Defective SSD?

[janp]

Hi Guys,

I'm wondering if someone can offer some advice? I believe I may have a defective SSD; but it's the first one I've owned, and I'm wondering if there's any kind of benchmark's I can run to prove it's failure.

I'll explain the problems I'm experiencing, and post the SSD model and the rest of my spec at the end of the thread.
I'm receiving poor performance in Windows, I think when writing to my SSD (which is my primary O/S drive). My computer pretty much grinds to a halt, task manager will take 2 minutes to load, that sort of thing. For example, downloading data from usenet to my SSD will cause the computer to be un-usable, but if I select my mechanical secondary drive as the download destination, it's lightning quick. Last night I was downloading/installing WoW, I chose the SSD and couldn't even get Firefox to load. Reverted back to the mechanical drive, again perfect performance. I should add that general gaming performance is pretty good.

I've installed Windows with AHCI mode enabled. I've checked the alignment, updated all my drivers, and tried different SATA controllers, even cables. I appreciate my drive is SATA-II only, but surely I shouldn't be seeing this amount of problems?

My build:

Crucial V4 256GB 2.5" SATA-II SSD

Windows 7 Home Premium - 64bit
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Running at stock
Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
XFX Pro 850W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel
EVGA GTX570 (SC edition)
Seagate 2.5TB SATA 7200rpm Harddrive

Thanks for your time

 

[janp]

I ran a benchmark, does the write speed seem a bit low?

 

[Baldrick1001]

4k,s are pretty poor for an ssd, but I have seen a few posts complaining about the v4's performance - especially when being worked hard. My m4 on a Sata 2 interface scores around 560. If you can I'd be tempted to return it and go for an M4 or a Samsung 830

 

[BigToe]

It seems to be an inherent problem with the V4 unfortunately. Those results aren't actually too bad considering how they can get. According to a rep on the Crucial forums, the V4 needs time to perform "garbage collection" to recover after a lot of disk activity. Unfortunately I found with two separate drives in two separate machines that even the lightest bit of activity can slow these drives down to the point where it would genuinely be quicker to have a bog standard mechanical drive. They basically rendered the systems unusable for a few hours until they had recovered.

Get it returned if you can and replace with something better such as a Samsung 830, or the M4 if you want to stick with Crucial. You may end up tearing your hair out if you keep using the V4.

 

[apeksdiver]

How old is the drive?
Return it, it is not up to the job.