How do I get my SSD to SATA III speeds?

[red123]

I have a Corsair Force Series 3 SSD, but I'm only seeing SATA II speed. I've read that some on this forum have been able to achieve SATA III speeds. How do I get my SSD to SATA III speed?

[ThorsHammer]

What machine do you have?  Are you using the SSD in the primary or Ultrabay?

[PanEuropean]

Red:

I don't think anyone has been able to achieve SATA III throughput on a W520, because to the best of my knowledge, the machine only supports SATA II speeds.

Have a look at this post from Lenovo Blogs, it will explain things better than I can: Click Here

Michael

[ThorsHammer]

Some of the information in Mark's post is now slightly out of date.

There is information on this subject all over the internet.  For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#SATA_revision_3.0_.28SATA_6_Gbit.2Fs.29.

The current gen ThinkPads support SATA III specs in the primary bay and ultrabay.  But the original poster didn't say what machine the question was about.

[red123]

My machine is the W520, sorry about that.  The SSD is in the primary bay.

Here's where I've read that some were able to get SATA III on the W520.

 http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/Is-SATA-III-6gb-s-suppported-on-the-W520/td-p/...

How do I get this result of SATA III with an SSD on my W520?

[ThorsHammer]

How are you testing performance?

[red123]

I'm using CrystalDiskMark 2.2. My SSD is rated for Max Sequential Read: Up to 525 MB/s and Max Sequential Write: Up to 490 MB/s, but I'm only getting the speeds as seen in the image below.

[aadiodavid]

Here is the data from my Samsung 830, a SATA III drive, in the drive bay. This is a strictly plug and play install... nothing changed or modified. Intel RST is running, not just the Win 7 AHCI driver. RST reports 6 Gb/s transfer rate is enabled.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   478.568 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   397.122 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   325.937 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   256.766 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    22.219 MB/s [  5424.6 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    73.157 MB/s [ 17860.6 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   292.759 MB/s [ 71474.4 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   119.543 MB/s [ 29185.3 IOPS]

  Test : 100 MB [C: 85.3% (391.7/459.4 GB)] (x2)
  Date : 2011/12/26 21:25:50
    OS : Windows 7  SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
 

[ThorsHammer]

Clearly the W520 is SATA III.

If you are going to use synthetic benchmarks, be sure to test using several. AS SSD, ATTO Technology Bench32, CrystalDiskMark, HD Tach and others all seem to provide a wide array of results.

[red123]

AS SSD Benchmark 1.6.4237.30508
------------------------------
Name: Corsair Force 3 SSD
Firmware: 1.3.
Controller: iaStor
Offset: 103424 K - OK
Size: 55.90 GB
Date: 12/27/2011 11:14:07 AM
------------------------------
Sequential:
------------------------------
Read: 195.43 MB/s
Write: 55.95 MB/s
------------------------------
4K:
------------------------------
Read: 10.79 MB/s
Write: 38.03 MB/s
------------------------------
4K-64Threads:
------------------------------
Read: 51.46 MB/s
Write: 59.35 MB/s
------------------------------
Access Times:
------------------------------
Read: 0.187 ms
Write: 0.438 ms
------------------------------
Score:
------------------------------
Read: 82
Write: 103
Total: 224
------------------------------

ATTO Technology Bench32: http://i40.tinypic.com/13zpxkg.jpg

note: ATTO Technology Bench32 uses data compression

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   198.531 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    61.799 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   186.716 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :    64.075 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    21.809 MB/s [  5324.5 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    45.197 MB/s [ 11034.5 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :    82.947 MB/s [ 20250.7 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :    61.858 MB/s [ 15102.0 IOPS]

  Test : 100 MB [C: 32.9% (18.4/55.8 GB)] (x2)
  Date : 2011/12/27 11:33:08
    OS : Windows 7  [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
 

HD Tach: http://i41.tinypic.com/2e53bdk.jpg

I've tried both the Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller and the standard Windows 7 controller, not much difference.

I'm thinking the problem is with the SSD. Maybe I should have gone with a more reliable brand?