To follow the instructions of the sticky detailing how to formally ask a question, I will create this post.
System information:
Asus P6T with BIOS version 0801
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping
6GB of Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1600
ASUS Geforce GTX 260
Windows 7 64bit RTM
Crucial Part Number: CT128M225
Issue:
I just got a brand new CT128M225 over the weekend and flashed it to the 1819 firmware. It originally had 1571 firmware on it. After switching to AHCI on my ASUS P6T motherboard, I installed Windows 7 RTM 64 bit. I ran benchmarks like ATTO, CrystalDiskMark, AS SSD and others which showed advertised read and write speeds of about ~240 and ~180 respectively. However, after I started installing my applications I would rebench and the write speed would go down but the read speed weren't affected. The write speed would be down to about 90 MBps. I found that odd as I haven't even come close to filling the drive, so I couldn't be having the read-modify-write performance issue. I had maybe 8-9 GBs used on the 128 GB drive.
I tried running wiper.exe version 0525 to see if it would make any difference even though I know Windows 7 was probably issuing TRIM commands to the drive. After it completed, nothing changed. The write speed was still around 90 MBps while the read speeds were still around 230-240 MBps. Just to start fresh, I ran Sanity Erase and re-installed Windows 7 again. With just Windows installed, everything was back to normal. I then started to installed one application at a time running benchmarks after each application. Everything seemed fine. I shutdown the computer for a while to go eat dinner with the family. I was gone for maybe an hour or so. I powered it back on, rebenched, and noticed the performance went down again. So, I wiped with Sanitary Erase and started all over.
The only way I could go back to full performance was to wipe and reinstall. I can't exactly figure out if the issue comes from rebooting, amount of data on the drive, or just having the OS run for a while after installing applications. Something is certainly causing the write speeds to go down at least in the benchmarks. I can't say that I notice any actually effects when using the computer, but it certainly shows up in the benchmarks. Maybe it's TRIM running while the benchmarks are running, or maybe it's some potential bug in the new firmware. Should I got back to 1571 or am I doing something wrong with the 1819 firmware which is causing a possible reduction in write performance?
Others on this forum have also experienced this exact same issue. http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Write-Performance-screwed-after-firmware-update-M...
I hope someone at Crucial will comment about this. At least tell us we are doing something wrong, or let us know they are aware of the issue and working on a fix. Even if fix is to downgrade back to 1571, that's fine but some kind of acknowledgement would be nice.
