SSD progressively slows over time

srgarcia · Nov 28, 2013

I'm a longtime user of SSD's and have a chronic issue that I cannot get to the bottom of even after extensive troubleshooting over the last year. I would really appreciate help in figuring out what is causing this.

The basic issue is that my two SSD drives progressively decrease in performance over time on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. I have multiple machines, the slowest of which (i3, 4gb, no SSD) runs faster than the laptop in question (i7, 12gb, 2xSSD). I've rebuilt the laptop multiple times and the overall speed is great after a new install but over time bogs down so that nearly all actions on the system are slowed.

I've read a ton of great stuff on this forum so looking forward to hearing what you all think.

Here's what I have tried/verfied.

■ Verified that main bay/port is SATA3 and optical bay/port is SATA2.
■ Verified both drives support SATA3.
■ Verfied TRIM is enabled and working on both drives using fsutil, Intel's SSD Toolbox, and this neat TRIM checker.
■ Fully rebuilt machines multiple times, formatting both drives each time before restoring files, using both Windows 7 and Windows 8.
■ Run both AS SSD Benchmark and CrytalDiskMark on both drives with results posted below. From what I've found, these numbers are quite a bit lower than they should be, especially the SATA3 drive.

C: (SATA3, Crucial C300 256GB)

CrystalDiskMark (3, 100MB)
Seq: 313.4 / 66.21
512K: 275.4 / 227.5
4: 12.41 / 15.53
4K QD32: 207.6 / 170.3

AS SSD Benchmark
Seq: 312.42 / 58.76
4K: 10.29 / 16.58
4K-64 Thrd: 221.65 / 64.21
Acc. time: 0.339 / 0.884
Score: 263 / 87 / 474

F: (SATA2, OCZ Agility 4, 480GB)

CrystalDiskMark (3, 100MB)
Seq: 204.6 / 193.5
512K: 164.2 / 193.8
4K: 9.884 / 21.88
4K QD32: 180.5 / 166.2

AS SSD Benchmark
Seq: 253.08 / 178.65
4K: 8.81 / 21.23
4K-64 Thrd: 171.94 / 138.35
Acc. time: 0.414 / 0.157
Score: 206 / 177 / 487

Tedfoo25 · Nov 28, 2013

srgarcia :

I'm a longtime user of SSD's and have a chronic issue that I cannot get to the bottom of even after extensive troubleshooting over the last year. I would really appreciate help in figuring out what is causing this.

The basic issue is that my two SSD drives progressively decrease in performance over time on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. I have multiple machines, the slowest of which (i3, 4gb, no SSD) runs faster than the laptop in question (i7, 12gb, 2xSSD). I've rebuilt the laptop multiple times and the overall speed is great after a new install but over time bogs down so that nearly all actions on the system are slowed.

I've read a ton of great stuff on this forum so looking forward to hearing what you all think.

Here's what I have tried/verfied.

■ Verified that main bay/port is SATA3 and optical bay/port is SATA2.
■ Verified both drives support SATA3.
■ Verfied TRIM is enabled and working on both drives using fsutil, Intel's SSD Toolbox, and this neat TRIM checker.
■ Fully rebuilt machines multiple times, formatting both drives each time before restoring files, using both Windows 7 and Windows 8.
■ Run both AS SSD Benchmark and CrytalDiskMark on both drives with results posted below. From what I've found, these numbers are quite a bit lower than they should be, especially the SATA3 drive.

C: (SATA3, Crucial C300 256GB)

CrystalDiskMark (3, 100MB)
Seq: 313.4 / 66.21
512K: 275.4 / 227.5
4: 12.41 / 15.53
4K QD32: 207.6 / 170.3

AS SSD Benchmark
Seq: 312.42 / 58.76
4K: 10.29 / 16.58
4K-64 Thrd: 221.65 / 64.21
Acc. time: 0.339 / 0.884
Score: 263 / 87 / 474

F: (SATA2, OCZ Agility 4, 480GB)

CrystalDiskMark (3, 100MB)
Seq: 204.6 / 193.5
512K: 164.2 / 193.8
4K: 9.884 / 21.88
4K QD32: 180.5 / 166.2

AS SSD Benchmark
Seq: 253.08 / 178.65
4K: 8.81 / 21.23
4K-64 Thrd: 171.94 / 138.35
Acc. time: 0.414 / 0.157
Score: 206 / 177 / 487

SSDs do deteriorate in terms of speed, but should do nowhere near as quickly as it has done for you (in 1 year).

I have to ask how you formatted the SSDs - if you used the conventional 'write zeroes to entire drive' method, then that's where the problem stems form!

Matt-Sir · Nov 28, 2013

Have you tried/checked a firmware update? It's amazing what a difference the firmware can make.

srgarcia · Nov 28, 2013

@Tedfoo25 - I only do a quick format, no zero'ing out. What is the best way to format it?

@Matt-Sir - I'll check into that as I haven't done any firmware updates.

srgarcia · Dec 9, 2013

I updated the firmware on the C300 drive and I noticed a fairly drastic improvement in the benchmark speed. Then I rebuilt the computer quick-formatting both drives. The benchmark speeds were the same after the rebuild, which is to be expected.

C: (SATA3, Crucial C300 256GB)

AS SSD Benchmark
Seq: 322.23 / 202.92
4K: 20.11 / 46.79
4K-64 Thrd: 215.38 / 150.15
Acc. time: 0.190 / 0.821
Score: 268 / 217 / 623

Thanks again for the help as I hope this does it.

Matt-Sir · Dec 9, 2013

Good to hear man, thanks for keeping in touch. Let me know how you get on with it.

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