SSD issues

I have an m17xR3 that I installed an Intel 510 120GB in and I have a 320GB HD in the second bay. When I did the initial fresh install on the SSD I did not change the option for the SSD to be in AHCI instead of RAID, in the system bios. Now I can't change it back it seems. If I change it to AHCI it gives the option to repair windows. Will this work? My other option I was thinking about was doing a backup of my SSD and a format. Then set the drive to be in AHCI and restore the backup. Will this work? As well as this issue I've noticed that in the Intel Rapid Storage App that it shows my SSD running at 3Gb/s, which it shouldn't be. How do I fix this? Is it due to me running as RAID in the bios without my drives being RAID? Thanks in advance for any help. I'm not totally sure what I need to do and I don't really wanna do a whole new install.

 

The best (and only real option) would be to do a clean install.

You must first set the controller to AHCI, and then install Windows. If you try to change it after, it will cause problems. Making an image and restoring it wont really work, because you would be doing the same thing as if you were just changing the setting in the BIOS.

Not sure about the RST thing. I dont know if the R3 supports SATA III speeds. If someone else who owns an R3 wants to chime in on that......

 

Ok. That's what I figured about doing the image, but I wasn't sure. As far as SATA III goes, I'm pretty sure that it does support it. If anyone else knows what my problem might be there, please let me know. Thanks!

 

Anyone got any idea as to why my Intel Rapid Storage App shows my SSD running at 3 Gb/s?

 

No, but I would like to see that screenshot. I think you're the 2nd person to mention this.

 

Here you go!

 

Maybe the Intel RST application is reporting it incorrectly?

Have you checked in the BIOS to see if it shows up as SATA III? Also, try running some SSD speed tests to see what your read/write speeds are. If they are close to the adertised speed, then you are on SATA III. But if they are significantly off, then there might be a problem here that Dell may need to fix....

 

Try switching the HD's...I have a theory that the 6GBit ports are on the BUS the second HD and optical drives are on...And that the primary was actually the 3Gbit one.

 

Here is a speed test.

 

I'll have to try that!

 

The screenshot shows port 0 which is sata III. Both 0 and 1 are SATA III. But, maybe it is worth a try...

 

Ok. I thought that both 0 and 1 were SATA III. I might still try it though. How are the speeds though? They seem slow to me, compared to what the drive is supposed to be capable of.

 

Yea I dont think you are running in SATA III. You are defintely on SATA II with those speeds.

In SATA III, you should be hitting close to 400-450MB/s read. You are at about half that. So there is either an issue with the motherboard/bios/sata controller.

I would try to switch the drive by itself into the second drive bay like the others said and run the test again to check your speeds and check RST to see what it detects the drive as (SATA II or III).

EDIT - I checked Intel's website on the 120GB 510 SSD, and it has the following:

SATA II Speeds: 265Mb Read/200MB Write

SATA III Speeds: 450MB Read/210MB Write


So with your test averaging 240Mb Read and slightly over 200MB write, I would say 100% you are on SATA II.

 

Cool. I'll swap the drive over and check it out, then I'll let you guys know what I got.

 

Well, looks like it worked guys! Awesome! I still find it weird that it did work, though. I was under the impression that both ports were SATA 3. Anyhow I attached an image with a new speed test. The performance definately went up although it's still not quite as fast as it could be. I'll have to sift through the SSD tips/tricks thread and see if I can't squeeze a bit more performance out of it. Thanks for all of your help!

 

Make sure the SSD is aligned properly. Try using the AS SSD application to test the drive. It will also show you if the disk is aligned properly.

 

Dumb question, but what exactly does aligning do? Also, what is the AS SSD application? Where do I find it?

 

You can get the AS SSD benchmark tool here:

Alex Intelligent Software - Downloads: AS SSD Benchmark

Alignment is very important to an SSD. If a drive is not properly aligned, you will degrade the SSD performance greatly over a shorter period of time. It will help improve read/write speeds accordingly.

If you google about aligning a hard drive/SSD, you will see what it does exactly. Its a bit too complicated to explain. LOL.

But usually Windows 7 will automatically align it for you. But I always align it myself, which is a bit tricky to do for most users.

The tool I linked above will tell you if it is aligned or not.

 

Ok. Cool! I'll check it out and see what it says.

 

Here is a benchmark ran with AS SSD. What do ya think? If I hover the mouse over the green characters "103424 K - Ok" it says Offset/Alignment @ 4K Cluster. I'm guessing my alignment is good then since it says Ok?

 

So did you have to plug the ssd into port 1 to get sata III 6gbps?
The HM67 has 2 sataIII ports, I wonder what's on the second one (and whether or not this was intentional)

 

Well, your speeds definitely look good.

But your alignment is not what I expected. It is a bit off.....Usually, typical alignment is either 32K, 64K, 128K, 256K, 512K, and 1024K. On SSDs, the Windows 7 typical is 1024K which is automatically aligned.

I am not sure how yours is set 103424K, but that is a bit wrong. You should be at 1024K for optimal performance and longer SSD lifespan.

Unfortunately, the only way to change your alignment is to do a clean install of Windows, or image your drive and align the drive, then restore the image. Clean install is the best though.

Here is a shot of mine so you can see:



Mine is in RAID 0 though.

 

From what I understood here, it seems only one of the HDD's are working on SATA III, which is the second bay. I believe the other SATA III port is for the optical drive. But I am not sure.

 

Yeah, I moved my SSD to port 1. It booted and then said I needed to restart. I restarted and checked the Intel Rapid Storage App and it finally showed my SSD as being 6 Gb/s. I figured both port's 0 and 1 were SATA III. I don't really know why it worked, but I'm not gonna complain, that's for sure! As far as what's on the second one...well that's a good question, cause it doesn't appear to be for port 0. Maybe someone who knows better can chime in.

 

I figured I would have to do a clean install at some point since this was the first time I installed an SSD and Win 7, both. I'm just not ready to mess with it yet. I will eventually though, probably sooner rather than later. Nice speeds by the way!

 

@M3TH0D1C4L

I just noticed this. Look at the first screenshot on the download page for AS SSD Benchmark. It shows the same 103424K - Ok, just like mine. That's odd.

Alex Intelligent Software - Downloads: AS SSD Benchmark

 

Thanks! They would be a bit better if I had better SSD's like yours.....but SSD's are real expensive, so I just kept the Samsung drives that came in my system. I want to get a set of the new Intel 510 250GB drives, but I wont even really make the best of them on a SATA II controller.

When it comes time to do the install, there is a way to partition the drive and align everything properly using Diskpart in Command Prompt when installing Windows.

But I can help you with that when you are ready to reinstall Windows.

 

I just noticed it too.....its possible maybe the person didnt align their drive either? Because if you look at mine, that should be the proper alignment.

I mean, there is nothing wrong with your alignment really. But the way alignment works is like this: Say you have your alignment at 1024K, like mine. If you were to write a file to the drive, which is 32K, it will take up 1024K worth of space, even though its not a 1024K size file......I dont know if that makes any sense or not, but its complicated.

Basically, you end up writing to more memory sectors than you actually need, therefore wearing the drive down faster. It will take up more memory blocks than needed if the drive were to be properly aligned.

I dont know if you will understand it or not, but if you read up on SSD Alignments, you will understand how crucial it is. Its really difficult to explain, but a little reading on it, and you will surely understand what I mean.

 

I'm definitely doing some reading and trying to get it down. I did notice one thing and I don't know if this means anything or not but...if you take the Partition Starting Offset which is 105,906,176 bytes and divide it by 1024 you get the number I have on the AS SSD Benchmark tool 103424. Like I said, I don't know if that means anything, but since you said that the optimal alignment is 1024 I just thought it was kinda interesting. Thanks for all the help too, I appreciate it!

 

Ahhh, yes. That would make sense then. Since that is your starting offset, then it looks ok. I didnt think that was your starting offset though, which was why I was assuming your Alignment was off.

As long as the alignment is a multiple of 4K, you are aligned. Some people like to set their alignments differently though, depending on the file sizes they use. For example, if someone plans to use their drives for constant large file transfers, then a bigger alignment would be better for overall writing speed.

But if you wanted to load smaller files/write smaller files more often, which is the typical user, then you want a smaller alignment. I typically use 128K for a single drive configuration and that gives my SSDs superior performance. If you also decide to use RAID, you have to factor in 2+ drives and calculate the alignment accordingly.

It becomes really confusing. But after reading many times over, it will eventually make sense. It took me a while before I made heads or tails of it. LOL.

But for now, you are good. Your speeds are pretty accurate to the advertised speeds, so you have nothing to worry about really. The only thing that is puzzling me is the primary HDD slot on the notebook, and why it was not running in SATA III mode.....

If any other R3 owners can check this, that would be great.

 

Cool. I'm glad it seems to be aligned. I was just reading about how to either do a fresh install or use an image along with doing a realignment. (Sounds like I'm working on a car, lol) I may end up doing a realignment anyway, but at least I know I'm good for now. And, I agree, it definitely is perplexing why the primary HDD slot isn't using SATA III. It doesn't make sense.