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]

Frankly, this is a topic I know nothing about, and I've been trusting the work of others that my alignment is correct. Not to mention I've never seen this topic discussed or raised elsewhere, although I may have missed it. Seems I have some other studying to do now.

Oddly, from the link to Paragon's website provided by Mr. Gifford, the link to the Vmware website and document opens one that is marked at the very top as "Obsolete", and suggests a different one. Also, the link to the MS document discusses a RAID setup, which I don't use, but may contain useful information.

Regardless, this topic is not a quick read or study, so see ya later...

PS: BTW Mr. Gifford, as I recall you own an Intel G2 160GB SSD, and although I think you have posted it in the past, I'd be interested to see the alignment of your SSD as determined by AS SSD, either simply quoting it or by screenshot. Thanks very much.

Message was edited by: parsec

[RGiff]

Search on post By , James Walker. and you will see the benifits of alignment.

[idata]

Hi parsec,

I've had a bit of time to look into the boot process and I can share some of my observations. If you only monitor the boot processes related to Windows the data transferred is quite small, although it is almost exclusively small random reads. What I have established however is that Windows keeps on loading after the desktop appears. I've also established that non Windows apps get loaded before the desktop appears, so Window files are getting loaded in parallel with non-Window based applications, which adds to the boot load on the storage system.

What you have installed on the OS can therefore make a big difference in the period before the desktop appears. The amount of data that gets loaded after the desktop appears is highly variable. I've seen between 400MB and 1.7GB within 15 minutes of the desktop first appearing without doing anything.

The data that gets loaded after the desktop is also predominately small random reads, although larger data transfers typically appear. The processes that generate read transfers after the desktop appears are highly variable.

SSD is very good at handling small random reads, which is why SSD is more or less instantly responsive as soon as the desktop appears. With HDD however there is further wait before the OS is responsive.

Taking the above into account below is a summary of the difference that can be observed between HDD and SSD in the closest direct comparison I have been able to generate. The summary covers the boot period and a further couple of minutes after the desktop first appeared. I used an X25-M (160GB) for SSD and the HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 7200 (160GB). Both the drives were used in the same system and both drives used the same system image.

I used the hIOmon presentation client to generate the real time I/O summary below and I've highlighted some of the key differences in performance.

The "Fast IOPs performed" reflect the accumulated number of I/O operations that were successfully completed in less than one millisecond.

SSD performance is in a different league.

[idata]

I too am interested in this position regarding alignment. As far as I know Intel drives with Vista and Win 7 align automatically, but if the drive is misaligned it will impact performance from what I have seen, although it is not something that would really be noticed outside of benchmarking.

By the way it appears that TRIM works in a pure software raid configuration with Win 7. Is this something you can confirm in the technical TRIM-related article that was in the pipe line?

[idata]

Thanks redux, very, very interesting! Your observation that files continue to load long after the desktop appears and is functional seems to confirm Microsoft's contention that Win 7 loads faster than their previous OS's, which could be stated more correctly that the OS load has been optimized, ie, essential services first to enable a functioning desktop, and others thereafter. It's great that you compare a 160GB HDD and SSD, can't be much more fair (relatively speaking...) than that, although the recording density of the HDD's platter might make it perform worse than say a 500 GB or 1TB HDD (I have a 1TB Barracuda.) I'm referring to the notion that an HDD reads faster from the outer area of it's platters, and assuming the 160GB HDD has far less recording density than a higher capacity drive, it's performance will suffer as it reads closer to the inner area of the platter, compared to a higher density HDD. I'm saying it is possible that a higher capacity HDD might perform somewhat better than a smaller one, although many of the measurements will likely be the same.

Regardless, looking at your numbers, the Idle/Busy time percentages are very different (HDD: 1.6% 1.6% 1.6% 98.4%. SSD: 92.9% 92.9% 92.9% 7.1%.) Is this showing that the HDD was idle 1.6% of the time vs 92.9% for the SSD? Also, the busy time, 98.4% for the HDD, vs 7.1% for the SSD? If that is correct, all I can say is, Wow!! If I'm reading (squinting) this right, ~ 118 seconds HDD vs 8.55 seconds SSD, means the SSD is just under 14 times faster?

The total data reads is a higher for the HDD (462.73MB HDD, 409MB SSD) but not tremendously so. The response time are incomparable, in total the SSD is faster by a factor of six. The SSD wrote a little more data, and the write speeds are close, the SSD a bit faster (are we seeing 252MBs there? If so that is far surpassing the usual spec for Intel SSDs, even your 160GB model.)

Once again we see that small random reads are the norm, rather than large sequential reads, optimizing for the former makes perfect sense and indicates that high sequential read speed specs are not what one should be looking for in an SSD (unless that is what you mostly do.)

In the Control I/O Operations section, where we see all zeros or nothing for the HDD, is that because the times are beyond the scale here, or what?

One general, a priori critique one might make is, if the HDD used here is not a newer model, it's firmware, recording density, head positioning speed, etc, may not be up to the standards of current models, which may perform better.

Please feel free to correct any incorrect statements on my part. Don't get me wrong here, as for SSDs being in a different league, you're preaching to the choir, all my PCs use SSDs as the OS drive! Thanks for posting this information.