Vertex 2e Setup

pioneer2000

pioneer2000

pioneer2000

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Just got mine installed:

Seemed very slow installing windows 7 so not quite sure if anything is wrong or not! Windows experience index says 7.7.

What do I need to do now Windows is installed?

I've run the performance index which apparently disables superfetch??

1) How do I check my firmware? Just realised I haven't done that!

2) Do I need to change any other settings?

3) What app should I use to test the speed?

Thanks all!
 
You can use Crystal Disk Info to check your firmware and as long as your at ease with doing HDDErase, you can use AS SSD and Crystal Disk mark to Check your speed. ATO will check the drives speed only on compressable files.
 
I'm planning on reinstalling Windows after running a few tests etc... What is the process for doing so? Do I need to do any special erasing or is it just boot using Windows disc and format as usual?
 
Things I've learnt: Speed results on CDM and ASSSD will vary depending on which Vertex 2e you have. OCZ use Atto as their bench tool. You will see lower scores with CDM and ASSSD. Running CDM and ASSSD with uncompressible data will degrade the speed of your drive.

Wish I'd read OCZ forums before I spent ages tweaking and benching with CDM why my drive wouldnt sequential read above 150mb/s. My Atto results are right up there and my drive registers as 7.8 in the windows performance test.

Just ensure you have the latest Intell RST drivers installed and that AHCI is enabled in windows and in BIOS. I believe the drive should be plugged into Sata port 0 or 1 whichever is the lowest on your mobo.

If you run CDM or ASSSD over and over you'll need to be using a tool as mentioned called hdderase to get your drive back up to speed.

My drive also took some time to install win7 onto it. It was in IDE mode when I did my install though and I switched to AHCI after.

7.7 seems reasonable. Mine was 7.4 before switching to AHCI. Run one test of Atto to see what results you get. Leave windows 7 on the logon screen overnight for a few nights to let the trim / garbage clean function do its thing and tidy up after using bench tools and the drive in general. Hopefully I've got that all right, its what I've read on OCZ forums since getting my 180gb vertex 2e.
 
Thanks!

How do I ensure Intel RST drivers are up to date? Windows update doesn't seme to prompt anything so guessing they're ok?

To reinstall windows should I just format via the disc as per usual? Nothing else to worry about?
 
I cant recall the link for the RST drivers now. I'm sure it'll be posted somewhere on the OCZ forums. In fact if you look through all of my posts on one thread where I was questioning about my 150mb read speed I think someone linke them to me there. So find that thread you find the drivers. I believe it changes them from microsoft ones to Iastor (spelling might be wrong there).

If you've been running CDM or ASSSD a lot then I've read its best to use HDDErase, again read up on that on the OCZ forums. I just left my PC on for night and days on the logon screen to allow the trim / GC function to do its thing. Hopefully that'll be enough. Just formatting wont restore the speed of the drive as far as I'm aware which is why you should use HDDErase instead to wipe it. I've yet to do that though so cant explain how it works.
 
Latest RST here and windows update does not install it by itself so you won't have the latest version

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...18859&lang=eng

The drives recover themselves when idling from runs of CDM but lets say you've run it half a dozen times. That might be 6 days hard drive use in an hour. OCZ reckon it will take up to 6 days depending on how much idling for the drive to get back to full speed.

Also note that OCZ state TRIM will NOT recover from multiple runs of ASSSD and the only way to get back to full speed is HDDERASE and reinstall windows.

In fact OCZ are quite vocal against ASSSD on their forums.
 
Gixer said:
Things I've learnt: Speed results on CDM and ASSSD will vary depending on which Vertex 2e you have. OCZ use Atto as their bench tool. You will see lower scores with CDM and ASSSD. Running CDM and ASSSD with uncompressible data will degrade the speed of your drive.

Wish I'd read OCZ forums before I spent ages tweaking and benching with CDM why my drive wouldnt sequential read above 150mb/s. My Atto results are right up there and my drive registers as 7.8 in the windows performance test.
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So you mean sequential read will only be around 150mb/s on AS SSD? My X25-M attains around 260mb/s sequential read and I thought the Vertex 2E was supposed to be faster at that? :confused:
 
reygjabla said:
Here's the latest Intel RST driver http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel raid.htm and had been tested here http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4562663&postcount=4

At the moment, i'm testing 1043 and will post results later.:D
Click to expand...

I know you're trying to be helpful but I'd personally recommend people to stick to version 9.6.5.1001 the 10.0.0.1043 drivers are beta and non WHQL and for something as important as storage drivers, I personally wouldn't feel comfortable using beta drivers that haven't been tested properly.
 
It seems that way when using uncompressible data yes, but only with the 180gb drives. Someone else on the OCZ forums posted up results of his 180gb vertex 2e and he gets the same results as me. When running Atto though the drive reports 275mb/s speeds. The mods on there think its something to do with the amount of nand chips the 180gb version has?

Luckily for me I only ran AS SSD twice and was focusing on CDM when I was first testing my drive so I just leave it on the logon page frequently to tidy itself up.
 
Gixer said:
Just ensure you have the latest Intell RST drivers installed and that AHCI is enabled in windows and in BIOS. I believe the drive should be plugged into Sata port 0 or 1 whichever is the lowest on your mobo.

My drive also took some time to install win7 onto it. It was in IDE mode when I did my install though and I switched to AHCI after.
Click to expand...

Did you notice a big difference form IDE to ACHI? As in real life day to day stuff.

Also when installing W7 on the ssd, when do i install the Intell RST drivers...after install? Im not using raid so will i need to?
 
Gixer said:
It seems that way when using uncompressible data yes, but only with the 180gb drives. Someone else on the OCZ forums posted up results of his 180gb vertex 2e and he gets the same results as me. When running Atto though the drive reports 275mb/s speeds. The mods on there think its something to do with the amount of nand chips the 180gb version has?

Luckily for me I only ran AS SSD twice and was focusing on CDM when I was first testing my drive so I just leave it on the logon page frequently to tidy itself up.
Click to expand...

So what kind of results are they getting on the 60GB version? If it has something to do with the nand chip numbers I would guess the 60GB version would always be 'fast' in the benchmarks? Just curious as I am either going to get the 60GB Vertex 2E or another X25-M 80GB soon as I need some more space.
 
From what I read the 60gb versions read faster in that bench test. Your best bet is to take a read through the vertex 2e subforum stickies on OCZ site. Whole load of information there.

Kona I installed with Bios as IDE and then installed the RST drivers once windows 7 was loaded. I then turned on AHCI in windows followed by turning it on in Bios. Once that was done it all updated itself and was working fine.
 
Broken Hope said:
I know you're trying to be helpful but I'd personally recommend people to stick to version 9.6.5.1001 the 10.0.0.1043 drivers are beta and non WHQL and for something as important as storage drivers, I personally wouldn't feel comfortable using beta drivers that haven't been tested properly.
Click to expand...

WHQL but not officially endorsed by Intel does'nt denote it's much better than Beta. The latest that is officially released by Intel is 9.6.0.1014

The 10.0.0.1043 i'm referring to, came from driver station who also happen to be the first one to release the 9.6.5.1001 as you can see here

2i0dhs7.jpg


This link also shows how promising the driver is. :cool:

Here's an excerpt from one of the review site that says it's an Intel Official Beta Release.:D

It has been suggested by other users that the new drivers resulted in an immediate increase in performance levels of RAID 0 drives which immediately raised the question as to whether TRIM is now enabled. As we haven’t a RAID enabled system we weren’t able to confirm or deny such but we were able to verify a claim that boot times had decreased somewhat with the new drivers.

Prior to our installing the new RST release, our test system commonly booted around the 16-17 second mark. Using a program called Boot Timer we ran 5 separate tests immediately after installation of the exact same system, each resulting in a boot time of 12-13 seconds consistently.
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