A short while ago I bought a 120GB Vertex 3, and installed it in my existing PC (Gigabyte GA-X58A-U3DR) in a 6Gbps port. Using HDTune and AS SSD, I'm getting approximate speeds of 200-220 Read and 90-100 Write. Certainly a little faster than my SATAII striped array, but nowhere new the headline speed of 500Gps R + W. Now, I don't seriously expect to read the headline speeds, but I expected a little better for my money. Drivers for my mobo are up to date and the firmware is fairly recent if not the absolute latest build IIRC. The SSD might be a version behind also, but I don't think I can upgrade it non-destructively. I accept that if all else fails - I might have to update BIOS + Firmware, but in the interim, what can I do to diagnose/investigate this apparent lack of speed?
First of all, your SATA3 port is Marvell 9128, which is, ehm, not very good. The 500MB/s speeds are meant for native Intel P67 and AMD chipset SATA3 controllers. Second how many times did you run HD Tune and AS SSD ? Do you realize Sandforce doesn't like to be torture tested (AS SSD is a torture test in default settings) and actually turns in the write limiting mode if you run it more than once or twice in a week. A link: http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-vertex-3-pro-review/13
Fair point on the limits of the marvel controller, but still my performance is still half that which you might expect.
Quick checklist... - i assume you actually have it connected to the Marvell controller & not the 3Gb/s intel one? (NB admittedly the intel one will give a faster low end so, whilst you then naturally wouldn't have as high sequentials...) - i assume you set the controller up in ahci or trim mode? - --------"-------- updated to the lastest intel/Marvell drivers? - --------"-------- have nothing else on the controller, if you're using the Marvell one? - --------"-------- ran WEi? - --------"-------- double checked that Windows isn't defragging the drive? - --------"-------- restarted before each test? (whilst not 100% that on board Marvell controllers will pass on trim commands, so it may have no effect, restarting does send one that does recovers speed on the 6Gb/s SFs on better controllers - ie a decent intel or AMD one) - --------"-------- altered the power saving mode so that the HDDs never turn off/or at least had several hours before doing so? - --------"-------- made sure that you're not using anything with outlandish writes? (ie using it as a temp drive for p2p...) - --------"-------- checked the alignment? (if you cloned your old install then there's a possibility that it's not aligned.) Ummmmm... ...there's probably some more stuff to check, but that's a reasonable starting check list - along with also updating the mobo bios... Tbh, if i had to guess based on the numbers, i'd go with the alignment being out... ...but there's a few things in there that 'could' cumulatively have been mis-set &/or hammering it.
