Slow SSD Performance

[callum-]

Hi everyone,

 

I recently noticed that my SSD was slowing down on boot up and when launching programs. So I decided to run CrystalDiskMark and the numbers seem to be very low (see screenshot below). Does anyone know why the numbers would be as low as this?

 

Thanks

 

[gramzon]

4 minutes ago, callum- said:

Hi everyone,

 

I recently noticed that my SSD was slowing down on boot up and when launching programs. So I decided to run CrystalDiskMark and the numbers seem to be very low (see screenshot below). Does anyone know why the numbers would be as low as this?

 

Thanks

 

Hi,

 

 Can you post the following info:

1. What SSD brand + model

2. What SATA type are you using SATA 2 or 3?

3. What was the performance numbers before?

4. How old is the SSD?

5. Can you see in Task Manager if anything is using the SSD excessively?

6. What operating system are you using?

[callum-]

Just now, gramzon said:

Hi,

 

 Can you post the following info:

1. What SSD brand + model

2. What SATA type are you using SATA 2 or 3?

3. What was the performance numbers before?

4. How old is the SSD?

5. Can you see in Task Manager if anything is using the SSD excessively?

6. What operating system are you using?

Hi, 

 

The information is 

 

1. PNY CS800 120GB

2. SATA 3

3. I'm not sure as I didn't save numbers but I can feel from using the system that it isn't as fast and I remember the numbers being a lot higher 

4. It's around 2 years old

5. The disk fluctuates between 0 and 1% in task manager

6. Windows 10 

 

Hope this helps

 

[gramzon]

1 minute ago, callum- said:

Hi, 

 

The information is 

 

1. PNY CS800 120GB

2. SATA 3

3. I'm not sure as I didn't save numbers but I can feel from using the system that it isn't as fast and I remember the numbers being a lot higher 

4. It's around 2 years old

5. The disk fluctuates between 0 and 1% in task manager

6. Windows 10 

 

Hope this helps

 

When does the system feel slow compared to how it used to run? Also can you post a screen shot of Crystal Disk Info as well?

[callum-]

4 minutes ago, gramzon said:

When does the system feel slow compared to how it used to run? Also can you post a screen shot of Crystal Disk Info as well?

It's most noticeable on boot up where sometimes it can take double the time compared to before.When launching Google Chrome and File Explorer it seems slightly slower

 

[gramzon]

Those read/write speeds do look wrong as its only idling 0-1%, firstly it might be worth backing up anything important you may have on that SSD. 

 

Edit: Can you check in your BIOS to see if the storage is configured to run AHCI? have you had to reset your BIOS recently at all? this may have defaulted.

[callum-]

24 minutes ago, gramzon said:

Those read/write speeds do look wrong as its only idling 0-1%, firstly it might be worth backing up anything important you may have on that SSD. 

 

Edit: Can you check in your BIOS to see if the storage is configured to run AHCI? have you had to reset your BIOS recently at all? this may have defaulted.

I am just backing up my SSD now, I did wonder if it was something to do with the BIOS I will look at the BIOS once the backup has completed and see if it is set to AHCI. 

[gramzon]

1 minute ago, callum- said:

I am just backing up my SSD now, I did wonder if it was something to do with the BIOS I will look at the BIOS once the backup has completed and see if it is set to AHCI. 

The back up is just in case the SSD is broken, hopefully not. Always good to have back ups anyway  The AHCI settings are usually under storage controller, it's in a different section on every motherboard, if you can tell me which one you have I can check for you.

[callum-]

1 minute ago, gramzon said:

The back up is just in case the SSD is broken, hopefully not. Always good to have back ups anyway  The AHCI settings are usually under storage controller, it's in a different section on every motherboard, if you can tell me which one you have I can check for you.

I do run backups but probably not as often as I should, I don't think I have backed up my boot SSD for a few weeks now. I know where the SATA configuration is in my BIOS. 

[callum-]

10 minutes ago, WikiForce said:

wow, that's significantly slower than even my Crucial BX500 running on SATA 2

I wonder what could be wrong 

I noticed over the past few days that the SSD was getting slower so I decided to run Crystal Disk Mark and was shocked with the results. Even although Crystal Disk Info shows the drive health as good I'm not sure that it is. I saw this article (https://www.pny.com/mega-support/solid-state-drives-faqs) "Why is my SSD not as fast as it used to be?" it states that it could be because more of the space on the drive is getting used but I don't believe this is the case as I don't store anything on the drive and I haven't installed any new programs recently. 

[gramzon]

18 minutes ago, callum- said:

I noticed over the past few days that the SSD was getting slower so I decided to run Crystal Disk Mark and was shocked with the results. Even although Crystal Disk Info shows the drive health as good I'm not sure that it is. I saw this article (https://www.pny.com/mega-support/solid-state-drives-faqs) "Why is my SSD not as fast as it used to be?" it states that it could be because more of the space on the drive is getting used but I don't believe this is the case as I don't store anything on the drive and I haven't installed any new programs recently. 

Your screen shot shows 88% disk space used maybe that's why? Also have you checked for any software/firmware updates for your SSD?

[callum-]

15 minutes ago, gramzon said:

Your screen shot shows 88% disk space used maybe that's why? Also have you checked for any software/firmware updates for your SSD?

I know that I have used 88% disk space and you should have under 75% used but I have been at 88% for a while now and the performance has only slowed down recently, there are no firmware updates available for my SSD. I did take a look in the BIOS and the SATA type is IDE instead of AHCI which could be the issue, however when I changed it to AHCI Windows refused to boot so I changed it back to IDE. Are you aware of any reason Windows would not boot?

Thanks

[gramzon]

Hmm, I've not done this in a while. Thought changing to AHCI would just work. It appears that if you change to AHCI you would normally need to re-install Windows. But I've found some instructions that seem to fix that issue:

 

1. Right-click the Windows Start Menu. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
3. Restart the computer and enter BIOS Setup (the key to press varies between systems).
4. Change the SATA Operation mode to AHCI from either IDE.
5. Save changes and exit Setup and Windows will automatically boot to Safe Mode.
6. Right-click the Windows Start Menu once more. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
7. Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
8. Reboot once more and Windows will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled.

[callum-]

1 hour ago, gramzon said:

Hmm, I've not done this in a while. Thought changing to AHCI would just work. It appears that if you change to AHCI you would normally need to re-install Windows. But I've found some instructions that seem to fix that issue:

 

1. Right-click the Windows Start Menu. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
3. Restart the computer and enter BIOS Setup (the key to press varies between systems).
4. Change the SATA Operation mode to AHCI from either IDE.
5. Save changes and exit Setup and Windows will automatically boot to Safe Mode.
6. Right-click the Windows Start Menu once more. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
7. Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
8. Reboot once more and Windows will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled.

Would going into safe mode not do the same as these commands? 

 

Edit: Just realised these commands make it easier to boot into safe mode

[gramzon]

Just quicker way of doing it I believe

[callum-]

2 hours ago, gramzon said:

Just quicker way of doing it I believe

I did set it to AHCI Mode and the reads are better but the writes are still slow. Overall system performance doesn't seem faster though

 

[Dutch_Master]

In order to ascertain whether or not this is a hardware or software issue, I'd suggest a different OS to see if the slow speeds remains. Try a Linux Live CD (Knoppix, for example) to find if the issue is hardware related. Also, read and write speeds on SSDs differ by design, reading is always faster then writing due to the way data is stored on the flash-chips. See if you can obtain the manufacturer spec sheets from the web somewhere and compare to those.

[gramzon]

3 hours ago, callum- said:

I did set it to AHCI Mode and the reads are better but the writes are still slow. Overall system performance doesn't seem faster though

 

I'm glad the speeds have improved looking at this result but the write still doesn't appear correct, do you have the original specs of the SSD? As Dutc_master has said it might be that the write speed on this SSD is slower than read. If the system still is slow, it might be time for a fresh install of windows?

[callum-]

1 minute ago, gramzon said:

I'm glad the speeds have improved looking at this result but the write still doesn't appear correct, do you have the original specs of the SSD? As Dutc_master has said it might be that the write speed on this SSD is slower than read. If the system still is slow, it might be time for a fresh install of windows?

If the speeds don’t improve even although it’s a pain I probably will still have to reinstall Windows. The PNY site states that the read should be 510 mb/s and the writes 390 mb/s

[gramzon]

20 minutes ago, callum- said:

If the speeds don’t improve even although it’s a pain I probably will still have to reinstall Windows. The PNY site states that the read should be 510 mb/s and the writes 390 mb/s

Have you used Tree Size before? it might help you identify some unneeded files on your drive to delete? It basically allows you to see what folders are using the most space and drill down to see what it is. You can also use Windows disk clean up to clear some unneeded files, in the advanced settings it also lets you delete updates that were installed and no longer needed. The reason I'm suggesting this is, if the reason the SSD is slow is because it's at 88% it might help to see what happes after you clear some space.