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I've read some years-old posts that say you should tweak some options in Windows to get the best performance. But then I read that this is no longer necessary with today's SSDs.

I installed a new Corsair Force GS (360GB) SSD to replace my existing HDD. It claims read/write of 555/530MB/s. Here is what I'm getting:

CrystalDiskMark Results - Initial Run

CrystalDiskMark Results - Initial Run

CrystalDiskMark Results - After BIOS Update

CrystalDiskMark Results - After BIOS Update

CrystalDiskMark Results - After Driver Updates (All out-dated drivers including AMD RAID and Chipset drivers.)

CrystalDiskMark Results - After Driver Updates

AS SSD Benchmark - After Driver Updates

AS SSD Benchmark - After Driver Updates

Winsat Results - Initial Run

Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -read -n 0'
> Run Time 00:00:05.12
> Running: Storage Assessment '-ran -read -n 0'
> Run Time 00:00:00.53
> Running: Storage Assessment '-scen 2009 -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:52.35
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -write -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:03.57
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -seq'
> Run Time 00:00:00.73
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -ran'
> Run Time 00:00:00.80
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 0 -ransize 4096'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.01
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 0 -ransize 16384'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Disk  Sequential 64.0 Read                   285.77 MB/s          7.6
> Disk  Random 16.0 Read                       63.40 MB/s          6.7
> Responsiveness: Average IO Rate              0.49 ms/IO          7.9
> Responsiveness: Grouped IOs                  6.86 units          7.7
> Responsiveness: Long IOs                     1.36 units          7.9
> Responsiveness: Overall                      9.35 units          7.9
> Responsiveness: PenaltyFactor                0.0
> Disk  Sequential 64.0 Write                  343.30 MB/s          7.9
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes     0.185 ms          7.9
> Latency: 95th Percentile                     0.813 ms          7.9
> Latency: Maximum                             2.624 ms          7.9
> Average Read Time with Random Writes         0.284 ms          7.9
> Total Run Time 00:01:03.76

Note: This was not a clean install of Windows 7. I copied the partitions from my original HDD to the new SSD and then used GParted to align the first partition (System Reserved) to 1MB/MiB.

So, what's the scoop? Can I do anything to squeeze top performance out of my new SSD?

Josh M.
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  • Have you already checked out [Is there anything i need to do with the SSD to optimize?](http://superuser.com/questions/488808/is-there-anything-i-need-to-do-with-the-ssd-to-optimize), [Optimizing Windows 7 for SSD](http://superuser.com/questions/2980/optimizing-windows-7-for-ssd), [Confirming that Windows 7 is using SSD optimizations](http://superuser.com/questions/74896/confirming-that-windows-7-is-using-ssd-optimizations), the SU blog post [Maximizing the lifetime of your SSD](http://blog.superuser.com/2011/05/10/maximizing-the-lifetime-of-your-ssd/) and so on? – Karan Mar 19 '13 at 18:42
  • There are two items you still want to do when you add a SSD to an old windows installation: Disable periodic defragmentation (this is bad for a SSD and hurts performance) and, if avaiable, enable TRIM. Neither of these boost performance, but they will avoid performance degration over time. – Hennes Mar 19 '13 at 18:43
  • @Karan - thanks for the links. I just wanted a quick set of links to pertinent, current information. I'll check it out. – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 19:22

2 Answers2

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Make sure you have AHCI compatible drivers installed for your operating system/motherboard and check that the BIOS setting for SATA opertion is set to AHCI mode to maximize performance.

If you have an Intel chipset you might install the Express chipset drivers and set the SATA operation mode in BIOS to RAID to use the fastest possible transfer mode.

Per Salmi
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  • Thanks, AHCI is enabled. I'm using a mobo w/AMD chipset. – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 19:22
  • Ok, I have a Samsung 840 Pro Series disk rated at about the same numbers as your drive and I get numbers very close to the theoretical specs of my drive. With that in mind I think there is something strange going on with your config. As you have more than 300 MB/sec read speed you seem to have SATA 3.0 6 GB interface enabled but there is something else holding it back. Do you run Windows on the machine? In that case you could compare the performance of your tool with what you get when you run: `winsat disk` from an administrator command prompt. – Per Salmi Mar 19 '13 at 20:07
  • `winsat` results are being added to my question, above. – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 20:50
  • The `Disk Random 16.0 Read` result seems to be draggin' me down. – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 20:54
  • I'm not 100% positive that I've properly aligned the partition(s). Is this still important with newer SSDs? – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 20:55
  • I think the alignment should be ok if you installed Windows on the drive as a clean install. – Per Salmi Mar 19 '13 at 21:06
  • BTW, do you have multiple SATA controllers on your motherboard, I have both Intel and Marvell controllers on my board and the Intel one is considerably faster. – Per Salmi Mar 19 '13 at 21:16
  • I only have one 6-port controller on my mobo. This drive was NOT a clean install, it is a replacement for an existing install on an HDD. Adding additional info to question, please check there! – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 21:41
  • You may want to turn off defrag and superfetch manually as you used a migration tool to transfer an existing disk. Windows does the SSD settings like this at install time and doesn't re-evaluate them when you migrate an installation. I migrated my installation with Samsung utility and did not do anything with the alignment and I get 540/500 MB/s read/write speed on my drive. – Per Salmi Mar 19 '13 at 21:48
  • I did check those services and both Defrag and Superfetch were set to Manual - I set them to disabled now. – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 22:56
  • Everything I do (update BIOS, drivers, etc.), the benchmark just keeps going down! – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 23:19
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Which motherboard do you use? Does your SATA controller support SATA 6 Gbit/s?

If it only supports SATA3 you'll get lower values.

magicandre1981
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  • I have an MSI 990XA-GD55 (http://us.msi.com/product/mb/990XA-GD55.html) mobo. Yes, it supports SATA3 (6Gb/s). – Josh M. Mar 19 '13 at 20:53
  • the Corsair Force GS is a sandforce chip based SSD which only gets the high transfer ratio when data con be compressed very well. Looks like the speedtest doesn't do this. You should try AS SSD Benchmark instead of CrystalDiskMark. Also inside AS SSD Benchmark make sure the alignment is ok. – magicandre1981 Mar 20 '13 at 04:50
  • I've added the results from a run of AS SSD to the question. It also reports that my alignment is okay. – Josh M. Mar 20 '13 at 13:58
  • The values here are higher: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/corsair_force_gs_240gb_ssd_review,14.html They use the Microsoft AHCI driver. Can you also try to use them? – magicandre1981 Mar 20 '13 at 19:12
  • Thanks for that link, that's very helpful to see same drive (same model at least) tested on another machine! I will try to switch back to the MS drivers. – Josh M. Mar 20 '13 at 19:16
  • Actually - duh - I can't switch the driver, I'm using RAID (though this drive is not in a RAID array - just a pass-through). So the drivers in use are the AHCI-compatible RAID drivers from AMD. Perhaps the RAID function itself is slowing down the drive... – Josh M. Mar 20 '13 at 19:47
  • this is a possible cause of the slower values. – magicandre1981 Mar 21 '13 at 04:44
  • Doesn't seem like it should be since AHCI is a subset of RAID - but maybe it's just my hardware config in general. Thanks. – Josh M. Mar 21 '13 at 15:38
  • when you don't use RAID, switch the setting to AHCI and try if this speeds up the SSD. – magicandre1981 Mar 21 '13 at 19:14