# New Crucial M500 seems slow



## Altered (Feb 3, 2014)

Maybe I was expecting too much. This is my first SSD and I know its faster than my old WD500 but for some reason it just doesn't seem to be as fast as I thought it would be.  

Here are a couple of benches could someone who knows more about what they are looking at let me know if this is what is to be expected. 
Thank you 

This is the drive I bought at the egg 
*Crucial M500 240GB SATA 2.5" 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal Solid State Drive CT240M500SSD1 *


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> Maybe I was expecting too much. This is my first SSD and I know its faster than my old WD500 but for some reason it just doesn't seem to be as fast as I thought it would be.
> 
> Here are a couple of benches could someone who knows more about what they are looking at let me know if this is what is to be expected.
> Thank you
> ...




New Windows install? AHCI enabled in BIOS for SATA mode? Update drive firmware?

Try running ATTO Disk Benchmark.


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## Altered (Feb 3, 2014)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> New Windows install? AHCI enabled in BIOS for SATA mode? Update drive firmware?
> 
> Try running ATTO Disk Benchmark.


No its a clone off of my other HDD 
AHCI is enabled for SATA 
No I havent updated firmware I have never done that to a hard drive. I have read it can be done on these drives but thought it should be close out of the box. Was this a bad assumption?


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## FX-GMC (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> No its a clone off of my other HDD
> AHCI is enabled for SATA
> No I havent updated firmware I have never done that to a hard drive. I have read it can be done on these drives but thought it should be close out of the box. Was this a bad assumption?
> View attachment 54490



Partition alignment issue?

http://www.overclock.net/t/1226963/how-to-properly-re-align-your-ssd-hdd-partitions


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 3, 2014)

back up all the things you need and do a clean windows install, all new drivers, etc. if you connected the drive to a SATA 6gb/s port you should be getting around 500mb/s  read speeds.


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## AsRock (Feb 3, 2014)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> back up all the things you need and do a clean windows install, all new drivers, etc. if you connected the drive to a SATA 6gb/s port you should be getting around 500mb/s  read speeds.



Looks like it might be plugged in to a sata2 port.


I have used clones from HDD's without issue although that's always been on the intel chipset.


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## Jetster (Feb 3, 2014)

AMD Boards have all SATA 6Gb/s ports. So maybe its a SATA driver problem. Get the latest AHCI drivers from Intel

And don't use HDTune on a SSD. It does unnecessary writes


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## Altered (Feb 3, 2014)

FX-GMC said:


> Partition alignment issue?
> 
> http://www.overclock.net/t/1226963/how-to-properly-re-align-your-ssd-hdd-partitions


I ran Mini Tool Partition Wizard alignment tool suggested on that page. Based on pciide in red followed by - BAD. After running it its the same.


 

I may have to do a fresh install but you would think there would be a way to repair this without doing a complete reinstall.


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## Altered (Feb 3, 2014)

Jetster said:


> AMD Boards have all SATA 6Gb/s ports. So maybe its a SATA driver problem. Get the latest AHCI drivers from Intel
> 
> And don't use HDTune on a SSD. It does unnecessary writes


Im not sure how to locate the AHCI drivers from Intel for my AMD? Will that even work?


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## Jetster (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> Im not sure how to locate the AHCI drivers from Intel for my AMD? Will that even work?



I was thinking they might as AHCI was designed by Intel. But maybe not. Im not really up on AMD chipsets. Just make sure you have the latest MS drivers. I reading that AMDs have issues. Which would be the ones that are on the disk that came with your board. Don't use them

Delete the drivers in the Hardware manager and rebooting. Windows will load the MS ones


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## Altered (Feb 3, 2014)

Well so far all I can do is try a fresh format and see what Crucial says. Nothing is changing as far as I can see. 

Thanks for the ideas though.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 3, 2014)

Clean install, all new drivers for your AMD board (Don't look for Intel stuff LOL). Should clear it up.


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## RCoon (Feb 3, 2014)

AsRock said:


> Looks like it might be plugged in to a sata2 port.



This looks to be the most prominent factor, this is exactly what an SSD looks like when plugged into a SATA 2 port. Has OP even checked to make sure the SSD is in a SATA3 6Gbps port?


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 3, 2014)

RCoon said:


> This looks to be the most prominent factor, this is exactly what an SSD looks like when plugged into a SATA 2 port. Has OP even checked to make sure the SSD is in a SATA3 6Gbps port?



His board only has SATA 6gb/s connections.


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## AsRock (Feb 3, 2014)

Jetster said:


> AMD Boards have all SATA 6Gb/s ports. So maybe its a SATA driver problem. Get the latest AHCI drivers from Intel
> 
> And don't use HDTune on a SSD. It does unnecessary writes



Well mine did not it had both, although i should checked what he had for a mobo...



Tried another port ?.


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## Altered (Feb 3, 2014)

Fresh format results


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## kn00tcn (Feb 3, 2014)

the hdtune speed test is a raw read operation, it doesnt matter what partitions exist, how many files there are, what file system it is, or if it's fragmented, so as expected the fresh format hasnt changed the result

but sequential speed isnt everything when we're talking SSDs, isnt your OS loading much faster? random access is the biggest speed killer of mechanical drives & an SSD blows them away even if the sequential speed is the same

speeds do look a little strange though.. as if the read speed is throttled

there are some interesting reviews on newegg if you arrange by lowest rated, AMD chipset person with freezes, thermal throttling that slows down the drive, someone's low life span calculation hmm... i was recommended an m500 so these reviews are surprising


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## rtwjunkie (Feb 3, 2014)

Also, don't bother with firmware updates.  I've got two M500's, and I've looked....they are so new there are no firmware updates yet.  You should definately be getting faster speeds, although you are right, the hype around SSD's makes one believe they are like lightning, so the first time you buy one you get a little bit of a letdown, lol.  But you'll see real world benefits, like quickly booting, and in opening browsers, or pdf readers, and see how quickly they respond.


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## FX-GMC (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> Fresh format results
> View attachment 54498



Maybe try reinstalling the chipset drivers for your motherboard.

http://66.226.78.21/downloadsite/dr...Win7-64_Win7_Vista64_Vista_XP64_XP(v12.3).zip
or the page i got the link from http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/970 Extreme3/?cat=Download&os=Win764 (it's the AMD all in 1)


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## phanbuey (Feb 3, 2014)

I read somewhere that the drives slow down if they overheat.  I have the M500 and mine is really fast - much much faster than the WD500 black it replaced.


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## rtwjunkie (Feb 3, 2014)

phanbuey said:


> I read somewhere that the drives slow down if they overheat.  I have the M500 and mine is really fast - much much faster than the WD500 black it replaced.


 
Crucial does aggressively throttle them if they overheat....but if you keep them in the same kind of airflow you'd keep HDD's in, you'll likely never see that throttling.


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## Tatty_One (Feb 3, 2014)

There is a firmware update (MU03 from September 2013) tha allows the user to control thermal throttling apparently, if this culd be the problem of course.


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## ruff0r (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> I ran Mini Tool Partition Wizard alignment tool suggested on that page. Based on pciide in red followed by - BAD. After running it its the same.
> View attachment 54491
> 
> I may have to do a fresh install but you would think there would be a way to repair this without doing a complete reinstall.


Your 4k-64Thrd performance is way off from the reviews i saw 320 Read and 218 Write. Your drive is under performing a lot.


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## rtwjunkie (Feb 3, 2014)

Tatty_One said:


> There is a firmware update (MU03 from September 2013) tha allows the user to control thermal throttling apparently, if this culd be the problem of course.


 
Thanks!  I had looked a month a go and couldn't find evidence of a firmware update!


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## FX-GMC (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> I ran Mini Tool Partition Wizard alignment tool suggested on that page. Based on pciide in red followed by - BAD. After running it its the same.
> View attachment 54491
> 
> I may have to do a fresh install but you would think there would be a way to repair this without doing a complete reinstall.



Does it still say pciide - BAD on AS SSD?  

If so, then AHCI isn't getting enabled for some reason.


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## Hood (Feb 3, 2014)

"pciide - bad" means your storage controller is set to IDE mode.  SSDs need to run in AHCI mode for best performance.  This article - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 - explains how to change the setting in BIOS and modify the Windows registry so you can boot Windows (without doing a complete re-install in AHCI mode).  This is how it should look with proper alignment and the right storage driver enabled (except the storage driver will have a different name on AMD systems) -


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## Altered (Feb 3, 2014)

Oh my I was up till 4AM it had me so irritated. It was bugging me so bad I knew it had to be something simple. In my BIOS there was a 2nd option for SATA and IDE *combined* that was enabled. So anyway it seems to check out and the performance reflects it. Still not the miricle I was expecting but a damn site faster than a platter drive.  I really appreciate all of you folks helping me to keep searching for the answer.

Does this look correct now?





 View attachment 54502


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## FX-GMC (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> Oh my I was up till 4AM it had me so irritated. It was bugging me so bad I knew it had to be something simple. In my BIOS there was a 2nd option for SATA and IDE *combined* that was enabled. So anyway it seems to check out and the performance reflects it. Still not the miricle I was expecting but a damn site faster than a platter drive.  I really appreciate all of you folks helping me to keep searching for the answer.
> 
> Does this look correct now?
> 
> View attachment 54501 View attachment 54502



Good catch.  Looks good now.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> Oh my I was up till 4AM it had me so irritated. It was bugging me so bad I knew it had to be something simple. In my BIOS there was a 2nd option for SATA and IDE *combined* that was enabled. So anyway it seems to check out and the performance reflects it. Still not the miricle I was expecting but a damn site faster than a platter drive.  I really appreciate all of you folks helping me to keep searching for the answer.
> 
> Does this look correct now?
> View attachment 54503
> View attachment 54501 View attachment 54502



Looks like it should be. Those drivers are not the best when it comes to writes.


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## rtwjunkie (Feb 3, 2014)

Altered said:


> Oh my I was up till 4AM it had me so irritated. It was bugging me so bad I knew it had to be something simple. In my BIOS there was a 2nd option for SATA and IDE *combined* that was enabled. So anyway it seems to check out and the performance reflects it. Still not the miricle I was expecting but a damn site faster than a platter drive.  I really appreciate all of you folks helping me to keep searching for the answer.
> 
> Does this look correct now?
> View attachment 54503
> View attachment 54501 View attachment 54502


 
Yes, it looks MUCH better.  And you're right, it's not the earth-shattering improvement you might have been led to believe, but you will find some DEFINATE improvements that eventually you won't be able to live without, like I said earlier.

@MxPhenom 216:  You're right that the write speeds are a little slower than others.  But the read speeds are pretty good on these drives.  That, plus hoping they have the long term reliability that their M4's ended up having were why I bought a couple.


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## lZKoce (Feb 6, 2014)

Nevermind you fixed. Congrats on your new SSD


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## suraswami (Feb 7, 2014)

Altered said:


> Oh my I was up till 4AM it had me so irritated. It was bugging me so bad I knew it had to be something simple. In my BIOS there was a 2nd option for SATA and IDE *combined* that was enabled. So anyway it seems to check out and the performance reflects it. Still not the miricle I was expecting but a damn site faster than a platter drive.  I really appreciate all of you folks helping me to keep searching for the answer.
> 
> Does this look correct now?
> View attachment 54503
> View attachment 54501 View attachment 54502



Good Catch.

Make sure you do the things mentioned in this thread.

http://www.tech-forums.net/forums/f128/ssd-tweak-guide-236563/

Download Samsung Magician software and run the Performance Benchmark and post your results.


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## Altered (Feb 10, 2014)

Well I did the test. Its scoring better than advertised so I am happy. Thanks for the tweak guide page. I haven't used it yet but I will check it out later.


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## jed (Feb 11, 2014)

I just got mine installed and configured with tweaks.

AHCI On
TRIM On
Indexing Moved to HDD
Defrag Off
Page File Moved to HDD
Hibernate Off
High Performance 

Results from Samsung Magicican:
Seq Read: 524
Seq Write: 263
Random Read: 64007
Random Write: 55810


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## rtwjunkie (Feb 11, 2014)

jed said:


> I just got mine installed and configured with tweaks.
> 
> AHCI On
> TRIM On
> ...



Awesome jed!  Are you happy with it?


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## jed (Feb 11, 2014)

rtwjunkie said:


> Awesome jed!  Are you happy with it?



Definitely, so far.  I haven't noticed any major upgrades yet, but I have yet to play any games.  Basically I wanted a solid-azz drive for my OS and main programs, and just to have that security knowing it's a lot tougher for SSD's to go bad and fail.  I get into heavy gaming sometimes though so looking forward to increased load speeds.


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