Just bought a used SSD... a few questions

[Clarkinkent]

Hello guys,

Although I have been visiting the Forum very often for answers. This is the first time I needed to post something.

I just bought a used SSD from eBay mostly for testing and experimenting and build my knowledge a bit on them.

It is a Zalman F Series 120 SSD according to the seller it is 1yr old, however still well within it's 3yr manufacturer warranty.

I have a relatively old custom made AMD desktop machine, I built my self about 5 yrs? ago... I have updated components as the years gonne by.

It has the following specification

Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit SP1
ASROCK M3a790gmh128m Motherboard
AMD Phenom II x4 965 3.4GHz BE (standard spec at the moment not overclocked)
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO for CPU Cooler.
ASUS EAH6770/2DI/1GD5 1GB (connected to 2 x 23" LED monitors extended desktop)
4GB DDR3 1333MHz (2x4GB Modules)
Data Drive 1TB Hitachi HDD (HDS721919CKA332) 7200rpm (I think SATA2)
OS Drive 120GB Zalman F Series SSD
SATA DVD Recorder.

Since I could not remember what my MB controller was ... I looked online and I discovered it is SATA 2 not SATA 3.
So I gather this will have a small impact on the performance of the SSD.

If it makes a difference I can replace the Hitachi HDD with a Seagate Baracuda ST2000DM001 2TB I have in my drawer empty... I can recall it is faster than the Hitachi as the Seagate will support SATA3 and when I ran some tests it performed faster to the Hitachi.

Also I could put my RAM back to 16GB ... but some reason my (2x4GB) modules started giving me BSOD ... so I removed them. I still get some now and then... but it is like once per week ... instead of one every 2hrs! and have Firefox crashing every minute... explorer not working properly... etc. Anyhow I am not 100% sure it is the RAM as it might be that MB ... acting up. It is due for replacement!!!

Things I have done already since I installed the SSD:
I have enabled Write Caching and Turned off Windows write cache buffer flushing.
Disabled Indexing.
Disabled Defragmentation.
Disabled Superfetch.
On Firefox enabled the use of memory cache instead of disk cache.
Disabled the Page File.
Disabled System Restore.
Enabled Trim.

Is there anything I else I could do?

Don't take me wrong the computer flies!!! it is way way faster with the SSD installed, especially taking in mind this is a tired windows installation been on the PC for almost a year.

Thanks in advance

Crystal Info report is below



I have ran several tests and cannot seem to be getting more than 220MB/s ...
HD Tune and Crystal Disk Mark results are below

 

[mbreslin1954]

With a SATA II controller you won't get more than 220 MB/s. I did the same thing recently, put a 120 GB SSD in one of my dauthers' Dell laptop which only had a SATA II controller built in, and the SSD will not do more than about 215 MB/s. Yet when the same SSD was in a desktop with a SATA III controller, it regularly scored between 385 and 400 MB/s.

It's still at least twice as fast as a HDD, but only half as fast as it could be with a more modern motherboard with a SATA III controller.

 

[Clarkinkent]

Thanks mbreslin
sounds about right what you say.
I managed to increase the speed a but more since I posted the thread, by changing the registry to AHCI and the my BIOS
I made a "massive" difference on the Windows Scoring System at least jumped from 7.0 to 7.5
I have ran also AS SSD Benchmark ... just to see the scoring there too.
So after AHCI enabled here are the results.
HD Tune brought exactly the same results 189.0MB/s average... which is 0.9MB/s with the ACHI not enabled.
Crystal Disk Mark increased a big amount....

 

[mbreslin1954]

Yeah, I forgot about AHCI. I've been using it ever since Vista came out so I don't think to mention it. I guess I assume that everybody has their SATA access set to AHCI.

 

[Dereck47]

Your AS-SSD results show msahci - OK, which means that you are using Microsoft's default AHCI drivers.

If you update your AMD Chipset drivers you may increase your AS-SSD results by a few points. http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/chipset?os=Windows 8 - 32

 

[Clarkinkent]

Thank you guys.
I think I reached at the best possible speed for the SATA 2 interface.
Next week when I will get some nice new M/B and a nice new Memory... shall have better results in theory.