Is my SSD (Samsung 83) running at half speed?

I am a proud owner of a new M17x R3. A09 BIOS. No Intel RST driver. Latest Intel chipset drivers installed from the M18x side. Retails Samsung 830 256GB drive installed on Bay 0. 750gb WD drive installed on Bay 1.

I feel like my SSD is way slower than it should be.



CrystalDisk Info shows that it's in SATA/600 mode. But the numbers I get seems to be half of what most reviewers are seeing. Is this simply a matter of my R3 having the HM67 chipset instead of the P67? Is it the BIOS version?

Can someone else let me know what their standard CDM benchmark looks like on their Samsung (since it's an OEM drive, I'm assuming lot of people have it?)

Thanks!

 

Yeah it's running at SATA II speeds only. The problem lies with using the A09 bios. Downgrade to A08 and you'll be set.

 

Going to A08 nearly forced me to re-install my windows (swap HD)... My Samsung 830 (it has the latest firmware) CRAWLS with A08. I mean crawls...opening a directory takes 2-3 minutes. It took me an hour to boot up the computer again and run the A09 update over again to get the computer back to where it was before.

It seems like the A09 BIOS defaults to 3GB/s to maintain reliability...

But I thought Samsung 830s are OEM drives? I know I bought the retail version, but...something just doesn't add up...

 

everything is correct (with what you have said).

With the A08 bios, there were some issues with maintaining SATA3 speeds...you had to install the SSD in SLOT1 which is in the middle of your laptop to get consistent SATA3 speeds. Slot0 was buggered for whatever reason and would sometimes downgrade to SATA2 for no good reason

So, instead of fixing it, dell just downgraded the SATA speeds to SATA2 with bios A09 and A10 <-- this is the part that isn't adding up in your mind

Now that said, the 830 should fly on A08, you may have to reinstall Windows

 

Yeah like Slick said, A08 is a must if you want the full potential of your SSD. Both my ports are running full speed but you may fair differently but seems like you need a reinstall first.

 

Ugh... Yeah. I can't even install Windows on my 830 if it's in Slot 0 with Bios A08. It pretty much acts like I'm running on floppy disks or something.

I'll take a look and see if Slot 1 is any different. Hopefully it fares better in Slot 1.

I'm not sure if I can switch the boot order of Slot 0 and 1 though. I took the laptop apart of install the Bluray burner and I don't remember seeing the SATA connectors being a cable that I can swap if I can't change the order in the BIOS or something.

I figured just in case, I better get Hirens CD ready (mini-xp is awesome for stuff like this) with A09 BIOS ready to go....

Thank you all for the good advice btw!

 

Woah woah woah you are way over complicating things! There are no cables in a laptop! In the bios, under the Boot tab, you can customise the boot order. Simple as.

 

SSD in the middle slot, insure the bios is set to AHCI mode, with the A08 bios you should get full speed.

I have the 830 and get basically double your current speeds.

 

Yeah. No cable to move...hee hee.

Thanks everyone for your help! With the changes made, I think I'm back up to where I need to be.



It's not exactly double the speed of what I was getting with SATA2, but definitely more satisfying numbers than before!

 

looking good

 

Are you sure that the SSD has to be in te middle slot? The middle slot is HDD1 in my laptop. The slot on the side (left side if you flip laptop and remove the backplate), is HDD0 in my case.

 

there have been known issues with the slot switching between SATA II and SATA III randomly that's why its recommended to stick it in the middle slot.