SSD running slow?

StonedPenguin · 19 Jun 2012 at 16:51

Hi, I've had this OCZ Agility 2 90GB for about 18 months and im sure it was a lot faster when I first bought it, What it should be:

Maximum Read Transfer Rate : 285 MBps
Maximum Write Transfer Rate : 275 MBps

Just taken this test

Does that seem right?

Tomcat825 · 19 Jun 2012 at 17:35

I'd say not. That's just over 50% of it's factory speed... when you got it was it running at full speed?

StonedPenguin · 19 Jun 2012 at 18:08

IIRC the read was over 200mb and the write speeds over 100mb when I got it, Is there anything I can do?

djabs786 · 19 Jun 2012 at 18:38

Have you plugged it into a intel SATA controller port? Also did you enable AHCI before installing windows?

ViZioN8 · 19 Jun 2012 at 19:20

Are you running Windows 7? You might need to TRIM the drive, although I thought Windows 7 does it automatically.

wazza300 · 19 Jun 2012 at 21:17

run atto benchmark and see what that says

StonedPenguin · 20 Jun 2012 at 11:27

djabs786 said:
Have you plugged it into a intel SATA controller port? Also did you enable AHCI before installing windows?

Yes intel sata mate, AHCI? Never heard of it, So probably not? :confused:

ViZioN8 said:
Are you running Windows 7? You might need to TRIM the drive, although I thought Windows 7 does it automatically.

yes mate

wazza300 said:
run atto benchmark and see what that says

According to Atto, It's running as it should?

Admetos · 20 Jun 2012 at 12:59

Do you have CPU C2/C3/C4 states enabled in BIOS? If so disable these and test again. I have had something similar with slow 4k speeds on a Samsung 830 and it was due to this.

Orcvader · 20 Jun 2012 at 13:49

If ATTO says it's running as it should, then it's fine. I personally find ATTO much more reliable testing SSD speeds over CrystalDiskMark.

Vegeta · 20 Jun 2012 at 17:50

CrystalDiskMark and HD Tune are terrible benchmarks. Atto is good I had a similar issue and created a similar thread.

Phil2008 · 21 Jun 2012 at 13:17

StonedPenguin said:
Hi, I've had this OCZ Agility 2 90GB for about 18 months and im sure it was a lot faster when I first bought it, What it should be:

Maximum Read Transfer Rate : 285 MBps
Maximum Write Transfer Rate : 275 MBps

Just taken this test

Does that seem right?

This is perfectly normal as crystal disk uses non compressible data and cuts the speed in half near enough. Plus after a few weeks of using the ssd non compressible date write speeds slow down even more.

It took me quite a few months to figure why the write speed kept slowing down when writing non compressible data, as I was always secure erasing it after a few weeks to get the speed back up.. But now that I know this is normal, I just accept it and plus most of the data that the ssd reads/writes is compressible anyway, so its not really a issue, unless you run games from the ssd.

Here 3 images of my ssd and as you can see there about the same speed as yours.......

After being secure erased

About 3-4 weeks later

The real speed from ATTO

Phil2008 · 21 Jun 2012 at 13:29

Vegeta said:
CrystalDiskMark and HD Tune are terrible benchmarks. Atto is good I had a similar issue and created a similar thread.

But like I said, its all todo with, if the ssd can compress the data or not. If it can compress the data, you will achieve full speed and if not, you wont.

Today's ssd's dont rely on compressing data to achieve the full speed anymore, I dont think anyway, but I could be wrong?

sithlord · 21 Jun 2012 at 17:06

Vegeta said:
CrystalDiskMark and HD Tune are terrible benchmarks. Atto is good I had a similar issue and created a similar thread.

They arent bad.. they just arent skewed into making things appear faster than real world situations just to satisfy Sandforces marketing material.

All Atto does is write "0"s or "1s".. as if were all going to be storing a huge 100GB text file full of nothing but 0s...(never going to happen).

Phil2008 · 22 Jun 2012 at 01:13

sithlord said:
They arent bad.. they just arent skewed into making things appear faster than real world situations just to satisfy Sandforces marketing material.

All Atto does is write "0"s or "1s".. as if were all going to be storing a huge 100GB text file full of nothing but 0s...(never going to happen).

But most things must be compressible, if this wasn't the case OCZ wouldn't go down this road to achieve their speed, would they? Like the only thing these drives are rubbish at, are games as they cant be compressed any further. But this is fine, as SSD's back then you were only suppose to put your OS and apps on to them anyway, so no probs.

trentlad · 22 Jun 2012 at 05:37

I'd try to reinstall windows and follow the Sean's SSD WINDOWS 7 install guide over on overclockers.net

Then after installing and tweaking, as the guide instructs, take an image using Acronis (True Image Home 2012) and save it. Next time you get any issues you can restore the image and 20 minutes later shazam.

I'd definitely make sure AHCI is enabled on the bios settings and the 4095K alignment reformat if your SSD is sectored that way. Also, you get a speed boost if you instal the Intel Rapid drivers instead of using the Microsoft drivers. Another large influence is the % of the SSD you have free, ideally on use a maximum 60% of your drive.

Things like TRIM, disabling defrag and indexing won't improve speed but will extend the life.

Have you actually experienced any slow down or are you only looking at benchmark results? Real world use is very different and benchmarks can be very misleading... they're great for comparing hardware against each other in the same setup but don't rely on them.

Phil2008 · 22 Jun 2012 at 07:34

Are people listening to me, or am I wasting my breath here?

trentlad · 24 Jun 2012 at 00:06

You're basically stating that benchmarking isnt particularly reliable and different software suites use different methods to check so one may yield better results than another?

It is odd to get such a drop however, here's a comparison of my M4 SSD after the first install and then 2 months later (using Sean's SSD guide for full setup).

trentlad said:
Here's a bench with Intel RST. Gave me a few more points.

EDIT:

Two months after first install...

sithlord · 24 Jun 2012 at 15:11

Phil2008 said:
But most things must be compressible, if this wasn't the case OCZ wouldn't go down this road to achieve their speed, would they? Like the only thing these drives are rubbish at, are games as they cant be compressed any further. But this is fine, as SSD's back then you were only suppose to put your OS and apps on to them anyway, so no probs.

Compressible for Sandforce = Text files, Some EXE, Databases, XML, PDF

Already compressed and not boosted for Sandforce = Zip files, Rar files, Avi, MP3, jpg, Mov, gzip files... etc

A lot of stuff is compressed these days and it comes down to what you want to store on your SSD.

OCZ would go down that route if it meant they could obtain bragging rights and to help them market their drives better by saying "up to 550 MB/s reads/write" when in fact the real typical speeds are lower etc.

trentlad · 30 Jun 2012 at 00:09

So... any updates OP?

StonedPenguin · 30 Jun 2012 at 00:11

trentlad said:
So... any updates OP?

Yeah, Using crystaldismark is pointless imo. When I run ATTO benchmark it gave me the proper speeds.

Thanks for the help guys