Crucial C300 amazing performance on Intel native SATA III ports!

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psyside

2[H]4U
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Just look at those performance, (4K read/write especially) 94 MB/S random write! dear god i didn't expected this,Intel controller rox! :D

asssdb1311822101.png



Now i only wonder should i get another one for Raid! :)
 
if you're on firmware 002 you might want to upgrade to 007. not sure what it will do though.
 
It will do nothing, i'm fine on 02, it doesn't get any better then this anyway :)
 
Even on SATA II ports, I'm really pleased with mine. Had issues with intel and corsair SSD, but good luck so far [knock on wood] with crucial SSD.
 
The C300 and Intel G2 series are great drives that still hold their own against newer versions.

I see new C300s still going for $430.00 (and up) on Ebay.

I purchased mine for $400.00 6 months ago and the prices have gone up. LOL!

If there's an "SSD Hall of Fame" these drives will be the first inducted. :D
 
I tell you one thing, this SSD's are faster then the new ones, (which failed in marketing segment of the market)

Who cares about 500mb/s sequential read speeds, when you got like 2x slower 4k random read/write performance, the most important segment of every SSD performance. C300 is still the fastest drive out there in real world performance.
 
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I really haven't bothered with the SSD rat race for G3s because I wasn't going to upgrade just yet but I've always felt that "being the fastest drive for your desktop" depended largely upon the applications most frequently used.

I have glanced thru some of the latest testing/descriptions/discussions that seem to indicate some are putting more "weight" to the simple "Read/Write" specs for some applications.

While I have no doubt increased "Read/Write" specs will make massive differences in some applications it seems that the random read/writes are the ticket for me. :D

As usual, it's just my humble opinion. :)
 
That's very impressive. I wish intel would release a firmware for the 510 that would give it similar performance characteristics... With the same controller you would think they would want a more balanced drive or at least give the end user a choice of fw to use that either favors sequential or random throughput. That would be nice.
 
revenant said:
That's very impressive. I wish intel would release a firmware for the 510 that would give it similar performance characteristics... With the same controller you would think they would want a more balanced drive or at least give the end user a choice of fw to use that either favors sequential or random throughput. That would be nice.
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Agree nice idea :)

@ Old hippie, thats true, it does depeending from the programs/personal use, but for general average users the 4K is where it counts :D
 
I'm sure you've seen my C300 256GB Intel RAID0 before.......

asssdbenchvolume0713201.png



These drives have seen heavy usage for 6-7 months and the testing specs have dropped very little.

This is a SATA2 interface.

Great drives and built like a tank.
 
If you want to know what RAIDing 2 x 128GB Crucial C300s is like - here are my results from CDM:



AS-SSD



Not too impressed that my Random 4k writes suck but that could be because this wasn't a 'fresh' install. I cloned a single drivve 'image' to a RAID 0 array.
 
Awhile back I noticed my 4k writes were pretty funky (@ 60MBs) but as you can see it fixed itself.

AFAIK AS-SSD's 4K reads are always under 30 MB/s for all drives.

There may be some higher but I don't recall reading about them.

PSSS...But there's one at the top of the page that goes to 33 MB/s.........LOL! Shows ya how much a liar I am! LOL!
 
Here my 64GB c300 which is almost completely full.

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I've seen a wide range of 4k results for the new m4 ssds however the result I found on overclock.net below doesn't look too far off from a c300.

asssdbenchm4ct064m4ssd2.png
 
psyside said:
WOW amazing 4K for M4 drive (especially for 60GB) have not seen so good results for this model till now!
Click to expand...

Just an observation.......Sometimes ASSSD shows the "iaStor" in black and sometimes in green with an "-OK" behind it.

Anyone ever noticed that or why it may be different?
 
psyside said:
WOW amazing 4K for M4 drive (especially for 60GB) have not seen so good results for this model till now!




Yea, i was thinking the same :confused:
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My 64 gb M4 got similar 4K write speeds, I don't think it is all too uncommon. I'll try to dig up the screen shot. Or if not, I can run it again. It is a good little drive, no complaints here:D
 
I love my 64gb C300. I've had pretty bad luck with Sandforce. I've had 2x SF1200 drives bite the dust. My C300 and my 1st Gen Indilinx drive have been some of the best. My 120gb Agility has been running like a champ since October of 2009.

I'm gonna be purchasing a ~250gb drive soon and I'm torn between the 510, M4 and the Vertex 3.
 
I had to go back to a single 128GB SSD because those numbers for 4k random writes were pitiful. Here's my single C300 128GB score:



Looks better, no?
 
Looks better, no?
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Absolutely.

But I think the RAID0 would have recuperated if you quit testing and let the drives idle.

My 4K random writes dropped to @ 60 MB/s but they recuperated.

It just takes awhile.
 
Old Hippie said:
Absolutely.

But I think the RAID0 would have recuperated if you quit testing and let the drives idle.

My 4K random writes dropped to @ 60 MB/s but they recuperated.

It just takes awhile.
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I had the RAID setup going for more than a week and only tested the array 2 times in that time period. The scores never changed. How much time do I need to allow for 'recuperation'?
 
Burner27 said:
Same CPU as you @ stock speeds.
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I found that oc my cpu @4.8ghz increased my score like 30% more, especially in 4K segment, like from 70mbs to 93 mbs write, and 28 - 33mb/s read, so keep that im mind, also in control panel power options set this.

Power plan - set - high performance, change advance power settings:

Hard Disk turn off - never (in order to force garbage control during idle)
Hibernate - off,
Sleep - off,
Minimum processor state -100%

I guess same goes for everyone who want better SSD performance :)
 
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How much time do I need to allow for 'recuperation'?
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I don't remember but I did make a post at the Crucial forum about it.

It was probably 30 days after that when I ran the next test and discovered the speeds had recovered.

There's a coupla links in the thread you may want to try.
 
Power plan - set - high performance, change advance power settings:

Hard Disk turn off - never (in order to force garbage control during idle)
Hibernate - off,
Sleep - off,
Minimum processor state -100%

I guess same goes for everyone who want better SSD performance
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That's how mine is set.
 
psyside said:
I found that oc my cpu @4.8ghz increased my score like 30% more, especially in 4K segment, like from 70mbs to 93 mbs write, and 28 - 33mb/s read, so keep that im mind, also in control panel power options set this.
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30% more over the results at stock cpu speed or a different MHz?
 
As far as chipset controllers or integrated motherboard controllers go in the consumer market, the Intel P67 / Z68 controllers in SATA 6G mode offer the most performance available for any drive.
 
psyside said:
I found that oc my cpu @4.8ghz increased my score like 30% more, especially in 4K segment, like from 70mbs to 93 mbs write, and 28 - 33mb/s read, ...
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What's that smell ? :) There's something "funky" here.

Overclocking an already-way-fast-enough CPU should have no measurable effect on random read (or write) SSD benchmark results.

Moral: Don't have a pissing contest on a windy day. :)

-- UhClem
 
UhClem said:
What's that smell ? :) There's something "funky" here.

Overclocking an already-way-fast-enough CPU should have no measurable effect on random read (or write) SSD benchmark results.

Moral: Don't have a pissing contest on a windy day. :)

-- UhClem
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It would certainly explain why some m4s/c300s are giving way lower 4k results than others.

It's possible that as-ssd is pretty cpu intensive on some tests and it might only be using 1 core like most programs do so the extra core clock helps a lot in those situations.
 
There is something goofy with the BIOS and/or Intel chipset and SATA performance on many recent motherboards that support CPU C-states.

With an Intel Sandy Bridge motherboard, I can consistently increase/decrease my AS-SSD 4K random read score by 20 or 30% by enabling or disabling CPU C-states in the BIOS. The score is higher when C-states are disabled.

Another person found that running a CPU intensive task in the background while AS-SSD is running and C-states are enabled results in a higher score than without the background task.

I guess overclocking could have a similar effect.

My interpretation of all this is that the CPU power saving features can sometimes lower the 4K random read performance, but all sorts of things that thwart the CPU going into power saving mode will eliminate the issue and restore the 4K random read performance to optimal.
 
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Old Hippie said:
:confused:
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What i meant was, you sure know how to make the best setup for your SSD.

UhClem said:
What's that smell ? :) There's something "funky" here.

Overclocking an already-way-fast-enough CPU should have no measurable effect on random read (or write) SSD benchmark results.

Moral: Don't have a pissing contest on a windy day. :)

-- UhClem
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And what if i tell you, that i get similar results on my previous setup as well? sure for some CPU clock may not have big impact on performance, but for me on 2 different platforms (X58/LGA1155) it does for sure!

Also i must note that the comaprasion was done like this,

1, Loaded optmized defaults in BIOS, went right back into windows, and started AS-SSD benchmark.
2. Right after that i restarted, went in BIOS overclocked my cpu to 4.6ghz and instantly booted into windows.

3. So its like: same OS, same drivers, same power options in control panel on both tests, and yet the score was much higher on the second AS-SSD benchmark.
 
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psyside said:
...
And what if i tell you, that i get similar results on my previous setup as well? sure for some CPU clock may not have big impact on performance, but for me on 2 different platforms (X58/LGA1155) it does for sure!

Also i must note that the comaprasion was done like this,

1, Loaded optmized defaults in BIOS, went right back into windows, and started AS-SSD benchmark.
2. Right after that i restarted, went in BIOS overclocked my cpu to 4.6ghz and instantly booted into windows.

3. So its like: same OS, same drivers, same power options in control panel on both tests, and yet the score was much higher on the second AS-SSD benchmark.
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Thank you for confirming. I actually did believe your reported result. I wanted to see if you, or anyone else, would draw the correct (imho) conclusion:
The benchmark is flawed.

-- UhClem
 
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