x25-m 80gb unbelievable slow write <15MB/s

[idata]

Hey there,

I've got a software problem or a drive thats broken.

Look at following screenshot, write speeds are extremely slow.

I've got latest firmware, running in AHCI but nothing is changing.

general system info, intel Q9550,4gb,asus p5ql pro running windows 7

Trying to copy an 8gb file from my 7200rpm disk to this HD is taking longer than to copy it to my USB stick!

Boottimes are still great, but useless if the system freezes as soon as I'm doing multiple tasks.

note. the sequential write speed benchamrk starts of with an 'ok' 70mb/s' but then starts to drop down to lower numbers.

Needless to say the drive isn't performing as advertised.

Is the only way to slow format the drive?

Can I ask intel for a replacement?

Sincerly hope someone can fix this!

Regards

[idata]

Model in the benchmark indicates a G1 drive, therefore no TRIM support unfortunately. This performance is expected unless you secure erase the drive.

How long have you had the drive?

[idata]

Thanks for the reply.

Just did a secure erase and read it. Fixed the problem, getting ~70mb writes again.

The drive was 2+ years old

I hope this secure erase thing is something to do yearly instead of monthly...reinstalling is not my hobby.

Also I think if a drive is starting to perform like this in a matter of months,

it should have been regarded as an bad product with a replacement program by Intel.

[idata]

there are a few things you can do to help:

1) don't benchmark too often, since this will be writing to your freshly erased cells (!)

2) try to keep as much free space as possible to allow the inbuilt garbage collection to do its job

3) you don't need to reinstall as such - you can back up your partition with some system image software, secure erase, then restore it. You don't necessarily have to reinstall windows.

It looks like you are running Vista or windows 7, and the inbuilt back up utility in that is fairly decent. I know with windows 7 it is, and i think that's based off the Vista one. There are third-party utilities for this task, though i've found inbuilt does a decent job.

[idata]

Also use an Intel driver (RST) rather than the default Win 7 MSAHCI driver you are currently using.