New, non-OS 840 Pro 256gb with slow read/write(details and benches inside)

[ltj311]

So I just hooked up this SSD as a secondary drive just to check it out, install a game or two. I'm eventually gonna put the OS on it.

So I have an older pre-built(XPS 7100) that has 5 SATA ports. According to this thread, 7100's don't come with SATA III but according to SiSoft, my active transfer mode is SATA600, which I assume is SATA III or 6gb/s. So does this mean that SATA 5(which my SSD is hooked up to) is my 6gb/s port since it says my 840 Pro has active transfer speeds of SATA600?

Now I have 5 ports and out of convenience/laziness I just plugged the SSD into the SATA 5 because I didn't want to remove my GPU to get to an earlier port. So I just assumed that this port wasn't SATA III and was understanding of the slow speeds and that once I plug it into the right port I'll get the appropriate speeds. But what worries me a bit is that I AM on a SATA III port and just not getting full performance.

I used the Samsung Magician software to optimize and I guess I was pretty much there since before and after benchmarks were about the same...

I have write caching and AHCI enabled with no compression.

I guess I'm just curious if there is any way to find out what speeds my SATA ports are. I've looked everywhere, finding pictures galore of my ghetto mobo but no markings as to the speeds of each SATA port. And SiSoft just tells me what is available to the hard drive and what is active. I haven't found a program that actually lists the speed capabilities of each port, unless I have a device hooked up to it. It seems like I'll just have to do trial and error, doing benchmarks to find the SATA III port assuming there is one. Unless my SSD IS on the SATA III port in which case uh oh.

Do you guys have any thoughts as to whether I'm actually on a SATA III port and what I can do to get the circa 500 speeds that I'm hoping for? I noticed that I have blue(I think), white, and black SATA ports. Does this tell me the speed of them?

Thanks for any and all input.

 

[Y0GI]

I'm not that familiar with the output from SiSoft Sandra, but I'm wondering if the "SATA 600" is the speed of the drive and not necessarily the port on the computer.

Try running the "Belarc Advisor" to get more info about what you computer's hardware consists of. http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html I would expect that the color codes on the ports do indicate different capabilities.

Is that a Dell computer?

Yogi

 

[Dereck47]

Benchmark your SSD with ATTO software.

ATTO uses highly compressible data to test Read/Write speeds. Highly compressible data is the easiest type of data for any SSD to Read/Write.

SATA 3 (6Gb/s) speeds are from 301MB/s to 600MB/s.
If your ATTO Read/Write speeds are less than 301MB/s then that will confirm that the ports on your motherboard are SATA 2 (3Gb/s).

You can connect your SSD to each SATA port on your motherboard and test with ATTO verify Read/Write speeds.

 

[ltj311]

Thanks guys for the help.

Y0GI, yea I thought that too about SATA 600 being the max potential of the drive and not the actual performance it's getting. It is a Dell. I ran the Belarc Advisor, which is a pretty cool program, but didn't shed any light as to the speeds of my SATA ports...that I could see anyway.

Dereck47, I ran the ATTO benchmark and I'm still getting sub 300mb/s speeds. So it appears that I'm not on a SATA III port.

Work is beating me pretty hard right now. I'll reply hopefully over the weekend with my results after trying the different SATA ports.