Storage Best non-destructive SSD speed test?

I recently purchased an SSD. I have installed it using an optical bay adapter into my laptop. It is running quickly (for sure, I accidentally installed Windows 7 twice thinking it was just restarting during the install, it was finished in less than 10 minutes) but I'd like to make sure that the optical port is 6Gb/s and not 3Gb/s. I am quite sure the other SATA port is 6Gb/s and I will swap drive positions if necessary, no big deal.

I'm looking for a lightweight program that can report my SSD speeds without over-stressing my drive. I know any benchmark is going to put some stress on the drive, but thought you guys might have a favorite program. I would also like a lightweight program that can be easily removed after use and won't leave a huge footprint behind.

Thanks for any suggestions/assistance.

 

Atto will give you a good indication for your purposes without overly stressing the SSD...

Though to be doubly sure you've got everything up & running properly then *a* AS-SSD or CDM run can be done - there's an option in at least one or the other to limit the quantity of writes, but i can't recall which...

[Edit]

Apparently both AS-SSD & CDM have the option to reduce the quantity of writes - the default settings write 3-5 & 15-19GB respectively which are way too high & completely unnecessary...

...so adjust downwards based on that (as they repeat the tests x times from recollection).

 

Optical bays on older laptops are typically 1.5Gb/s so it might be worth sticking it in a higher rated port if it's not already occupied by an SSD.

 

It's brand new with Sandy Bridge architecture so I think it may very well have full speed SATA on both ports. I will report back.

 

As the OP's kind of said (it relates back to an earlier thread), the idea is to test the SSD in the adapted optical drive thing first... ...& if there's a limitation on speed then it'll be swapped with the HDD & retested.


Otherwise, something i should have said earlier is that, whilst it's still not a great idea to go overboard with the b/ms on a SSD (obviously it uses up cycles so best to leave that to the review sites who get the drives for free), you can always Secure Erase the drive to return it to its new state.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. Atto was a good program for me because it didn't even require an installation to run. I'm not the kind of guy that does a lot of benchmarks. Generally, I just use my machines. However I would really like to get this bay situation figured out so I can get the best possible speeds from this SSD.

Unfortunately I'm not sure I fully understand the BM results I have received. I'm not even sure if the program is setup properly to get the information I'm looking for (whether the port is Sata 3 or 6 Gb/s) as I just used the program defaults. Here are my results with the settings shown as well:



The drive I am benchmarking is the Crucial M4 64GB. What do you think? Am I throttled back on an older SATA controller and should swap HDD positions or are these tests perhaps not conclusive? Or of course maybe I'm reading this wrong?

Thanks again guys.

 

Right, you're definitely ltd to 3Gb/s via the optical drive thing as your max read speed is ~274MB/s...

So it looks as though you're going to have to try swapping the HDD into the adaptor & the SSD where the HDD is.

 

Okay, thanks for deciphering those for me. I will try swapping them tomorrow after school. I did set the benchmark test up properly though? It wasn't user error perchance?

 

No problem... ...& with atto, it's fine to run at the default settings.

[NB the only reason to change the settings is if you're using a card with onboard cache >=256MB where you'd need to increase it to at least a couple of times the cache size to stand any chance of actually testing the SSD(s)...

What i did originally with the array in my proper machine (& the previous V Turbos when they were on it) with my lsi card to make sure all was working as it should - & then i SE'd the SSDs.]


Yeah, hopefully you'll have better luck swapping them - well the chipset you've got does support 6Gb/s, though obviously something like the P67 has both 3Gb/s & 6Gb/s so i assume it's the same with yours...

...will just have to keep things crossed that the laptop manufacturer has only ltd the optical drive to the former.

 

I've swapped the drive positions and now Windows will not boot. My screen kind of freezes up on the first boot screen. Tried diagnostics and both drives are showing up. Tried removing each of the drives. Nothing seems to be helping.

Bad idea to do this tonight.

*edit* Got past BIOS with a flash drive loaded with Windows 7... I'm trying startup repair, we shall see. No luck so far.

 

Still cannot seem to get the computer to boot from the SSD in the HDD SATA port of the laptop.

I am installing Windows 7 on the HDD right now to make sure I have not bricked my computer somehow. I don't get why it keeps freezing up at BIOS. I'm really hoping I don't need to re-install Windows because this will be clean install #8 for the past two weeks and I'm so sick of that.

 

Hm, this could be down to when you installed windows on the SSD it recognised what SATA port you initially installed on and is now having fits because it has changed to the 6Gb/s one.

This would be my first guess as windows gets very picky about this stuff. Does it boot up if you switch back to the 3Gb/s port?

 

I have not gone to the extent of putting it back into the caddy as it is a bit of a PITA. For what it's worth the computer is booting from the regular HDD now that I installed Windows onto it. I ran ATTO again on the SSD and achieved 450MB/s peak.

Opening MSCONFIG I only see one Windows installation to boot from. I suppose it is worth it to keep it in the port it is in and reinstall Windows. Is there some way that I could backup the drive though rather than having to reinstall all updates and programs? I will if I have to. I'll see what the Bit-Techers tell me to do by morning and get it up and running again.

 

Oh... i didn't realise that you'd installed anything to the SSD... ...assuming, instead, that you'd just plugged it in as a secondary drive to test the speeds.

Anyway, i'd really recommend SEing it & doing a fresh install (temporarily pulling the HDD) as, whilst you 'could' take a HDD installation across, there's then bunches of arsing about in the registry....


Otherwise, did you update the f/w to the 0009 one for the M4?

& looked for any bios updates for your laptop itself? (might be a later orom)


Oh, & it's great that the manufacturer didn't neuter both SATA connections.

 

OK just one thing, how do you initialize secure erase?

 

This is the easiest method for all SSDs imho...

...whilst it says that it writes zeros, it obviously doesn't on a SSD (it's just the GUi assuming that you'd be using it on a HDD).

 

A secure erase is a special disk interface command - it's not performed by Windows (or any operating system) but by the drive's controller. So when the SSD receives a secure erase command, it doesn't write any 0s at all, it just resets the drive to be marked as completely free. With a HDD a secure erase will write 0s to every sector, as that's the only way to remove data permanently from it.

 

This is an interesting topic. I needed to get things moving this morning so ended up simply reformatting the SSD and installing Windows 7 before you guys had much of a chance to respond.

When googling I found a lot of contradicting information. I also spoke to Crucial tech support and they say while they are considering the possibility of a secure erase program for their drives, it is more for people who wish to sell their systems/drives without the possible loss of data/personal information and not for those looking to maintain performance. They said their internal garbage collection mechanism will do the same thing as a Secure Erase if left alone and on for a few hours.

Also, the Crucial tech told me that the Secure Erase programs do write 1's or 0's across the entire drive. It makes sense to me as I am aware that you really can't 'delete' data from an SSD and thus a program that writes 0's/1's to the whole drive would help with this security issue.

I'm not saying anybody is wrong or right about what the Secure Erase programs do or are meant for, I just thought I would let you know what they had to say about things over at Crucial.

Either way the drive is booting again and programs are loading as fast if not faster than on my desktop machine. What a relief, I thought I might have shorted something when the computer kept freezing at post last night.

 

The Crucial rep is incorrect; a secure erase ATA command doesn't write 0s or 1s (how could it when it completes so quickly? It took about 10 seconds on my 128gb M4, which would mean a write speed of approximately 12gb/sec). It's the only way to guarantee full performance for the drive, as it resets the entire drive to be marked as free. Garbage collection does its best over time, but it is not comparable.

Perhaps there is some confusion in that a secure erase with a HDD always involves writing 0s, and perhaps some modern programs use the term 'secure erase' to refer to processes they do, rather than the ATA command.

Here is what Kingston says on the process:


ATA Secure Erase is part of the ATA ANSI specification and when implemented correctly, wipes the entire contents of a drive at the hardware level instead of through software tools. Software tools over-write data on hard drives and SSDs, often through multiple passes; the problem with SSDs is that such software over-writing tools cannot access all the storage areas on an SSD, leaving behind blocks of data in the service regions of the drive (examples: Bad Blocks, Wear-Leveling Blocks, etc.)

When an ATA Secure Erase (SE) command is issued against a SSD’s built-in controller that properly supports it, the SSD controller resets all its storage cells as empty (releasing stored electrons) - thus restoring the SSD to factory default settings and write performance. When properly implemented, SE will process all storage regions including the protected service regions of the media.

 

Just for the sake of conversation I would theorize that the very nature of a solid state drive would make it possible to switch all bytes to zero or one in a very quick fashion whereas yes it would take forever with a mechanical drive.

I guess I don't get why they would call it, "Secure Erase" if it does not actually remove the remnants of personal data. Just marking the files as deleted would not be very secure at all in my opinion as all the data could still be accessed fairly easily even without any special skills.

Nonetheless, would either of you agree with the Crucial rep that the garbage collection will, in itself, restore performance in the same way that a "Secure Erase" would?