SSD help please

Buttkicker · 3 Dec 2009 at 17:54

Hi guys
My OCZ Vertex has been working fine however in the last few weeks things have slowed down (way down)
and last week I installed windows 7 on it, and the hard drive is performing like a dog

Reads of around 45mb
writes around 22mb

I bought this drive from OCUK when they first came out and have had no issues (till now) its obviously still under warranty and it still has the original firmware that it came with (the very first one) although I am not sure what it is (firmware version) as I type this!!!

presumably some one will suggest updating the firmware which I will be honest and say I am not happy doing this as its abit above my head flashing firmware to hard drives etc

so can anyone point me as to what the problem is with this drive.. obviously pretty unhappy with reads/writes like I am getting

must add I am not having any problems with it - just the pathetic read writes
Chris

BigRazer93 · 3 Dec 2009 at 18:07

How much space is left on the hard drive? You are ment to leave space left on the hard drive, as when you fill up the memory in the chips, after that, it starts to become "dirty memory". Use somthing called "whiper" that defrags the ssd etc.

Roland0 · 3 Dec 2009 at 18:15

Buttkicker said:
Reads of around 45mb
writes around 22mb

Jeez now that is slow! Its not just the write speed either! I don't think you just need to run the TRIM command!

Is there any other disks in the computer so you can test them to see if there is any other problems?

ChileanLlama · 3 Dec 2009 at 19:18

Can you run Wiper.exe from this page and see what, if anything that does?

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64127

Buttkicker · 3 Dec 2009 at 20:18

Ben-Irvine93 said:
How much space is left on the hard drive? You are ment to leave space left on the hard drive, as when you fill up the memory in the chips, after that, it starts to become "dirty memory". Use somthing called "whiper" that defrags the ssd etc.

37gb left so I dont think the answer lies there!!

will have a go with that wiper.exe - I have never heard of that program so will download and see what it is
thanks

OliIce · 5 Dec 2009 at 03:13

Oh Dear
Have you tried the manual GC (Garbage collection tool) also look at storage controler (Intel etc), I would say check out OCZ forums but my first hand experance found them to be VERY rude and they don't like been told the truth, (A Controlled Forum).

Buttkicker · 5 Dec 2009 at 14:17

OliIce said:
Oh Dear
Have you tried the manual GC (Garbage collection tool) also look at storage controler (Intel etc), I would say check out OCZ forums but my first hand experance found them to be VERY rude and they don't like been told the truth, (A Controlled Forum).

Please enlighten me as to what the 'Garbage collection tool' is??

not done anything about this slow hard drive as of yet but something has got to be done

I checked out the link regarding that Wiper.exe but got nowhere fast
downloaded the file and tried running it but all I got/get is a little black DOS type window that asks Y/N niether of which does anything so really have not got a clue what that program should or is supposed to do

all I know is the hard drive is benchmarking slower than my 5 yr old 80gb 5400RPM drive

so this problem wants sorting should I send it back to OCUK where I bought it because as things stand it is not worth tuppence
Chris

ChileanLlama · 5 Dec 2009 at 15:06

The GC tool is Wiper.

Run Wiper.exe as an administrator and it should work then. It should then detect your SSD and will take several minutes to run, you should the %age complete in the Command Prompt.

wakayoda · 5 Dec 2009 at 15:17

This is exactly why people should avoid ssd's at the moment the tech is too young and too hyped, much like crysis

Stop feeding your **** hats dammit

SiriusB · 5 Dec 2009 at 15:35

If no one used them in the "real" world, nothing would ever go forward.

wakayoda · 5 Dec 2009 at 16:04

irrelevant but fine

ChileanLlama · 5 Dec 2009 at 16:13

wakayoda said:
This is exactly why people should avoid ssd's at the moment the tech is too young and too hyped, much like crysis

Stop feeding your **** hats dammit

So you're still using tapes & floppy disks because you think those new fangled mechanical HD thingymajigs need defragging once in a while?

Shows you know nothing about the subject with such a naive statement :rolleyes:

Buttkicker · 5 Dec 2009 at 17:08

ChileanLlama said:
The GC tool is Wiper.

Run Wiper.exe as an administrator and it should work then. It should then detect your SSD and will take several minutes to run, you should the %age complete in the Command Prompt.

Tried running it in any fashion but I must be missing some basic point here???

what does this program actually do... Its alright me running programs I have never heard of or having no clue as to what it is
thanks
Chris

ChileanLlama · 5 Dec 2009 at 18:00

It wipes the cells of your drive clean, when you've used all the cells in your drive they become dirty. The drive firmware then has to clean them before you can re-write to them slowing your drive down.

The link I provided you is direct from the OCZ forum but I can't guarantee it's safe, though I've used it many times. Just make sure you get the latest version.

This may not be your problem, but it is something to try as part of working out what is happening. It shouldn't take more than 5-10 mins to run - and will remove one possible reason.

Roland0 · 5 Dec 2009 at 18:08

but surely if the read speed it that slow its not just the slow cell write problem with MLC?

ChileanLlama · 5 Dec 2009 at 18:10

Possibly not, but should eliminate it all the same - for the sake of a few minutes.

Buttkicker · 6 Dec 2009 at 01:19

So will the files be dirty on a new clean install such as this??

Buttkicker · 6 Dec 2009 at 01:32

This wiper.exe program does not want to work from the link
it opens a dos window and prompts Y/N then tells me cannot run because the CD tray might be open it then proceeds to go through my drives failing on all saying the problem you are having is that wiper needs the SSD drive to have a minimum size of 137gb

my Vertex is 60gb!!!

there is a hotfix at Microsoft Blah Blah Blah
then it makes the program hang
so I wont be continuing with this program...

at the end of the day I really think I have got past the stage of trying endless hotfixes etc just to try get the damned thing working faster than 5400rpm drive

should I contact OcUK or contact OCZ about this... after all this messing about I feel that its only 8 months old and something is obviously not working as it should

Chris

ejr22 · 6 Dec 2009 at 01:50

Right Click, Run as Administraitor

ChileanLlama · 6 Dec 2009 at 09:31

Buttkicker said:
So will the files be dirty on a new clean install such as this??

Buttkicker said:
This wiper.exe program does not want to work from the link
it opens a dos window and prompts Y/N then tells me cannot run because the CD tray might be open it then proceeds to go through my drives failing on all saying the problem you are having is that wiper needs the SSD drive to have a minimum size of 137gb

my Vertex is 60gb!!!

there is a hotfix at Microsoft Blah Blah Blah
then it makes the program hang
so I wont be continuing with this program...

at the end of the day I really think I have got past the stage of trying endless hotfixes etc just to try get the damned thing working faster than 5400rpm drive

should I contact OcUK or contact OCZ about this... after all this messing about I feel that its only 8 months old and something is obviously not working as it should

Chris

On a clean install of Windows, but a previously used drive the cells will be dirty. Installing a new version of Windows won't clean the drive.

You say you got the drive when it first came out - I'd imagine it will be on a really old firmware, this may be why the Wiper doesn't work (I don't know much about the capabilities of the old firmware). The latest firmware I would recommend is the 1.41 GC which cleans your drive when it is idle, independently of any applications like Wiper or OS, such as TRIM.

You say you've been messing about with this for some time, but what have you actually done to diagnose the fault? Some ideas (and I hope others will add to it);

- Have you tried the drive on another port with different cables?
- Have you tried the drive in another machine?
- What are you measuring the speed with - is it a benchmark or are you copying to a network or HD for example - could the bottleneck be on the target drive?
- What SATA controller/motherboard and what drivers are you using?
- Have you tried defragging the drive, as this could cause performance drops
- Is the drive aligned for SSDs? How did you install Windows 7, as an upgrade to existing partitions or did you delete partitions and let Windows 7 create it's own during setup?

At the moment I can't tell whether it's your system or your SSD causing the problems, if the drive was fine before you put Win7 on, then that suggests it is either a coincidence or something has changed in the config.

Where in Leeds are you?