Mediocre SSD Performance (Mushkin Callisto 60GB)

[Nightmaresiege]

EDIT: This is a Callisto Deluxe, I accidentally forgot to add that to the thread title.

 

I'm experiencing what I think to be extremely mediocre performance on my new Callisto. Here's some tidbits about my setup and about tweaks I had performed on my OS. I doubt they should have any impact on my performance:

 

- No indexing

- No hibernation

- No page file (on the entire system)

- No system restore

 

The SSD has Windows 7 x64 installed on it and some other stuff that I think should have the boost in speed from the SSD such as my productivity software and Steam. I also have a 500GB Caviar Black as a data drive.

 

Here is the latest CrystalMark bench I did and it's terrible in comparison to OCC's own benchmarks.

 

My writes seem kind of mediocre though I could just be paranoid. Reads seem OK, 4K seems kind of low also but I dunno. What do you guys think?

 

EDIT: Added an HDTune 2.55 bench, it looks a little wonky.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Nightmaresiege

[Waco]

Those numbers don't seem terribly off...the writes may be a *little* low but that's it. Is your partition aligned properly (AKA is this a new 7 install or a clone from an older setup)?

 

 

EDIT: Actually upon further review - your writes do seem pretty slow.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Waco

[AddictedGamer93]

Make sure AHCI is enabled.

[Nightmaresiege]

This is a new 7 install, maybe a few days old at most. AHCI is enabled in the BIOS.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Nightmaresiege

[ebarone]

Enable page pile and put it on your SSD, theres zero reason not to and lack of a page file can hinder system performance.

 

The only oddity is your HD Tune bench, the other two look maybe a couple percent below where they should be for that drive. Do you have the latest SATA drivers maybe?

[Nightmaresiege]

Fair enough, remade the PF. However, doesn't a 20MB/s difference in 4K and 35MB/s or so in 512K and Seq seem like a little much in comparison to OCC's own tests? I realize I'm not on a brand new W7 install and many of my specs are different from the test system OCC used but that seems like a fairly large margin. You can correct me if I'm wrong though.

[ebarone]

Yes, but oddly enough if you look at some other sites as well, people have reported performance in line with yours, and then there are other sites that have performance like OCC's. Maybe its a firmware thing?

[Nightmaresiege]

Yes, but oddly enough if you look at some other sites as well, people have reported performance in line with yours, and then there are other sites that have performance like OCC's. Maybe its a firmware thing?

 

Bizarre... Seems like such a wide margin. Firmware sounds like a good place to look. I have 320A. I'll investigate.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Nightmaresiege

[ebarone]

Dont forget motherboard SATA drivers as well might also be affecting things.

[El_Capitan]

It doesn't look too far off the mark. When you formatted the SSD, what allocation unit size did you use?

 

Make sure you turn disk defragmentation off on the SSD.

[Waco]

It doesn't look too far off the mark. When you formatted the SSD, what allocation unit size did you use?

 

Make sure you turn disk defragmentation off on the SSD.

Windows 7 will automatically disable defragmentation when it sees a disk that reports 0 rpm spindle speed. The default allocation unit size is fine as well.

[Nightmaresiege]

Windows 7 will automatically disable defragmentation when it sees a disk that reports 0 rpm spindle speed. The default allocation unit size is fine as well.

 

I was told at the Mushkin forums not to use AMD's AHCI drivers, perhaps that is part of the issue? I will see if results vary now that I have geneirc MS drivers. 320A is the latest firmware so nothing to do there. I was also told that Crystal Disk Mark temporarily degrades write performance if run more than 2 times, I wasn't aware of this.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Nightmaresiege