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]

Regarding which benchmark is right, I imagine you know we are not comparing apples to other apples here. From the individual tests, to the details of the tests, plus the manner of summing up or averaging the tests, and the actual program code/algorithms used by each benchmark, results will be different. We may actually be comparing apples to oranges. It does look promising IMO, that the results are not miles (or is that MBytes) apart.

Sure, ATTO indicates write speeds over 100MB/s for most "transfer sizes" while AS SSD show a bit under 80MB/s, but can we say the tests are comparable? IMO, generally yes, but specifically no, since overall they are not calculated in the same manner.

Yet things are not that simple. ATTO is showing almost 136MB/s for 4KB reads, while AS SSD is showing not quite 20MB/s, a difference of about a factor of seven. Writes for 4KB are almost 92MB/s for ATTO, vs about 44MB/s for AS SSD. Plus, who knows what the Queue Depth is on AS SSD? So yeah, who is right?

Intel's specs for this SSD closely match the AS SSD numbers, for sequential access anyway. Regardless, I certainly cannot conclude whom is correct.

[RGiff]

I guess we have gotten a little off track here and that may be my fault , I was tring to state the effect that Misalingment of a drive weather SSD or HD or RAID , If any are misaligned that will effect performance. Thats my Point.

[idata]

Hi Robert,

There is an interesting white paper on the issues related to benchmarking SSD's, which can be found below.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:IBnWE15H264J:www.stec-inc.com/downloads/whitepapers/Benchm... http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:IBnWE15H264J:www.stec-inc.com/downloads/whitepapers/Benchm...

[idata]

AS SSD - 4K is queue depth 1. 4K-64Thrd is queue depth 64.

You can change the queue depth on ATTO. It looks like Robert has his set as queue depth 4. AHCI enables performance to increase with queue depth.

Benchmarks, as you state, test differently and write different amounts of data to the SSD. Results also depend on the condition of the SSD.

ATTO uses compressible data, which significantly inflates results on SF drives compared to benchmarks that use non compressible data.

The validity of benchmarks can also therefore vary between different makes of SSD's.

[idata]

This thread has been somewhat off track for a while now, and certainly not simply due to Mr. Gifford's posts. But with apologies to the original post-person, I like the direction it has taken.

If I may, I would like to offer the link below, that I found interesting and may just have something in it for everyone, including a page regarding SSD alignment with Windows XP, and an issue with that when migrating to another OS.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/A/7/FA70E919-8F82-4C4E-8D02-97DB3CF79AD5/COR-T558_Shu_Taiwa... http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/A/7/FA70E919-8F82-4C4E-8D02-97DB3CF79AD5/COR-T558_Shu_Taiwa...

Message was edited by: parsec