Solid-State Drives (SSD)

[rizwank]

Macbook Pro (Core 2) with a brand new 256G SSD (It's one of the ones with the switch, but there was no mention of the switch on this site, or the forums, at that point.)

I got it and flashed it to 1819.

Formatted and restored OSX to it.

It's faster than my HD, for sure, but the performance is no where near the specs [or other users's posts].

Uncached Write 123.96 76.11 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 177.46 100.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 87.16 25.51 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 240.63 120.94 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Write 60.85 6.44 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 291.60 93.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 2283.41 16.18 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 588.67 109.23 MB/sec [256K blocks]

There are reports of speed major speed differences - even with other users of this forum. (http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Question-Is-there-an-issue-with-1819-FW-causing-... for instance.)

Given that it's brand new, I can't imagine a wiper run is necessary (and there's no OSX support right now.)

I'm trying to avoid sending the drive back to the vendor as faulty, given that it doesn't meet the specs of the device. Any suggestions as to tests/what might be wrong?

Thanks!

[rizwank]

Another user with a similar situation and vastly better performance.

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Firmware-upgrade-on-MAC/m-p/6194#M1361

[rizwank]

Another possible datapoint from SMART.

Local Time is:    Fri Oct 30 01:55:52 2009 PDT

198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0000   014   046   000    Old_age   Offline      -       10618

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0000   106   012   000    Old_age   Offline      -       10542

200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0000   032   201   000    Old_age   Offline      -       119

201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate    0x0000   210   232   000    Old_age   Offline      -       238

Local Time is:    Fri Oct 30 02:31:25 2009 PDT

198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0000   230   057   000    Old_age   Offline      -       11100

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0000   042   144   000    Old_age   Offline      -       10562

200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0000   198   060   000    Old_age   Offline      -       122

201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate    0x0000   089   107   000    Old_age   Offline      -       239

That's a pretty high error rate for a drive with just 112 Hrs of usage.

  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0000   112   000   000    Old_age   Offline  In_the_past 0

Could this be part of my problem?

[targetbsp]

Your read speed is fine.  The write speeds being low in that firmware are under investigation.  I bet it's still tons faster in real world use than your previous drive though? Your smart info is reporting errors because the software you are using does not support the drive and is reading it wrong.  It's also worth noting that my write speed varies in benchmarks by 80mb/sec depending on the benchmark used so you can only compare using the same benchmark software as was used in the figures you are comparing to.

[rizwank]

The XBench test IS like Vs. like. They're both XBench tests.

Example:   Mine  (E-M)/E    
Sequential:   Sequential:      
151.95 MB/sec  76.11 MB/sec -49.91%  [4K blocks] W
144.36 MB/sec  100.41 MB/sec -30.44%  [256K blocks] W
38.62 MB/sec  25.51 MB/sec -33.95%  [4K blocks] R
205.34 MB/sec  120.94 MB/sec -41.10%  [256K blocks] R
Random:   Random:      
11.99 MB/sec  6.44 MB/sec -46.29%  [4K blocks] W
142.36 MB/sec  93.35 MB/sec -34.43%  [256K blocks] W
16 MB/sec  16.18 MB/sec 1.13%  [4K blocks] R
156.67 MB/sec  109.23 MB/sec -30.28%  [256K blocks] R

That's a fall of ~33-40% in most benchmarks.

It's significantly faster than my HD, sure, but not nearly as fast as subjective and objective measurements of other's recorded experiences.

[rizwank]

Looking around - something is wrong here. Has anyone else seen slow write performance due to 1819, or is this possibly a defective drive?

[targetbsp]

Lol Most of this board is dedicated to slow write performance in 1819 atm!

See http://www.forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Question-Is-there-an-issue-with-1819-FW-causi...

As I said in my reply to you it is a known issue under investigation.

[rizwank]

Apologies, I meant slow *READ* performance in 1819. Seen that before? =)

Thanks

[targetbsp]

Ah OK sorry.  No-one has particularly reported it however I can tell you that my read drops when my write does, just by a lower amount. When the twin wiper trick fixed my writes my read was also fixed but it's all since slowed down again.  However that does lead me to believe that while no one else is particularly mentioning reads I'm pretty sure solving the write problem will fix everything.

Incidentally... did you write anything to your drive at all before flashing it to 1819?

[rizwank]

Nope. Fresh drive, upgraded while it was unformatted.