SSD I am disappoint

[EliteRetard]

First time SSD (M500 240GB), set to AHCI installed Win7 Prem x64 (partitioned 220GB).

Installed about the same if not a hair slower than 1TB HDD.
Boot is slower, BIOS takes longer and windows about the same.
Programs don't seem to react any faster and I still can't heavy multitask.

Running an i5-2500k on a P67A-GD65 with 8GB RAM. SSD not bad, but almost exact experience compared to old 1TB HDD. I was expecting exceptional performance and a revolutionary experience...as everyone has described it being a godly upgrade.

Ran a benchmark, no idea what I'm looking at...any problems here?

 

[Arkaign]

(1)- Those scores are fine.

(2)- Something is seriously wrong somewhere, as I've used raid WD Blacks (faster than any single spinner drive), and even that pales to a midrange SSD. Boot time, and especially ready time (the time waiting from the desktop appearing to having the taskbar fully populated and 'live' system response) is vastly improved with a fully working install.

Fwiw here's my laptop AS SSD results, this went from a 750GB 7200RPM drive to an 840 Evo, and the difference was immense.

And .. a typical contrast bench :

Something is definitely very wrong somewhere in your config. Your combo should allow a near-instant desktop-to-use delay, and opening apps should be immensely faster.

 

[yottabit]

I had a similar experience my first time TBH. But once you start using it more and more I think you'll notice much more of a speed increase. It's not nearly as noticeable on a fresh install of Windows. It's after you have all your apps installed, and a considerable amounts of files/use that you really start to see the difference. AKA once you actually start doing things with it.

I'm not saying there's not potentially something wrong with your install, but I would say just give it some more time before making judgement.

It's also much more apparent if you go back and forth using a non-SSD PC. I use a laptop at work that's got a 256 GB SSD and even with all the applications installed on it it makes me regret turning on any HDD computer. But I notice the biggest benefits at work, opening large CAD assemblies and running programs that like to use scratch disks a lot.

Also bear in mind that with 8 GB of RAM, Win7 will do a pretty good job caching things in there. So sometimes very frequently used applications will launch approximately the same on an SSD as HDD. However change it to anything obscure and you'll really notice

It's really IOPS that's the biggest difference, and that's not always apparent in day to day activity. Try opening 30 PDFs or Word Docs at once and you should see a definite speed difference. Unfortunately this isn't the most practical use case for your day to day activities. I still think SSDs are slightly overrated (or maybe overhyped?) for the average consumer when compared to a properly maintained and relatively clean installation on an HDD. But I know on my main home computer I don't have an SSD yet, and I keep thinking the hard drive needs to be defragged because it's not fast enough at loading things... 😛

Also even though SSDs have a performance hit when filled, it is not nearly as bad IMO as the performance hit you take working on a near-full HDD, which can be brutal

 

[Morbus]

One of three things is happening:

- your 1TB HDD is godly fast
- you're experiencing a performance improvement, but it's not as big as you were expecting
- there's something seriously wrong with your computer/BIOS/OS/whatever

In my experience, while the performance improvements are very noticeable and much awesome (wow), where you really feel the difference is when you go "back" to the HDD.

I tried my machine with my 1TB HDD (32MB of cache) and it was fast. But it's miles ahead with my SSD. No comparison whatsoever. It's like, seriously, a double upgrade (I got my system as an upgrade from a C2D/P35 combo).

 

[homebrew2ny]

I too think this is a issue of believing in the hype of all the SSD buyers stating without any real context how 'revolutionary' and OMGBBQ!!11!! it is upgrading. Also, it may simply come down to the usage of the OP. I have stated here before, and recently, I too simply do not reap the full fruits of a SSD as much as some would simply because I do not do a lot of file transfers/swaps, installations, and use programs that would see large benefits from faster read/write load times. I do some web surfing, some light photo editing, and some light gaming. Of course I did see a system that was perhaps a bit snappier, but without using programs that would benefit from a SSD, and keeping your PC always on (like I do), the benefit is not as incredible.

Having said that, at current prices, I would not consider buying/building new without one, however I would not recommend a upgrade for casual PC users.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Something is wrong. In every PC I've put a SDD it's been a huge upgrade. I hate using my work PC now with the HDD since it just seems slooow.

 

[homebrew2ny]

Something is wrong. In every PC I've put a SDD it's been a huge upgrade. I hate using my work PC now with the HDD since it just seems slooow.

Your definition of huge and someone else's may differ, stating something is wrong based off of your subjective opinion is obviously fruitless. Having said that, opening windows explorer and going from .4 seconds to .1 seconds may be huge to you where to others, like me, it was nice but not HUGE in the whole scheme of things.

 

[postmortemIA]

yeah, OP, what is what you do that you expect SSD to make difference?
do you have lot of programs opened? real time anti virus? doing dev work with lots of small reads and writes?

 

[nickbits]

I usually find that I rarely notice an improvement but if I go back to the old way, I sure notice it sucks. That applies to most things.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well, I"ve seen it a couple different ways.

First, I set up my Z68 mobo in mid-2011 for ISRT caching with a 64GB Patriot Pyro SSD connected to SATA-III -- used against a WD 600GB Velociraptor on an SATA-II plug. Just like the reviews had said, the performance was initially about 80% of full SATA-III SSD performance.

Then, I put a 128GB Elm Crest SSD in my Mom's LGA-775 system -- limited to its SATA-II controller. Again, the system was pleasantly more responsive than it had been with an HDD.

No expert -- but you might want to look at issues of "drive alignment." The other thing -- I don't personally make my judgments solely on "boot time." Perhaps people who turn their systems on and off daily would value "boot time" as a greater convenience.

 

[Cerb]

Boot time should be much faster, once the BIOS is done. That part can't be sped up w/o Windows 8 + EUFI (Fast Boot), but it should be <15 seconds from the BIOS being done to a password prompt, w/ a clean Win7 install, maybe even <10. I reboot only a few times a month, or sometimes not even that (depends on my mood and the severity of Patch Tuesday security updates), so I haven't measured mine, and don't care too much, but it is damn fast. Once it goes away from the logo, my monitor takes longer to sync than any of the loading screens take to go away.

Aside from that, if you have an Intel chipset, try using Intel RST, with the iastor driver. It may get a wee bit more speed out of it.

Then, after awhile, go back to typical HDD systems. The differences will be lots of little drags, like .NET updates, slow directory listings, FF or Chrome freezing periodically, virus scans taking forever and slowing the PC down, etc., that just aren't there with an SSD.

@BonzaiDuck: the OP's screenshot shows proper alignment.

 

[Gillbot]

Coming from Raid-0 SAS I was disappointed in SSD speeds, but going from a WD Black single to a SSD I could tell the difference. If it is as slow as your old HDD then I agree, something is slowing the boot process or it just isn't as big of a jump for you to really notice. I was expecting near instant desktop access, but after drivers and whatnot all load, it still may take a few seconds to get to the desktop whereas why HDD took more than 12-15 seconds to get to the desktop typically.

 

[996GT2]

Honestly, I haven't noticed a huge difference in terms of cold boot times on any of my SSD systems. This is because the BIOS screen and pre-boot checks often take 10-15 seconds to go through, regardless of whether you have an SSD or HDD.

The biggest difference that I've noticed is in starting programs right after logging into Windows. With a hard drive, if you click on a few programs right after logging in, there will be a lag before those programs load (especially big programs like Photoshop). With a good SSD (I've got a Plextor M3 in my desktop and Samsung 840 Pro in my laptop), that lag is almost eliminated.

 

[EliteRetard]

With the 1TB I could have 15-20 internet tabs open, running defense grid (or another light game), got steam going, and whatever other background junk (oh got music going too), and it runs just fine and snappy. Fully booted in less than a minute.

Got the new SSD and after installing it, now takes about 50 seconds to get through the BIOS before windows loads (was ~6-8 seconds before)...and it's no faster at the actual windows part either. Opening/swapping between a bunch of tabs doesn't run any faster...in fact when I tried installing some programs (already downloaded) and using the internet many pages weren't loading 100% (picture novels) and needed a refresh. Still takes a second to load Steam and such...

Fresh install, only the latest updates and drivers (no conflicts with older versions), no random shit yet...just HWMonitor, CPU-Z, Prime95, some Memtest program, chrome and a few other tidbits to get it all tested and ready to go.

In fact I even have my old 2006 C2D system with 4GB RAM ~120GB HDD on WinXP 32bit on monitor swap and going between it and the new rig isn't drastic. It takes an extra second or two to swap between tabs when I've got 15-20 open but its not that bad in comparison...though it wouldn't like running a game at the same time (core and RAM limit mostly).

The new rig is actually going to my Dad, and after experiencing 7 years worth of "progress" all I can say is I am disappoint. General performance is barely improved. I've been drooling over new hardware, but other than gaming performance I see I haven't missed much.

 

[EliteRetard]

And overclocking these new computers is utter s**t too...I've spent an entire day trying to get a half ass OC that works. I've never had so many problems. The internet says you can "just set it to 4.5GHz" and go. Yeah with 1.8v and every setting in the MOBO turned off and even then it doesn't really work right. I've finally got some jacked up combo of settings rigged up to get it to run at 4.2GHz 1.3v and it's been running stable for an hour under load so far (hitting 90c though...). I had to mess with C states and turbo and EIST and base clocks and boot power levels and a ton of shit just to get this meager 500MHz OC. That's less than 15%.

I could get a 20-25% OC up and running tests with any older AMD/Intel chips in less than half an hour.

If I had know these new chips were jacked up garbage I wouldn't have messed with it...but once I did I couldn't get it to run correctly at stock anymore either. So I was forced to screw around with it to make it work again. Ugh...lame.

 

[tcsenter]

Is the SSD connected to the chipset-integrated Intel SATA controller or some third-party controller?? Could explain things.

 

[Cerb]

That boot time prior to Windows laoding is really strange. You might want to try tinkering with that.

Changing tabs shouldn't be any faster, unless you were starved for RAM (or file caching, in XP's case). Page loading times, without a direct fiber connection, are typically not disk-limited, but network-limited or CPU-limited (ABP/ABE should speed up web access more than any storage tweaks). I've tried the whole RAMdisk browser thing, even, and it's all placebo, with an OS that caches well (like Vista and newer). Turning off disk cache can improve things, sometimes, but OS, RAM, the internet connection, and reducing network activity via extensions like adblock (the fastest IOP is the one not done) are where it's at.

Any time before, when you didn't see the HDD activity light on quite a bit while you were waiting on it, will not improve much by an SSD, but improved by a newer OS (if XP), more RAM (if Vista or newer), and/or faster CPU. Those times where waiting was due to the HDD will be reduced by an order of magnitude, or even a few orders of magnitude. Also, as the OS ages, and files get scattered about, that SSD will keep performance up better than any HDD will (so would several other SSDs, but they were all much more expensive for the size, at the time 🙂).

I'm not sure what you made this new PC out of, but the era of easy high OCs is long gone (with AMD, the settings are fairly easy, but the CPUs run really hot). I built my new system with non-OCable parts, because I knew well that the effort would be much higher than the reward, even if I got a good chip. Plus, the cost is higher, if you don't like near a Microcenter. Sandy Bridge can take high OCs with a good cooler, but is still quite the PITA compared to older CPUs. IB a bit worse, and Haswell a bit worse than that. If it's going to someone else, don't bother, IMO. Just get it running well at stock, figure out a way around the boot time issue, change the driver to Iastor (in AHCI mode, MSACHI and Iastor can be swapped between), just in case, and leave it at that.

Edit: based on searching and finding a prior thread, it seems something was wrong with the setup to begin with, and HS and CPU mating might not be ideal. If it runs stock fine, leave it, and the same for the RAM. There's nothing wrong with 1333 CAS 9 on SB, though it may not be ideal, and a 2500K is only 10-20% slower than a similar-speed Haswell, which is enough performance for any software out there today, and likely that will come in the next few years.

 

[EliteRetard]

Is the SSD connected to the chipset-integrated Intel SATA controller or some third-party controller?? Could explain things.

Stuck on first Intel SATA 3 port. I confirmed AHCI is working...dunno what else could be wrong. You guys said the benchmark numbers were good.

The BIOS issue is really aggravating though...gotta stare at a blank screen for a minute waiting for the half second window to mash the button to get into the stupid BIOS. Even then you only get it half the time and then have to wait 2 minutes for windows to load and restart so you can retry it again. It's actually starting to piss me off. I've got more issues with this stupid thing not working right and gotta mess with it more. The CPU doesn't want to down clock (get stuck at 4.2GHz) but it under volts (to .9v) and then locks up. Just found this out after stopping the stress test. Dang it and I thought I finally had it working.

I've been trying all day to get this dang thing to idle properly and then clock up to it's proper speed (I don't even care about an OC anymore). I've tried resetting the BIOS and manually setting everything and it just wont work right. WTF is all this stupid s**t, PLL and LLC and EIST and C1E and VCCSA and VCCIO and Turbo and Speedstep and BCLCK and WTFBBQ?!?!?!

It all worked OK before the SSD. WTF is going on...

 

[sandorski]

BIOS updated?

I only started using my SSD last spring with my new build(sig) and Win8. It Boots really fast, but I don't know how fast Win8 boots on a mechanical, so it's hard to say how much faster the SSD is. I do know that Wordpad is much faster than when I used Win7 with a Mechanical. In Win8/SSD it's instantly open, in Win7/Mechanical it would take a couple seconds.

Not the best comparison, but noticeable to me when I first used it.

I'm not really attentive to the Intel side of things, but is that an older Chipset? If so, perhaps that's the problem?

 

[EliteRetard]

That boot time prior to Windows laoding is really strange. You might want to try tinkering with that.

I'm not sure what you made this new PC out of...

Edit: based on searching and finding a prior thread, it seems something was wrong with the setup to begin with, and HS and CPU mating might not be ideal. If it runs stock fine, leave it, and the same for the RAM. There's nothing wrong with 1333 CAS 9 on SB, though it may not be ideal, and a 2500K is only 10-20% slower than a similar-speed Haswell, which is enough performance for any software out there today, and likely that will come in the next few years.

I dunno whats up with the boot time, I can only assume it's looking for the SSD. It only started that after I added it. It sits there with a black screen and only a cursor for nearly a minute and then you suddenly get this screen flash for tenths of a second that's the rest of the BIOS going by. If you want to get into the bios you have to get lucky and be mashing the button at the exact second that flash happens.

i5-2500k, lapped AC Freezer 7 with silver paste, MSI P67A-GD65 B3, 2x4GB GSkill Sniper 1333MHz CAS9, ATI 4870 512MB, Corsair 520w, Antec 300 case filled with YL D12SL (120mm low speed), Asus CD/DVD R/RW, Rosewill USB 2.0 internal 3.5" card reader

I reset everything to stock and made sure it was all working good before I installed the SSD and new OS (with the 1TB I had it boosting stable up to 4.2 on 2 cores). After SSD/install I found that turbo no longer worked, best I could get was 3.3GHz with any kind of load. Been trying to get it to work right, but the auto settings don't work anymore and I obviously have no idea what the frak I'm doing because I'm not getting what I want. I just want the low idle and high speed under load like usual. I thought I finally got it working when I manged to get it stable at 4.2 load again but now it wont clock back down after load, it drops the volts to idle (~.9v) which then causes it to hang.

 

[EliteRetard]

BIOS updated?

I only started using my SSD last spring with my new build(sig) and Win8. It Boots really fast, but I don't know how fast Win8 boots on a mechanical, so it's hard to say how much faster the SSD is. I do know that Wordpad is much faster than when I used Win7 with a Mechanical. In Win8/SSD it's instantly open, in Win7/Mechanical it would take a couple seconds.

Not the best comparison, but noticeable to me when I first used it.

I'm not really attentive to the Intel side of things, but is that an older Chipset? If so, perhaps that's the problem?

As far as I can tell...the bios says 1.23.11 everywhere, except one page where it says 1.19. I looked online and 1.19 seems to be the highest (not 1.23) before they jump to version 4? But it says not to get the version 4 unless you have an Ivy CPU.

Its a P67 chipset, dunno how old that is either, but the box says its B3 revision...so this is back when they had SATA issues or whatever (I don't really recall now).

 

[flexy]

When I got my first SSD (ages back, one of the very early 64GB Supertalent) it was a HUUUUGE improvement, and my conventional HDs are not necessarily the slowest either.