What's limiting my SSD?

[ramzorz]

So I just upgraded my SSD to a larger capacity one. It works smoothly, but for some reason, I'm getting less than half of it's potential speed.

I'm using a SATA II interface with the drive which is SATA III, but the drive only does around ~540 read/write. I don't know what else could be bottlenecking the drive; could the interface affect speeds that much?

Here's the drive I purchased... http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820226237

And here are my tests using Roadkil's Disk Speed...

[Shane Nokes]

For SATA II that looks about right.

Remember the drive is being limited by the interface.

The max speed for SATA II is 3Gbps. Counting in overhead and such that looks close to correct.

[ramzorz]

I just retested the drive. Similar results. Is there any tweaks I can do to the computer and make it a bit quicker without changing hardware?

[Shane Nokes]

As I said. The max speed possible would be 3Gbit, once you count in transport overhead and such the speed looks right for a SATA II controller.

The only way to make it faster would be having a SATA III controller.

[ramzorz]

Welp, looks like there's nothing I can do. Thanks for the info!

[Shane Nokes]

No problem. :)

It is still way faster than the good old platter based tech. :)

[LUTZIFER]

I just retested the drive. Similar results. Is there any tweaks I can do to the computer and make it a bit quicker without changing hardware?

Type... SSD Tweaks on Google,

[Lighthalzen]

Yeah, you pretty much max out the bandwidth for your SATA II. You can always try to get an Add-on card for SATA III if those exists now.

[WaveZero]

Another option is use a PCI express slot for your SSD. Just buy one of those PCI express SATA III card. I believe those work just fine.

[Shane Nokes]

Type... SSD Tweaks on Google,

No amount of tweaking in the world will get around a hardware limitation. You can only go as fast as the controller allows.

[ramzorz]

I could potentially make this a few megabytes faster with some tweaks to the interface's limit. It's not like 216MB is SATA II's threshold. And I've thought about buying a SATA III PCI expansion. They're relatively cheap I assume. Off to Newegg!

[FlintyV]

Can't say I've heard much good about SATA 3 PCIE cards.

When I was buying a SSD for my SATA2 Mobo, people just said the cards introduced latency to the SSD .

[ramzorz]

Can't say I've heard much good about SATA 3 PCIE cards.

When I was buying a SSD for my SATA2 Mobo, people just said the cards introduced latency to the SSD .

Yup, just looked at some online and they all have mixed reviews. Either the speeds aren't fast enough, or they aren't recognized by their OS. I suppose I'll just wait to upgrade. I imagine I'll be using this SSD further into the future, even if it's in a RAID configuration.