Intel 520 Series SSD - Poor Performance Issues

[idata]

CPU: 3770K

MB: DZ77GA-70K

SSD (Boot): Intel SSD 520 Series (120GB, 2.5in SATA 6Gb/s, 25nm, MLC)

HDD (Storage): WD Green Caviar, 3TB, SATA 6Gb/s

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

I have a the SSD on SATA port 0 and the HDD on SATA port 1 (the two blue ones). The BIOS was set to AHCI before I did a clean install of Windows 7. The BIOS is the latest version (0039).

I installed all the motherboard drivers (except Intel Rapid Storage Technology) and the Intel SSD Toolbox and ran the SSD Optimizer. Then I did this AS SSD Benchmark:

I then installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology and ran the AS SSD Benchmark again:

There was an overall decrease in performance.

Both times the Acc.time failed on the read test giving this error:

This is the first build I've done with an SSD so is there anything obvious I'm missing? I was excepting much closer to the promised 550Mb/s read and 500Mb/s write speeds.

One thing I thought may be causing the problems was using SATA 3Gb/s cables but I've read that it shouldn't have any effect.

Message was edited by: Will When I copy a 3GB file from my HDD to my SSD I'm getting about 30-40Mb/s transfer speeds. When I copy the same file from my SSD to my HDD I get upwards of 100Mb/s speeds.

[idata]

ATTO, CrystalDiskMark, Anvil, are free or have free trial versions of their benchmarks.

I have four 520's, they all score similar to yours in AS SSD.

In general, most data is compressible, but it depends on what you do on your PC.

I know many SSD users believe these synthetic benchmark tests are all that matters, but that is not the case. My favorite example of this is the Intel 510 SSD (Yes, 510), which I use. It seems to have poor performance in some benchmark tests, it scores worse than an Intel X-25 M G2 in AS SSD, and the 510 is a SATA III SSD. But check it with more sophisticated tests, and custom real world tests, and it can perform equal to or better than many of the latest SSDs.

For a great review and comparison, check this review of the 520, one of many on the Internet. It will answer many questions for you:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/intel-ssd-520-review-cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/intel-ssd-520-review-cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce

[idata]

Thanks for info.

I just did ANVIL test, and write is very very bad.I just checked their forums (where i got the download link) and most of ppl have better results.

Please advise.

[idata]

Actually it says 100% incompressible, need to see how to compress the test?

[JMadu1]

I finally gave up on the 520 in both my pc's, put the x-25 back in pc # 1 and got a samsung for pc # 2. I have no clue what is wrong with the 520's but they are now relegated to the closet for some future firmware update that will hopefully make them work properly.

[idata]

hi. I'm using my intel 520 120gb on Asus 1215B, with C60 processor.

I think there is a problem on 4K speeds.

system configration:

AMD C60 CPU

6gb DDR3 1333 ram

Win7 ultimate

İntel 520 120gb, on Sata2 interface