Corsair Force F40 irregular speed

[pointertovoid]

Hello nice boys and girls!

Bought a used SSD, model Corsair Force F40, alias CSSD-F40GB2-A, with a Sandforce controller, firmware v2.2.

Features Ahci, Ncq, Trim. 40GB. Test software declares it healthy.

It carried a Linux-type volume on 2/3 of the capacity only. If the Smart is read properly, the SSD ran for 1000h in 3 powerups, so it may have run shortly in a server.

Speed measurements from different benchmark software are very inconsistent. This is NOT related with volume alignment, already tried.

HdTach, HdTune consistently see an irregular read speed of 180MB/s on 2/3 of the capacity, then the regular high speed expected.

IOMeter sees 180MB/s long reads and 40MB/s long writes everywhere, just as Crystal Disk Mark does.

Atto sees 280MB/s reads and 260MB/s writes everywhere. Queue depth acts as expected everywhere.

(Click to enlarge)

The rest of the hardware runs smoothly with other SSD like the X25E or Vertex2: ich10r in Ahci mode, driver BlackWingCat for W2k.

Explanation please? Some fix as well? Can this be related with the Trim information that W2k doesn't supply, as HdTach and HdTune see the erratic behaviour approximately where the previous volume was? And can I wipe out such now irrelevant Trim information?

Thank you!

Edited March 7, 2012 by pointertovoid

[allen2]

Yes this is most likely because the garbage collection didn't occur since it was under linux and then 2000 (and both of them doesn't support trim). You might try wiping the drive as explained there but doing this will reduce the life of the drive (but it should bother you too much as those drives are designed sustain more than that as explained there).

[pointertovoid]

Trim and Linux:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM#Discard_parameter_in_Linux

"TRIM is supported in the Linux kernel since version 2.6.33"

[allen2]

Are you sure it was a kernel >2.6.33 and that TRIM was enabled as it isn't by default. Also only ext4 support TRIM.

Discard parameter in Linux

Although TRIM is supported in the Linux kernel since version 2.6.33, the operating system does not automatically enable TRIM operation. The user must modify the appropriate /etc/fstab file to add the word discard in the appropriate SSD entries. Without this user modification the Linux operating system will not pass the TRIM command to the SSD.

Edited March 7, 2012 by allen2

[pointertovoid]

I wanted to try Wiper.exe but it denied working. Obtained there:

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/staff/ryderocz/misc/wiper_0525.zip

http://www.gskill.us/firmware/wiper.zip

Wiper is allegedly (doubtful) written by Indilinx, the SSD controller manufacturer, and distributed by Ocz and Gskill but not Corsair. They gave the same answers for the Corsair and Ocz disks:

- No disk fits

- Barefoot report: system error

Wiper is said to explain the SSD which sectors are unused by files, thus giving to Xp and W2k3 an equivalent to Seven's Trim function. Wiper must be started from time to time, it reclaims as much disk space as the file systems accepts to give, then releases this space and tells the SSD where the obtained sectors were.

Can Wiper.exe run on W2k?

I use the BWC-ported Ahci driver for W2k.

In addition, Wiper seems to need KB934205 to run on disks <128GiB, and while KB934205 is included in Xp's Sp2, I couldn't find it for W2k nor in its Sp4.

I'll give a new try to a different approach: a secure erase by GPartEd.

Not convenient on a regular basis, but I want to check this Ssd before it's used on a Seven machine.