SSD: Poor Boot Times and Low WEI

[idata]

I just got an Intel X-25V and I installed Windows 7 Ultimate on it. It's currently taking up about 8GB. I've hardly installed any software other than the drivers and firefox.

When I ran that Windows performance test, my score came out to be 5.9, which is due to the SSD. I don't remember the numbers exactly, but I'll try to remember them:

• RAM random access memory - 7.5

• CPU central processing unit - 7.5

• Hard disk - 5.9

• General graphics performance on the desktop 7.4

• 3D graphics capability - 7.4

I haven't run any benchmarks. I have done everything on this page except for RAMDisk. I tried that, but it caused too many problems so I installed it. Even though, I got the info from OCZ forum, it still applies to SSDs:

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-amp-Utiliti...*

So, I:

installed the latest firmware

bios and OS set to AHCI

SSD is connected through SATA Port 1

and lots of other tweaks that are found on the page above

I used this software to determine my restart/boot time:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/720-restart-time.html

When I used it, the result was 48 seconds. That number represents the restart time, which includes shutting down and starting up. It took my computer 7 seconds to shutdown, which means it took about 41 seconds, give or take, to boot up. I read about other people who said that it only takes their computer 12 seconds to boot up. Others have said about 17, and a few even said 6 seconds. One of the main purposes for me getting the SSD was so that I'd be able to boot up my computer within 15 seconds, like everyone else with SSDs.

As for the WEI, I thought that was low because the Intel's SSD X-25V had low read and write speeds. But others with the same SSD have reported getting scores around 7.7 and 7.8.

Someone mentioned changing the driver to RST (post # 9 and # 10 on this page):

http://communities.intel.com/thread/11286?tstart=0

So, do you people have any suggestions as to how I can improve my SSD to be like yours, faster, speedier, more impressive, and hopefully, so I can get my money's worth. So far, I fee like I got a "slightly" faster hard drive.

This is my current setup:

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate CPU: Intel Core i7 860 MB: MSI P55 GD80 RAM: Gskill 4 GB

PSU: Corsair 650TX

Case: Antec Sonata Elite

Video: XFX 5770 Sound: integrated HD: Samsung F2 500GB (storage) Samsung F3 1 TB (storage) Intel SSD X-25V (OS installed on SSD)

Update: This one applies to Windows Vista, but he says that when he disabled his 7200 RPM drives and only used his SSD, that cut his boot time by 10 seconds. Does the same apply to Windows 7?

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaperformance/thread/ea530723-c3fe-4817-9de1-68c...

Update 2: Well, by upgrading the RST driver, I managed to increase the WEI of the hard drive (SSD) from 5.9 to 7.7. Now my WEI score is 7.4. But I'm still not satisfied with the boot time.

[idata]

If that post was not sarcasm, then it may refer to refreshing the space on your X25-V after files are deleted. But don't use that program for that purpose, be sure to download the Intel SSD Toolbox, to optimize your OS settings for your SSD and keep it in it's best condition. If you don't already use this, you really should although whether or not it will help with the boot or shutdown times is unknown to me.

In my experience with three PCs with the OS on SSDs, their boot and shutdown times all vary by 10 to 15 seconds, and they all are pretty different in their components as in CPU, motherboard, and even OS. Frankly, the fastest shutdown and going into sleep mode PC I have is the least fancy hardware-wise and is running Vista 32 bit!

[idata]

As people have already pointed out, boot time is dependent on the hardware, drivers and services that get loaded not just the storage system.

Your drive should however boot faster in a direct comparison with a HDD on the same system and it should be more or less instantly responsive when the desktop has first loaded…….unlike a HDD.

[idata]

To verify redux' statement regarding boot times of HDDs vs SSDs, we can check other articles on the website I provided the link to above.

In their tests using PCMark Vantage, with it's Vista Start Up benchmark, the Intel X25-V SSD was reading at 218 MBs, while new HDDs tested with the same benchmark were reading at 1/10 that speed, the top HDD at about 23 MBs.

I would characterized that difference as... extreme!

[idata]

A few other things to keep in mind when considering your boot-time results:

Can we trust everything that is posted by random people on this or any topic? Some may post incredible numbers simply to be the "number one" or king of whatever for the bragging rights.

Given your overall WEI numbers, I'm guessing you have new, high performance hardware, perhaps an Intel Core i5 or i7 CPU? From what I've read, in general, motherboards supporting those CPUs tend to boot slower than other CPU/motherboard combos, for reasons I don't understand, but that is the reality.

It also looks like you have an above average graphics card, which also have their own BIOS that takes time to run, so that may be adding to the length of your boot time.

Since you are using Win 7 Ultimate, that may take longer to load compared to other versions of Win 7, not to mention different OSs.

The HDD you used previously for your boot drive may have been a particularly fast one, so you are accustomed to a fairly quick boot time. Don't forget that relatively speaking, your SSD is not supposed to be an ultra-performance SSD, so comparisons with other people are not valid depending upon what their SSD and PC consists of.

Then again, I found a review of your SSD and a few others, and yours did well in the boot time test. The link below will take you directly to the boot test results page, but you may also check out the rest of the review if you like:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/intel-kingston-wd-ssd_10.html# sect0 http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/intel-kingston-wd-ssd_10.html# sect0

While Intel SSDs may not be the winner or best in every test, if you take the time to study many different reviews, I have found that Intel has tuned their SSDs to function better in the long run and when used in the real world and over the long haul, not just when new with a freshly loaded OS. That is why I prefer them to other products.

[RGiff]

Check your partition alignment, Paragon software has a great tool for doing this , When you install windows sometimes it does not do such a good job of aligning the partitions, they can be as much as 6-8 % OFF , Which can realy efect your performance.