Sluggish SSD writes

[Sean_Comeau]

I've noticed very poor write performance on my T410s. When I torrent a file my whole machine locks up for several seconds at a time. This happens even for relatively small files under 200mb.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[Roy]

You should write down your SSD model and firmware version.

[Sean_Comeau]

INTEL SSDSA1MH080G1LE

[wditters]

That looks like a generation 1 Intel SSD. (The G1 gives it away) ... Those drives do not have TRIM so you may be suffering from the well known issue that older generation SSD drives tend to slow down after a while. The only solution there is a manual wipe + garbage collection ....All data will be lost so best backup first.

Of course a better solution would be to simply get rid of this drive and buy a new one, all modern day drives support TRIM now whcih basically means they maintain themselves and do not slow down over time ...

[Sean_Comeau]

What is the procedure for this solution? I heard it involves overwriting the entire drive with the pattern 0xFF, but I'm not sure if that's correct.

[wditters]

Download HDDErase 4.0 from here

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

Read tutorial here

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?74093-How-to-use-HDDErase

Warning:

- All data will be lost

- Needs to take place in HDD legacy mode (so not in AHCI mode)

- Advice: create bootable USB stick or CD and put HDDErase on there

[ColonelONeill]

Make sure you choose to erase with zeros and not random data. Or ones... Not sure.

[nibs Guru]

Intel has an SSD toolbox. I suggest you download that and read the guide.

[wditters]

The toolbox can be used indeed. However, it will not run on a bootable drive, so this will have to be done from within a different configuration with the SSD drive as secundary drive (slave). Just booting from a HDDErase bootable disk may be easier of you only have one machine.