Poor SSD on Mac Pro 5,1 (2010) with two different ssd brand

[Randall Flagg]

Hi,

First my setup:
Mac Pro 5,1 (2010) with BluRay drive in optical bay, under it there is an Icy Dock with the SSD in it. Then all four other drive bay are in use with 1TB drives.

Last year i put an OWC Mercury Extreme pro ssd in the Icy Dock. I did test and i remember seeing about 200meg/sec performance, not the actual 275 but close too and it was fast enough... But since a couple of month performance decreased to about 80 meg/sec !? Also the drive was more than 80% full, on the 60G, only 8G where free. I also tried to enable the TRIM, but nothing good, and i lost the ability to put the MacPro to sleep...

So, i bough a new SSD: KINGSTON SV300S37A120G, so now i have enough free space. I must say that i did clone the older drive onto this one using Carbon Copy Cloner.

I still have the same performance? even after i've upgraded the OSX from 10.7.5 to the latest 10.9.1. At least it is now going to sleep by itself but the performance is poor, that ssd is capable of going at 480meg/sec!

So, what i'm missing ?

 

[seveej]

First, keep in mind, that the MP only has SATA II.
Second, those theoretical max speeds are usually just that.
Third, I think hard drive speeds do degrade when the disk fills up, even more so with HDD's and their longer seek times, but also with SSD's.

RGDS,

 

[Randall Flagg]

First, keep in mind, that the MP only has SATA II.
Second, those theoretical max speeds are usually just that.
Third, I think hard drive speeds do degrade when the disk fills up, even more so with HDD's and their longer seek times, but also with SSD's.

RGDS,

1) i know that
2) i know that too but there is a big difference between 80 meg sec and 200+
3) that is why i change my 60G from OWC to a 120G from Sandisk

thanks for your time,

 

[Gav Mack]

The Kingston SSD's are as slow as a slug especially with write speed on early intel chipsets ich8-10 which include your Mac Pro. I've had 30mb write speed quite often I kid you not.

Only buy the samsung or crucial models for clients now!

 

[Randall Flagg]

The Kingston SSD's are as slow as a slug especially with write speed on early intel chipsets ich8-10 which include your Mac Pro. I've had 30mb write speed quite often I kid you not.

Only buy the samsung or crucial models for clients now!

Maybe you are right, but i clearly remember my OWC performing better than that, same OS, same computer, and even the OWC perf is really bad.

And if OWC sell the Kingston SSD for their mac, it should be okay.

 

[derbothaus]

Take away the Icy thing. Turn TRIM off for Sandforce (both your SSD's use SF) based and keep it under 75% full. I saturate my bus with OWC, Intel 520 (SF) and Samsung 840 Pro's. If you have never used the drives without the Icy I would try that first.

 

[analog guy]

Take away the Icy thing. Turn TRIM off for Sandforce (both your SSD's use SF) based and keep it under 75% full. I saturate my bus with OWC, Intel 520 (SF) and Samsung 840 Pro's. If you have never used the drives without the Icy I would try that first.

Trim OFF for 840 Pro drives? Really? Have you tested with Trim on and off?

Genuinely curious on the logic.

 

[Gav Mack]

Maybe you are right, but i clearly remember my OWC performing better than that, same OS, same computer, and even the OWC perf is really bad.

And if OWC sell the Kingston SSD for their mac, it should be okay.

Some identical drives are slow, some are not I've found. It's a particular sandforce controller issue with certain types with the Intel ICH. Not only with Macs but with PC's with the same Intel chipsets. Kingston are dead slow providing firmware updates too unlike Samsung and Crucial too. OWC must sell certified ones that work fine but in my case buying elsewhere I prefer to stay away from the lottery that is buying Kingston SSD for client upgrades and having SSD's that work properly with trim enabled.

The icy box enclosures I try to avoid too, I use proper 2.5 inch brackets for the optical bays as I find the PCB in the icy box a bit flaky plus they have a habit of falling to bits as the bottom grommet screw holders fall out. For hosting in sleds use the NWT AdaptaDrive for 1-3,1 or the custom OWC sleds for the newer Mac Pro models.

 

[paulrbeers]

Hi,

First my setup:
Mac Pro 5,1 (2010) with BluRay drive in optical bay, under it there is an Icy Dock with the SSD in it. Then all four other drive bay are in use with 1TB drives.

Last year i put an OWC Mercury Extreme pro ssd in the Icy Dock. I did test and i remember seeing about 200meg/sec performance, not the actual 275 but close too and it was fast enough... But since a couple of month performance decreased to about 80 meg/sec !? Also the drive was more than 80% full, on the 60G, only 8G where free. I also tried to enable the TRIM, but nothing good, and i lost the ability to put the MacPro to sleep...

So, i bough a new SSD: KINGSTON SV300S37A120G, so now i have enough free space. I must say that i did clone the older drive onto this one using Carbon Copy Cloner.

I still have the same performance? even after i've upgraded the OSX from 10.7.5 to the latest 10.9.1. At least it is now going to sleep by itself but the performance is poor, that ssd is capable of going at 480meg/sec!

So, what i'm missing ?

It sounds like you got a lot of good info already, but I'm going to re-iterate a lot of items to truly hit home:

1. You have SATAII on your Mac Pro which as you know maxes out at 300MB/s but really it is closer to 250-275 in life.
2. Neither of your SSD's are "good" by todays standards.
3. Any SSD with less than 240GB worth of storage are going to run slower than their "bigger" brothers. The reason is that anything less than 240GB, there are less Memory Chips on the SSD so they run slower especially for writes, but even for Reads. That 60GB drive will have very few chips. I tell anyone if you are going SSD, go 240GB+ or don't bother.
4. As already stated, you HAVE to keep 25% of your SSD available at all times. On a 60GB drive, that means you need to keep 15GB which only leaves you 45GB to actually work with. Rough.
5. Here's a review of that Kingston drive from anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6733/kingston-ssdnow-v300-review/2
- Most of the benchmarks put the 120GB drive well below 200MB/s and remember your SATA ports are only SATAII so even in the "good" benchmarks, you will never hit those.

Frankly, the only drives I recommend anymore are Samsung 830, 840EVO, 840Pro, or the Crucial M500. I have several Sandforce based drives that I only use in my older Macs that aren't as important or in my wife's laptop (because she isn't going to need the speed anyway).

 

[derbothaus]

Trim OFF for 840 Pro drives? Really? Have you tested with Trim on and off?

Genuinely curious on the logic.

I think you misunderstood. TRIM 'ON' for Samsung. TRIM 'OFF' for Sandforce (SF). I listed my own personal SSD's. I did not list them to support the TRIM 'OFF' statement.