SpeedRead before/after SpinRite

[Uri]

Hi, this is an SSD from Crucial with a few monts of ligth use. the speed readings allways was fluctuating and at higher resolution the more slow the drive appears... so I use SpinRite on it.

Pre SpinRite

Driv Size  Drive Identity     Location:    0      25%     50%     75%     100
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
81  480GB CT480BX500SSD1                501.5   260.3   261.4   261.4   260.6

                  Benchmarked: Thursday, 2020-12-31 at 11:50

And this (/3 option without detail)

Driv Size  Drive Identity     Location:    0      25%     50%     75%     100
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
81  480GB CT480BX500SSD1                111.5   101.2   101.7   101.8   175.2
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
                  Benchmarked: Friday, 2021-01-01 at 20:38

Post SpinRite
(/3 option without detail)

Driv Size  Drive Identity     Location:    0      25%     50%     75%     100
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
81  480GB CT480BX500SSD1                546.3   545.3   546.4   546.3   544.3
---- ----- ---------------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
                  Benchmarked: Saturday, 2021-01-02 at 12:22

The pc feels snappier.

Great job and thank you Steve and all testers.

 

[Uri]

And what did you make Spinrite do? Level what?

Of course, level 3.

 

[PHolder]

SpinRite level 2 is read only. If you want any re-writing, it needs level 3. Level 4 will be too aggressive at re-writing to be healthy for SSDs.

 

[PHolder]

Level 2 can already make a big difference

Yes, it's true, but it largely depends on the SSD's controller/firmware. I've been lead to believe that no current SSD controller will ever do a write without being explicitly told to do so. I do believe that spinners have a different view on this, and if they encounter a hard to read sector, they will proactively fix it if possible.

 

[PHolder]

SSD drives shuffle data around all the time.

Only on write, and that is the issue. People are used to HDDs doing things on reads (such as failing a sector/cluster and marking it bad.) SSDs are not doing any changes on a read. They're free to change whatever they like on a write, because that is expected, but no one expects a read to reduce the write lifetime of the SSD.

 

[rfrazier]

Firmware may need ECC or even RR to retrieve the data

@DiskTuna Forgive my foggy brain. I know ECC means error correction code or something similar. And RR is?

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

 

[rfrazier]

@DiskTuna Wow. Thanks for that cool info. All that really scares me, and doesn't give me confidence. From my (not a chip designer) point of view, continually redefining what is a "1" and what is a "0", particularly in multi level cells, sounds really dangerous. Simplistic example. Bucket 1/2 + .0001 full. Ok it's a 1. Bucket is leaking (as you said). Bucket is 7/16 full. Ok it's still a 1 (from ECC). Bucket is 6/16 full. Ok it's still a 1. ... Bucket is 2/16 full. ???? What is it? Like I said, simplistic. But, it sounds like it won't end well. Lends credence to the idea of doing full rewrites a couple of times per year as we've been discussing. I always think it's better to keep data, than to restore data, or lose data.

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

 

[PHoganDive]

@DiskTuna Wow. Thanks for that cool info. All that really scares me, and doesn't give me confidence. From my (not a chip designer) point of view, continually redefining what is a "1" and what is a "0", particularly in multi level cells, sounds really dangerous. Simplistic example. Bucket 1/2 + .0001 full. Ok it's a 1. Bucket is leaking (as you said). Bucket is 7/16 full. Ok it's still a 1 (from ECC). Bucket is 6/16 full. Ok it's still a 1. ... Bucket is 2/16 full. ???? What is it? Like I said, simplistic. But, it sounds like it won't end well. Lends credence to the idea of doing full rewrites a couple of times per year as we've been discussing. I always think it's better to keep data, than to restore data, or lose data.

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

Spinning magnetic disks have the same thing going on...not every '1' bit is the same level of magnetization, it has to be above a certain level to be considered a 1. You can see that happening if you look at the raw data display in spinrite, where it shows the square waves it's getting off the read/write heads...the '1' levels vary quite significantly...it's not something new, or an issue with just SSD's...it's digital data being stored in an analog world.

 

[danlock]

All of this reminds me of a book I was reading about quantum programming recently, which discussed how slight variations in the "values" of the qubits can result in vastly different results, even floating-point numbers, as well as exponentially-increasing numbers of mundane, ordinary bits.

Sorry for the OT post.

 

[lovecakeboy]

All of this reminds me of a book I was reading about quantum programming recently, which discussed how slight variations in the "values" of the qubits can result in vastly different results, even floating-point numbers, as well as exponentially-increasing numbers of mundane, ordinary bits.

Sorry for the OT post.

I would say slight;y tangential rather than off topic. And super interesting!