SSD underperformance - Is this worth RMAing over?

[ensign_lee]

So I have this SSD - Crucial C300 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148348

I was thinking that my SSD seemed sluggish lately, and after seeing that my bootup time was worse on my computer with this SSD than my gf's with a 5400 rpm HDD, I thought I'd run a few benchmarks using HD Tune.

The result was the image above.

It seems as though I never hit the advertised speed of 355MB/sec (SATA 6Gb/s), and I can't seem to maintain the 300 MB/sec speed that I do get for long. I seem to average more around 100 MB/s, less than a 1/3 of the advertised speed. I am sure that it's plugged into the SATA III port of my P67 UD4 by the way, in case you're thinking it's plugged into the wrong one.

Is this something I should worry about? Or am I fretting over nothing?

 

[ensign_lee]

hmm, apparently if you run multiple instances of HD Tune (one on your SSD and one on your HDD) at the same time, you make them run considerably worse? :/

I ran it again on the SSD only and got a much better 240 MB/sec. Guess I'll live with it.

 

[Blain]

Is this worth RMAing over?

It seems as though I never hit the advertised speed of 355MB/sec (SATA 6Gb/s), and I can't seem to maintain the 300 MB/sec speed that I do get for long. I seem to average more around 100 MB/s, less than a 1/3 of the advertised speed. I am sure that it's plugged into the SATA III port of my P67 UD4 by the way, in case you're thinking it's plugged into the wrong one.

Is this something I should worry about? Or am I fretting over nothing?

You can always try, but be advised...

"If we determine that failure of the product(s) was not a result of a defect in materials or workmanship, we reserve the right to charge the customer for parts and labor at Crucial's current labor rate.
We will, of course, advise the customer prior to assessing these charges or other charges associated with return of products."

* Of course your MB has the B3 Revision chipset, correct?
* You've troubleshot all other performance degrading possibilities out of the equation, correct?

 

[groberts101]

Sure looks like a dirty over-filled volume to me. Could temporarily turn off sleep and logoff Windows to allow the drive's internal Garbage Collection algorithm to help recover some space and speed.

Also good to remember that filling an SSD beyond about 80%(depending on capacity) is bad for stamina as well. Might want to lean that volume down a bit as these things really aren't made for storage duty just yet.

First thing I would do before throwing in the towel and RMA'ing is to secure erase the drive to reset it to factory fresh speed and either reinstall fresh or recover that current install from a backup copy. AS SSD would be a better test to use as well.