SSD mode setting

[Rathine]

Which of these should I use with my Mushkin Chronos 120GB?

SWDMA2

MWDMA2

UDMA6

I thought Ultra DMA was meant for traditional drives, but I don't ever recall seeing SWDMA or MWDMA before. There is also mode 1 for SW and MW. What should I set it to?

 

[geofelt]

Those look like IDE settings which you don't want.

Set the sata mode to AHCI, (not IDE or raid).

If you do not set to ahci, you will not get the trim command.
Without the trim command, writes can take much longer.

 

[Rathine]

Those are the only settings available understand the drive itself. They aren't related to a separate BIOS page where you go IDE>AHCI>RAID. The only other setting I can select is auto select.

 

[Rathine]

So nobody has any additional info about these settings?

 

[Dereck47]

SWMA2, MWDMA2, and UDMA6 are DMA Mode settings.

If your motherboard BIOS is AMIBIOS then the DMA Mode settings are for CD and DVD drives, not SSDs.

SWDMA2 has a data transfer rate of 8.3MB/s.
MWDMA2 has a data transfer rate of 16.6MB/s.
UDMA6 has a data transfer rate of 133.2MB/s.

See page 7 on this .pdf file for the full list of DMA Mode settings:
https://computinghardware.web.cern.ch/ComputingHardware/doc/NEC/P570/BIOS-Settings/MS1421_164x_bios_rev0_01.pdf

 

[Rathine]

Yeah, it appears to be AMI. So I'm gonna need to buy a new motherboard in order to be able to utilize the full speed of the drive? What kinda motherboard should I get? Well, aside from the needs of my other hardware, what kind should I get for support of an SSD ?

SWMA2, MWDMA2, and UDMA6 are DMA Mode settings.

If your motherboard BIOS is AMIBIOS then the DMA Mode settings are for CD and DVD drives, not SSDs.

SWDMA2 has a data transfer rate of 8.3MB/s.
MWDMA2 has a data transfer rate of 16.6MB/s.
UDMA6 has a data transfer rate of 133.2MB/s.

See page 7 on this .pdf file for the full list of DMA Mode settings:
https://computinghardware.web.cern.ch/ComputingHardware/doc/NEC/P570/BIOS-Settings/MS1421_164x_bios_rev0_01.pdf

 

[Dereck47]

Z77 chipset based motherboards are the latest. Z68 & P67 chipsets are also very good for use with the latest SATA 3 (6Gb/s) SSDs.

The 3 chipsets I mentioned are for Intel CPUs. If you are into AMD CPUs then go with a 990FX chipset based motherboard.

Your CPU will not be compatible so you will have to buy a new one along with your motherboard.

Your memory probably won't be compatible as well. You'll have to do some additional research and see if it will work with your new system.

 

[Rathine]

Lo and behold, sir, I do have to get a new motherboard and RAM, but not a new processor. However, the RAM is only $30. After I sell my old RAM on eBay I'll barely pay anything for the new RAM. I guess we'll see how things go now. First step is to get AHCI mode functioning.

 

[geofelt]

Do not worry much about the speed of the drive interface with a SSD. The big benefit of a SSD comes from the minimal random read/write times, perhaps 50x what a hard drive can do. That is what the os does mostly.
Sequential may only be 2x faster than a hard drive, not three which you might get with 6gb sata.

Just install it and enjoy.

 

[Rathine]

Actually my head and platter drive was faster than my SSD. I was told this is because it wasn't running in AHCI. We'll see if the new hardware helps.

 

[geofelt]

Actually my head and platter drive was faster than my SSD. I was told this is because it wasn't running in AHCI. We'll see if the new hardware helps.

I think you were told wrong. The reason for AHCI is to allow the trim command to be passed to the SSD. Without the trim command, a deleted block needs to be recorded via a read/write to a nand chip. With the trim command, the ssd merely marks it as available.
True, when the ssd is near full, this can result in miserable performance, but normally, you woud not notice it.

 

[Rathine]

If that's the case, why else would this SSD drive be running so damn slowly?

I think you were told wrong. The reason for AHCI is to allow the trim command to be passed to the SSD. Without the trim command, a deleted block needs to be recorded via a read/write to a nand chip. With the trim command, the ssd merely marks it as available.
True, when the ssd is near full, this can result in miserable performance, but normally, you woud not notice it.

 

[geofelt]

Why do you think the ssd is running slowly?

 

[RetiredChief]

geofelt,
I think it is more than just the absence of trim when using IDE and the assoaciated pcide driver. Most of the newer SSD take a performance hit when using pcide.
There have been several post where the problem was poor performance and the root cause was pcide and changing to msahci (or iaSTor for intel chipsets) brought the performance up to inline with expected.

 

[geofelt]

The performance hit is likely in sequential benchmarks, but that does not mean it is a poor performer in normal operation.

 

[Rathine]

I don't think it is running slowly... I observe it running slowly. The windows loading screen is present for about 20 seconds... it used to last about 10 on my head and platter drive. File transfers are also taking longer. What gives?

Why do you think the ssd is running slowly?

 

[Rathine]

So nobody has any other thoughts as to why my SSD would be running slower than a traditional hard drive?