Windows Experience Index : Low performance with Crucial C300 SSD ?!?

[louno]

Hi,
I just installed my new computer, i got a 120gb crucial c300 ssd and when i go in the windows performance rating my score is only 5.9 due to the "primary hard disk data transfer rate" score.

This seems very odd, because on my other machine which uses a 1tb Western Digital Caviar Black, i also get 5.9 ...

Does this mean there is something wrong with my ssd installation ?

What tool do you recommend to benchmark ssd and make sure it performs well ?
thanks,

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Sounds like your ssd might be operating in IDE mode instead of AHCI mode.

When you started your new computer for the very first time did you go into BIOS and change from IDE mode to AHCI mode? Did you do that before installing Windows on your new ssd?

 

[RetiredChief]

Donload, install, and run AS SSD. Do not need to run benchmark.
Look at upper left side, if it says driver = pcide you will have confirmed Johnny's evaluation.

It should say msachi (default uSoft AHCI driver, or iaStor (Intel's ahci driver - Needs to be version 9.6 or latter, also the newest amd driver should be OK. It should also show a green OK for partition alignment.

 

[louno]

well, i didnt even go in bios yet.
uh oh , dont tell me i have to re-install windows ? i was supposed to set something up BEFORE installing windows... sheesh...

I just went into the bios ( asus p8p67 EFI BIOS ) and im not too sure what to look for...

I installed AS SSD...
without running benchmark this is what is displayed.
In the drop down menu : C: C300-CTF DDAC128MAG SCSI Disk Device

In the table bellow, the first box ( top left )
C300-CTF
0006
mv91xx
103424 K - OK
119.24 GB

I dont see the letters AHCI anywhere... soo... what now ? i just installed all my programs, i hope i dont have to re-install windows..

 

[RetiredChief]

mv91xx is the marvel ahci/raid driver.
Extract from : http://communities.intel.com/message/117810
Thanks! Will give these a shot and report back ...
Other things I've learned:
- Apparently the SATA3 Marvell MV91XX drivers don't have TRIM support, and don't have that great performance at the moment anyway, so connecting your drives to a SATA2 port with good/stable drivers isn't that much of a downgrade for now.
- Some people recommend reverting back to the MS AHCI drivers for the SATA3 ports.

Did not see your MB listed in your post
The MB manual should explain the Bios options for the Controllers.
You probably have two controllers, one for the Sata III ports (in your case the marvel controller). And for sata II - ??? depends ie if intel would be a P/H 55 or 57 or a ICHxx chipset.

Most likely you will have to reinstall - If you are using incorrect driver the best option is normally a reinstall. There are some steps that you could do if controller was ide and you wanted to switch to msahci, BUT that that was for SSD installed on a Intel Sata II controller.

NOTE - the C300 should NOT be used without Trim supoort and Not sure if the latest marvel driver does allow trim to be passed. The C300 has a very poor Garbage collector from what I've read.
You can chech to see if trim is enable, BUT that does NOT mean it is passed to SSD.

 

[louno]

Ok I have the asus p8p67 deluxe. There are 4 sata3 ports, the first 2 are marvell and the other 2 are intel.

I had my ssd plugged in the marvell, and now switched it to the intel.
i ran AS SSD and notice some improvements and i think that the drive is working in AHCI now. here is what i got :

Notice in red what i wrote, when i put my mouse cursor over the word iaStor , there is a tooltip which mentions AHCI mode.

Are these number good, should i be getting better results ?

Also, is there a way to check if TRIM is working ( not just enabled ) ?

 

[groberts101]

If you have the iaStor drivers then you would have to be in ahci/raid since they wouldn't install/run.

if trim is supported by the OS, the SSD, left active by default, and the sata drivers pass them, then yes you will have trim functionality. How you "see" it would depend on the controllers ability to use that information in short order thereby allowing for recycling of those blocks to improve degraded speeds. I've seen a few say that GC can be problematic with C300's and others say they love them. Dunno,.. it's one of the only controllers I haven't tried yet so couldn't say for sure. From everything read around the net it's been a rocky climb for the controller/firmware and things seem to have improved. As with everything SSD of course.

And FYI, the 9128 Marvell chip on that board is bottlenecked by PCI-E x1 speeds and drivers are not to Intels maturity just yet. However, I do have word that Marvell is said to be working on a nwere version that is said to improve these chips probably as far as they'll go on these boards. Other one which will eventually supercede this chip is the 9182 which uses PCI-E x2. That one is nearly equal to the Intel 6G ports now.

Good Luck with it

 

[RetiredChief]

First - good improvement, Not the max that the drive is capable of, but until marvel get a new/better driver out it's about the best you will get groberts101 explained very well.. In day-to-day operation the avg person probably will not see a diff between the C300 on sata II vs Sata III, Boot time a few sec maybe and interms of program loads Two eye blinks instead of One.

As to verifing trim, there is a way. You fill the drive up then delete and see if performance returns. The best way is during use if you see no big slow downs, it's working.

 

[louno]

If you have the iaStor drivers then you would have to be in ahci/raid since they wouldn't install/run.

So , you confirm that iaStor = AHCI ?

if trim is supported by the OS, the SSD, left active by default, and the sata drivers pass them, then yes you will have trim functionality.

I am running Win 7 64 bit, so therefore TRIM is supported. The question is, is it enabled and is it working ?

First - good improvement, Not the max that the drive is capable of, but until marvel get a new/better driver out it's about the best you will get groberts101 explained very well..

As I explained above, i've changed the sata3 connection from marvell to intel. I am not using marvell anymore, the benchmark in the screenshot above are a comparison between the 2. When you say this isnt the max this drive is capable of, do you mean that this exact same drive can do better, we are talking about the 128GB version, i know that the higher capacity drives have better performance... If so, what kind of performance should I be trying to achieve with the C300 128GB ?

As to verifing trim, there is a way. You fill the drive up then delete and see if performance returns. The best way is during use if you see no big slow downs, it's working.

heheh that sounds very un-scientific and subjective, isnt there a fool proof way to verify this more accurately for sure?


Thanks all for the help, i never would have thought switching to SSD would be such a hassle...

 

[RetiredChief]

To verify trim is enabled
Go to the Command Prompt and type:
fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled)
DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)

To enable TRIM (if it's disabled), go to command prompt and type:
fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

To disable TRIM, to go command prompt and type:
fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

If you google "How do I verify trim is working", the above is mostly what you get.
AND NO simple way to Verify that that the SSD acted on the cmd.

So far I've bought 5 SSDs, currenly have 2 in primary desktop, one in personal laptop and I have two for the Laptop that I use for work (Both have win 7, but I swap in out depending on what I'm doing Have two programs that use serial port and do NOT co-exist.

The last SSD I bought was the Phoenix Pro (120 gig w/SF1200 controller). I read several reviews on the C300, based on the reviews, the SF1200 controller based SSDs (SATA II) sounded better and not enough performance diff to warrent what I felt were the short falls of the C300. For what it is worth, I would still recomment the SATA II SF1200's over the C300.

On the iastor, if it is ver 9.6 or later, yes it supports trim. If earlier ver NO.

 

[louno]

Yes i did that command prompt thing already, should have mentionned it, but this was already set to "0" even when my drive was not in AHCI , and also on my other computer I dont have a SSD and still i get "0" , therefore im not sure this actually means that TRIM is working, it just means it is somewhat enabled...

anyways... i got the c300 because it seemed like a very good drive ( in most benchmark even with newer generation drives it was consistently doing good ) and also, it was widely available.

Essentially i would just like to have my drive and system run optimally, and im not sure this is currently the case.

 

[RetiredChief]

Maybe this will make you feel better
Your Reads are all better than mine, my Writes (4k only) are slightly better than yours
As Stated mine is Phoenix pro (sf1200 controller) 120 Gig on SATA II

As stated, while not at its max potential, it's still great and I really dought you woulld see a diff between it's current performance and its max possible.

 

[jjwatmyself]

Wow, this is a great thread!

RetiredChief: I'm interested in moving my boot partitionto SSD and have three questions:

1) For SATA II interface are you still recommending the SF1200's over the C300.

2) Would you recommend a single SSD, Two SSD in RAID 0, or Two SSD in RAID 1?

3) Is a clean Win 7 install necessary, i.e. Does Microsoft optimize for SSD during install only?

Many thanks.

John.

 

[jjwatmyself]

I may have answered my own question after reading this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-performance,2798-11.html

 

[jjwatmyself]

Oh and then there's this:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/zalman-n-series-128gb-ssd-review/12

The impression I am getting from the hardcore reviews is to go with: a single Sandforce based, SATA II (3Gb/s) SSD; enable TRIM and AHCI using a safe method; disable indexing on the OS drive, Prefetch, Superfetch, and defrag.

 

[RetiredChief]

jjwatmyself, It is often better to start your own thread. You would probably get more response as many pass over "OLD" thread.

On C300, main reason I do not like is that they have poor Garbage collection, not a biggy if you do not rune Raid0. My choice bettwenn a C300 and a Good SF1200 SSD - the latter.

Bear in mind ther are some new "BAD" boys in town such as the vertex -3.

 

[nickcyk]

Hi,
I just installed my new computer, i got a 120gb crucial c300 ssd and when i go in the windows performance rating my score is only 5.9 due to the "primary hard disk data transfer rate" score.

This seems very odd, because on my other machine which uses a 1tb Western Digital Caviar Black, i also get 5.9 ...

Does this mean there is something wrong with my ssd installation ?

What tool do you recommend to benchmark ssd and make sure it performs well ?
thanks,

Same thing happened with me too. Fresh install of windows 7 professional 64 bit on a OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD, ASUS P8P67 mobo. Score rating returned for the "primary hard disk data transfer rate" was also 5.9. Not a big improvement that i was expecting from an SSD over my previous hdd. Then i installed the Intel Rapid Storage Techonology (RST) version 10.​1.​0.​1008 that came along in the mobo driver disc. Voila! Re-runned the windows score assesment and the SSD scored 7.8! That's more i like it.


As a side note though, my score has recently dropped to 7.6, and then 7.5. Not sure why but it could have been due to me starting to fill up the SSD till about 75% full.