SSD makes NO SPEED DIFFERENCE

[dauber]

So I read all the little guides about how to make sure your SSD actually is performing like an SSD -- choose the SSD as your boot drive, reset the PRAM, etc.

Well...some time ago (no idea why I waited so long to post!) I took the HDD out of my MacBook and replaced it with an SSD and did a fresh install of Lion on the thing. Didn't boot from any external drives or anything -- just straight from the Lion DVD.

But I noticed zero speedup whatsoever.

Repaired permissions, reset the the PRAM, deleted unnecessary language files, etc., no speed difference.

Da heck???

 

[Gav2k]

Have you tested the speed with black magic?

Have you checked the speed at which the drives being negotiated at??

Did you check for firmware updates before installing the drive??

What drive is it??

 

[dauber]

Firmware was up to date pre-installation, and there hasn't been any new firmware since I got it.

Black Magic is reporting about 1/5 what the speed SHOULD be, both read and write. Both are kind of hovering between 100-103 mbps.

The drive is a Kingston SH103S3.

 

[Baunkjaer]

Which MB are you using, and please post results from i.e. Black Magic.
Seems like you have a faulty drive....

 

[Gav2k]

Firmware was up to date pre-installation, and there hasn't been any new firmware since I got it.

Black Magic is reporting about 1/5 what the speed SHOULD be, both read and write. Both are kind of hovering between 100-103 mbps.

The drive is a Kingston SH103S3.

Link speed??

 

[wb123]

100mbs doesn't necessarily sound that far out, its roughly what I get with a samsung 840 over a sata 1.5 link. The important thing is that the previous drive was doing 20-30mbs, and the seek times were massively longer.

Mine feels massively faster however much better the numbers could arguably be.

 

[Weaselboy]

Firmware was up to date pre-installation, and there hasn't been any new firmware since I got it.

Black Magic is reporting about 1/5 what the speed SHOULD be, both read and write. Both are kind of hovering between 100-103 mbps.

The drive is a Kingston SH103S3.

Is this the 2007 Macbook mentioned in some of your earlier posts? That Macbook only has a SATA I (1.5Gbps) drive connection with a theoretical max speed of 150MB/s, so yes around 100MB/s real life is about right.

 

[dauber]

Ahhh...Weaselboy, yup, it's that same MacBook. I guess I fell the hype in the "breathe new life into your old MacBook with an SSD."

heh...maybe I should put the old drive back in and have this SSD put into my May 2011 iMac.

 

[MacUser2525]

Ahhh...Weaselboy, yup, it's that same MacBook. I guess I fell the hype in the "breathe new life into your old MacBook with an SSD."

heh...maybe I should put the old drive back in and have this SSD put into my May 2011 iMac.

Should help some but don't expect much if that drive like mine has a Sanforce controller on it, they are junk in OSX. I had to do a dual setup raid zero on dual pci-e sata3 card just to get about 2/3 of their theoretical write speed read will max the bus in this configuration.

 

[dauber]

Okay, first screen cap is the speed test on the Kingston drive I was talking about.

I have a second drive in my MacBook, courtesy of the data doubler from OWC in place of the long-dead SuperDrive, which is a Samsung 840 SSD. Admittedly I have to update the firmware on that one, but somehow I doubt that'll make a difference, considering it WAS the latest firmware when I got it! Wow, talk about atrocious...Speed test enclosed on that one too.

 

[Weaselboy]

Okay, first screen cap is the speed test on the Kingston drive I was talking about.


I have a second drive in my MacBook, courtesy of the data doubler from OWC in place of the long-dead SuperDrive, which is a Samsung 840 SSD. Admittedly I have to update the firmware on that one, but somehow I doubt that'll make a difference, considering it WAS the latest firmware when I got it! Wow, talk about atrocious...Speed test enclosed on that one too.

Your write speeds on that Samsung are pretty low. Do you have TRIM enabled with the TRIM hack? You might try enabling TRIM then do a command-s boot into singe user mode. At the prompt do:

cd /Volumes/"Name of Volume"

to get to the Samsung drive. Then run the command:

fsck -fy

That will TRIM all unused blocks on the drive and hopefully restore your write speed.

I would be curious to see a second speed test after you do this.

 

[BrettApple]

Those speeds look perfectly normal if you ask me. SATA 1 maxes out at 150 MB/s, so you're getting pretty close to having it maxed out, and the random reads/writes are going to be way faster than an HDD.

The one you have in the optical bay is about on par too, because it is going through the older, sower PATA connection since the optical isn't SATA on the pre unibody models.