Sata 2 SSD Transfer rates

[MOGATRON]

So I just bought a SSD (specifically this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167127 ) and I am not sure if I am getting proper transfer rates. I only have SATA2 on my mobo but are these transfer rates really accurate? I am probably doing something glaringly obvious wrong. I am currently running Windows 8 if you need me to post more system specs I can. Thanks.

[BicycleMafioso]

Which motherboard do you have? And what specific ports have you plugged this into? Do you have any USB3.0 device attached and how many Graphics cards and other PCI-E cards do you use?

These share bandwidth.

[MOGATRON]

-Mobo: EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813188017
-Ports: Not sure I would have to look it up on a reboot, but I have a HDD, DVD/CD, and the SSD connected via SATA2 ports
-I cant use USB 3.0
-Graphics Card: EVGA 01G-P3-1372-TR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130571
-I only have 1 PCI-E slot

[BicycleMafioso]

Well, the sustained reads should be at least twice as high. So try moving the SSD-cable to, if you have one, a differently coloured sata-port.

[Faithh]

Well, the sustained reads should be at least twice as high. So try moving the SSD-cable to, if you have one, a differently coloured sata-port.

http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/...22-CK-NF66.pdf

Page 31 - he only has 4 the same ports and the manual is not describing from which controller the sata ports are. Possibly they all are from the same sata controller though.

@ OP do you have AHCI enabled?

Open CMD and type this

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify


0= ON
1= OFF

[MOGATRON]

I already typed that in the dos prompt and turned it on I believe. Also I am having trouble trying to figure out how to turn on AHCI. I turned it on in Windows via registry edits but I cant figure out how to turn it on in my BIOS. A quick google said to try and turn on Raid mode, and I did that but so far I am getting no changes in read/write speeds.

QUICK EDIT: should i take a series of pictures of my BIOS with my phone so I can be better helped out? Also the only time I really see a huge boost in speed is when Windows 8 loads, everything else seems to load at a normal rate.



---------- Post added 2012-11-27 at 06:15 PM ----------

Also I hate to ask this but would flashing new BIOS be a possible solution here? I believe I have the newest version of my BIOS flashed currently.

[vesseblah]

Your motherboard is really old so it's possible it does not support AHCI properly. It needs to be on the motherboard, registry hacks will not help. When you're twiddling SATA port settings there should be "mode" setting which has three options in modern motherboard: IDE, AHCI and RAID. Both AHCI and RAID will run the discs in AHCI mode. If yours is missing AHCI or there's no mode selector it's 99% sure the motherboard does not support the faster transfer mode.

But you still should see much higher speed, about twice as much as you do now, so something else is messed up too.

[BicycleMafioso]

Could you download Intel RST and check diagnostics and what it's telling you about the SSD?

[Mekks]

Looks about right for a sataII port. The drive will speed up alot in a sataIII port.

[vesseblah]

Looks about right for a sataII port. The drive will speed up alot in a sataIII port.

No it's really far from about right. SATA3 SSD should reach about 270-280MB/s speeds in SATA2 port when it's working properly.

[Faithh]

I already typed that in the dos prompt and turned it on I believe. Also I am having trouble trying to figure out how to turn on AHCI. I turned it on in Windows via registry edits but I cant figure out how to turn it on in my BIOS. A quick google said to try and turn on Raid mode, and I did that but so far I am getting no changes in read/write speeds.

QUICK EDIT: should i take a series of pictures of my BIOS with my phone so I can be better helped out? Also the only time I really see a huge boost in speed is when Windows 8 loads, everything else seems to load at a normal rate.



---------- Post added 2012-11-27 at 06:15 PM ----------

Also I hate to ask this but would flashing new BIOS be a possible solution here? I believe I have the newest version of my BIOS flashed currently.

That DOS command doesn't turn it on but it checks if it's enabled or disabled. The reason why it's underperforming is because that you don't have AHCI mode enabled in the bios.

Just been googling and there isn't any support for those nvidia chipsets which just sucks. But there's an alternative fix for it. That you have to switch to ide mode in bios and using the microsoft drivers for ide.

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=282437

I'm pretty 100000% certain that you have the performance drop because TRIM (ahcimode) is disabled you have a SATA 2 which should allow you to reach 375MB/s at least but just take 340MB/s.

[MOGATRON]

Trim is on!



I enabled 2 of the 3 drivers to be the Microsoft IDE drivers but the 3rd one didnt give me the option, but it wasnt a nvidia controller:



Edit: also I didn't see anything about editing something in my BIOS for IDE in that link you posted Faithh

---------- Post added 2012-11-27 at 08:04 PM ----------

Could you download Intel RST and check diagnostics and what it's telling you about the SSD?

I tried installing this stuff but apparently it isn't supported by Windows 8

[Deleted]

The 6XX series nVidia mobos do not have AHCI, nor Trim. I also have an older nForce mobo and I can only run SSDs at SATA1 speeds.

[vesseblah]

Good news for you is that even if the SSD will never reach proper sustained transfer rates you will still benefit from the improved seek times. Booting Windows or loading WoW will still get nearly full speed benefit from it compared to HDD.

[Faithh]

I tried installing this stuff but apparently it isn't supported by Windows 8

Second.. http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...&DownloadType=

This is the AHCI only version.

You have trim enabled so this just basically means the sata 2 ports are the bottleneck.

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=112669

Check that guy, who has been a bit stupid to connect his SSD to sata 2 port instead of a sata 3 port.

Also he uses a much more modern motherboard which just simply means it has a better sata controller on his motherboard and still his scores are very low on Sata II. Southbridge chipsets are been improved after years you know..

I just spent a lot of time researching this all for you and this would suit you lovely.

The only option you still have is buying a sata 3 controller card which you have to plug into a pci-express port and connect the ssd with that card.

The price is only 30$.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=axdyogj8qx87

Remind that you don't have to use Intel RST with that card, it's another driver because it's not an intel controller and possibly won't work. Just intall the manufacturer's driver.

The 6XX series nVidia mobos do not have AHCI, nor Trim. I also have an older nForce mobo and I can only run SSDs at SATA1 speeds.

He has trim enabled. Check the command prompt he gave.

[MOGATRON]

The only option you still have is buying a sata 3 controller card which you have to plug into a pci-express port and connect the ssd with that card.

The price is only 30$.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=axdyogj8qx87

I might just go ahead and buy the card you suggested anyway since its cheap and will get me sata 3 connection for even faster speeds. So would this card plug into the slots I have highlighted in red here?

[Faithh]

I might just go ahead and buy the card you suggested anyway since its cheap and will get me sata 3 connection for even faster speeds. So would this card plug into the slots I have highlighted in red here?

Of course. The black ones are faster than the white ones.

[MOGATRON]

It looks like my mobo is PCI-Express 1.0. Would getting that PCI-Express 2.0 SATA 3 card be a bad idea?

[glo]

It looks like my mobo is PCI-Express 1.0. Would getting that PCI-Express 2.0 SATA 3 card be a bad idea?

Ignore his advice completely please for the following reasons:

1. Those cards take anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to post, completely negating the boot speed increase from an SSD.
2. PCIe 1 single lanes have less bandwidth than SATA2 anyway. No motherboards with those slots are at PCIe 2 regardless, and if they were, the speed would be near identical vs SATA2.

[BicycleMafioso]

Ignore his advice completely please for the following reasons:

1. Those cards take anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to post, completely negating the boot speed increase from an SSD.
2. PCIe 1 single lanes have less bandwidth than SATA2 anyway. No motherboards with those slots are at PCIe 2 regardless, and if they were, the speed would be near identical vs SATA2.

What.
Almost all motherboards today have at least one PCI-e 1x slot. Some have four.

While I would definitely agree with you on not getting that card, the reasons you wrote appear confusing to me.