Crucial M4 SSD write speeds sub par

[rcfant89]

I have a Crucial M4 ssd with the latest firmware 0009 installed. Clean install of win 7 pro 64 bit, AHCI turned on and I run a benchmark.

The thing is fast as lightning to load programs and read stuff with the sequential read speeds over 500 mb/s but the write speeds seem to be well below what other M4 users are getting.

Using the "AS SSD" benchmark, my speeds are the following:

Read:

Seq: 513.18 MB/s
4K: 23.07 MB/s
4K-64Thrd: 243.58 MB/s
Acc.time: 0.103 ms
Score: 318


Write:


Seq: 97.28 MB/s
4K: 47.13 MB/s
4K-64Thrd: 86.93 MB/s
Acc.time: 0.274 ms
Score: 144


Overall score is 611.

MSAHCI - OK
103424 K - OK (<and what does that mean?)

Thanks and let me know.

 

[nikorr]

It looks fine for the 64GB model.

 

[RetiredChief]

You are using the default msahci driver, recommend downloading the latst intel RST driver Ver 10.6.

That should change the driver to iaSTor.
Link for RST driver (Should be on Intel's sata III Port: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+Rapid+Storage+Technology
The 2nd OK is for partition alignment.

Side Note: Do NOT want to run the benchmark program to often, will start showing poor benchmarks. Trim and Carbage collection take time on the M4.

Screen shot of My M4 (With Firmware 0009) using AS SSD. It's the 128 gig, so 64 gig should be a little slower.

 

[Dereck47]

Verify that your drive is connected to port SATA3_0 or SATA3_1, not GSATA3_5 or GSATA3_6.

MSAHCI is Microsoft's default AHCI driver. Use Intel's latest RST driver.

 

[rcfant89]

Best answer selected by rcfant89.

 

[rcfant89]

Thanks, I downloaded the intel driver and my performance went up a bit but, it was mainly a read speed increase.

My write speeds are very similar to yours but my write speeds (seq and 4k-64Thrd) are less than half yours. Sure a larger SSD might be a little faster but no way it's twice as fast to write, no?

 

[RetiredChief]

Part of this could be that you have recently run the benchmark. The benchmark, for comparision, should be done on a Clean SSD shorly after installing OS. Repeated Runs will show lower performance.

One consolation, Sequencial read/write performance is the least important followed by the 4K-64 Values (very few uses use more than 3 -> 5, so 64 is not a realistic value).

Reads are generally more important than writes also for Loading the operating system and loading a program. With a 60/64 Gig SSds alot of the "writes" are set to the HDD any ways.

It's a shame that most reviews limit the review to the larger SSDs often the 240/256 Gig drives and some for the 120/128 gig drives, but very few post the AS SSD scores for the Sub 120 gig SSDs.

 

[Dereck47]

It's a shame that most reviews limit the review to the larger SSDs often the 240/256 Gig drives and some for the 120/128 gig drives, but very few post the AS SSD scores for the Sub 120 gig SSDs.

Probably for marketing purposes. Manufacturers submit their best drives for high reviews.

 

[RetiredChief]

You are correct. That is also why they generally post Sequencial read/write performa using Compressable data.