Revive your old SSD

[godling]

Some time back, we were collecting stats on HD, CF, and SSD speeds. I had posted a report out on the Transcend 30GB SSD I purchased, using CrystalDiskMark 2.2 on WinXP sp3, fresh install, with the results being:

Sequential Read: 76.04
Sequential Write: 45.08
Random Read (512kb): 74.00
Random Write (512kb): 31.12
Random Read (4kb): 12.81
Random Write (4kb): 1.928

Not horrible for an entry-level, original design SSD.

Yesterday, I ran CDM 3.0 on the same SSD, after having Win7 installed and heavy usage for the past six months or so. Stats were despicable:

Sequential Read: 78.58
Sequential Write: 15.93
Random Read (512kb): 76.21
Random Write (512kb): 6.73
Random Read (4kb): 13.08
Random Write (4kb): 0.063!!!

Talk about drop off!

So, I've been doing some research, and DisKeeper's PerfectDisk 11 boasts a "free space consolidation" feature for SSDs that will move data into the same memory chips, and clear up half-used cells. I don't know all the specific details. But since my system has been crawling lately, I thought I'd give it a go. After running, these are the results:

Sequential Read: 78.24
Sequential Write: 44.27
Random Read (512kb): 76.15
Random Write (512kb): 17.32
Random Read (4kb): 13.03
Random Write (4kb): 0.22

Massive read improvements! Not what a fresh install of the OS would show (at least, when I did that XP install) and there may be some calculation variation between 2.2 and 3.0 of CDM. However, that's a marked improvement.

Not trying to advertise, just want folks to know ... there are options for fixing those old SSD's, and it was a free download. (Trial period will end someday, I'm sure.

-J

[sjthinkpader]

This is good info, probably similar in principle to writing "1111" data pattern I posted here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... &start=750
(Oct 17, 2009)