Intel SSD 520 120 gig performance

pontypool2 · Oct 10, 2013

the as ssd benchmark tool
Now the read speeds seem reasonable. 487, obviously the 520 should be 520?
but as you can see the write speeds are quite abysmal. Intel say 500 for both read and write?
Which brings me to my questions.
1. Why such poor speeds
2. Does it have anything to do with my particular motherboards sata controllers.
the z77 extreme 6 has intel and asrock sata controllers... I am at a loss which ones operate at the fastest speed. or even which ones are which. I have heard that the intel ones are faster, but upon examining I can see no kind of identification, not even in the manual....

King107s · Oct 10, 2013

The "why" could be a lot of things....
Is it aligned properly? Have you updated the SSD's firmware? Have you tried updating the controller drivers?

I have the ASRock Extreme9 and the manual does indicate which ports are Intel SATA2/3 and which ones are ASMedia SATA3. Typically they are a different color.

Make sure you're using the SATA3 ports and that you have AHCI enabled in the BIOS.

pontypool2 · Oct 10, 2013

King107s said:
The "why" could be a lot of things....
Is it aligned properly? Have you updated the SSD's firmware? Have you tried updating the controller drivers?

I have the ASRock Extreme9 and the manual does indicate which ports are Intel SATA2/3 and which ones are ASMedia SATA3. Typically they are a different color.

Make sure you're using the SATA3 ports and that you have AHCI enabled in the BIOS.

Ok I am missing the part of the manual which says which are which. Although I have found out from searching google that the 2 grey ports are asmedia, but am still unsure which are sata 3gbs and which are 6bs, however I am quite sure that they are in 6 gbs.
As for the firmware I am using intel ssd toolbox and under update firmware "update" button is greyed out.. I assume that means it's fully up to date?

lastly I have heard that on the extreme 6 and possibly your motherboard also, that if you run in raid mode an ssd drive will default to ahci and run at the same performance. Apparently there is a technical reason for this, even though I do not understand it , but read this.
http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/...e-6-ssd-drives-raid-0-problem.html#post457329

According to this guy it shouldn't make a difference... However if he is wrong and I need to switch to ahci I will have another problem. In that I have two bulk drives, western digital drives that are in raid 0 array. I think there is only one controller on this motherboard, so won't switching to ahci mean running my two bulk drives seperately and therfore at reduced performance? is there any way to get around that? maybe another seperate controller I could install?
Also, as I already have windows installed to my ssd drive, by enabling ahci will it format the drive?

thanks

ATMINSIDE · Oct 10, 2013

Make sure you're plugged into SATA_0 on the motherboard.
Make sure AHCI is on. There is a setting (typically) that allows RAID and AHCI to run at the same time.

Enabling AHCI won't format the drive, but it will make Windows crap out.

pcgamer4life · Oct 10, 2013

If he was running IDE/Sata2, he would't be getting 487 read and <100 writes, I wouldn't think. I'm currently using IDE mode and Sata2 on my board (granted, different board, and drive) and get about 280 reads and writes. If IDE/SATA2 were the problem, I would think his reads would suffer just as much as his writes.

pontypool2 · Oct 10, 2013

ATMINSIDE said:
Make sure you're plugged into SATA_0 on the motherboard.
Make sure AHCI is on. There is a setting (typically) that allows RAID and AHCI to run at the same time.

Enabling AHCI won't format the drive, but it will make Windows crap out.

Hi..
Could you point me in the direction of the setting to enable both raid and ahci? as far as I know, it's not possible to enable both unfortunately.

King107s · Oct 10, 2013

pontypool2 said:
Ok I am missing the part of the manual which says which are which. Although I have found out from searching google that the 2 grey ports are asmedia, but am still unsure which are sata 3gbs and which are 6bs, however I am quite sure that they are in 6 gbs.
As for the firmware I am using intel ssd toolbox and under update firmware "update" button is greyed out.. I assume that means it's fully up to date?

lastly I have heard that on the extreme 6 and possibly your motherboard also, that if you run in raid mode an ssd drive will default to ahci and run at the same performance. Apparently there is a technical reason for this, even though I do not understand it , but read this.
http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/...e-6-ssd-drives-raid-0-problem.html#post457329

According to this guy it shouldn't make a difference... However if he is wrong and I need to switch to ahci I will have another problem. In that I have two bulk drives, western digital drives that are in raid 0 array. I think there is only one controller on this motherboard, so won't switching to ahci mean running my two bulk drives seperately and therfore at reduced performance? is there any way to get around that? maybe another seperate controller I could install?
Also, as I already have windows installed to my ssd drive, by enabling ahci will it format the drive?

thanks

The Intel SATA3 ports are right next to the ASMedia SATA3 ports. The ports to the far left are Intel SATA2.

As far as the firmware goes, you should just check to see if the firmware revision number matches whats on their site as being the most current. Not sure about that software as I've not used it.

RAID encompasses AHCI functions so you can have your hard drives in RAID and separately (non-RAID member) the SSD on the same controller and all of the other features like NCQ will still work on the SSD. Alternatively you could run the SSD on the ASMedia in AHCI and leave the hard drives on the Intel controller in RAID but I recommend leaving it all on the Intel controller. Take home here is that the SSD should perform the same on the Intel controller set in RAID mode or AHCI.

And no, you can't just change a drive with an operating system installed on it to AHCI but there is a way to do it... google is your friend here. A word of warning, if you mess with your SATA controller settings in the BIOS or from Ctrl+I during boot you could render your RAID0 inoperable. Be careful what settings you change!

ATMINSIDE · Oct 10, 2013

King107s said:
The Intel SATA3 ports are right next to the ASMedia SATA3 ports. The ports to the far left are Intel SATA2.

As far as the firmware goes, you should just check to see if the firmware revision number matches whats on their site as being the most current. Not sure about that software as I've not used it.

RAID encompasses AHCI functions so you can have your hard drives in RAID and separately (non-RAID member) the SSD on the same controller and all of the other features like NCQ will still work on the SSD. Alternatively you could run the SSD on the ASMedia in AHCI and leave the hard drives on the Intel controller in RAID but I recommend leaving it all on the Intel controller. Take home here is that the SSD should perform the same on the Intel controller set in RAID mode or AHCI.

And no, you can't just change a drive with an operating system installed on it to AHCI but there is a way to do it... google is your friend here. A word of warning, if you mess with your SATA controller settings in the BIOS or from Ctrl+I during boot you could render your RAID0 inoperable. Be careful what settings you change!

All of this, +1

pontypool2 · Oct 10, 2013

Thanks everyone, much appreciated. If the drive will run the same speed regardless of ahci or raid 0, I can just leave that alone then, there is only the issue of the poor write speeds I got in the benchmark I posted.
However I tried with the ATTO benchmark tool (as this was named on the intel box, so logically should give the advertised results)
Am I correct in thinking the results are satisfactory?
I am at a loss why the two benchmark tools gave such drastically different results, at least in terms of write speeds, but there is no reason why I can think of, I keep my pc free of malware/spyware and in both tests made sure to close off everything except the benchmark tool, so really confused why such different results.

EarthDog · Oct 10, 2013

I was going to say when I saw this earlier... Run ATTO. ATTO is used by MFG to rate their drives, and that looks fine.

I would still make sure in your bios you are set to AHCI. While using RAID wont hurt, set it to AHCI. If it is on IDE at this time, here is how you go about preparing your OS for the switch:

1. Startup "Regedit
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlset / Services
3. Open msahci
4. In the right field left click on "start" and go to Modify
5. In the value Data field enter "0" and click "ok"
6. exit "Regedit"
7. Reboot Rig and enter BIOS (hold "Delete" key while Booting

In your BIOS select "Integrated Peripherals" and OnChip PATA/SATA Devices. Now change SATA Mode to AHCI from IDE.

You now boot into windows 7, the OS will recognize AHCI and install the devices. Now the system needs one more reboot and voilla .. enjoy the improved SSD performance.

Another note to capture only the screen and nothing else, use Alt+Print Screen and paste that into MSPaint.

King107s · Oct 10, 2013

Ya, like ED said ATTO is what the posted speeds are based on...

Intel SSD 520 120 gig performance

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