Firmware required?

[idata]

I installed my 320 SSD, cloned from my old HHD using the provided software. It runs fine, but the benchmarks are low. Was I supposed to install firmware before I cloned it? Didnt remember seeing anything about firmware in the directions.

CrystalDiskMark:

218 MB/s Read Speed

92 MB/s Write Speed

I thought they would have been higher! Any help is appreciated.

[idata]

Throughput looks reasonable to me, but it's highly likely your partition(s) aren't aligned on an 8KByte boundary. It depends on what cloning tools you used. Since you've already created the partition(s), realigning them can be done through a commercial tool like Paragon's Alignment Tool.

You can verify incorrect alignment by using AS SSD Benchmark. If it says "xxx K BAD" in the upper left, then the partition is not properly aligned.

[idata]

I confirmed that my Bios and firmware were up to date, I ran it again and this time got 237 read/ 95 write. I will take your suggestion and see what I get. Thanks.

[idata]

I ran AS SSD. I got 188 Read, 88 Write. Top left corner says pciide - BAD and below that it says 31K - BAD. I used the Intel data migration tool that came with the SSD to clone the drive.

[idata]

I ran Paragon, read speed increased from 188 to 210 MB/s. But my write speed decreased from 87 to 84 MB/s. It now reads 2048K - OK, but still says pciide - BAD.

I really expected the write speed to go way up, so the question is whether or not I return the drive and get an OCZ, which I already have and runs at 167 Write speed.