SSD writes are very slow, reads are somewhat slow

[idata]

I have the ssdsa2m080g2gc, firmware is 2CV102HD -- I recently ran windows rating thing, and my SSD scored the lowest of any of my compents, a 5.9... so I did some investigating -- turns out, my SSD is slow as molasses... at least, in comparison to other benchmarks I've seen of the same SSD.

Any ideas what the issue is?

AS SSD Benchmark results

CrystalDiskMark results

CrystalDiskInfo results:

[idata]

Check AS SSD.... It is telling you that your SATA Mode is in IDE Mode. You need to enable AHCI in your motherboard BIOS.

Note: You can not just enable AHCI without doing this first: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

[idata]

I'm not sure that's his problem. I specfically DO NOT use AHCI mode on my system because the Intel RST drivers cause the system to intermittently "stall" for up to 20-30 seconds at a time. Very weird, but easily reproducible. So I stick with classic "Enhanced" mode (not Compatibility, so no PATA emulation going on).

It's important to note his SSD is an X25-M 80GB SSD.

The 80GB models of SSDs -- X25-M or 320-series -- really don't perform anywhere near that of the larger capacity models or the 510-series. If you want some hard data showing this I can provide some (I have 7 screenshots of benchmarks for my 80GB 320-series SSD sitting here ready to go).

Overall I don't see anything wrong with the benchmarks of his SSD given that it's an X25-M.

[mmokk]

the 80gb x25-m g2 has the same performance as the 120gb and 160gb g2's except for slightly lower sequential write speeds. the 320 and 510 series are a different matter.

validatorian,

try running the intel ssd toolbox optimizer. also, enable ahci if you can (you didn't mention your hardware specs).

[idata]

I will repeat myself: AHCI will not solve his problem, and it has nothing to do with his issue. Please stop advocating AHCI when it won't solve his problem. I fully understand that it will clear up the red/warning text in AS SSD, but AHCI isn't going to double his write speeds or anything like that. He's no where near the SATA interface bottleneck speed either (the SSD is, obviously, connected to a SATA300 or SATA600 port -- you can tell from his read benchmarks).

The root cause of his problem is his lack of free space on the volume -- look very, very closely at his CrystalMark screen shot -- his disk is 90% used (67GB of 74GB used). CrystalDiskMark 3.x shows disk usage, while 4.x does not (shame on the author!). I can assure you (download 3.x yourself!) that the numbers indicate how much space is used, not how much space is free.

Wear levelling is going to result in *extremely* degraded write performance with such little free space available. Running the Intel SSD Toolbox Optimizer might help increase the performance a little bit, but not drastically. The only solution is to free up lots of disk space (try freeing up 20-30GB) then running the Optimizer.

Generally speaking, SSDs perform best when they are left with around 30-40% of the drive unused; the rule of thumb is, the more free space the better. If you think this is nonsense, http://www.stec-inc.com/downloads/whitepapers/Benchmarking_Enterprise_SSDs.pdf read an official white paper on the matter (do not skim it, READ IT) -- it will show you why your performance is sub-par.

Finally, please keep in mind that the benchmark comparisons you're doing are probably against that of review sites. Review sites generally take a fresh, never-used-before SSD and benchmark it. Most review sites DO NOT show you benchmarks of what the drive performs like once it has data on it + has been used for a couple weeks, and absolutely never when it's 90% full. As such, using review benchmarks for comparison (when data is on your drive) is not accurate. Estimate a 20-30% deviation in performance as a result. This applies to SSDs only, not MHDDs (MHDDs do not use wear levelling). http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=29 Be extremely wary when reading benchmark reviews.