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]

redux, as a "student" of SSD technology, I am aware of the differences between them and HDDs (this is not supposed to sound crabby or condescending, so please don't think I'm being that way...) I've read about and seen via AS SSD, SSD access times of ~0.1 ms, not 0.01 ms, the former matching your statement of an order of magnitude difference between HDDs and SSDs, which I heartily agree with. The 100+MBs read benchmark results seen for HDDs and SSDs while reading 1GB files are interesting, but not the typical, real world situation, as you point out.

But... no comment on my previous question about total OS reads to boot a PC?

[idata]

I agree with redux regarding SSD alignment, in that Win 7 will do that correctly, at least as reported by AS SSD. I have four Intel X-25M 80GB SSDs, plus one WD SSD, and either from a fresh Win 7 install, or initialization and format on a Win 7 PC, the alignment is correct (per AS SSD, Offset/Alignment @ 4k Cluster, is 1024K.) My Seagate 1GB HDD on a Win 7 PC is shown by AS SSD to have the same alignment, which was formatted, etc, by Win 7.

But in the realm of PCs, as I like to say, "doo-doo occurs", and Mr. Gifford's mileage seems to be varying.

[idata]

Parsec, I too am learning.

I was surprised by how little data gets loaded when Windows Boots, but others have verified it as well, so I'm sure it is right and the issue is not how much is read but what is read….lots of very small random files. On my OS a further 1.5GB of data gets loaded within ~15 minutes of the desktop appearing when it is just idling. I haven't had time to investigate what processes generate all those reads, but I do know they are mostly small random reads. I suspect it is mostly MS Essential doing a real time scan. When I find out I will let you know.

Regarding access times the vast majority of typical tasks I run on my PC have IOP read times significantly below 1ms.

Below are some examples of what can be observed with different read transferes and how that equates to access times. (I use hIOmon for the monitoring and then divide the "time total" by the respective "IOP Count" to get the average response time.)

SSD's are insanely fast

There are few desktop tasks that can generate sustained sequential reads at 250MB/s without first maxing out other elements of hardware, because the data has to be processed in some form not simply read. Single file copying (AVI etc) is an exception.

Message was edited by: redux Whoops, ms should have been seconds. Sorry.

[idata]

redux, Thanks to you, and... Wow! I see what you mean regarding access times, I was simply quoting the figures given by AS SSD, which I am sure you are familiar with. Just ran an AS SSD bench on my X-25M 80GB G2, and I'm seeing... er... uhm... 0.084ms read and 0.072ms write. So I stand corrected, and happily so, I just recall seeing ~0.1ms times or more in many reviews.

I gotta find my older benchmarks I saved, I could swear this SSD is getting better, not older (slower.) I also swear by running a diskcleanup, removing all but the latest restore point, and then running the SSD Toolbox Optimizer, about once a week or after some major un/installs and downloading (new Blue-ray 'drive, after the installation DVD, the software updates and "patches" were almost 90MB, yikes!)

I must study your table for a while, thanks for that, love those IOPs! That's something the SSD detractors ignore, gee, I wonder why...

I'm wondering, given the high IOPs, what is then the limiting factor in SSD speed? Access speed? One might not think so, given your figures, but consider the latency of RAM or operations within a CPU. We're talking nano-seconds there, and while your figures are showing at best a 3.7 microsecond average response time (!), that is slower... hmm, well, forget that point. Regardless, I am just saying in general that there seems to be a bottleneck somewhere (relative to SSDs or NAND technology) compared to other response times. Simply MLC vs SLC?

The usual max sequential access read rates of under 300MBs for many SSDs is limited to that by what? The SATA 2 interface? The controllers? Anyway, back to school!

PS: While I tend to dislike anti-virus programs (the big N in particular), I am warming up to MS Essentials, I'm pleased to see that you use it.

[RGiff]

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/partition-alignment/ http://www.paragon-software.com/business/partition-alignment/ You Guys talking about SSD and windows alignment Please check out this web site. It does not matter weather you are cloning a drive to your SSD or installing a new RAID 1 , This will give you correct alingment and explain why it's important.