Samsung 860 EVO SATA III 250 GB

[kristijan.dini1]

Hello. Few days ago i replaced my HDD because it had damaged cells with the Samsung 860 EVO SATA III 250 GB ssd. Since im new to ssd-s i did read a bit and saw that there is a software called samsung magician. So i downloaded it. I have a question:

1. What does the S.M.A.R.T. button do below the Drive condition status
2. On the "Interface" i have the yellow ! displayed and it says "SATA 3 is available". Does that mean that it doesnt operate at full speed? I didnt install the drive myself, the guy did it for me and he did put it on the same cable as my old HDD i think. Does the "SATA 3 is available" mean that my laptop 100% supports SATA III ? Or It doesnt have to be ? How can I check if my laptop supports SATA 3 or no ?
3. Is this yellow ! displaying because i need to download some drivers for my motherboard or something ? Do i need to do that since the SSD technology is new, and my laptop is:

Aspire V3-771G (year 2012.)
Windows 10 - 64 bit

4. Do i need to run "Performance Optimization" in the samsung magician every time to time?


https://imgur.com/a/aKpNwug
https://imgur.com/a/mu1EqvP


If you guys could help me since Im new to this. I would apreciate it soo much ! Thank you !


EDIT: I did run the peformance test and it shows that my SSD is working on less than 50% speed. What can I do to get it work on maximum speed ?

https://imgur.com/a/IBPhIBn

 

[CountMike]

1. Displays SMART information from SSDs firmware.
2. and 3. and EDIT, You connected it to SATA2 (3GB/sec) instead of faster SATA3 (6gb/sec) port.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

 

[kristijan.dini1]

So you think my laptop provides sat III since its from 2012, or SM just says "SATA III is available" because the SSD can work on that but that doesnt mean my laptop supports it?

 

[CountMike]

This second explanation is more likely. In any case it's much faster than any HDD, specially of laptop variety.

 

[kristijan.dini1]

Can i see that to be sure some way without opening my laptop? Is there some program or something that will tell me if my laptop supports SATA III?

 

[CountMike]

Opening it wouldn't help, ports/headers are same.
Here: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Aspire-V3-771G-Notebook.74597.0.html
it shows SATA2 only:
The installed Intel Series 320 SSD (SSDSA2CW120G3) has a capacity of 120 GB and its standalone version is around EUR 150(~ $190) at many retailers. The drive manages a read and write speed of up to 230MB/sand 130 MB/s respectively in the CrystalDiskMark benchmark. This SSD is from the last generation and is limited to these speeds as it is using the SATA II controller that limits its performance. It has been replaced by the new Intel 330 line of SSDs that feature a heavily tweaked Sandforce controller. Although other SSDs easily surpass the installed Intel drive, the comparison with the Toshiba MK1059GSMP hard disk in the Aspire V3-771G is impressive: Access speed: 17.5 milliseconds vs. 0.18 / 0.12 for the Intel SSD.

 

[kristijan.dini1]

Opening it wouldn't help, ports/headers are same.
Here: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Aspire-V3-771G-Notebook.74597.0.html
it shows SATA2 only:
The installed Intel Series 320 SSD (SSDSA2CW120G3) has a capacity of 120 GB and its standalone version is around EUR 150(~ $190) at many retailers. The drive manages a read and write speed of up to 230MB/sand 130 MB/s respectively in the CrystalDiskMark benchmark. This SSD is from the last generation and is limited to these speeds as it is using the SATA II controller that limits its performance. It has been replaced by the new Intel 330 line of SSDs that feature a heavily tweaked Sandforce controller. Although other SSDs easily surpass the installed Intel drive, the comparison with the Toshiba MK1059GSMP hard disk in the Aspire V3-771G is impressive: Access speed: 17.5 milliseconds vs. 0.18 / 0.12 for the Intel SSD.

Thank you for the reply ! So you think that I dont support SATA III 100% even if Samsung magician says "Sata III is available ? So maybe buying a SSD that works at 50% speed was not the best move on my old laptop. Maybe I could achieve the same speed with an HDD ? Is there any way to speed up a bit the SSD that works on SATA II? Maybe using the Samsung Magician and turning on RAPID mode ?

 

[CountMike]

It's only sequential speed of large files transfer that suffers because of slower interface. Much more important is data transfer (read/write) for 4K and 4k-64k that most of SW is made for. Those kinds are imperceptibly slower so it doesn't matter much. Those are also much faster than on any HDD.
The greatest kicker, when comparing an SSD and HDD, is access time. which may be 100 or more times faster on SSD.
HDDs can also have only one stream of data from heads/platter and SSDs up to 4 streams at same time and also read and write at same time. HDDs can do only one thing at a time. SSDs also do not suffer from fragmentation.

 

[kristijan.dini1]

One more question guys

Since i got the 250 gb version, and the capacity shown is 232 gb after installing windows 10, will the SSD become slower when i fill it up and have for example just 20 gb free space ? And do i need to keep some % of free space for SSD to work properly or no?


Thank you !

 

[USAFRet]

One more question guys

Since i got the 250 gb version, and the capacity shown is 232 gb after installing windows 10, will the SSD become slower when i fill it up and have for example just 20 gb free space ? And do i need to keep some % of free space for SSD to work properly or no?


Thank you !

For a 250GB drive, you should never go over about 200GB actual used space.