Performance worse after SSD alignment - confused

[Jay Ko]

I just replaced the HDD in my Thinkpad T60 with an Intel X25-M 160GB SSD. I'm still running XP, and I don't have the need/time to switch to Win7 right now, so I'll just live with running Intel's SSD Optimizer once/week.

Overall it was a fantastic upgrade - my machine now boots in around 15s (vs. 1 min before), apps launch much more quickly, things generally feel more responsive, etc. I'm using about 100GB of the available 150GB.

I did the upgrade by imaging my old drive to a network server using True Image Home 10 and then using the True Image bootable CD to copy the image to the new drive. I chose not to copy over the Rescue and Recovery partition when I did the upgrade because I didn't want to sacrifice the extra 5+ GB and I never use it anyway. I can always pop my old HDD back in if I really need it.

The one problem I've run into is with partition alignment. There's a lot written about how important alignment is to getting the best performance out of your drive, but my experience so far has been disappointing and confusing.

Immediately after imaging my Windows partition to the new drive I ran the AS SSD benchmark tool (http://www.alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4) and got the following results:

iaStor
31K - BAD (it's complaining about my sub-optimal alignment)
149.05GB
Read: Write:
Seq 134MB/s 86MB/s
4K 16MB/s 22MB/s
4K-64Thrd 94MB/s 59MB/s
Acc.time 0.227ms 0.208ms

Then I followed the procedure here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardwar ... -data.html. Everything seemed to go fine, and after around four hours and a couple of reboots I was back up and running.

Now when I run AS SSD I get this:

iaStor
64K - OK (seems to like my alignment now)
149.05GB
Read: Write:
Seq 134MB/s 86MB/s
4K 13MB/s 17MB/s
4K-64Thrd 94MB/s 43MB/s
Acc.time 0.269ms 0.214ms

Write performance has gotten quite a bit worse. I'm actually considering wiping the drive and going back to my original 'sub-optimal' partition alignment.

I checked my BIOS to make sure it's set to AHCI and I'm using the latest Lenovo/Intel storage drivers.

Has anyone else dealt with this on an SSD? Any idea what's going on?

- Jay

 

[corkyg]

XP does not support TRIM. That may contribute to the slowdown. My T60 came with Vista Business - I upgraded that to Vista Ultimate, and then upgraded that to Win 7 Ultimate. No SSD yet - had to invest in a new stove and fridge.

 

[sub.mesa]

I would advise the following:

1. Backup all your data on the SSD
2. Perform a secure erase on the SSD, resetting it to factory performance
3. Use Vista/Win7 to create an NTFS partition; or use GParted LiveCD to do this. This will make sure it is aligned properly; XP creates misaligned partitions, but does use aligned partitions if created by another system.
4. Now install XP to that partition, without formatting it (or just quick format).

That should get you the best possible performance out of your Intels on XP, without reserving additional space.

 

[corkyg]

Good call on GParted.

http://en.dogeno.us/2010/01/use-gpa...s-on-a-ssd-hard-drive-for-better-performance/

 

[Jay Ko]

Probably you guys didn't read the link in my post... I did use GParted to align the partition, and the performance got worse. Now my partition starts at exactly 64K (65536) (per diskpar), although maybe I should have aligned to 128K (which is the eraseblock size on the Intel drive). Or probably I should have just left it alone in the first place.

 

[sub.mesa]

Well, not really. You used a procedure to involve shifting all LBA upwards; re-writing all data that was on the drive to another position. This may cause performance degradation. As stated, i highly recommend the fresh startover procedure as documented in my last post.

 

[sub.mesa]

By the way, some notebooks only have SATA 1,5Gbps; could you check this somehow? The scores you gave me suggest NCQ works, but may be limited to 1,5Gbps SATA bandwidth instead of the normal 3,0Gbps.

 

[Voo]

This may cause performance degradation. As stated, i highly recommend the fresh startover procedure as documented in my last post.

Wouldn't just running the Intel toolbox to manually trim the data work just as fine?

 

[Jay Ko]

What's the difference between starting over with a partition that starts at 65536 and doing what I did? In both cases you end up with a partition that starts on a multiple of 64K.

My machine is only SATA150, which may be limiting my read performance, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Clearly the write performance is not being limited by the interface.

 

[Jay Ko]

So I just re-ran and got pretty much the same scores I'd gotten before the alignment procedure - I think I had Firefox running during the last few benchmark runs, which was apparently enough to push the scores down quite a bit. I also ran the Intel Optimizer (XP version of 'trim', I think), and it made no difference (I haven't deleted many files yet).

It looks like the 64K alignment made no difference, either good or bad.

 

[Jay Ko]

Interesting to compare to my results:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1022/11/

These guys are running their SATA at 3Gbps, which helps explain the sequential and threaded read differences, but I wonder why their 4K write performance is so much better than mine.

 

[jiffylube1024]

As others have said, the lack of TRIM is probably the cause for the small drop in performance.

As for the alignment - I've also found that it's totally overblown. My SSD alignment is also "bad" because I created the partitions in the Windows 7 setup and I think that 100MB invisible partition that Windows 7 creates pisses off AS SSD benchmarks. I have had absolutely no problems or slow performance using an Agility 60GB, and an Intel 80GB and 160GB X25-M G2

 

[FishAk]

I did use GParted to align the partition, and the performance got worse. Now my partition starts at exactly 64K (65536) (per diskpar), although maybe I should have aligned to 128K (which is the eraseblock size on the Intel drive).

I'm not sure about this, but shouldn't the partition start at 1Mb (1024K)?

 

[Makaijin]

I'm not sure about this, but shouldn't the partition start at 1Mb (1024K)?

Good call. I remember reading somewhere a few days ago that microsoft decided on 1MB (1024k) as default seeing that many manufacturers have page erase sizes ranging from 32k (older stuff) all the way to 512k (OCZ comes to mind). Since 1 MB is a multiple of all these values, it's a nice hassle free value to use. Heck I have a bunch of Transcend SD cards and they all in fact default to 4 MB (4096k) brand new.

Try aligning the offset to 1 MB, it's not like the extra 896k is alot of storage space.

As for the alignment - I've also found that it's totally overblown. My SSD alignment is also "bad" because I created the partitions in the Windows 7 setup and I think that 100MB invisible partition that Windows 7 creates pisses off AS SSD benchmarks. I have had absolutely no problems or slow performance using an Agility 60GB, and an Intel 80GB and 160GB X25-M G2

Actually, if you check with diskpart, the partition are still aligned to 1 MB even if you let windows 7 make the 100 MB partition on install. So in your case the partitions are in fact aligned.

 

[flashofthedark]

I realize this is an older thread, but the OP's post really helped me, so felt obligated to post my results. I have a Thinkpad R61i and wanted to run XP with an SSD (similar to the OP's setup). I went with Intel's X-25m 120GB (Generation 2). I partitioned and formatted the drive in Windows 7 setup, canceled, installed XP without formatting. I installed the Middleton BIOS mod to enable SATA 3.0 GB/s (and swap the Fn and Ctrl key), and have been extremely happy with the results.

I originally read about the Middleton BIOS mod here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/459591-t61-x61-sata-ii-1-5-gb-s-cap-willing-pay-solution-8.html

I have been running the SSD Optimizer about once a week. I use a Class 6 8GB SDHC card in the card slot for Windows Temp files.

 

[razel]

Looks like NCQ isn't working. Your 4k QS32 scores shouldn't closely match the 4k. Is it in ACHI mode? I understand that you are running a BIOS mod, so it could be a BIOS limitation.

 

[Auric]

Drive manufacturers provide alignment tools, generally from Paragon and Acronis.

 

[flashofthedark]

Looks like NCQ isn't working. Your 4k QS32 scores shouldn't closely match the 4k. Is it in ACHI mode? I understand that you are running a BIOS mod, so it could be a BIOS limitation.

Currently the BIOS is in IDE mode. I had a hard time slipstreaming a driver during XP Setup for AHCI. I've read that you can switch XP to AHCI after the fact, but the method I found was very complicated.

Do you know what AHCI could improve with a single SSD in a laptop on SATA II? Is it just NCQ? What kind of situations would I perceive gains with NCQ enabled? When a lot of simultaneous requests are made of the drive? You've got me asking questions again.

 

[Auric]

I don't know the answer to those questions but can help switch to AHCI. It's as simple as booting from another installation of Windows and adding the drivers with DriverInjection GUI. Without another system you typically boot a preinstalled environment disc (BartPE, UBCD4Win, Hiren's) and then access DriverInjection and the particular storage drivers from an installed drive or external flash.

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22523&st=0

Here is an Intel 32-bit driver package:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?6skeg4g7g5d52fy

 

[razel]

With ACHI enabled, which includes NCQ your 4kq32 score should be closer to your 512k score. With a typical daily computing computing, disk queues will be in the single digits 95% of the time. Having ACHI enabled also enables power management features.

Unless it bothers you or you just did a recent backup, then I wouldn't bother switching to ACHI mode. You could end up running into a problem where you'll need a day to fix. Just enable ACHI next time.

 

[flashofthedark]

I don't know the answer to those questions but can help switch to AHCI. It's as simple as booting from another installation of Windows and adding the drivers with DriverInjection GUI. Without another system you typically boot a preinstalled environment disc (BartPE, UBCD4Win, Hiren's) and then access DriverInjection and the particular storage drivers from an installed drive or external flash.

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22523&st=0

Here is an Intel 32-bit driver package:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?6skeg4g7g5d52fy

Is your link to the Intel 32-bit driver package for all Intel SATA controllers, or specifically for the chipset my R61i uses? Thank you Auric, I'll try it.

With ACHI enabled, which includes NCQ your 4kq32 score should be closer to your 512k score. With a typical daily computing computing, disk queues will be in the single digits 95% of the time. Having ACHI enabled also enables power management features.

I use it for live audio: streaming large sample libraries realtime via a few MIDI controllers, and using audio effects on 5 mics, right now hosting it with Cubase. You have any idea if this might be queuing into the double digits?

I had no idea IDE was incapable of power management features, or do you mean enhanced power management? Am I right to assume AHCI power management would be a negligible improvement with an SSD (or with the X25-m 120GB)?

 

[Yellowbeard]

What's the difference between starting over with a partition that starts at 65536 and doing what I did? In both cases you end up with a partition that starts on a multiple of 64K.

You absolutely need to secure erase as noted by sub.mesa. This WILL improve your performance.

 

[Auric]

Is your link to the Intel 32-bit driver package for all Intel SATA controllers, or specifically for the chipset my R61i uses? Thank you Auric, I'll try it.

It's for all and specifically lists your ICH8M.

The main thing is making Windows able to boot from AHCI BIOS mode, after which the storage driver can easily be updated. This should be the ideal one though.