 Sep 2012 at 20:19

wazza300 said:
use atto benchmark

I shouldn't need to. I was getting 500+/510+ before the drive needed to replaced so there is no reason why it should be this slow now. I'm getting the same speeds whether I'm in IDE or AHCI or in a SATA 2 versus a SATA 3 port.

Can faulty drives be slower or would it just fail if it was faulty? I'm going to secure erase the drive and re-install Windows.

Surveyor · 18 Sep 2012 at 20:36

chipachap said:
I shouldn't need to. I was getting 500+/510+ before the drive needed to replaced so there is no reason why it should be this slow now.

Are you sure about that?

I've looked at several reviews of the 240GB Agility 3 (I assume that's what we're talking about) and they show CrystalDiskMark scores in line with what you're getting now.

OCZ themselves say:

Maximum Sequential Speeds are determined using ATTO

Edit:

Vortez

Legit Reviews

TweakTown

MaximumPC

chipachap · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:47

Surveyor said:
Are you sure about that?

I've looked at several reviews of the 240GB Agility 3 (I assume that's what we're talking about) and they show CrystalDiskMark scores in line with what you're getting now.

OCZ themselves say:

Edit:

Vortez

Legit Reviews

TweakTown

MaximumPC

Yeah I'm 100% sure. I wasn't sure how to test the speeds of a drive so my friend told me to download CrystalDiskMark to test it and we compared speeds. I was getting 340/360 mb/s in IDE mode until I switched to AHCI.

Would a faulty drive act slow or would it just fail? At the start of the night I was getting 218 read and 280 write but I just ran it again and write is gone down to 140mb/s.

wazza300 · 18 Sep 2012 at 22:06

It will degrade if you run a lot of benchmarks,you have to let trim restore the performance,you should also be using atto regardless of what crystalmark says

It depends how full the drive is also,esp with the agility using asynchronous nand

Mercutio · 18 Sep 2012 at 22:56

Just in case it's a reconditioned drive do a secure erase and test it again.

Also see if you can do a partition alignment check, that will kill the performance too. Your hunch on windows 7 poor install might be part of it.

chipachap · 18 Sep 2012 at 23:46

Mercutio said:
Just in case it's a reconditioned drive do a secure erase and test it again.

Also see if you can do a partition alignment check, that will kill the performance too. Your hunch on windows 7 poor install might be part of it.

After doing a secure erase in OCZ toolbox and re-installing Windows my write speeds are up to 280mb again. I also performed that check and got a whole number so it is correctly aligned according to the site i'm looking at.

My new drive came in a sealed packet like my original one so I received a new one I reckon.

I defo had 500/518 speeds 6 weeks ago when tested though, really mind boggling. Thanks for the help chaps, if I find an explanation or solution I'll post back here.

chipachap · 20 Sep 2012 at 13:56

UPDATE: After doing a few tests I get the exact same results using CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD benchmark whether I'm using my SATA 2 ports or SATA 3 ports.

Is there any reason why a SATA 3 port would only run at SATA 2 speeds? I'm ordering new cables just to be sure.

wazza300 · 20 Sep 2012 at 14:14

have you double checked tha sata3 is enabled in the bios and its set to ahci mode?

seems strange

chipachap · 20 Sep 2012 at 14:39

wazza300 said:
have you double checked tha sata3 is enabled in the bios and its set to ahci mode?

seems strange

Yes sir, the only thing I noticed is that with ATTO speeds go from 250 to 500 each way, so there is definitely a difference in the 2 ports but I thought it would make a difference with the other bench tools. Then I thought if the bench can't actually read/write faster than say 220/280 then whether I'm using a SATA 2 or SATA 3 port it shouldn't matter since neither port is fully saturated with data.

In regards to compressible/non-compressible data, what do Windows and games etc. use? It's quite sneaky of OCZ to advertise a given speed IF no applications use that type of data.

wazza300 · 20 Sep 2012 at 15:47

games use uncompressed,things like winrar compresses data and when installing/unpacking games/programs

chipachap · 21 Sep 2012 at 00:11

wazza300 said:
games use uncompressed,things like winrar compresses data and when installing/unpacking games/programs

Sneaky OCZ. I'll be putting my money into a drive that supports it's maximum speeds in a real world situation, like the M4 or something similar.

smilertoo · 21 Sep 2012 at 00:39

sure i read in reviews that the agility suffers massive slowdown after its been used a while; avoiding this is what you pay for with more expensive drives.

chipachap · 21 Sep 2012 at 02:53

smilertoo said:
sure i read in reviews that the agility suffers massive slowdown after its been used a while; avoiding this is what you pay for with more expensive drives.

If it does go bad I'll just send it back to OCZ and sell the replacement on ebay to fund my M4