My First SSD !

[drl711]

My Mtron 32gb 3.5 SATA SSD came in the mail today!:D

I ripped open the box and shoved the disk into a front loading drive caddy as a second drive.
The BIOS and XPsp3 found it with no problem. I formatted the drive NTFS and then Ghosted my C: partition to the SSD.

Ghost had no problem, never knew it was an SSD. The SSD booted up in exactly HALF the time of XPsp3. Applications open VERY fast. I think I am in LOVE! :)

HD Tune numbers: 72 MB\s read
0.1ms access time
69.3 MB\s Burst
1.9% CPU

Only problem is that 72 mb\s read number. Would like to get it closer to the rated 100 mb\s.
It is running in UDMA mode 5, but the manual says it can do mode 6.

This is a new ASUS Maximum Formula Motherboard. Sata is in IDE mode.

How can I get it up to 100 MB\s??:o

Think I will start saving my money now for the new 1 TB version. That may take a while.:o

[webmaster]

Look at what this guy is saying. He achieves a synthetic benchmark read of 72MB/S yet his system boots TWICE as fast as any hard disk! Applications launch faster too! This is partially due to the .1ms access time. The fastest VeliciRaptor 10,000 RPM hard disk is over 80X SLOWER in access time! (About 8ms).

To answer your question, here is how I acheive max rated performance (100+ MB/S) on the Asus Maximus Formula motherboard (yes I have that exact motherboard, but the same holds true of any Intel Chipset such as X38 / X48):

In BIOS, i set the SATA mode (first page of BIOS) to "RAID." Thats right! Even though I only have one SSD attached, I select RAID and do not fool with RAID setup. Boot into Windows and load the drivers on the Utility CD that came with your motherbard (I just tell it to install ALL drivers). Reboot, AND NOW YOU HAVE FULL RATED PERFORMANCE!

ENJOY!

[drl711]

OK-I set the SATA mode to RAID, and got a 07B stop blue screen. Reset to defaults to get back in. I noticed that when set to RAID my drive listing is gone from the first page They should be listed somewhere for RAID, right?

[drl711]

Broke the barrier!...102.9 This is how I did it.

Set SATA config in BIOS = RAID
Reformatted and reinstalled XP
F6 the Matrix drivers (downloaded latest version)
Crossed my fingers
on reboot, had to reset the boot device order in BIOS so the SSD was first

READ went from 72 to 102.9 :) :)
BURST frm 69 to 108 :D


Now, if I can just get this Maximus Formula to stop killing my XP boot now and then...:mad:
(not related to SSD)

[webmaster]

Yeah. That Maximum Formula is a little weird. It boots slowly because it takes way to long to initialize USB ports...Then there is that JMICRON IDE crap. I LOVE the nVidia 680i chipset. I use the Asus Striker Extreme. No probs.

Yeah. When I broke the barrier, it was with a fresh install. So I can see where you MIGHT have problems, but it would be nice if it had worked the first time.

[drl711]

These pics show the difference in air temp inside my case around the drive bay of my HDD and SSD. The SSD itself was still cool to the touch. Can't say the same for the HDD.