Crucial M4 performance

[VJTB]

Description Disk drive
Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Model M4-CT128M4SSD2 ATA Device
Bytes/Sector 512
Media Loaded Yes
Media Type Fixed hard disk
Partitions 2
SCSI Bus 0
SCSI Logical Unit 0
SCSI Port 4
SCSI Target ID 0
Sectors/Track 63
Size 119.24 GB (128,034,708,480 bytes)
Total Cylinders 15,566
Total Sectors 250,067,790
Total Tracks 3,969,330
Tracks/Cylinder 255
Partition Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size 100.00 MB (104,857,600 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 1,048,576 bytes
Partition Disk #0, Partition #1
Partition Size 119.14 GB (127,928,369,152 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 105,906,176 bytes

I decided to grab a 128gb M4 back when they were about $150(now wishing I had waited) for the performance boost I heard that SSDs give to the operating system.

I have:
Asus Sabertooth P67
i5-2500K 3.3ghz
2 sticks of GSKILL 4gb DDR3 1333mhz
EVGA Geforce GTX560
Corsair HX650 modular power supply
Antec P183
ASUS 24X DVD Burner
Western Digital 640GB Caviar Black
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Unplugged the WD 640gb, installed Win7 on the SSD, it was set to AHCI. Installed:
Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate
Firefox
Java/Flash/Reader
Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
Winamp
VLC media player
Malwarebytes Antimalware Pro
Comodo Internet Security
SpeedFan
EVGA Precision X
Adblock Plus for Firefox

Copied my PST file over from the WD drive and my bookmarks, and thats where I am pretty much at.

After installing and testing with HDTune, the drive gets about 360-400 on reads. The problem comes in that Outlook, Internet Explorer, Firefox, any program virtually.... is no faster to open than it was with the Western Digital as the boot drive.
Boot time only dropped by about 4-5 seconds, and it really feels like a +10% increase in speed, instead of a +200% increase in speed that I was expecting.

I checked the partition offset, trim, and made sure I fully reinstalled the OS without the WD drive connected, so I'm puzzled as to why the read speed is close, but the "snappyness" is not. It could all be in my head, but is it normal for Outlook to take 4 seconds to open on a SSD?

Are SSDs really not that much better than "black" or similar quality hard drives?

 

[Chainzsaw]

Description Disk drive
Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Model M4-CT128M4SSD2 ATA Device
Bytes/Sector 512
Media Loaded Yes
Media Type Fixed hard disk
Partitions 2
SCSI Bus 0
SCSI Logical Unit 0
SCSI Port 4
SCSI Target ID 0
Sectors/Track 63
Size 119.24 GB (128,034,708,480 bytes)
Total Cylinders 15,566
Total Sectors 250,067,790
Total Tracks 3,969,330
Tracks/Cylinder 255
Partition Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size 100.00 MB (104,857,600 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 1,048,576 bytes
Partition Disk #0, Partition #1
Partition Size 119.14 GB (127,928,369,152 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 105,906,176 bytes

I decided to grab a 128gb M4 back when they were about $150(now wishing I had waited) for the performance boost I heard that SSDs give to the operating system.

I have:
Asus Sabertooth P67
i5-2500K 3.3ghz
2 sticks of GSKILL 4gb DDR3 1333mhz
EVGA Geforce GTX560
Corsair HX650 modular power supply
Antec P183
ASUS 24X DVD Burner
Western Digital 640GB Caviar Black
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Unplugged the WD 640gb, installed Win7 on the SSD, it was set to AHCI. Installed:
Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate
Firefox
Java/Flash/Reader
Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
Winamp
VLC media player
Malwarebytes Antimalware Pro
Comodo Internet Security
SpeedFan
EVGA Precision X
Adblock Plus for Firefox

Copied my PST file over from the WD drive and my bookmarks, and thats where I am pretty much at.

After installing and testing with HDTune, the drive gets about 360-400 on reads. The problem comes in that Outlook, Internet Explorer, Firefox, any program virtually.... is no faster to open than it was with the Western Digital as the boot drive.
Boot time only dropped by about 4-5 seconds, and it really feels like a +10% increase in speed, instead of a +200% increase in speed that I was expecting.

I checked the partition offset, trim, and made sure I fully reinstalled the OS without the WD drive connected, so I'm puzzled as to why the read speed is close, but the "snappyness" is not. It could all be in my head, but is it normal for Outlook to take 4 seconds to open on a SSD?

Are SSDs really not that much better than "black" or similar quality hard drives?

Hello,

Hmm. Do you have a lot of email in outlook? How long did it take before to open with your HDD?

Also have you aligned your partition? Take a look at this guide here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html

Note: I would do the verification first, rather than the actual alignment just in case.

Have you done all the "SSD optimizations" such as disable hibernation, as well as a few others?

Edit: Whats your firmware version for your SSD? The latest version is 000F.

 

[VJTB]

The outlook file is around 600mb. Seem to remember it loading in about 4-6 seconds on the western digital.

The SSD is faster than the old hard drive, but its just not huge like I was expecting. Running the verification came up with 1024kb and 101mb which seems to be normal based on that site.

Forgot to disable system restore and set it to "no gui boot" on that optimization list.

Are prefetch and superfetch performance hogs as well?

 

[Chainzsaw]

That's somewhat of a large pst. Superfetch should be disabled.

Go through this great guide, it's worth a read, you might pick up a few tweaks and settings you may have missed:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911.html


Another thing too - don't benchmark your SSD too often in a short period. It will slow your SSD down.

Edit: Have you tried using Waterfox instead of Firefox? 64bit variant of Firefox. BTW when I open up IE, Waterfox, Windows Media PLayer, they open up nearly instantly. VLC takes about 2 seconds the first time - but if i close and re-open it, it's instant, as I have the Crucial M4 as well.

http://waterfoxproject.org/

 

[VJTB]

Disabled Superfetch, prefetch, windows search(although now when I try to search from the start menu I can't get "see more results" to come up, but I'll check that later). Page file disabled. Rest of them had already been done.

It seems to have shaved a second or two here and there but I will have to observe it. Firmware is 0309 and I will update to 000F.

I can't believe I forgot to disable system restore on it. Will see how it is going to do.

Most things are opening at < 2 seconds now, where it was 2-3 before. Strange that a few settings make the difference and Windows 7 wouldn't disable prefetch/superfetch on a SSD by default.

 

[RetiredChief]

Even 1 sec sound long. I just opened outlook on my older system with a SATA II SSD and it opens before I can drag my mouse curser to the center of the screen. Which is about the same for going to start -> recent Links and clicking on a word or excel link - program and document (or spreedsheet) are up in 1 or two blinks of the eye.

That 1024mb indicates you are aligned, but you can verify that by opening AS SSD. it will show OK for alignment. You can also double check the driver, should be iaSTor, msahci is slightly lower in performance. Just verify that somehow pcide was not installed.

I have a pair of M4's in my laptop and boot time, from start of loading operating system to IE up is about 15 sec.

My M4's on laptop (screen shot was before I updated the Firmware):
0009 was the big booast to performans and 000f fixes the 5000 hr bug.
Speaking of firmware, make sure your MB Bios has the latest Bios update. Seem to recall a couple of posts that bios updates improved the performance.

Added. do not need to run the benchmark, just open it and look at upper left

 

[smokarz]

hey guys, sorry i don't mean to highjack the thread, but i am having the same question and like to keep it in one place.

just installed my new Crucial M4 128GB SSD and my overall AS SSD score is only 400.

what am i doing wrong?

i followed the instructions here to tweak my SSD:

http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html

here's my system.

AMD Athlon II X4 630
4GB DDR3 1333 RAM

edit 1: verified my parition is aligned (offset = 1024)

[/img]




edit 2: upgraded to the latest firmware 001F and re-ran. score improved a bit but still nowhere near what's reported

[/img]

 

[Chainzsaw]

hey guys, sorry i don't mean to highjack the thread, but i am having the same question and like to keep it in one place.

just installed my new Crucial M4 128GB SSD and my overall AS SSD score is only 400.

what am i doing wrong?

i followed the instructions here to tweak my SSD:

http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html

here's my system.

AMD Athlon II X4 630
4GB DDR3 1333 RAM

edit 1: verified my parition is aligned (offset = 1024)

edit 2: upgraded to the latest firmware 001F and re-ran. score improved a bit but still nowhere near what's reported

It is against forum rules to hijack a thread. Please create your own.

 

[VJTB]

Upgraded to 000F now and everything combined, Outlook is starting < 1 second along with IE
Firefox is still lagging behind at 2 sec, but that may be adblockplus or just firefox itself. Its quite a bit snappier than it was this morning. Feels like a naked hard drive with no antivirus on it and half the services stopped. Except that all services are running, an antivirus, an anti-malware, and a few other programs.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[VJTB]

Best answer selected by VJTB.

 

[Chainzsaw]

Upgraded to 000F now and everything combined, Outlook is starting < 1 second along with IE
Firefox is still lagging behind at 2 sec, but that may be adblockplus or just firefox itself. Its quite a bit snappier than it was this morning. Feels like a naked hard drive with no antivirus on it and half the services stopped. Except that all services are running, an antivirus, an anti-malware, and a few other programs.

Thanks for all the help.

Ahh good stuff. Like I mentioned earlier - try out Waterfox - 64bit version of Firefox. It may or may not be faster for you, but you can get all the add-ons for it as well.

 

[Guest]

Ahh good stuff. Like I mentioned earlier - try out Waterfox - 64bit version of Firefox. It may or may not be faster for you, but you can get all the add-ons for it as well.

+1!