first ssd-many problems-can't maximize speeds

[snitzle_iii]

i bought a xm100 250g from tiger direct because people were saying it was a good deal and it was cheap 89/250gb ssd. this is my first ssd and has been causing way more headache than i had expected. The main hd is 80g

got the computer to recognize the drive then i formatted and used acronis to make a clone of the drive. the computer had difficulty keeping straight the Letter of the old hd and ssd. i changed the boot order to load the ssd first, but sometimes i would get a bsod and an error telling me to chkdsk /f the drive! i think i figured out a temporary solution to the problem. to disable the hd in windows, BUT then i was reading around on the internet how its important to have the ssd connected to a SATA 6Gb/s vs SATA 3Gb/s to receive optimum speeds. my mobo is ga-880ga-ud3h http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128444 . the thing has 6x sata 6 and 2x sata 3 ports. then i read how i should have hsci (sp) enable.

what is worse is that i basically began tinkering and updated my bios (friends suggestion) didn't save my oc and or my settings since i used gigabytes windows bios updating program. so i have the latest bios, but now my computer is acting all funny/crazy/weird. my computer will show that my c drive as ssd, but have poor speeds. the F drive will show as the hard drive and have 400 MBps read and 100 MBps write...

i don't know what to do. i don't want to reinstall everything. i was hoping that i could clone the hard drive and get ssd speeds out of the box.

basically right now i am not optimizing the ssd

http://i.imgur.com/ATEWzho.jpg toshiba
http://i.imgur.com/iXRhhMl.jpg seagate usb3
http://i.imgur.com/AuxsQ5c.jpgwd black
http://i.imgur.com/QhGhWDH.jpg raid1 seagate
http://i.imgur.com/N9nraud.jpg ssd

all harddrives are 7200 rpm

crystaldiskmark

http://i.imgur.com/iI0bi6w.jpg


computer showing weird speeds. the hd of my old os shows 400 MB/s read?!

poor performance of the ssd (before issues with C and F drive swapping)

bios options for sata

this does not boot with this setting

ssd speeds and proper letter drive association

so either my bios won't see my ssd or i will try to load/boot from my ssd and have the bsod due to the chkdsk /f

 

[Tsumi]

Something funky is going on, but the only numbers you should really care about are the 4k numbers. Those numbers are what determine your system responsiveness, and where most of the benefit in SSDs lie.

If you have issues booting in AHCI, google "enable AHCI Windows 7," and follow one of the many tutorials that will pop up.

 

[dragonstongue]

hsci (sp) the fk is that lol.
here
http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86403
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2069761

as for sata 6 and sata 3 (sata II and III speeds) you are looking at
Read/Write ~285MB/s Sata II
Read/Write ~375MB/s - ~600MB/s Sata III

The maximum data bandwidth of a SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s) port is ~600MB/s
The maximum data bandwidth of a SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s) port is ~300MB/s
The maximum data bandwidth of a SATA 1.0 (1.5Gb/s) port is ~150MB/s

To have formatted the drive in 4k can be important to get the most out of many drives speeds, but AHCI is a foremost and you should for sure have it on sata III port.
this is your drive
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Crucial-MX1...Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item43cb20c8f2
Max Sequential ReadUp to 550 MBpsMax Sequential WriteUp to 300 MBps4KB Random ReadUp to 85,000 IOPS4KB Random WriteUp to 70,000 IOPS

Maybe if possible you could try making sure the regular hard drives work fine without the SSD with the new BIOS, if they do and you have tried this but you end up with the issue you are having, well then maybe its the cloning software you are using or something. Clone is cloning the drive in question onto a different drive so it should be keeping the drive letter it had, until it boots and is changed by you to something else, but, it might be better to do fresh install OS wise onto this drive to make sure it gets proper speeds, is formatted to 4k (4096 sector format when formatted and while at it, make sure the SSD has the firmware that Crucial or other users suggest)

I do know my one friend for the life of him could not use AHCI period, the drives he had do not like it at all, however I can haven't had any issues and we both use the same drive setups but different motherboards.

 

[/dev/null]

without AHCI you will not have TRIM, IIRC. Really need to get AHCI working if you want speed.

 

[Aesma]

The basics of cloning are that you clone then you REMOVE THE OLD DRIVE or it will be a mess.

I would start again. Remove the SSD, figure out which ports to use and make sure they're in AHCI, secure erase the SSD (don't format it) then do the cloning, Acronis will tell you when you should remove the hard drive.

 

[dragonstongue]

Read a bit on this, TRIM only requires the ATA stack to pass the TRIM commands (including the drivers) this can be done via IDE or AHCI but not RAID currently. Its the controller itself that decides how this is done and the firmware of course tells the controller how it will do this in the first place.

However, AHCI does enable NCQ which definitely boost performance in many respects even without TRIM and of course can also help many standard hard drives that support advanced features that AHCI brings to the table.

Question then Aesma, why not format the SSD? Secure erase makes sense but it for some reason it is not set for 4k sector then it could effect its speed as well, unless Crucial recommends smaller or larger size format optimization. Secure Erase then make sure its set for 4k after that for sure make it AHCI and check to see TRIM is enabled.

 

[tonyyy]

maybe you should consider doing a fresh install instead of cloning.

 

[dragonstongue]

yep, pain in the bottom but, at least you know its from scratch so you have time to set it all up just right

 

[snitzle_iii]

The basics of cloning are that you clone then you REMOVE THE OLD DRIVE or it will be a mess.

I would start again. Remove the SSD, figure out which ports to use and make sure they're in AHCI, secure erase the SSD (don't format it) then do the cloning, Acronis will tell you when you should remove the hard drive.

i think i am going to proceed with this plan of action. ill use the fresh install plan as my last ditch effort as i hate to loose all my settings,preference, for both os and individual programs as well as the reinstall of programs. i did purchase the windows 8 pro upgrade a while back and i know there is a conversion update program they have.

can someone baby step me through the sata options for my bios? (going to restart and provide options)

*i would need to enable AHCI on my old hhd then when i clone it it will remember the settings.

i moved the ssd off the sata2 port, but it won't boot into it when on sata3 port (don't know if this explains anything)

lastly acronis did not tell me when to remove the hhd. basically i select my original then my target and it said it was going to reboot. once it reboot it started to copy the files. 10minutes later it was complete and the computer just restart. once it restarted it had the ssd as the main C: drive and the hhd with the os as F:. i guess i sould turn it off then remove the drive?

eanbled TRIM and AHCI. restart and changed sata mode to AHCI. selected the ssd but didn't load. selected the hd and booted and got this image

 

[hundlos]

Google for alignment. Yours might be wrong since you cloned the drive.

AS SSD will tell you if everything is OK & ok ahci +alignment


There are tools to fix that without reinstall

Sent by phone

 

[snitzle_iii]

*sorry for the huge pictures...just used default on my tablet :/

tried to load with ahci mode with the ssd

just hangs saying windows is loading... (black background)

bios pictures of sata options with side detail

onchip sata controller -enable

onchip sata type -ahci (belive i had it set as raid before updating my bios. didn't actually update my bios. had the latest...the windows program is bad an "found" new bios, but it was the same-just lost all my settings)

onchip sata port 4/5 type -as sata tyle -honestly don't know what this means

onchip sata3.0 support -enable

onchip sata port as esp- press enter

onboard sata/ide ctrl-disable (don't remember what i had this set at before loosing my settings

this is a screenshot of boot devise
it does not show the ssd

it shows the toshiba on AHCI but won't boot

so booted with old hd and i see some issue with hhd

 

[snitzle_iii]

i think things are working? im not sure. checked and found out the ssd was on the sata2 jumper. moved it to a sata3 and unplugged the hard drive. idk if i need to format 4k sector since as ssd shows 1024k-ok.

windows msg popped up asking for a restart.
chcked out overclock.net and here are some screen shots of other peoples mx100
http://cdn.overclock.net/2/2e/2e40729f_Clipboard02.png
http://cdn.overclock.net/c/ce/ce1d58c6_as-ssd-benchCrucial_CT256MX118.06.20144-04-09PM.png

this guy raid 0
http://imgbox.com/UgigQd1K
http://imgbox.com/j3Mf6sOO
http://imgbox.com/bDlmsVNu
http://imgbox.com/xuDcQcpN

looks like i got some drivers to install
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3424#driver

 

[Aesma]

There is no need to format when you clone that's why I said to not do it, it can introduce problems more than anything. Since you were cloning from Windows 7 I concluded your hard drive was already aligned.

Yes it seems to be working and is definitely aligned.

Install the drivers, at least those that windows update offers, or the latest from the manufacturer. Your AMD chipset is a little slower than Intel ones, nothing to worry about but if you want to compare your results always try to compare with an AMD chipset.

 

[snitzle_iii]

people are saying that 4k sectors speeds only matter. my 4k sectors are horrible compared to other peoples
http://www.custompcreview.com/reviews/crucial-mx100-256gb-ssd-review/21325/4/

which drivers should i update
know it sounds dumb
feel like it should be the first one
AMD SATA AHCI Driver
or
AMD SATA RAID Driver

i got 1 hhd raided together so not sure.

 

[Coldblackice]

Well, for one thing, your CrystalDisk tests are only using 50MB test sizes, which I'd think would be useless for accurate testing, given how small it is (although I would think this would lend itself to higher-than-normal results, given burst speed).

What happens if you select 500-1000MB sizes?

 

[snitzle_iii]

no real difference

used it as a ballpark figure. the root of the issue still remains my speeds are way worse than others.

 

[dangerouseddy]

nevermind

 

[Coldblackice]

no real difference

used it as a ballpark figure. the root of the issue still remains my speeds are way worse than others.

Interesting -- I would think the 4K would be inaccurate with such a quick/small reading of 50MB.