Sata cable

grizzly

I got a new PC and installed a spare HD from my old machine. I had no spare sata cables so after installing all the drivers from discs I used the cable from the DVD drive. This works fine, but I'd like to know if are all sata cables interchangeable – ie same performance/bandwidth etc?

Also the machine came with a SSD already installed – the speed isn't what I expected 1 minute to boot to desktop. What things should I check/change to make sure I'm getting the most out of it?

practice

"Also the machine came with a SSD already installed – the speed isn't what I expected 1 minute to boot to desktop. What things should I check/change to make sure I'm getting the most out of it? "

Check what programs are starting up before you get to desktop (antivirus,Messenger and others) these slow computer down.
Surely your files and programs are opening faster with SSd

grizzly

It's a clean install with just Micro Security essentials running on boot. Later on I was planning to pear down the system services that I'll not use. I'll do some tests on speeds later – can anyone recommend a program that tests these?

practice

Check out this great guide to services

www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/OSguides.htm

grizzly

I just ran a benchmark on two drives and got these results for sequential write/read;

HD read 127MB/s write 106MB/s
SSD read 169MB/s write 92MB/s

For for the write the SSD is worse than the mechanical drive!

Should I look for a return or is there something I can try to fix?

Unregistered.

grizzly wrote: »

I just ran a benchmark on two drives and got these results for sequential write/read;

HD read 127MB/s write 106MB/s
SSD read 169MB/s write 92MB/s

For for the write the SSD is worse than the mechanical drive!

Should I look for a return or is there something I can try to fix?

Nah, writes aren't great on some SSDs. It's the random access performance that sets them apart from HDDs. Even if the read speeds of both drives were identical, you'd notice the SSD is a lot snappier and faster to load OS and programs etc.

grizzly

They seem worse...

Unregistered.

grizzly wrote: »

They seem worse...

What do?

grizzly

Unregistered. wrote: »

What do?

The random access performance in the attachment, that's the 4k section right?

Unregistered.

grizzly wrote: »

The random access performance in the attachment, that's the 4k section right?

Sorry, the one i was referring is the last figure. If data is scattered non-sequentially on a HDD, then to read each block, you will incur some average access time before reading that block. If the block is close by access time is lower. If it's far away, it's longer. Hence why i say average. This time is a couple of milliseconds. SSD's access time is typically fractions of 1 ms. These access times are in addition to the time it takes to read one block. This is why SSDs are noticeable faster at start-up, because a lot of non-sequential reads are performed.

marco_polo

Seems just fine. If it makes you feel any better one of the best mechanical drives the samsung F3 has a 13 ms read access time and a 4K read speed of 0.57 MB/s.

Go to "Single Benchmarks" -> "AS SSD Benchmark".

http://www.ssdreview.com/review/compare/samsung-spinpoint-f3-hd103sj-1000gb-35-inch-1aj10001/asssdbenchmark.html

Out of curiousity how long is it taking you to get to the Windows splash screen as it is only at that point the disk really starts working. I know when I got my Corsair Force, my Gigabyte motherboard was taking an age to detect my SSD until I updated the bios (A known problem with my board in ACHI mode).

grizzly

marco_polo wrote: »

Out of curiousity how long is it taking you to get to the Windows splash screen as it is only at that point the disk really starts working. I know when I got my Corsair Force, my Gigabyte motherboard was taking an age to detect my SSD until I updated the bios (A known problem with my board in ACHI mode).

33 secs to splash screen, another 26 secs until desktop appears. I also have a Gigabyte motherboard. I yet to update bios or SSD firmware, so I'll look at those next.

Unregistered.

grizzly wrote: »

33 secs to splash screen, another 26 secs until desktop appears. I also have a Gigabyte motherboard. I yet to update bios or SSD firmware, so I'll look at those next.

You should. Also, look at the boot order in BIOS and make sure SSD is first.