Uneven SSD degradation

[Agent Z]

Hi,

I have a 40 GB SSD with win7 x64 set to be SSD friendly with around 20 GB free space at all times.

I noticed that the beginning of my SSD is getting slower by time (no noticable everyday performance drop though), where most likely win7 is located.

The first quarter of the SSD after a couple of weeks of use was exactly like the middle of the graph except the whole graph was more even and the minimum transfer rate was above 100 MB/s.

My PC runs pretty much 0-24 and I basically want my SSD to degrade evenly.
Now my question is if should I somehow move win7 to another less used part of the SSD (and if yes, how do I do it) or I shouldn't worry about it?

Any help is appreciated.

 

[nukemaster]

I think some drives work that way. If it does not feel slow to you, i would not worry.

Toms showed something similar.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-60gb-benchmark-review,3137-8.html

I would try to run crystal disk mark to see what to says, but do not run it over and over as it wastes write cycles.

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

At the end of the day, the controller decides the data's actual location(and ensures the drive will wear evenly) and you can not move it like you do on a platter drive.

 

[Agent Z]

Toms showed something similar.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-60gb-benchmark-review,3137-8.html

I get that it's slower to read data than free space, but reading data was faster.

I would try to run crystal disk mark to see what to says, but do not run it over and over as it wastes write cycles.

At the end of the day, the controller decides the data's actual location(and ensures the drive will wear evenly) and you can not move it like you do on a platter drive.

I know it should, but it doesn't seem that way, because the last ~6th of the drive is virtually untouched.

 

[nukemaster]

Even if you do not use that space. as you save and remove files, something windows does on its own, the data will be spread right over the drive. That space is just clean flash waiting to be written to. The drive make sure it was ready.

For your writes, please make sure write caching and max performance(if you have the option) is enabled in the device manager(if you set the drive for quick removal, it will slow down writes a lot.).

Is your bios set to AHCI?(do not change it if it is not just yet)

You still get better read/write 4k/4k32d then my 64gig kingston V100 drive

EDIT, i see your test size is smaller as well

 

[Agent Z]

I have write cache enabled, latest amd_sata driver, trim supported/enabled, AHCI in use, correct partition aligment and no compression enabled.

I bought this a couple of months ago for something like 70$ knowing virtually nothing about SSD's and I'm planning on buying a more advanced one, but only after this one fails me because i'm pretty impressed with it, so I want it to last as long as I can make it.

 

[smorizio]

see if the drive firmware is up to date and check to see if the vendor has any drive tools. may want to ask on the ssd vendor web page what they set the drive size for garbage and bad spots on there ssd. some vendors like intel sell 120g drives and the other eight g are used if a spot goes bad on the ssd and other in house cleaning.

 

[nukemaster]

I have write cache enabled, latest amd_sata driver, trim supported/enabled, AHCI in use, correct partition aligment and no compression enabled.

I bought this a couple of months ago for something like 70$ knowing virtually nothing about SSD's and I'm planning on buying a more advanced one, but only after this one fails me because i'm pretty impressed with it, so I want it to last as long as I can make it.

It may be a while before it fails. SSD's when not abused should last for years.

Keep an eye on the main toms page. They have monthly articles on Best SSD for the money.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/buy-ssd-recommendation,3255.html

Can you give us a link to the drive you have. This way we can see the exact specs of the drive.

 

[Agent Z]

It seems like Silicon Power has no longer have info about this V20 series on their site, only in a form of a somewhat old news article:
http://www.silicon-power.com/news/news_detail.php?no=20110214001&start=1&css_1=1&currlang=utf8

other than that, I found ssdwiki to be accurate:
http://www.ssdwiki.com/2-5-inch/silicon-power/velox-v20/

I contacted the Silicon Power support and they told me that there's no newer firmware exist for this drive.

 

[nukemaster]

Can i get a screen of the disk info from CrystalDiskInfo. Just want to see what it is running at.

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html/

Also, Sandforce drives(that is who makes the controller in your drive) work better with compressed data. so if you want to test with DiskMark, File - > Test Data -> All 0x00(0 fill) so it uses compressible data.

What are your full system specs by the way?

 

[Agent Z]

Wow, it definetly works better.

Is there a way to benefit from sandforce's performance with compressed data directly, or it's working passively?

Specs/diskmark (sorry for just shoving it all in):

http://screenshotuploader.com/i/01/EY0p0TKRH.png

other than that, stock cooler, onboard GPU (for now) and Win7 x64 Home Premium.

Edit: forgot about the PSU: CoolerMaster GX-Lite 500w.

 

[nukemaster]

The sandforce controller does this on its own.

But on the plus side, lots of what you do at a computer is compressible to some extent. This caused a lot of debate with sandforce.

Your drive is working just as it should.

Now, the drives can have 3 main kinds of flash. better flash is faster with non compressible(shown on a toms hardware review listed above). Smaller SSD's also do not always perform as good as bigger ones, but over I think its 256, SF based drives actually loose some speed.

Async - Value
Sync - Mainstream
Toggle - Best, but more expensive.