[CompuTamer]

When i got my Vertex about a 18 months ago, i got about 160 write and 200 read for 8MB benchmarks. Now i'm getting 58 write and 140 read... i've just been using it as a usual computer drive. Nothing that causes it to thrash, nothing that's extremely write intensive, and nothing that would be hard on it at all.

What's up? I've noticed that my computer has been slowing down lately, and i finally decided to bench the SSD and found this. I'd say over the last week or two it's gotten a lot slower than before.

[Know Nuttin]

what SATA storage drivers are you using?
how full is the drive?

[Volumetrik]

Do you have TRIM enabled ?

[CompuTamer]

I'm on the Microsoft drivers, and TRIM is enabled. Has been since i got the drive. There's about 6GB free on it. It's a 30GB drive, so i can't really do much better than that.

[ChinStrap]

google wiper.exe and give it a run - just might help

[EarthDog]

Which FW is on there? The TRIM FW, GC FW, or both TRIM and GC FW?

I second the wiper.exe thing to kick things in to gear. If you only have the GC FW on there, go ahead and LOG OFF not power off the machine and leave it set for overnight and see if that helps.

[Psykoikonov]

My vote is for S1 (not S3, option in bios) sleep overnight, the windows logon screen works too I hear. This will allow GC (garbage collection, like TRIM except more aggressive). Alternately you could make an image of the drive, then Secure Erase and load image back.

Edit: +1 for EarthDog's point about firmware. Wiper looks good too.

[CompuTamer]

I have the firmware that supports GC and TRIM. I leave the computer on 24/7, so GC should have plenty of time to work from the time i go to bed to the time i get home from school.

I'll try wiper and report back with results... i'm hoping that my SSD isn't already getting ready to die.

[EarthDog]

If your PC doesnt sleep GC isnt working I dont believe. Please try logging off or let it sit in the BIOS overnight and see if that helps. Problem with the original vertex is that there is no provisioning so the 6GB free is all that has to mess around...someone correct me if I am wrong.

[CompuTamer]

Originally Posted by EarthDog

If your PC doesnt sleep GC isnt working I dont believe. Please try logging off or let it sit in the BIOS overnight and see if that helps. Problem with the original vertex is that there is no provisioning so the 6GB free is all that has to mess around...someone correct me if I am wrong.

I'm pretty sure you're right. If there is provisioning, it's very little. I thought GC was supposed to work whenever the computer was idle though?


It's at 42% health, so i'm about ready to replace it anyway. NOT with another OCZ drive, as the support even on this was terrible. (Controller on the first one just flat out died. Took them 2 weeks to say they'd replace it, and 1.5 MONTHS to get the new one to me)

Anyway, ran Wiper.exe, and everything is back to normal

[Psykoikonov]

Originally Posted by CompuTamer

I'm pretty sure you're right. If there is provisioning, it's very little. I thought GC was supposed to work whenever the computer was idle though?

Idle for the OS and idle for the SSD are different. The idle your refering to still has windows checking updates, writing logs, etc. Idle for the SSD only counts when it's S1 sleep (S3 won't work because it powers down the drive) or at a logon screen. Good to see you got everything back to normal though.

Originally Posted by CompuTamer

It's at 42% health, so i'm about ready to replace it anyway. NOT with another OCZ drive, as the support even on this was terrible. (Controller on the first one just flat out died. Took them 2 weeks to say they'd replace it, and 1.5 MONTHS to get the new one to me)

How are you checking the health of the drive? See if you can check using SMART tools how much data has been written to the drive. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but a 30GB SSD with 5000PE @ 42% would have had 6.3TB written to it, even with a write amplification of 0.5 that's still 3.15TB :O.

[CompuTamer]

Page file is on the drive, since i haven't bothered to get more RAM. It's just as fast as adding more RAM, so i go ahead and leave it there. I can't really complain. It's held up pretty well. I think the majority of that write time was during the first few months i had it, as Windows was being wonky and i reinstalled it every other day.

In the last 3 months, it's gone from 53% to 46%. I think i'm safe for a bit.

Program i'm using is CrystaldiskInfo. I can't tell how much data is written, but it can read the drive's Health value.

EDIT: I'm pretty disappointed with OCZ overall. This drive has been troublesome since i got it (computer won't start with it connected in AHCI mode, the first one died) and they won't replace it. Then this whole wreck with the new series of drives.

Not a happy camper. I'm going Intel next time.

[diehrd]

You need to force trim ,, google search it , also delete hibernate it usually has a lot of gigs reserved for it , turn off system restore .. make page file 1 gig ( 1024) ,, that will give you more then 6 free gigs , which you want on an ssd ,, after you fill it up it slows from all i have read. Try to keep it 80% or less used space .

[bing]

That is really nice to see the performance is now restored.

Yeah, leaving the rig idle doesn't mean the OS wont access the drive, actually there are many services will run periodically while idle and some if I'm not mistaken will actually runs more frequently as the system is idling.

As ED said, run rig at the bios screen and leave it overnight, that will make sure the drive is still powered on but no access at all.

On my rig which is oc-ed, I use the bios profiles feature, when it times to leave the ssd for GC, I switched the oc profile to low voltage bios profile setting that has voltage settings as low as possible but stable enough to boot into bios screen, this save power quite significant (measured using power meter) when left for quite sometime for this purpose.

[CompuTamer]

Originally Posted by diehrd

You need to force trim ,, google search it , also delete hibernate it usually has a lot of gigs reserved for it , turn off system restore .. make page file 1 gig ( 1024) ,, that will give you more then 6 free gigs , which you want on an ssd ,, after you fill it up it slows from all i have read. Try to keep it 80% or less used space .

Hibernation file is already deleted, and the page file starts at 200MB, and grows up to 2GB as it's needed. I've freed up all the space possible on it... i'm going to get a larger one this Summer before this one decides it just wants to flat out die. I have about 8GB free now, so i'm happy. I just need it to last a few more months and then i'm jumping ship to Intel.

[Psykoikonov]

Originally Posted by CompuTamer

I just need it to last a few more months and then i'm jumping ship to Intel.

I read the above last night and read the below this morning:

Final production units will use NAND from Intel, but since both come from IMFT, there shouldn’t be any difference between them.

Which is from Inside OCZ's Vertex 3

So I .

[CompuTamer]

Well, i figered out the problem: AHCI wasn't enabled, and apparently TRIM can't be passed over IDE. Couldn't enable AHCI because the BIOS i had and the SSD didn't like each other. Couldn't update to the newest BIOS because it completely broke my mobo.

So what do i do? I update to the latest BIOS anyway, after wiping the SSD of everything, and resetting EVERYTHING to defaults. Everything runs great now Just had to clean two years worth of gunk outta the system.

On a side note, the best write speeds i'm seeing is about 160MB/s. Not a huge drop, but the drive is starting to slow down a bit. Reads are plenty fine though. I love how everytime i reinstall Windows it takes a percent or two off the drive health.

[5er driver]

Originally Posted by EarthDog

Problem with the original vertex is that there is no provisioning so the 6GB free is all that has to mess around...someone correct me if I am wrong.

According to OCZ, their 30GB Vertex has 2GB OP.

From the OCZ site: "In the case of SSDs, some of the capacity is reserved for formatting and redundancy for wear leveling. These reserved areas on an SSD may occupy up to 5% of the drive’s storage capacity. In OCZ’s Indilinx-based SSDs, the naming convention reflects this and the 30 is equivalent to the 32GB, the 60 is equivalent to 64GB, and so on."

[diehrd]

Future reference for anyone who cares to know how to set AHCI after a full install of win 7 .



http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...sta.html?ltr=A


Easy as pie ......................

[doz]

Wow, Im impressed with my Agility 2. Ive been running it for months now, its about 60% full and only a slight drop in speed (from 283mb/s to 279)!

I remember my old 120gb Vertex, it did the same thing as yours even with TRIM enabled on AHCI mode. I ran Wiper and it did bring it back up, but it was annoying as the drive speed dropped off relatively quickly for me.

I was afraid the same thing happens with my Agility2, so I havent benchmarked it since I received it. Good to see they improved w/ the 2 series.