New SDD, Slow Read, Normal Write

[Virgorising]

Hi.

I have my first SDD now installed as my go to drive....exhausting details in other threads: Crucial M500 240GBs.

I first need to share, knew this going in, my (intel) board controllers are only SATA 2, and, naturally, the new wee drive is SATA 3, backward compatible of course, but I knew I would sacrifice some speed, I did not care.

I just ran my first test using a free app I found .....and, while the write speeds appear almost normal, the read, which, in potential could be 500GBs. is only half that.

pls see below, thank you!

 

[Burpo]

You said it yourself.. You've only got SATA II

 

[Virgorising]

You said it yourself.. You've only got SATA II

So, Burpo, everything is OK cept for the limitations of my controllers, yes?

That is what I thought, but keep in mind I am entirely new to SSDs. Again, knew this going in.....but the increased speed is still very impressive.

 

[Virgorising]

Now, assuming the answer to my above question to Burpo is "Yes, norma,l factoring in controller limitations".....I just found new freeware: SDD Fresh (OMG, lol).

From what I read before getting this drive, the jury is out re what it suggests in top screenie. Can someone pls tell me if I should optimize any of those or not?

I just disabled the timestamp and left the other two. I think I did the right thing.

 

[Elixer]

Unless you are writing 100GB of data a day, don't worry about it.

 

[Virgorising]

Unless you are writing 100GB of data a day, don't worry about it.

Thank you, Elixer (appropriate user name).......but, if I don look for things to worry about, how can I be happy?:sneaky:

(I just made myself laugh.)

 

[razel]

Ignore SSDFresh. Re-enable the Timestamp. I remember that 'tweak' back in the mid-90's. Good-lord.

 

[Virgorising]

K....we going out, but I just delved more, and, it appears all this is perfectly normal re SATA 2 controllers. I never would have known given the increased speed I am getting from this smaller than my phone drive.

And, I like this system very, very much, as it is.

 

[Virgorising]

Ignore SSDFresh. Re-enable the Timestamp. I remember that 'tweak' back in the mid-90's. Good-lord.

Ignore it? Re-enable time stamp??

And, PLEASE.... loose the Good Lord; this is not a contest, I am open, honest human and, as I said, NEW TO SSDS. Cut slack. I know that's hard in LA....but make an effort.:sneaky:

 

[Virgorising]

Denouement:

I re-enabled time stamp. I liked that app cause it was free. And, I will now try to stop worrying, cause HUGE improvement in my Windows score re this drive. (I have very modest GPU, but, it's beyond good enuff for me.)

 

[razel]

haha... The Good-lord wasn't toward you. It was toward the Time-Stamp.

Yes re-enable it. It is meaningless and based on chin rubbing, arm-folding theory.

Just enjoy the SSD and don't abuse it with tweaks. Win7/Win8 handle it just fine. Like yourself, I love to double check things, but avoid the so-called tweaks. There is alot of old information out there especially tweaks that relate to WinXP.

 

[Virgorising]

haha... The Good-lord wasn't toward you. It was toward the Time-Stamp.

Yes re-enable it. It is meaningless and based on chin rubbing, arm-folding theory.

Just enjoy the SSD and don't abuse it with tweaks. Win7/Win8 handle it just fine. Like yourself, I love to double check things, but avoid the so-called tweaks. There is alot of old information out there especially tweaks that relate to WinXP.

razel, Bless You. The above clarification means the world to me:thumbsup:, I re-enabled it before we went out. I guess that free app was worth what I paid for it.:| I will now uninstall it. Tho, to activate it, I hadda give my email address, so no doubt will now be spammed to death.

Yep....I am a nit picking tweaker. Sometimes, that rocks; other times...NOT SO MUCH.:'(

I live, I learn....that way one earns the privilege of contributing to others.

Thanks again!

 

[Essence_of_War]

Yeah, I concur with those who said that everything looks fine if you're on a SATAII controller. You're capped at a theoretical limit of 300 GB/s, and with overhead, the sequential read/write look fine. But who cares about those anyway? HDDs are pretty good at sequential reads/writes, the big advantage of SSDs are the the nearly 0 access time compared to spinners, and the associated perf in random workloads.

The bottom line is this:

Unless you are writing 100GB of data a day, don't worry about it.

Modern SSDs have a ton of endurance. It will be vastly technologically outdated (by larger capacities, better controllers, etc ) before you wear out its write endurance if you're engaging in normal workloads.

 

[corkyg]

I have used PD's "SSD Optimization" for over a year and a half, and conclude that it does no harm. A good explanation of how it works is quoted below. It is by one of Raxco's techs, "Irwin."

"The SSD optimization pass identifies the largest consolidated free space chunk already existing on your SSD and grows it. This results in a larger consolidated free space chunk on the volume - but the primary reason for doing so is to maximize the number of blocks which can be trimmed by the OS or the device. This is increases the effectiveness of garbage collection. (TRIM)
Edit: I want to make clear here that while the pass effectively increases free space consolidation - it should not be confused with our normal free space consolidation pass since that pass defragments files and creates a large free space gap at the end of the drive. The SSD optimization pass does not defragment files and it does not consolidate free space at the end of the drive, instead it grows the largest existing gap on the volume. The two should not be confused.
The pass is designed to do this without creating excessive erase/write cycles - and this is evidenced by how quickly this optimization pass runs. Our SSD optimization pass won't have your SSD churning through data and can be run as often as you like."

 

[Virgorising]

Yeah, I concur with those who said that everything looks fine if you're on a SATAII controller. You're capped at a theoretical limit of 300 GB/s, and with overhead, the sequential read/write look fine. But who cares about those anyway? HDDs are pretty good at sequential reads/writes, the big advantage of SSDs are the the nearly 0 access time compared to spinners, and the associated perf in random workloads.

The bottom line is this:


Modern SSDs have a ton of endurance. It will be vastly technologically outdated (by larger capacities, better controllers, etc ) before you wear out its write endurance if you're engaging in normal workloads.

What a precious, data-rich post! Thank U! Yes, I delved and learned about the 300 cap for my controllers. But the wee thing truly is amazing. I just can't get my head around something smaller than my phone sitting in the ad hoc installation thingy I invented (Blech!) doing what it does.

Thanks again!!!!

 

[Virgorising]

I have used PD's "SSD Optimization" for over a year and a half, and conclude that it does no harm. A good explanation of how it works is quoted below. It is by one of Raxco's techs, "Irwin."

"The SSD optimization pass identifies the largest consolidated free space chunk already existing on your SSD and grows it. This results in a larger consolidated free space chunk on the volume - but the primary reason for doing so is to maximize the number of blocks which can be trimmed by the OS or the device. This is increases the effectiveness of garbage collection. (TRIM)
Edit: I want to make clear here that while the pass effectively increases free space consolidation - it should not be confused with our normal free space consolidation pass since that pass defragments files and creates a large free space gap at the end of the drive. The SSD optimization pass does not defragment files and it does not consolidate free space at the end of the drive, instead it grows the largest existing gap on the volume. The two should not be confused.
The pass is designed to do this without creating excessive erase/write cycles - and this is evidenced by how quickly this optimization pass runs. Our SSD optimization pass won't have your SSD churning through data and can be run as often as you like."

How much do I luv this post? On a scale of 1-10.....19.:wub:

And, U bet, Raxco truly is formidable and Real Deal.....started way back in 1979. POLAR OPPOSITE of snake oil!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raxco

 

[Galatian]

Completly off-topic but I laughed reading all those posts! Keep up the good work guys helping everybody out...that why I love coming here ;-)

 

[Virgorising]

Completly off-topic but I laughed reading all those posts! Keep up the good work guys helping everybody out...that why I love coming here ;-)

NOT OFF TOPIC!!! Heads up: being as serious as sudden death in an SDD (K...I am still a little paranoid:'(), bringing humor and melody progression/riffing re the Music......never mutually exclusive!

We are not software; we are a complex amalgam of individual humans, each unique... employing and loving technology!

Thanks for this, Galatian.

 

[Virgorising]

Hi again,

Just found and ran this other thing within AS SDD Benchmarks; can someone pls tell me what this means?

This app is also FREE. There truly are some worldclass freewares.

Thank U.

 

[Virgorising]

FYI:

When I kept saying my WD Black is fast for a mechanical drive (and was real bargain), nobody believed me. But here it is.....took too long to run all the benchmarks so I just ran read/write. Not chopped liver.

 

[Virgorising]

People!

I was just looking for more things to worry about.() Pls see below in red. Shouldn't the value of those two keys be 0? Maybe I changed them while fiddling.

Shouldn't I change them both to 0?

Thank U!

 

[corkyg]

My understanding is, they should both be disabled for the SSD. This explains:
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/disable-superfetch-prefetch-ssd

In Windows 7 and 8, it is supposed to do that automatically once aSSD is detected. If there is also a HDD, it could be enabled for it.

 

[Virgorising]

My understanding is, they should both be disabled for the SSD. This explains:
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/disable-superfetch-prefetch-ssd

In Windows 7 and 8, it is supposed to do that automatically once aSSD is detected. If there is also a HDD, it could be enabled for it.

First I am writing from the wee drive. My WD black is asleep, so the reg settings would be for this wee drive.

So, given below, it appears I should, fact, change the value of those two keys to 0. I've fiddled, and maybe undid what Windows did when I installed the wee drive.

The possible values for EnablePrefetcher are:

• 0 – Disable Prefetcher
• 1 – Application launch Prefetching enabled
• 2 – Boot Prefetching enabled
• 3 – Application launch and Boot Prefetching enabled

The default value is 3. To disable Prefetch, set it to 0. Click OK and Exit.
Incidentally, you can also disable or tweak the Suoerfetcher here – you will see the EnableSuperfetcher DWORD just below it.
The possible values for EnableSuperfetch are:

• 0 – Disable Superfetch
• 1 – Enable SuperFetch for boot files only
• 2 – Enable SuperFetch for applications only
• 3 - Enable SuperFetch for both boot files and applications

Now, this presents a new problem! As I have shared, my backup strategy remains two internal drives with dual boot; I clone the one I mainly boot into (now this SSD) to the backup drive say once a week or every 10 days. So, this means now, if I configure the registry properly for this wee drive, those setting will copy to my mechanical drive each time I clone to it!

I never thought about this before.
_____________________________________
K, I just disabled supertech in "Services."

 

[Essence_of_War]

FYI:

When I kept saying my WD Black is fast for a mechanical drive (and was real bargain), nobody believed me. But here it is.....took too long to run all the benchmarks so I just ran read/write. Not chopped liver.

Ah, indeed, in fact, most modern spinners look great in sequential read/write tests. But the problem with spinners has not been (at least not recently) that they don't perform adequately in sequential operations. The main problem is that they incur a seek-time overhead for every random write operation, and SSD seek time is essentially 0. If you get a bit of time to run the rest of the benchmark, I'd highly recommend doing it to see the SSD really spreading its wings vs. the spinner in the random read/write operations.

 

[Virgorising]

Ah, indeed, in fact, most modern spinners look great in sequential read/write tests. But the problem with spinners has not been (at least not recently) that they don't perform adequately in sequential operations. The main problem is that they incur a seek-time overhead for every random write operation, and SSD seek time is essentially 0. If you get a bit of time to run the rest of the benchmark, I'd highly recommend doing it to see the SSD really spreading its wings vs. the spinner in the random read/write operations.

Above offering should win sumthin. Not sure what, but something MAJOR.:thumbsup: Seek time issue!!!!!

I will now share, I am intensely attached to my WD Black not simply cause it is the fastest mechanical drive I ever had......but (here it comes), also cause I discovered and became addicted to cable show Counting Cars....then fell in love with magnificently restored (opposite of energy-efficient, I don care) giant MUSCLE CARS from back in The Day . See, to me, the new wee(weightless flash ICB) drive is pitiable compared to the Black which is HUGE, AND HEAVY AND encased in gleaming BUMPER CHROME.:wub:
________________________________________
Addendum:

Yes, I know....when the geniuses do these breathtaking restorations---I find watching the process thrilling---they replace the original innards: engine, suspension, brakes, transmission, etc......with modern. I get that part. I also get nobody can afford to drive those gorgeous beasts re the cost of gas. I don care, OK? My WD Black reminds me of them now.