New SSD help please

Toxteth_OGrady

tbh you're not gonna get much more out of that drive on a SATA III mobo. This is what I get from a Crucial C300 on an Intel SATA II port:

poppellerant

This is the webpage on Asus' website for your motherboard: http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A88TV_EVOUSB3/

This is the webpage on OCZ's website for your SSD drive: http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-agility-3-sata-iii-2-5-ssd.html

It does seem you have SATA 2.0 which runs at a data rate of 3 Gbit/sec. That gives you a maximum transfer speed of around 300 MB/sec. According to OCZ's site, the Agility 3 has a maximum read speed of up to 525 MB/sec and write speed of 475 MB/sec. So in short, I'd expect faster speeds.

My first question is did you use the AHCI from Asus? If not, when you install Windows 7, you can choose to load drivers at the stage where you choose which drive to install Windows to. Usually you can just copy the drivers to the USB stick, point the Windows installer to the folder and away you go.

I can't see if you say you use 32-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit. But from the AHCI driver I downloaded for your motherboard, you should choose the the following folders: AMD_RAID_AHCI_XPVISTAWIN7 > RAID > Driver > Win 7 > AHCI. From there, choose Win7x86 if you have 32-bit Windows and Win7x64 for 64-bit.

My second question is are you definitely using a SATA 2 cable? Some cables are good enough for the higher specifications. I'd future proof myself by getting a SATA 3 cable. I'm not saying it will add dozens of MB/sec to your transfer speeds - but I'm not saying try won't will hurt either.

Toxteth_OGrady

poppellerant wrote: »

This is the webpage on OCZ's website for your SSD drive: http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-agility-3-sata-iii-2-5-ssd.html

and the webpage says;

*Max performance achieved using Native SATA 6Gbps chipset. Please refer to product sheet for additional performance metrics

and the OCZ product sheet gives the AS SSD metrics for the SSD that I showed in post #7 and the OP's actual AS SSD benchmark in post #1 compares favourably.

poppellerant

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

and the webpage says;



and the OCZ product sheet gives the AS SSD metrics for the SSD that I showed in post #7 and the OP's actual AS SSD benchmark in post #1 compares favourably.

You are comparing two different drives, which is like comparing chalk to cheese.

Toxteth_OGrady

poppellerant wrote: »

You are comparing two different drives, which is like comparing chalk to cheese.

How so? Am I being thick (wouldn't necessarily rule that out )? I clicked on the OCZ link in your post and then clicked on the Product Sheet link there.

poppellerant

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

How so? Am I being thick (wouldn't necessarily rule that out ). I clicked on the OCZ link in your post and then clicked on the Product Sheet link there.

Sorry, I wasn't reading that properly - my own error.

But I would still install the correct AHCI drivers and cable.

Toxteth_OGrady

poppellerant wrote: »

Sorry, I wasn't reading that properly - my own error.

But I would still install the correct AHCI drivers and cable.

Certainly worth a try but I'd bet the farm it won't give a significant improvement.

I once did some comparisons on an Intel ICH10 SATA II port between the native Win 7 Microsoft AHCI drivers (msahci) and the Intel chipset driver (iastor). The MS gave marginally better results. Don't know about this chipset though so worth a shot.