hi guys, i have just finished putting together my new build i5 750 with giga byte GA-P55M-UD2 motherboard, i used my 2month old hdd (1TB Western Digital Caviar Black SATA II 7200rpm 32MB Cache) from my previous pc, the problem is the hdd seems slow- is there a bios setting i have missed out? regards jake
Ensure that: In Windows open device manager, then go to Disk Drive section, and double click on your HDD. On the panel that will appear, go to the policies tab, and make sure that the HDD is set to performance (may not see that option, if you don't that means the system knows it's an internal HDD so no worries), and that the check box Enable write caching... is enabled. Feel free to check also "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer" for more performance, but it is recommended to have some sort of battery system during any power surge, as the HDD can, by bad luck, corrupt some of the data. For me, I never had any problem.. but I might just be lucky. It fine on laptop's, as it has 2 power sources. In the BIOS, make sure that your HDD controller is set to SATA mode (if it's AHCI then it's fine as well) - WARNING it might lead to have Windows not boot anymore. If this occurs restore back the setting, until you have time to reinstall Windows under SATA mode. Also, take your time to check out Gigabyte motherboard instruction manual (well done in my opinion), to make sure that that they are not additional settings that may be linked SATA controller/HDD performance. Ensure that Windows is in Balance mode. And that your disk is defragmented (I recommend O&O Defrag 12 64-bit - Enable Zones and do Optimize/Complete defrag (from the Start button) - This process can take sever hours for the first time, and I recommend doing it overnight.
thanks guys,here are my readouts from hd tach (long bench test), Burst speed- 2915.3 mb/s random access - 12.5 ms cpu utilization - 1% Average read 89.2 mb/s what do you reckon? thanks jake
Average read is somewhat low. Did you follow the things that GoodBytes said? (+rep btw - awesome reply!) Also, try turning off SpeedStep, it slows the SATA performance
Because we found on recent Intel CPUs if the BIOS is not coded correctly, you can overclock the CPU or turn off speedstep and get a better SATA performance.
I'll try that. I'll be annoyed if it improves actually.. because I like having speedstep on, but will hate the thought of not getting max data transfers. Grrr.. there's always something!
Out of curiosity, why do you recommend this? I've always wondered what the difference was between the Balanced and High performance profiles (I just leave it on high performance because it sounds faster ).
Win 7 doesnt have a High Performance mode, only balanced, so it will always throttle your CPU. Take a look at this to see what difference overclocking makes to SATA performance on an X25-M SSD http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/02/01/asus-p7h57d-v-evo-motherboard-review/6
Why not high performance? I thought you would enjoy a quieter computer. Balance mode, means "provide me maximum performance (CPU), but when my computer is idle, down-clock my system (and spin down/turn off the HDD after 16min (default I think), when I don't use my HDD) a bit to reduce heat, and save power". While high performance means "Keep my all my components in my system awake, and have my CPU at max speed no mater what". Their is no performance gain between Balance and High Performance mode. As long as it's not on PowerSaver, it's fine.
Interesting, so it is best to get the latest BIOS, perhaps it has the issue fixed. Oh if your motherboard has a second SATA controller, like the SATA 6GB/s that Gigabyte's ahs added on select motherboards. plug it on there, it could avoid the mentioned problem.
Tested with Asus P6T Deluxe (latest BIOS) No discernable difference. Balanced Power profile, Speedstep ON - CPU speed during test 2400MHz Performance Power profile, Speedstep OFF, CPU speed during test 3800MHz Thank god for that! I'd hate to have to run full bore all the time to get best disk performance. No.. they are not the wrong way around.. it was slightly faster when in balanced mode. Obviously just minor differences between tests, and as I didn't run several to create an average, we can assume performance would be the same for both profiles if the tests were more exhaustive.
The difference that you see is fine, if you execute the test another time, you'll get different but close to the same results. I don't know why exactly, but one can assume that if you have a background process or OS that does something with the HDD (like writing the cache onto the disk, indexing, etc..) it changes the results a little.
