New SSD is very slow under Xubuntu 14.04

Question

I got myself a Transcend 64GB SSD (model number: TS64GSSD340).

I put the SSD into a tiny netbook I have. Netbook specs are:

• Make/Model: Acer V5-123
• CPU: AMD E1-2100 with Radeon HD 8210
• RAM: (came with 4GB, but, I upgraded to 8GB because I put /tmp into tmpfs)

This netbook came with Windows 8.1, but, I removed that entire HDD and put the Transcend 64GB SSD in its place. Then, I installed Xubuntu 14.04 onto the SSD.

Firmware info for the Transcend SSD is as follows:

$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep -i firmware
    Firmware Revision: SVN263

I checked online and couldn't find any (new/updated) firmware files for this drive.

Based on various notes found all over the web, I have done the following ssd optimizations:

• Left about 4GB of unused + unallocated space on the drive at the time of creating partitions (i.e., at the time of installation)
• Added noatime for / to the fstab
• Added "fstrim -V /" to rc.local and yes, my rc.local is always executable because I have a bunch of other things i do in it
• Removed the fstrim from cron weekly
• Made sure that the ff cache is 0

Now, the real issue is that the drive is DEAD SLOW. I mean, booting up takes over a minute. Starting firefox, terminal, gedit, etc, take a lot of time. (Before you jump onto me ... yes, I did install a lot of software, including my favorite editor gedit, onto this system).

My only point of comparison at this point is time is my other notebook (fujitsu, core i3, 8GB, 500 GB magnetic HDD) running Xubuntu 13.10. That notebook boots up in under a minute, possibly in half a minute! But, this SSD netbook running Xubuntu 14.04 neither boots up quickly nor does it start apps quickly. Clearly, my assumption that an SSD will speed up things was wrong!!??

Additional info: Xubuntu kernel is 3.13.0-30-generic (64 bit).


Update # 1
I did two tests mentioned in the Arch wiki SSD Benchmarking page, as suggested by @Tuknutx. Each test was done four times:

1. "sudo hdparam -Tt /dev/sda" generated "average cache reads at 1030.7125 MBps" and "average buffered reads at 362.2075 MBps"
2. dd read test with empty buffer cache generated "average reads at 383.5 MBps"

I put together the following script (based on the contents of Arch wiki SSD Benchmarking page) to do the "dd read test":

# first create a file 
dd if=/dev/zero of=./tempfile bs=1M count=1024 conv=fdatasync,notrunc

for i in 1 2 3 4
do
  echo "Run number ${i} ..."
  # then clear the buffer cache
  sudo bash -c "echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches"
  # now read the file
  dd if=./tempfile of=/dev/null bs=1M count=1024
  echo
done

I have not performed other tests mentioned on that page.

Update # 2
I did one thing after completing those tests: I had put "vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50" into my /etc/sysctl.conf, but, now I removed it. After that change and a reboot, the system seems to be booting up (from "Acer" logo to auto-login") in just under 30s. But, my assumption was that things should be even faster than that because my magnetic HDDs are giving me those sort of boot times!!

Update # 3

I still have to follow @Lekensteyn suggestion of moving the SSD onto the core i3 notebook. I will do that soon and report here.

Shouldn't SSDs be blazing fast?
Given all that info, what would you recommend I do to speed up the drive.

I would appreciate if you give me specific directions (text + commands) to run to speed up the drive.

Update # 4

People! Thanks a lot for your helpful replies. But, this SSD was so PATHETIC that I threw it out of the window ... no kidding. Let me know how to close this question as there is no point in wasting our time on this pethetically low quality product produced by Transcend and sold by Flipkart in India.

Adios! Peace!

Answer 1

The product sheet lists the following performance data for capacities "32GB~256GB":

• Seq. Read/Write 520MB/s, 290MB/s
• Max. 4k random file read 69,000 IOPS
• Max. 4k random file write 68,000 IOPS.

The truth is that performance of SSDs greatly depends on the number of storage dies and that the smallest versions of a product line usually are slower and don't achieve the performance of the top model.

Knowing that, the following data from geizhals/skinflint look more accurate and somewhat disappointing:

• Read: 364MB/s
• Write: 73MB/s
• IOPS 4k read/Write: 33.096k/17.674k

Yes, SSDs have faster access times, but transfer speeds of low end models can actually be lower than HDDs. You should read tests (with real world data and scenarios) of up to date available consumer hardware before shopping (The last one I read was about the 840 EVO mSATA release earlier this year). If you are searching for bargains, read tests of last years hardware too and make comparisons to pick the right product that meets your expectations.

---

dd if=/dev/zero of=./tempfile bs=1M count=1024 conv=fdatasync,notrunc

To be polite, this is the most unreliable way of testing HDD performance and for SSDs it's even worse. The controller on the SSD probably saw all the incoming zeros and stored the information that you wrote 1 GiB of nothing. Also real data is not made up of ideal continuous streams in one portion of your storage space, therefore use real data and real scenarios.

Answer 2

You are running fstrim at boot time, so add that time to your normal boot. Run it manually to see how long it takes:

sudo  fstrim -v /

You might be better off putting the weekly cron job back, or just running fstrim manually.
Also, you don't want the "discard" option in fstab, that will impact performance.

Answer 3

For the most part sluggishness in a netbook (even with an SSD) comes down to one of the following.

• An older SATA controller (v1 or v2), since a SSD can usually flood this channel, you'll generally only get about 2x the i/o over an HDD.
• A really slow or otherwise limited CPU, usually the memory controllers, on-chip cache and other features are reduced compared to full featured counterparts.
• A bloated OS install
• Limited RAM

Given that you're running a light OS (Xubuntu) and you do have a SATA 3 controller, and have plenty of RAM I would suggest testing the drive in another system to be certain.

Edited in response to comments

Answer 4

I have a lot of performance issues with SSDs too. I know about trim, partition alignment, firmware and so on. I have really poor performance with sandforce based controllers especially. On drives that have are slow, one solution works universally: use the JFS filesystem.

Unfortunately on Debian-based systems, the shutdown process most always results in an unclean shutdown. This occurs frequently with upstart and always using systemd. However, if you don't mind running the risk of a corrupted filesystem, JFS always fixes it. You will find that these SSDs always work great in Windows, too. I just bought a Phison S10 based SSD after hearing good things about that controller. Well, same issue. Reinstall using JFS, works great. My Samsung EVO 850, great on all filesystems.