Intel SSD 520 120 gig performance

[drowl2]

I am concerned that the performance of my drive isn't as good as it should be and also I get lags (about 5 seconds) especially when running a movie. Even though the actual movie is on a normal hard disk, there are other instances where there is also a lag, such as running Skyrim which is installed on the ssd drive.

I have googled this to find out how I can check the performance, but people who have used different kinds of benchmarkers have had varied results, depending on whether or not the test used compressed data for example and it all seems very confusing and the results are mixed.

Furthermore on my Z77 Extreme6 motherboard there seems to be an option to either have raid 0 (for my two seagate 500 gig drives) or ahci , however I am informed on this thread http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/52916-asrock-z77-extreme-6-ssd-drives-raid-0-problem.html# post457329 http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/52916-asrock-z77-extreme-6-ssd-drives-raid-0-problem.html# post457329

That my motherboard will operate the ssd drive as ahci even if it wasn't selected in the bios.

Someone please help me, i just want to see if the drive is working as well as it should be, while it's still under warranty.

[drowl2]

nobody?? really??

[Jose_H_Intel1]

Hello pontypool,

The information they provided is correct in regards of the SATA controller mode, RAID includes the same advantages that AHCI offers.

For benchmark we recommend the incompressible data type. For general testing of the Intel® SSD we encourage to use the Intel® SSD Toolbox.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455 Download Center

[drowl2]

Thank you very much.. I have downloaded the toolbox and used it to optimize the drive. I am happy to say that the lag has disappeared completely.

I realised I might not have clarfied something though. The actual SSD drive isn't on raid 0. I have two regular seagate 500gig 10000rpm x2 drives in a raid 0 formation and I also have my intel ssd 520 drive (singular )

Because of the nature of the motherboard it allows one controller at a time.. meaning that I setup the two normal drives as raid 0 and then at a later date purchased and installed my intel ssd drive which I installed the windows 0s onto. In other words, even though the intel drive is being run from the controller in raid 0 mode, it isn't a part of two ssd drives merged together as raid 0.

Does that mean the intel drive is still running as fast as ahci mode?

Thanks

[Jose_H_Intel1]

As I understand all drives are connected to the same SATA controller which is setup in RAID mode; therefore, the standalone Intel® SSD is considered "RAID ready" and yes, AHCI advantages are also used in this mode.