X25-M seems to be running slow.

[idata]

I have a ThinkPad X200 with an Intel X25-M SSD. The machine is running a clean install Vista SP2. For some reason I can't figure out, my machine doesn't be running very quickly. When I run the benchmarks everything seems to check out, but the latency just doesn't seem to be there. It doesn't seem to boot very qucikly, taking about a minute or so to complete. Things open with about the same quickness as the Seagate platter based drive. I think I must have missed something, but I don't have clue what it woud be. Anyone have a suggestion for getting this straightened out? Thanks for any help.

[idata]

Bootimes can vary a lot from system to system depending on the drivers and programs that have to load. Some laptops also have gimped sata speeds. Have you tried AS SSD Benchmark? This will establish how well the drive is performing and what your access times are.

http://www.alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4

Edit: To compare this is from a G2 160GB drive on ICH9

AS SSD Benchmark 1.5.3784.37609

------------------------------Name: INTEL SSDSA2M160G2GCFirmware: 2CV1Controller: iaStorOffset: 1024 K - OKSize: 149.05 GBDate: 07/08/2010 23:43:34------------------------------Sequential:------------------------------Read: 252.98 MB/sWrite: 104.10 MB/s------------------------------4K:------------------------------Read: 22.76 MB/sWrite: 53.82 MB/s------------------------------4K-64Threads:------------------------------Read: 157.60 MB/sWrite: 64.35 MB/s------------------------------Access Times:------------------------------Read: 0.076 msWrite: 0.083 ms------------------------------Score:------------------------------Read: 206Write: 129Total: 441------------------------------

[idata]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure what it means, but here my AS Benchmark:

[URL=http://img28.imageshack.us/i/36537406.jpg/][IMG]http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/763/36537406.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[idata]

OK, first problem is that the drive is not aligned. If you look at my benchmark it states "Offset: 1024 K – OK". If you look at your benchmark it states "31K bad". The first thing to do is realign the drive to see if that sorts out the problem.

It's strange that the drive did not automatically align. Did you install from an image? I think it's possible to realign without doing a fresh install, but if it was me I would do a fresh install. Which OS are you using? If you are using Win 7 or Vista it should automatically align the drive on a fresh install.

Are you running in AHCI mode or IDE mode? If the later change it to AHCI.

Please note the 160GB has slightly higher sequential write speeds compared to the 80GB drives. Your sequential speeds are in the right ball park for an 80 GB drive. Your 4K and access times are bad, which is why the drive will appear slow, however I suspect that if the drive is aligned and you are running in AHCI mode your drive will perform properly.

Check out this post to see the difference the issues above can have on performance:

http://communities.intel.com/thread/14108?tstart=0

[idata]

Thanks redux. Here's my AS SSD Benchmark on a clean install. I used the Intel Rapid Restore driver F6 during install. The results don't seem much better:

[URL=http://img685.imageshack.us/i/asssd.jpg/][IMG]http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/2036/asssd.jpg[/IMG][/URL]