My SSD is so fast I thought my computer was broken


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<csb>

So I set up my new Crucial M4 last night, installed Windows 8.1 on it, configured everything, and when i get to the first "real" bootup (IE no more "setting things up for you..." bootup stages)...

 

Well... first a bit of background: on my computer, right after you turn it on, the CPU fan spins to 100% for the first 2 or 3 seconds, and then once the BIOS loads, it slows down to a more reasonable speed.  Also, I have SpeedFan installed and set to run automatically on startup, and when SpeedFan starts up, it too sets the CPU fan to 100% at first, before letting it slow down.

 

So when I turned on my PC, I saw the Windows splash screen, so I went to do something else.  10 seconds later, I hear the CPU fan spin to 100%, and I think "oh no, there's something wrong with my SSD, and my PC just rebooted in mid-boot".  

 

But it was SpeedFan.  I never actually thought it would boot that fast.  Hell, I only have a SATA II motherboard, so this drive isn't even running at its full potential.

 

Also, I'm sure you've seen videos like this a thousand times before, but I just find it so cool that I can do this:

http://youtu.be/iC1dYZDNgMY

 

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I bought a used kingston ssd, on my ancient pc and even though it's not running to it's full potential, I'm amazed at how much faster win7 boots, loads up programs etc...

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Awesome! Glad to hear it! I am running two 512GB Crucial M4s in RAID0.. it is INSANE! :D

 

Considering that in the video I posted, I am able to run 14 EXEs in less than 1 second, on just SATA II, what kind of performance benefit are you actually seeing out of two in RAID0?  I mean surely Windows couldn't boot faster than it would with a single drive, could it?

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And if anyone has any tips to make sure that my SSD is configured in Windows 8 properly, I'd love to hear them!

 

I followed most of this guide:

Sean's Windows 8 Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs

 

I disabled prefetching, superfetching, search indexing, system restore, drive idle timeout (although I used 6 hours, not 'never' like he suggested, for idle time garbage collection) and the hibernation file.  I also tried disabling 'windows write-caching buffer flushing', but I didn't see any change in performance.  I actually saw a slight decrease in performance in HD Tune Pro benchmarks.

 

Is there anything I've missed?  I haven't set up TRIM yet (i dont even have any idea what TRIM is), but I heard that if you try to defrag an SSD with the windows defrag tool, it will change to an "optimize" button, which will "do TRIM" or whatever? :P

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My cold boot times are about 10-11 seconds. It's amazing what a good SSD + uEFI + Win8/8.1 can do!

 

SSDs are really amazing, when you look at read and write speeds yeah it's an improvement but you really got to look at random IOPS to see the full benefit.

 

There's a good reason I'm trying to push Enterprise SSDs into some of the servers we sell/manage at work!

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And if anyone has any tips to make sure that my SSD is configured in Windows 8 properly, I'd love to hear them!

 

I followed most of this guide:

Sean's Windows 8 Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs

 

I disabled prefetching, superfetching, search indexing, system restore, drive idle timeout (although I used 6 hours, not 'never' like he suggested, for idle time garbage collection) and the hibernation file.  I also tried disabling 'windows write-caching buffer flushing', but I didn't see any change in performance.  I actually saw a slight decrease in performance in HD Tune Pro benchmarks.

 

Is there anything I've missed?  I haven't set up TRIM yet (i dont even have any idea what TRIM is), but I heard that if you try to defrag an SSD with the windows defrag tool, it will change to an "optimize" button, which will "do TRIM" or whatever? :p

most of those things aren't even needed anymore on 8. they either make no noticeable difference or in some cases decrease performance as you noticed. and 8 always auto detects SSDs and enables TRIM so you don't have to worry about that :)

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Considering that in the video I posted, I am able to run 14 EXEs in less than 1 second, on just SATA II, what kind of performance benefit are you actually seeing out of two in RAID0?  I mean surely Windows couldn't boot faster than it would with a single drive, could it?

 

Yeah.. lol I mean it is pretty damn fast.. Download HD Tach and post your score. since we both have M4s it would be interesting.. here is mine,

post-61856-0-74680200-1375402145.png

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You can check if Trim is enabled - linky. Windows 8 should choose settings that are optimized for your SSD.

 

My 840 Pro 256GB on SATA 3

post-182178-0-90408400-1375402366.png

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Yeah.. lol I mean it is pretty damn fast.. Download HD Tach and post your score. since we both have M4s it would be interesting.. here is mine,

attachicon.gifraid0.png

 

 

I used HD Tune Pro, because its what I already have.  I did a 500mb test using random bits, and I got the best result I've had yet:

 

 

HD Tune Pro: M4-CT128M4SSD2 File Benchmark

 

Drive C:

 

Transfer rate test

 

File Size: 500 MB

 

Sequential read 257693 KB/s

Sequential write 171881 KB/s

Random read 5020 IOPS

Random write 13032 IOPS

Random read (queue depth = 32) 37146 IOPS

Random write (queue depth = 32) 31531 IOPS

 

 

pnw0.png

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Oh what the hell.  I downloaded and installed your precious dinosaur software, heres my result, keeping in mind that this is limited by SATA II:

 

lrh1.png

 

I'm not sure why you wanted to compare your results to mine, since you seem to have SATA III, and I did mention a couple of times I only have SATA II...

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The largest benefit of SSDs are random access times, not sequential bandwidth.

 

Right, so why are you all using HD Tach, if it doesn't even test random access times properly? 

 

For random access times, HD Tune Pro says:

Random read 5020 IOPS

Random write 13032 IOPS

Random read (queue depth = 32) 37146 IOPS

Random write (queue depth = 32) 31531 IOPS

 

HD Tach says:

0.1ms.  That is all.

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I used HD Tune Pro, because its what I already have.  I did a 500mb test using random bits, and I got the best result I've had yet:

 

 

 

 

 

HD Tune Pro: Intel   Raid 0 Volume Benchmark
 
Test capacity: full
 
Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 215.3 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 274.4 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 244.2 MB/s
Access Time           : 0.110 ms
Burst Rate            : 151.8 MB/s
CPU Usage             : 2.5%
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HD Tune Pro: Intel   Raid 0 Volume Benchmark
 
Test capacity: full
 
Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 215.3 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 274.4 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 244.2 MB/s
Access Time           : 0.110 ms
Burst Rate            : 151.8 MB/s
CPU Usage             : 2.5%

 

 

Oh I didn't do the volume benchmark because I'm using the drive, I didn't want to erase my data.  I did a 500mb file benchmark.  That'll give you the random IOPS.

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Oh what the hell.  I downloaded and installed your precious dinosaur software, heres my result, keeping in mind that this is limited by SATA II:

 

 

 

I'm not sure why you wanted to compare your results to mine, since you seem to have SATA III, and I did mention a couple of times I only have SATA II...

I just wanted to see.. :) Just being friendly man..

Oh I didn't do the volume benchmark because I'm using the drive, I didn't want to erase my data.  I did a 500mb file benchmark.  That'll give you the random IOPS.

here is the 500mb file,

HD Tune Pro: Intel   Raid 0 Volume File Benchmark
 
Drive C:
 
Transfer rate test
 
File Size: 500 MB
 
Sequential read 529366 KB/s
Sequential write 434147 KB/s
Random read 5137 IOPS
Random write 14912 IOPS
Random read (queue depth = 32) 77400 IOPS
Random write (queue depth = 32) 83150 IOPS
post-61856-0-60012900-1375404581.png
 
Also, another reason I wanted to post results because you asked if it could get any faster with RAID0.. We both have the same model drive with the exception of size..  So this should give you enough information.. 
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I just wanted to see.. :) Just being friendly man..

here is the 500mb file,

HD Tune Pro: Intel   Raid 0 Volume File Benchmark
 
Drive C:
 
Transfer rate test
 
File Size: 500 MB
 
Sequential read 529366 KB/s
Sequential write 434147 KB/s
Random read 5137 IOPS
Random write 14912 IOPS
Random read (queue depth = 32) 77400 IOPS
Random write (queue depth = 32) 83150 IOPS
 
Also, another reason I wanted to post results because you asked if it could get any faster with RAID0.. We both have the same model drive with the exception of size..  So this should give you enough information.. 

 

 

Right, sorry, my bad, I forgot.  I'm friendly too, I swear! :D

 

But man, yours is certainly running faster than mine.  The "queue depth = 32", whatever that means, is more than twice mine. But the other random read/write is about the same.  Sequential is certainly more than double, although I think that is more a factor of SATA III.

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SATA II is no doubt your bottleneck.. If you have a free PCI express a lot, you might want to look into getting a sata III card.. They sell them at best buy.. Grab one and if it doesn't give you a huge difference take it back :p

But if it super fast.. No sense messing with it

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