SSD 64GB fails to multi-task!

[DaveD]

Have a new G.Skill 64Gb SSD in a hot ASUS system.

Using Vista32 with all patches, and all registry hacks
I have been able to find. No swap file, no indexing.....

This product works reasonably well with one access;
HT Tune shows fast response--about equal to a SATA
10K drive. Vista bootup is quick on this drive.

But if I add a second task with HD access (let's say
download while trying to read email) it totally bombs!
HD Tune shows the response goes to almost nothing.

Worse, apps freeze totally dead until one of the access
operations is completely done. This must mean the
internal SSD controller can't handle multitasking.

This is terrible! Will G.Skill replace my drive with one
that actually works like a drive? I'm disappointed.

Dave

[Tradesman]

They wouldn't do anything for me (I bought two of them, both are extremely subpar tto their advertising), they like to 'suggest' to people to buy their Titan drives, rather than try and help get the performance up.

There are things you can do though to improve multitasking. In the example you provided, which is a prime one, set your browsers to download to a conventional drive. Writes are what really bog down SSDs. You can also set your browser cache directory, your user TEMP and , TMP directories to another drive.

Another thing to think about is your programs, any that do lots of writes (i.e. MS Word) you might either load to a conventional drive or adjust the program to only do auto-saves every 20-30 minutes or whatever.

There's alot you can do, but also keep in mind when you run the bench programs by themselves (nothing else running) - thats what your drive is capable of, because it is benching the direct relationship of Windows and your hardware (it's not what you actually see when you are using your system). When you're using the system theirs all kinds of things going on - tweaks like those above will show you a noticable increase in 'REAL WORLD' or "USE' performance.

[DaveD]

Well that's discouraging, Tradesman. Elsewhere in this forum, G.Skill
is offering to replace drives with suspect firmware and performance.

I'd like to 'suggest' they swap my sub-par drives for ones that work.
I'm open to that offer -- really soon would be best!

All your suggestions are fine, but they rely on conventional hard drives,
which of course is opposite to the reason for buying an SSD. And I've
already tuned the OS to death. If I have to tune every app that might
write to the drive, that is fruitless.

Benchmarks aren't real-world, but they do indicate the relative effect
of multi-tasking. For a conventional drive it's noticeable--for this model
SSD, it's plain devastating. Transfer rate goes from 120Mb/sec to 20!

Dave

[GSKILL TECH]

multi-task is the drawback of current MLC SSD. we try 1000 of tweaks but none of them can help. there is nothing we can do about it because it is hardware/tech limitation.
Titan SSD or SSD with cache, both of them still have little multi-task problem. it is just the way that SSD is for now.....

We can RMA and replace you a new SSD that is no problem. just fill out the form and we will issue you a rma number.

[DaveD]

Thanks for a friendly reply, G.Skill.

But please clarify. Will you replace with an SSD that
is better at multi-tasking than the [MLC-based] SSD
that I have? If not, it is clearly a waste of time.

My product appears to not have an interleaved memory
controller and perhaps not even a transfer cache.
Without them, my belief is that multi-tasking is in effect
impossible. Without multi-tasking, this is not truly a
working hard drive--it is simply a memory store.

Please advise in a PM what you intend to do.

[Why did you post in all bold characters?]

[Tradesman]

The major fallacy for SSDs is in the writes, so, if indeed you are downloading a file it is constantly writing, and taking up the drive controller resourses (which you may have read is a JMicron). Also if you are surfing, then you are constantly writing to your browsers cache, etc.

I've worked with a number of different SSDs (primarily new builds and/or upgrades for clients) and have found these tweaks and a number of others, do indeed speed up real world performance. Most benchmark programs for drives simply do reads and writes separately and tell you the numbers, which can look quite good, but try running the benches while your downloading a big file and surfing, running a database on the drive or other disk intensive programs and you'll see your benchmarks skydive. In fact some of benches don't even do writes unless the drive is empty.

There are a number of system tweaks, registry tweaks , etc available, many/most are available over at OCZ forums, then there are still more, some I've come across just by playing and a few others I've picked up from other builders/consultants I network with.

Problem I ran into with my two drives, the same ones as you bought, were that neither performed near the advertised speed of 155/90, which they should at least be close. Gskill basically provides no specific tweaks for their drives, when there are numerous tweaks widely available (which work). Even after tweaking the drives, they still fell well short.....but there is a reason...that 155/90 advertised, according to Gskill is the maximum speeds their engineers have been able to attain on 'a' single drive. It's not a real world number, let alone an out of the box number, unlike the drives from a number of other vendors. I had planned to stick them in my primary system as OS drives (1 Vista 64 and the other for the beta work I'm doing on Win7 (both basic and program compatibility). Ended up coupling the two in RAID 0 just for Win7. In RAID they hit the numbers, but are still far from expected (should have gone OCZ). I've been back and forth with their various techs and none really seem to know much about SSDs. At the moment I've got the RAID on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R, 8GB 1066, Q6600 at 3.2GHz, BFG 285 OC2, etc....for me it's a testing/production system (I'm not a gamer), though I like to keep up on higher end components since I build highend systems (gaming and production)

[Tradesman]

To GSkill
Above you say you have tried 1000 of tweaks and none of them work. I'll be the first to admit, I haven't heard of anywhere near 1000 tweaks available - only about 20 or so, but in real world computing - Yes, they definitively all work. While most won't affect benchmark scores - apparently the only way you judge performance - they do add performance to everyday computing tasks - in fact if you check your own forums you do suggest 3 normal tweaks, and at least 1 of your techs has posted a couple of the registry tweaks - he also said he tried them and they work. Would be nice if your techs listed their names in their posts so we could see who is doing what.

[GSKILL TECH]

Thanks for a friendly reply, G.Skill.

But please clarify. Will you replace with an SSD that
is better at multi-tasking than the [MLC-based] SSD
that I have? If not, it is clearly a waste of time.

My product appears to not have an interleaved memory
controller and perhaps not even a transfer cache.
Without them, my belief is that multi-tasking is in effect
impossible. Without multi-tasking, this is not truly a
working hard drive--it is simply a memory store.

Please advise in a PM what you intend to do.

[Why did you post in all bold characters?]

Dave, i am sorry but i am not able to change the drive to other. SSD is base on NADA flash chips. NADA is one kind of memory. i use bold because it is easy to read. i want to use bigger font but that doesn't look good lol

[GSKILL TECH]

The major fallacy for SSDs is in the writes, so, if indeed you are downloading a file it is constantly writing, and taking up the drive controller resourses (which you may have read is a JMicron). Also if you are surfing, then you are constantly writing to your browsers cache, etc.

I've worked with a number of different SSDs (primarily new builds and/or upgrades for clients) and have found these tweaks and a number of others, do indeed speed up real world performance. Most benchmark programs for drives simply do reads and writes separately and tell you the numbers, which can look quite good, but try running the benches while your downloading a big file and surfing, running a database on the drive or other disk intensive programs and you'll see your benchmarks skydive. In fact some of benches don't even do writes unless the drive is empty.

There are a number of system tweaks, registry tweaks , etc available, many/most are available over at OCZ forums, then there are still more, some I've come across just by playing and a few others I've picked up from other builders/consultants I network with.

Problem I ran into with my two drives, the same ones as you bought, were that neither performed near the advertised speed of 155/90, which they should at least be close. Gskill basically provides no specific tweaks for their drives, when there are numerous tweaks widely available (which work). Even after tweaking the drives, they still fell well short.....but there is a reason...that 155/90 advertised, according to Gskill is the maximum speeds their engineers have been able to attain on 'a' single drive. It's not a real world number, let alone an out of the box number, unlike the drives from a number of other vendors. I had planned to stick them in my primary system as OS drives (1 Vista 64 and the other for the beta work I'm doing on Win7 (both basic and program compatibility). Ended up coupling the two in RAID 0 just for Win7. In RAID they hit the numbers, but are still far from expected (should have gone OCZ). I've been back and forth with their various techs and none really seem to know much about SSDs. At the moment I've got the RAID on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R, 8GB 1066, Q6600 at 3.2GHz, BFG 285 OC2, etc....for me it's a testing/production system (I'm not a gamer), though I like to keep up on higher end components since I build highend systems (gaming and production)

you can rma your drive for replacement if you think it is bad or doesnt meet our rated speed. some of the tweaks we listed are few that helps but not like "solve" the multi-task issue.
yeah we tried exactly 1000 tweaks.......... come on, everyone know it is not real 1000!!! it means we tried a lot of tweaks.

i don't want to talk about OCZ's tweak. if their tweak really solve all the problem, they won't have so many bad feedback on their SSD.

[Tradesman]

No one said the tweaks solve 'all the problems', not I, not them, because all the problems can't be solved. They do however provide a number of tweaks that will improve real world performance, as do other sites, as opposed to benchmark scores, which are synthetic scores at best. You yourself, 'Administrator' tell people that stuttering is something that is inherent to SSDs, which is true, but in real world everyday computing, it can be drastically reduced as simply as moving writes to another drive, i.e. downloads, browser cache files, user tmp, temp directories, etc.

And yes, like Gskill, they do have bad feedback....difference is they are at least TRYING to help people with their products, not just telling them to buy a higher priced SSD, like the Titan line, as you do here, which by the way, the Titans have their own stuttering issues.

[DaveD]

G.Skill, it's nice that you're willing to RMA. But then you say I will get
the same type drive (with probably the same firmware). What's the point?

I have to both agree and disagree with Tradesman. I disagree that the
problems are mostly with writes and can be mostly fixed by tweaks. I
have installed most of the important tweaks, and I still get freeze-ups
when I add just one read operation to an existing read operation.

I agree with him that you, G.Skill, don't seem to take responsiblity for
your product support. You agree there are issues, but send people to
OCZ or other sites instead of providing a tested list of fixes here.

I don't mean to berate anybody, but I bought an SSD hard drive that works
much worse than any rotating hard drive in real-world PC conditions. Don't
be surprised that I'm unhappy and want you to solve the situation. Dave

[Tradesman]

I have to agree with Dave, though my two biggest gripes are the advertised speeds of 155/90, which aren't explained to users, that these are speeds their engineers were able to achieve under 'Perfect' conditions, and apparently the highest speeds they were able to achieve. When most people see the speeds advertised, they think of it as average speeds, i.e. with mechanical drives, 7200 RPM, or ave seek of 8.5. They don't see 155/90 and think of it as say a 3DMark score that was done as a suicide shot with ultimate max OCing, they see/expect the speeds in real world computing, again as in 7200 RPM.

The other gripe is in line with Dave's, but I especially dislike the responses, where rather than try to address the problem a user has, your solution is to tell them to buy a Titan drive....yet here to, you conveniently don't mention that the Titans also have problems,

[G.SKILL]

G.Skill, it's nice that you're willing to RMA. But then you say I will get
the same type drive (with probably the same firmware). What's the point?

I have to both agree and disagree with Tradesman. I disagree that the
problems are mostly with writes and can be mostly fixed by tweaks. I
have installed most of the important tweaks, and I still get freeze-ups
when I add just one read operation to an existing read operation.

I agree with him that you, G.Skill, don't seem to take responsiblity for
your product support. You agree there are issues, but send people to
OCZ or other sites instead of providing a tested list of fixes here.

I don't mean to berate anybody, but I bought an SSD hard drive that works
much worse than any rotating hard drive in real-world PC conditions. Don't
be surprised that I'm unhappy and want you to solve the situation. Dave

this series of SSD have the same problem of delay of writing or reading
and it can only be improved a little, but can't be fixed
not every SSD could have good performance as Intel's
the controller of Intel SSD seems to be much better than all other brands, but it is not available for other manufacturers
and it is also much expensive
these tweaks in Windows may improve the delay issue, but still can't solve it thoroughly
in the future, we may announce new type of SSD which fix this delay issue
thanks


G.S

[Tradesman]

When these were released last year, you highly hyped them:
"Nothing can slow your productivity down", "significant advantages in reliability, performance",
then when they were out and people started encountering problems - they were directed to tech support and these forums where you provided no real support, in fact a favorite response was buy a Titan that doesn't have the same issues as these.
Then you released the Titans, which still have stuttering issues, and multi-tasking issues, even though you were telling people to buy them to get rid of the issues. With the Titans you advertised such things as "ever ready technical back-up" and "people are getting a good result and no multi-tasking issue", (the last is not a true direct quote, I corrected the spelling of getting), yet still we see no 'ever ready technical back-up", little to no support at all, and what little support that is offered seems to come as a direct result of your using users comment/suggestions. As to the no multi-tasking issues you claim, there are alot of people out there that disagree.
Now you're saying you may announce a new type of SSD........didn't we hear this prior to the Titan release.

Before moving on to yet some other product/device, shouldn't you be looking to do something for the people who have already spent hundreds of dollars (or more), on these misrepresented drives you have already sold to unsuspecting customers as you try to come up with a drive that will even live up to the advertising on the original MLC drives?

[BigDaddy]

I have been wanting to join this discussion for a week. But the registration process and login here was all fubared for my profile so I'm just now able to finally log in.

Tradesman, I commend you for being the only support one can find at the G.Skill site. I, like you, am a system builder and have built many performance systems for gaming, geo mapping, design and graphic manipulation. I like to test the newest tech on my own machine, prior to considering even putting it into a production system that I attach my reputation to. You know, as well as I do, that you need to know about this stuff inside and out before using it, otherwise you chance ending up losing sales, and your reputation.

I have tried and sold Intel X25-Ms and actually love that drive for its quality and fulfillment of its hype. Not for every use, but satisfies for the most part. The obvious drawback here is capacity so I thought I would try the new Titans. I purchased two 128gb Titans from NE in early January and began testing them in both single drive and Raid 0. True of any SSD I've tried, when you do a fresh install, they run great, but get all your proggies installed and give it a few weeks and the Titans began exhibiting slowdowns, stutters and generally crappy performance. I came here too look at what the forums had to offer for assistance and found nothing but uninformed "techs" who basically tell you we can replace the defective drive(defective meaning it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do) with another defective drive(another one that won’t do what it’s supposed to do!) and then some almost smart aleck comments saying the "technology of SSDs" is poor? Pardon me, but the technology was great when you were marketing this product, wasn’t it? Some "techs" tell you to try tweaks(BTW, I've tried them all) and others flatly insinuate that nothing will help?

My conclusion-
1. G.Skill SSD products(all) miss the intended mark by quite a distance!
2. G.Skill is not willing, or unable to provide meaningful support! (Use OCZ as an example of how it should be done)
3. I can't build any systems using these drives because they are inferior to any alternative I have tested.
4. I need to get rid of these drives as soon as possible because they are about as valuable as an air conditioner in the Arctic.


So, I sold my Titan SSDs on eBay this week for a huge loss. I will not be using G.Skill SSDs in any of my future builds. Oh, and I am on contract to build 250 systems a year for one govt agency, and have many other accounts as well. And I have made a decision, based on this experience with G.Skill to stop using any G.Skill memory, or flash products in the future although I have used them extensively in the past without any problem. But there are other companies out there that deserve my business more than G.Skill and I will reward them with it. We all need to support those companies that fulfill the promise their marketing departments shout!

Good luck to all of those coming here to seek "support". I hope you actually get some at some point!