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]

Oooh-Kay, I see... not. Since as far as I can tell, the AS SSD benchmark web site is all in German, so it's difficult for me to read about it. Can you point me to a translation, or did you do it with a translation tool?

Thanks for pointing that out to me as gently as you did. I wanted to ask questions, but there is no point until I can read about what is going on with AS SSD.

I wonder if the difference between NCQ as implemented in mechanical HDDs and in SSDs makes any difference with the benchmarking program being used to test them.

One more thing... Doh! Or is that Duh!

[idata]

Mr . Gifford, I am curious about your SSDs alignment, as shown by AS SSD, as 41984 K.

The alignment of my Intel 80GB G2 SSD as shown by AS SSD is 1024 K, which was aligned by Windows 7. Yours, 41984 K, is quite different. What is the advantage or purpose of your alignment over the standard or default (I guess) 1024 K?

The White Paper that redux posted a link to, discusses SSD alignment, and the importance of that alignment being 4KB or a multiple of 4 KB.

It's obvious that 41984 (1010010000000000 Binary) is not aligned with any power of two, although it is a multiple of 1024. So I don't get it, could you explain this to me if a simple explanation is possible, since you've been trying to stress the importance of alignment to us.

Frankly, I don't understand what AS SSD is showing for the alignment, 1024 K, which normally is 1024 x 1024, or 2 ^ 20, or 1MB. Or what?

[idata]

Hi parsec,

Below is a translation from AS SSD. It's my favorite benchmark. It's consistent and it writes less than other benchmarks.

Description:

The benchmark measured the performance of AS SSD Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains four synthetic as well as three practice tests. The synthetic tests to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. These tests are carried out without using the operating system caches. In Seq-test measures the program how long it takes to read a full 1 GB of file to write respectively. In the 4K test the read and write performance for random 4K blocks is determined. The 4K-64-THRD-test corresponds to the 4K procedure except that the read and write operations to 64 threads are distributed (typical starting a program). This test should be SSDs with Native Command Queuing (NCQ) differences between the IDE operation mode where NCQ is not supported, and represent the AHCI mode. In all three synthetic tests, the size of the test file 1 GByte. Last is still determines the access time of the SSD, the access is determined to read the entire capacity of the SSD (full stroke).Write access test, however, is done with a 1 GB big test file. At the end of the tests three values for the read and write as well as the overall performance will be issued. Moreover, let the values that are specified in MB / s, which represent in IO per second (IOPS). The formula for the scores are: Result = 0.15 + seq_leserate seq_schreibrate * * * 2 + 0.1 + 4k_leserate 4k_schreibrate 4_64thrd_schreibrate + + * 1.5 4_64thrd_leserate Read result = seq_leserate * 0.1 + + 4k_leserate 4_64thrd_leserate Write result = seq_schreibrate * 0.1 + + 4k_schreibrate 4_64thrd_schreibrate The 4k 64Thrd test is most heavily weighted in the results, as this is, according to experts, the main operation mode of an SSD. Practice Tests: In the copying test (menu Tool-copy benchmark) test following folders are created: ISO (two large files), applications (typical program folder with many small files) and games (a game folder with small and large files). These three folders are copied with a simple copy command of the operating system. The cache is turned on for this test. The practice tests show the performance of the SSD with simultaneous read and write operations. Results may vary based on the Windows operating system.

[idata]

Hi DuckieHo,

I've noticed that when you run a manual TRIM with the Toolbox two temporary bin files types are generated; "Intel Trim File" and "Intel Trim RAID". Can you say what is behind the naming of the Intel RAID bin file?

Thanks

[idata]

SSD Alignment Calculator

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/157 http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/157

SSD Alignment

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html