How can I debug issues with my SSD?

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My computer has slowed to a crawl, and I'm pretty sure my SSD is the culprit. As of this morning, my OS takes forever to start up (20+ minutes to get to the Windows login). Ever since I installed the SSD I've had random slow downs where Windows freezes for several second before responding, once even leading to a BSOD about processor clock not responding in time.

The fact that it now takes forever to start and run is new as of a few hours ago, but the drive is a few weeks old now. I've got Samsung Magician (the SSD monitoring software that comes with the drive) and am trying to run some diagnostics, but it is taking a long time.

What is a good way to debug and isolate issues with a SSD that I can employ?

Some more details about my particular case:

  • Drive is Samsung 840 SSD (520 gb)
  • On Windows 7 64 bit
  • OS was installed clean on this drive, and I can boot to my old OS if needed
  • Drivers and firmware reporting as up to date on all pieces of hardware on the machine

LoveAndCoding

Posted 2013-08-05T00:33:02.350

Reputation: 199

Possible answer http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/275607-32-slow

– spuder – 2013-08-05T00:44:11.953

Did you install the OS fresh or transfer it from another drive? – cutrightjm – 2013-08-05T01:49:41.470

Installed fresh. Looks like my drive may have just had a hardware failure though, so that may have been the cause :( – LoveAndCoding – 2013-08-05T02:05:40.437

Answers

1

AHCI Mode

Sata ports can usually be configured to AHCI or IDE. Make sure it is configured as AHCI

Capacity

All hard disks will slow considerably the closer they are to being full. Keep atleast 20% available free space.

Run Checkdisk
Solid State drives can get bad sectors just like normal hard drives. Run a checkdisk on the drive.

TRIM Support

It is very likely that TRIM is not enabled.

If you aren't familiar with TRIM, checkout this article.

To see if TRIM is enabled, open up powershell, and enter the following command

fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

If it returns 1, that means TRIM is disabled. To enable TRIM, run the following command. 

fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0

Check Alignment

All drives newer than 2011 should ship with 4096 Block size. Verify that your block size is 4096 or a number evenly divisible by 4096.

AHCI Drivers

The slow performance and blue screens could also be caused by having missing / outdated AHCI drivers installed. (Source)
Go to your manufactures website, and download the latest AHCI drivers. It would be good to install the latest chipset drivers while you are at it.

Disable Unneeded Services

These settings should be configured regardless if your SSD is running slowly or not. Things like the pagefile, system restore, and disk defragmentation should be adjusted for SSDs.

Fresh Install

If you have a spare hard drive, use a program like norton ghost, or acronis disk utility to clone the drive. Perform a fresh install and see if the problem goes away. It could be a corrupted installation of windows.

Resources

http://blogs.computerworld.com/ssd/20839/windows-7-and-ssds-3-things-look-out
http://solid-state-drive-review.toptenreviews.com/what-is-trim-support.html http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/298293-32-slowing-down

spuder

Posted 2013-08-05T00:33:02.350

Reputation: 8 755

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, TRIM support is enabled on my machine already. – LoveAndCoding – 2013-08-05T00:58:28.697

@Ktash I've updated the answer with a few more things to try. My money is on a Missing AHCI driver, or a corrupted windows install. – spuder – 2013-08-05T01:31:51.957

Asked: 2013-08-05T00:33:02.350

Viewed: 1 083 times

Active: 2013-08-05T01:30:59.907