ReadSpeed before/after SpinRite ran

[dale]

Hi,
This WD 500GB Blue SSD was purchased 18 months ago and installed in a 9 year old computer that served mainly,
until recently as a PLEX server, which probably accounts for the low speed in region 0.

Driv Size  Drive Identity     Location:    0      25%     50%     75%     100
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
 81  500GB WDC  WDS500G2B0A-00SM50        17.9   349.3   544.7   544.7   541.4

                  Benchmarked: Monday, 2020-12-28 at 16:19

After running SpinRite:

Driv Size  Drive Identity     Location:    0      25%     50%     75%     100
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
 81  500GB WDC  WDS500G2B0A-00SM50       326.5   532.7   531.6   531.3   534.5

                  Benchmarked: Wednesday, 2020-12-30 at 13:06

Nice!! Way to go Steve!!

Dale

 

[rfrazier]

@dale That's very interesting. What level did you run SpinRite on? It's very interesting that an SSD would show this difference in read speed across the different blocks of the drive after you fixed it.

@Steve Is it true that the drive will only refresh the sectors or reallocate sectors on a write, not a read? Does that mean that running SpinRite on level 2 would NOT rejuvenate the drive? Does it also mean that running a full AV scan, which would read the whole drive, would NOT rejuvenate the drive?

Ron

 

[Steve]

@rfrazier : I believe that's all correct. A read-only pass might teach the drive something about itself, but Intel's Allyn Malventano who's their storage guy stated that unlike HDDs, SSDs will not write their own media unless written to. I don't fully understand what's going on, since a barely readable block should, it seems to me, upset the SSD and cause it to consider that block for reassignment.

 

[dale]

@rfrazier I ran it on Level 3. I had heard Steve mention on Security Now!, that was the level to use on SSD's.

FYI - I have never used level 3 before in 14 years of owning SpinRite. I new it was there but I had to find it.

 

[rfrazier]

@dale I've never used Level 3 either until recently with these ReadSpeed tests. However, I do a Level 4 when I get a new drive to burn it in. Maybe I'll do a Level 3 once every year or two or when ReadSpeed starts looking odd. I googled the data sheet for your drive. It appears to be rated at 600 TBW (TeraBytes written). So, doing a full write on a .5 TB drive uses up 1/1200 of it's life, less than .1%. Not too bad a penalty to pay for refurbishing it. If you're interested, I posted more info on drive endurance on the following thread.

https://forums.grc.com/threads/slow-ssd-up-front-improved-by-spinrite.362/

May your bits be stable and your interfaces be fast. Ron

 

[dale]

In the podcast yesterday (which I just listened to today) @Steve suggested I try some things after my post last week.

So, this first run of RS.exe was on the same machine which had been turned off for several days. Maybe that's why region 0 improved a little bit. The machine was cold, if that makes a difference.

Driv Size  Drive Identity     Location:    0      25%     50%     75%     100
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
 81  500GB WDC  WDS500G2B0A-00SM50       447.7   529.4   531.2   531.0   531.9

                  Benchmarked: Wednesday, 2021-01-06 at 19:59

The next one was done after a SpinRite level 2

Driv Size  Drive Identity     Location:    0      25%     50%     75%     100
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
 81  500GB WDC  WDS500G2B0A-00SM50       534.9   533.4   532.8   532.3   532.3

                  Benchmarked: Wednesday, 2021-01-06 at 20:59

This last one was run after @Steve suggested a TRIM command be used in Windows10.
Here is the command listed in the show notes yesterday:

“Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter C: -ReTrim -Verbose”

Driv Size  Drive Identity     Location:    0      25%     50%     75%     100
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
 81  500GB WDC  WDS500G2B0A-00SM50       528.8   542.3   544.7   544.7   537.8

                  Benchmarked: Wednesday, 2021-01-06 at 21:18

Looks like the TRIM command did the job.

Regards, Dale

 

[lovecakeboy]

Thanks for following up!

We're seeing some impressive results from level 2 Spinrite passes, and this adds to them!

Weird that the 0% spot was down after TRIM?

 

[Steve]

Looks like the TRIM command did the job.

Very cool, Dale! Thanks for taking the hint and following up!