topic Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes in Solid State Drives (NAND)

Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 22:34:32 GMT

I just got a 240GB 730 a couple days ago and I'm very disappointed with it. It seems like it is "stuck" at SATA II write speeds.

Either that or the drive just performs very poorly.

System:

Asus P8Z77-V

Intel 3770K

Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB

Intel 730SSD

WD Black 2TB (data)

System is not overclocked, running Windows 7 64bit. New build, new installation, using most recent drivers from Asus.

See how the write speed never exceeds 3GB/s? (Yes I am using one of the Intel 6GB/s ports on the motherboard)

So I tried different drivers, all sorts of things, re-installed the OS a couple times and this is all I get.

I then image the system, replace the drive with a 2.5 year old OCZ Vertex 4 SSD, restore the image onto it and get this:

Note that all I changed was the drive, used the same cable and everything, restored the image containing the same drivers, no changes were made in the BIOS.

(Obviously it is not my motherboard or BIOS at this point).

A couple months ago I built almost the exact same system for an employee of mine.

Only difference is I got her the non-"K" 3770 CPU and a Intel 530 instead of the 730.

She let me borrow the drive, I imaged her drive as a backup and restore "my" image onto it in my system.

(same system image used in both screenshots above)

I like that drive

So my question is, should my brand new 730 in the top screenshot really perform so poorly or is there a problem?

Thanks for any help or suggestions you can give me.

Dave

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 20:46:12 GMT

Here is the drive in a completely different computer.

This is the computer in my office, I have been using it with no problems for a couple years.

Very similar specs because I built the new system for redundancy, if I had a problem with my office computer I wanted to be able to swap them out quickly.

ASUS P8Z77-V PRO

Another Intel 3770K

Corsair Vengeance RAM, this time 16GB

Same poor results.

I simply put the drive in the older system and it booted right up.

To be sure it wasn't a driver problem or some other issue I then used diskpart from a windows 7 disc to clean the drive, reloaded a clean version of Windows 7 64bit and ended up with the same results.

The drive is defective.

Dave

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

jbenavides — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 22:33:45 GMT

Hello Dave_H,

We would like to recommend some actions you can try before considering the drive as defective:

1. Confirm that the drive is running at SATA 3 speeds.

Open https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18455/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Toolbox Intel® SSD Toolbox and click Drive Details.
Scroll down to Word 77 and check the "Coded Value Indicating Current Negotiated Serial ATA Signal Speed". This should be 3. Here's a picture from a drive running at SATA 2 speeds:

2. For testing and benchmarking we would advise you to usehttp://sourceforge.net/projects/iometer/ IOmeter. Also, we would like to the see the results if you increase the Queue Depth in ATTO to 10 (the maximum allowed).

IOmeter is preferred since it allows you to set the Queue Depth to 32. That is the value we use for testing and development.
You would want to run some sequential, 100% read and 100% write tests with the transfer size set to 128KB. For detailed instructions about running the test in IOmeter, please check the reply from Aleki_intel on January 15th, 2015 in the following forum that was created for a similar situation:

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 00:20:35 GMT

Thank you very much Jonathan for taking the time to try to help me.

Toolbox:

Atto Queue Depth 10

Attached are a couple results from IOmeter.

I was not sure how long to run it, I choose 3 minutes each. I also selected 3 of 4 cores (I have hyperthreading off in the BIOS)

I'm very sorry if I missed any settings, I'm not familiar with that tool.

I'll run some more when I get a break later tonight.

Dave

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

jbenavides — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 23:20:20 GMT

Hello Dave_H,

We analyzed the test results, and noticed you are using a "Transfer Request Size" of 128 K for random tests, you should use a Request size of 4 K. For sequential tests, 128 K should be OK.

Please run the Random test with 4 K request size and let us know the results.

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 02:08:50 GMT

Files attached.

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

JEdwa7 — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 13:47:57 GMT

Your board has an add-on controller. Did you connect your SSD to Port 0/1 of the Intel Z77 chipset. The add-on controllers often have lower write speeds.

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 19:12:13 GMT

Yes, I am using SATA port # 1 for the SSD.

It is an Intel 6GB/s port

The board does indeed have 2 ASmedia 6GB\s ports but as you know those are junk and recommended for data use only.

The WD 2TB and the DVD drive are on 2 of the 4 Intel 3GB\s ports.

In the screenshots above with the OCZ and Intel 530 drives I used the same Intel 6GB\s port and cable, I just switched out the drive.

Dave

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 19:45:52 GMT

The top 2 unused ports are the ASmedia 6GB\s

The 2 grey ports are the Intel 6GB/s ports, you connector you might be able to see is for the Intel 730SSD

The bottom 4 ports are Intel 3GB/s ports, the connector you see is for the WD 2TB platter.

( have not finished the build, thats why all the cables are a mess)

Dave

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

jbenavides — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:07:40 GMT

Hello Dave_H

We reviewed the last result you sent from IOmeter and noticed you set the transfer size correctly, however, in the last test, you used a Queue depth of 1, this caused low results.

Please run another test, setting the number of Outstanding I/O's to 32 (on the Disk Targets tab). This was set correctly in the first IOmeter tests.

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 02:27:10 GMT

Sorry about that. I hope I got it right this time.

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

jbenavides — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 20:59:11 GMT

Hello Dave_H,

The last results actually look pretty good.

Please take into consideration that for Random test, we measure IOPS from the target type "ALL".

The Read performance in your test is about 90,000 IOPS, when the advertised specification is 89,000.

For Writes your test shows 73,000 IOPS, and the advertised value is 74,000.

The differences you noticed in the first tests are likely to be due to the type of workload and the settings used by the testing software.

Based on those results, your drive appears to be performing according to the specs. Please let us know if you have any further inquiries about this matter.

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 21:47:09 GMT

Seriously, thats all it can do?

I bought that from Newgg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167190 Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP240G4R5 2.5" 240GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com

If you click the tab "specifications" it says:

Max Sequential Write Up to 470 MBpsAlso here at Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Intel-2-5-Inch-Internal-Solid-SSDSC2BP240G4R5/dp/B00IF4NGEU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426887308&sr=8-2&keywords=intel+730 http://www.amazon.com/Intel-2-5-Inch-Internal-Solid-SSDSC2BP240G4R5/dp/B00IF4NGEU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426887308&sr=8-2&keywords=intel+730It says: "Sustained Seq Write: Up to 470MB/s2"In fact, everywhere I look shows those same specs?Thats why I bought the drive, for the high sustained read and write values.If either said "up to 300 MB/s" I would have never purchased it, it defeats the purpose of having a SATA III system if the drive can't utilize it.Dave

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

DHerl1 — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 22:07:27 GMT

I think I see whats going on here.

Your 730 drives have different specs between the 240GB and 480GB models. Your website shows the 240GB with much slower 4K write speeds of 270MB/s,

when the 480 says 470MB/s. It also shows a difference in the "endurance writes per day" of 50GB for the 240 and 70GB for the 480.

Clearly there is a performance difference between the 2 drives in the same 730 family.

Either through oversight or deception, all the retail sites are showing the incorrect specs for the 240GB drive.

I would have never bought this drive it it listed the correct specs, I would have gone with the 530 because a high performance drive is more important to me than endurance. (my systems make images every night).

Thanks for taking the time to try to help me Johnathan, I can't blame you for the wrong information.

Dave

Re: Intel 730 SSD Poor Writes

jbenavides — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 16:33:18 GMT

Hello Dave_H

We are really sorry for the confusion. We will notify the error to the the sellers immediately, so they can take further actions about this.