SSD slow, probably

[Frick]

I won't say I'm dissapointed, because that sweet access time is the true golden duck or whatever. But it's still ... not as fast as I assumed it would be. It's a cheap drive, so I wasn't expecting much, but I feel it should be faster.

It is connected to a SATA III connector. It's set to ACHI mode. The basic stuff. It's a new system, yes I've installed all my stuff now (well almost) and it's the same as when I had nothing installed. The system was freshly rebooted when the benchmark ran, the only thing in the background was a passive TPU and Spotify.

During the test I had the resource monitor on and no strange activity anywhere, the same goes for processes and so on.

For the folks that can't see images it's from HD Tune, it ranges from 187-216MB/s. Systems specs are as follows.

MSI B85M-E45
Celeron G1840
2 x 4GB 1600 Mhz
Crucial BX100 120GB
WD Blue 1TB x 2 (WD10EZEX)
Cooler Master G550M
Windows 7 Pro with all the updates installed.

The drivers are all installed now too btw, from the MSI webpage. I tried Intel SRT, and it got even slower (peak 190MB/s).

TRIM is on.

 

[t_ski]

Did you look to see if there are any firmware updates for these?

 

[newtekie1]

HDTune doesn't work well with SSDs, IMO. Try ATTO and CrystalDiskMark.

 

[Athlon2K15]

most likely is due to being a low capacity drive that is way to full.

 

[Frick]

most likely is due to being a low capacity drive that is way to full.

40% full, or thereabouts.

Did you look to see if there are any firmware updates for these?

Newp, will do.

HDTune doesn't work well with SSDs, IMO. Try ATTO and CrystalDiskMark.

Crystaldiskmark was sorta low too, will post screenshots.

 

[Jetster]

So did HDTune upgrade there software for SSDs? They didn't use to support it

Don't use Crystal Disk use AS SSD

 

[Frick]

So did HDTune upgrade there software for SSDs? They didn't use to support it

Don't use Crystal Disk use AS SSD

I've no idea, but my speeds are lower than some reviews i've seen on the drive.

EDIT: AS SSD

EDIT: Updated firmware.

EDIT: Could it matter which SATA III port it's plugged into? It's in port 3 I think, the WD's are in 1 and 2 respectively.

BTW, the write speeds seems to be in order, but not the read.

 

[Jetster]

Maybe its the third party SATA III like ASMedia. and the drivers are wrong?

That's definitely SATA II speeds

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

If your board have 2 different controller like a Marvell controller and something else for you sata ports plugging into different sata ports would affect the speed. You could try.

Is the ssd filled up a lot by the way? That can reduce its speed. The rest of your ssd speed looks fine except for the sequential though.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, @Frick

I think you should try swapping the SATA ports, just to see if that will improve the performance and the transfer speeds in general.
The WD Blue HDDs won't be affected even if they are plugged in the SATA II ports. Generally, a mechanical HDD is limited in its throughput by Platter density and RPMs which prevent it from exceeding SATA II bandwidth (3 Gb/s - max 300 MB/s). One of the few performance gains for a SATA III Hard Drive on a SATA III interface is the burst rate, and it only benefits the first second or two of read/writes.

Try plugging the SSD in the first available SATA III port instead.

Hope this helps. Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Jetster]

Your board has two SATA II ports

 

[Frick]

Your board has two SATA II ports

And I only hade a DVD drive connected to one of them.

 

[newtekie1]

You also might want to check in the BIOS to make sure the SATA ports aren't set to run in SATAII mode, some boards have an option for that.

 

[RCoon]

And I only hade a DVD drive connected to one of them.

Just noticed your system specs, PM me your address, got something to send you (for free of course)

 

[t_ski]

Maybe its the third party SATA III like ASMedia. and the drivers are wrong?

That's definitely SATA II speeds

Double-check and make sure all of your drivers are up to date.

 

[Frick]

Haven't had much time lately, but all the drivers are updated and the latest versions. Yesterday the drive was a wee bit faster for some reason, but not as fast as it should be. Boot time increased until it hit a roof of sorts at about 30 seconds to a working desktop (manually entered password).

No options for setting them to SATA II.

 

[t_ski]

Are you using a Sata3 cable?

 

[Batou1986]

Are you using a Sata3 cable?

Sata3 cable ???
Unless you have a really bad cable they are all the same

 

[P4-630]

Are you using a Sata3 cable?

 

[CounterSpell]

try the benchs with all the sata ports. your mobo has 4x SATA 6Gb / s

maybe you put the ssd on a 3gbs port...

 

[Kursah]

I have seen cheap/crappy SATA cables cause issues, but usually they work or they don't. It's not like PATA where you needed an 80 lead ribbon with 2X the ground wires to be able to maintain maximum theoretical speeds.

I wouldn't spend too much time focusing on benchmarks. I'm sure you're updated to 7 SP1, otherwise you might face some issues there as well, plus likely your installation media is SP1 even if it's a few years old. B85 + SSD's (Including the 120GB BX100 like you have) has always worked out great in my experience. no noticeable difference between that chipset and the Z8/9x chipsets in my experience. Never did I feel the need to benchmark them because the systems always performed quickly and had great response rates.

I would almost wonder if another fresh OS install should be in order...just for the sake of ensuring nothing odd happened. Are you installing from DVD or USB? (I prefer USB, takes about 12-20 minutes on most SSD equipped systems)

I guess before you do that, can you take a look at your WIndows System events in Event Viewer? Maybe filter it for critical, error and warnings so you can focus on those issues and see if anything Disk(x) related is being reported? I hate to give in to an OS reinstall unless necessary. Wish I had your exact build in my hands so I could check it all out myself too, I love diagnosing odd issues like this.

I would say go into BIOS and turn of any extra Intel chipset features you don't use. RST comes to mind. Also make sure you have SMART reporting enabled, many boards have this disabled by default...which is ridiculous.

 

[rtwjunkie]

How do those speeds compare to established numbers for that particular SSD? I ask, because 120GB SSD's are usually slower than others, are they not? If we're comparing the numbers to what we know of 240GB and above SSD's, then I can see why everyone is scratching their heads. Or am I just totally off-base here?

 

[Static~Charge]

I found this in your motherboard's manual:

Storage
Intel B85 Express chipset
4x SATA 6Gb/s ports: SATA1-4
2x SATA 3Gb/s ports: SATA5-6​

Double-check to make sure your SSD is plugged into SATA1 - SATA4.

Also, the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver for your chipset is version 14.6.0.1029, released 26-Aug-2015.

 

[Kursah]

How do those speeds compare to established numbers for that particular SSD? I ask, because 120GB SSD's are usually slower than others, are they not? If we're comparing the numbers to what we know of 240GB and above SSD's, then I can see why everyone is scratching their heads. Or am I just totally off-base here?

My Samsung 840 120GB is slower than the 240GB, but only by about 20-30MB/s in synthetic benchmarks fwir. The BX100 are pretty solid SSD's, I feel he is close, and it could be a benchmark thing more-so than real world results, but usually that stuff is pretty consistent. Being an OS drive slows it a little too..but again nothing too major usually.

Honestly, if the system boots quickly and is snappy, and does fast file transfers, it's probably fine. But I think he stated it takes 30+ seconds to get to login/desktop, which on a fresh installation should take closer to half that in my experience with that SSD part and others, and that chipset. Though admittedly when I use a B85 board it's the Biostar B85S3+ if at all possible, it's a bruiser that Newegg keeps at sub-$60 that kicks major ass. But this MSI part should be fairly similar in performance I would imagine. Though the slowest CPU I've ever used was the Intel Pentium G3220, on up to i7 4790k's, all with similar results.

I agree with Static, recheck what port(s) you're using. Even consider placing DVD and SSD on the Intel-side and disabling the extra ports (though shouldn't need to).

 

[Batou1986]

But I think he stated it takes 30+ seconds to get to login/desktop, which on a fresh installation should take closer to half that

agree on a fresh install i don't even see the login screen unless windows is updating or something.