Mid 2010 13-inch Mbp slow SSD performance

[Sam Leach]

Hi,

I have a Mid 2010 13-inch MacBook Pro that I upgraded with a OCZ Vertex 2 120GB (SATA 2) in late 2012. I also put 8GB of RAM in it at the same time.

After more than 3 years of use I ran Blackmagic Disk Speed Test today and I am not getting over 100MB/s on either read or write (below). Is this normal speed?

I realise that my MacBook Pro only has SATA 2 and the drive is only SATA 2 and the theoretical max is around 250 MB/s but I would have expected speeds approaching 200 MB/s at least?

(I will buy a new 15-inch Skylake MacBook Pro when they are released but in the meantime I want to squeeze out all the performance of my current model.)

In summary;

1. Are my SSD speeds slow or normal for my Mid 2010 MacBook Pro?
2. If I buy a modern SSD (SATA 3) will I be a able to approach the 250 MB/s theoretical speed? Which model is recommended?

Note, I have the original 250GB HDD in the optical drive bay, could this be affecting the SSD performance?

Thanks.

 

[Fancuku]

Those speeds are low, sata 2 or not. How much free space do you have?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hi,

I have a Mid 2010 13-inch MacBook Pro that I upgraded with a OCZ Vertex 2 120GB (SATA 2) in late 2012. I also put 8GB of RAM in it at the same time.

After more than 3 years of use I ran Blackmagic Disk Speed Test today and I am not getting over 100MB/s on either read or write (below). Is this normal speed?

View attachment 616055

I realise that my MacBook Pro only has SATA 2 and the drive is only SATA 2 and the theoretical max is around 250 MB/s but I would have expected speeds approaching 200 MB/s at least?

(I will buy a new 15-inch Skylake MacBook Pro when they are released but in the meantime I want to squeeze out all the performance of my current model.)

In summary;

1. Are my SSD speeds slow or normal for my Mid 2010 MacBook Pro?
2. If I buy a modern SSD (SATA 3) will I be a able to approach the 250 MB/s theoretical speed? Which model is recommended?

Note, I have the original 250GB HDD in the optical drive bay, could this be affecting the SSD performance?

Thanks.

Do you have trim enabled?? If not google it and find out a way to enable that suits you it should sort this out.

 

[Sam Leach]

Those speeds are low, sata 2 or not. How much free space do you have?

For most of the time the SSD has been more or less full. I re-installed OS X late 2015 and now I have 30GB free:

I just run Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on my full 250GB HDD and got 60MB/s read and write so something is not right.

Is there anything I can do with my current SSD before investing in a new one?
[doublepost=1455294507][/doublepost]

Do you have trim enabled?? If not google it and find out a way to enable that suits you it should sort this out.

TRIM was disabled. I enabled it with

sudo trimforce enable

but after reboot the speeds are the same.

 

[treekram]

I assume that the performance slowdown is recent - just checking.

Have you done any software installs/upgrades or have you opened the computer or had any kind of physical shock at about time you noticed the performance slowdown?

It would be good to check your SATA/SSD. Click on the Apple logo in the upper left. Select "About This Mac" and then press the "System Report" (I think that's what it was with Yosemite) button. In the window that appears, select the "SATA" line in the Hardware section. On the right will be the SATA connections you have. What chipset do you have? It should be an Nvidia something or other. Then click on the chipset specific to your SSD. On the bottom portion, it should have a "Link Speed" and "Negotiated Link Speed". What are those numbers? Then in the listing for the Vertex 2, it should have a Revision number. According to the OCZ website, it should be 1.37. You should also see what the SMART status is.

I also have an OCZ (later model) and in looking at your model, only the SSD Toolbox software (not SSD Guru) is available and it doesn't seem to have diagnostics or lifecycle statistics.

For me, if you're getting a link speed and negotiated link speed of 3 Gb, something may be wrong with the SSD. If you're getting a negotiated link speed of 1.5 Gb, it could be the computer or even the cable.

It may be a pain but it would be good if you could perform the Blackmagic test on the SSD on a computer with USB 3 in a USB 3 enclosure/docking station. I think it would help if the USB enclosure had UASP support. You can't get SATA 2 speeds with USB 2 so that's why you would want to test it on a USB 3 computer. If you're getting SATA 2 speeds, then your SSD is OK. If you're getting the same speeds, well ...

If testing on a USB 3 computer is not an option, you can run the Blackmagic test on your HDD, switch the HDD and SSD around and see what kind of results you get. This would be less useful that testing with USB 3 but it may come up with something. Needless to say, before moving around your SSD, you should make sure you have a current backup.

 

[Ries]

For most of the time the SSD has been more or less full. I re-installed OS X late 2015 and now I have 30GB free:

View attachment 616059

I just run Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on my full 250GB HDD and got 60MB/s read and write so something is not right.

Is there anything I can do with my current SSD before investing in a new one?
[doublepost=1455294507][/doublepost]

TRIM was disabled. I enabled it with

sudo trimforce enable

but after reboot the speeds are the same.

It doesn't "kick in" immediately. When you delete stuff, it tells the SSD which areas are unused.

Boot into single user mode and run the command "fsck -fy" to trim current unused areas (The SSD doesn't know yet, since trim was disabled when your current free space was "created"). After that it may take a day for the SSD to "clean up" using these areas (the disk does maintenance when it is idle).

 

[asoksevil]

Those speeds are certainly slow. My 2010 MBA has around 285 MB/s.

 

[Fishrrman]

Take the original HDD -OUT OF- the optical drive bay.

Close up and test again.

Same results?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

It doesn't "kick in" immediately. When you delete stuff, it tells the SSD which areas are unused.

Boot into single user mode and run the command "fsck -fy" to trim current unused areas (The SSD doesn't know yet, since trim was disabled when your current free space was "created"). After that it may take a day for the SSD to "clean up" using these areas (the disk does maintenance when it is idle).

This Trim will sort it out but it's not instant.