SSD much slower than it should be

[Vollezar]

I have a Kingston V300S3 120GB drive. The current speeds it's working at do not bother me, but I am wondering if it's a symptom that something isn't setup the right way. Or is it worse than that and the drive is defective.

 

[Jad Chaar]

I would update the firmware. You can download it from >>the V300 hardware page<. If that doesnt help, the drive could be defective or some program or process could be taking up resources. Try updating the firmware and tell us if that helps.

 

[Vollezar]

Seems to have gotten mixed results. I ran a few more tests. Some tests I ran with most application I usually have running disabled.
The test in the first post I ran while surfing the web and listening a shoutcast channel in winamp.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Did you clean install Windows or transfer an image?

 

[Vollezar]

No. I had to upgrade from win 7 to keep most of my stuff.

 

[Jad Chaar]

No. I had to upgrade from win 7 to keep most of my stuff.

So you basically transferred an old image to the SSD? What drive did you have before upgrading to the SSD? Some settings may have stayed from the transfer. I think clean installing may be the only solution or else the drive is faulty. It would be great if someone else can provide some insight on this issue though as I am not 100% sure. If you dont want to try clean installing, I would contact Kingston and ask for a replacement and if that doesn't fix it, the OS install is the issue.

I hope this helps.

-JC

 

[Vollezar]

No. Windows 7 was already on the drive. I've had the drive for a couple of months now. I did a clean install of Windows 7 couple of weeks ago since this is a new PC. I think I will do a clean install of Windows 8, though. That brings up another question. In the bios I have option to set my OS to Windows 8 and Windows 8 WHQL. Which one should I go with? My mobo is Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3

 

[Jad Chaar]

I would check this thread out: http://goo.gl/NBiwne.

 

[Vollezar]

Thanks.
They should clarify in their manual that WHQL option is for integrators and should not be used by regular consumers. I knew I should've stuck with ASUS. Gigabyte UEFI is not very responsive with the mouse and kind of messy (IMHO anyway).

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Couple things to check, if your ssd is aligned, and if your SATA mode is set to AHCI.

 

[Vollezar]

SATA is set to AHCI. I used this article to check for alignment (http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-...ned-for-optimal-solid-state-drive-performance) and it seems to be aligned correctly.

I am not sure how it works (never used it before), but I also tried Intel rapid storage software. No improvement at all.

 

[Vollezar]

I went out and got a Samsung 840 EVO. Did a clean install of windows.
After I finished installation I wiped the Kingston drive completely and retested it. Still very poor performance. Samsung drive is showing great numbers in crystaldisk and in Samsung's own benchmark. I set the drive to reliability option (instead of balanced or performance) and it barely slowed down.

 

[Jad Chaar]

The Kingston drive seems to be flawed. I would return it. The Samsung is a ton better and more reliable since it uses a custom NAND chip, not a sandforce.

 

[Vollezar]

Yeah, I guess it's all that's left to do.

 

[Vollezar]

This is what happened after I enabled Samsungs Rapid Feature.

 

[Jad Chaar]

This is what happened after I enabled Samsungs Rapid Feature.

I wouldnt use that. I remember reading somewhere that it reduces the SSDs lifespan. Plus, you wont see that much of a difference between using RAPID and the regular SSD settings in programs other than benchmarks.

 

[Vollezar]

I figured it be a trade off. Speed for longevity. I don't need it to be that fast anyway. Regular speed is just fine by me. I just wanted to see if Rapid actually did work or if it was just another marketing ploy.

 

[Jad Chaar]

I figured it be a trade off. Speed for longevity. I don't need it to be that fast anyway. Regular speed is just fine by me. I just wanted to see if Rapid actually did work or if it was just another marketing ploy.

It works, but it is meant for benchmarks probably . Samsung tends to do that with their products so they look good in synthetic benchmarks.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

RAPID absolutely does not reduce lifespan or incur any extra write cycles at all, it's a caching system that uses DRAM to buffer.

Theoretically the highest performance benefit would be a high queue depth and small file size, where you will see bandwidths exceeding 4gb/s.

This doesn't happen in normal desktop load but there will still be a reasonable benefit when reading/writing smaller files.

Not too rare actually, for example if you're copying a bunch of ~5mb-~10mb picture files continuously you'd see a big benefit until the buffer is full.

The side effect is that it uses some of your DRAM and CPU. However, it only enables RAPID when you have idle DRAM and CPU so you won't see a performance hit if you're actually doing something.

The only possible negative is that it caches to the DRAM, then writes to the SSD so if you unplug your power after data has been written to the DRAM but hasn't transferred to the SSD yet, then you'd loose it. IMO not really noteworthy since you might loose it anyway if your power went out and you weren't using RAPID.

 

[Per Hansson]

I realize this thread is old but the reason your drive was so slow is that Kingston switched to asyncronous NAND with only 1/3 of the performance!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

 

[Jad Chaar]

I realize this thread is old but the reason your drive was so slow is that Kingston switched to asyncronous NAND with only 1/3 of the performance!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

Very interesting! Nice find.