# SSD Intel 330 works too slow

## Dieselist

Hi!

I have a problem with Intel SSD 330 drive in my Gentoo. It works very slow, here what hdparm shows:

```
# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

 Timing cached reads:   5028 MB in  2.00 seconds = 2514.72 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads: 384 MB in  3.01 seconds = 127.56 MB/sec

```

SATA controller is AMB SB850, according to the MB (MSI 870a-g46) specifications it supports SATA 3.0.

SATA mode is AHCI, enabled in BIOS

smarctl shows this:

```

SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 1.5 Gb/s)
```

when just common HDD in the neighbor port works faster:

```

SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
```

Actually I'm a bit disappointed with this - why my SSD works on speed lower than expected? Wrong kernel configuration? I use genkernel, so I'm not sure about this. 

In Windows 7 this device worked on the expected speed (but actually only after AMD/Intel drivers installation).

Some special driver/configuration needed for this device? Or even it doesn't work on Linux at all? 

Thank you in advance!

----------

## eccerr0r

No, the SSD should work as is at full speed as long as the motherboard's SATA ports are fully supported.  I didn't need any extra drivers for my SSD 520.

Are you getting errors in dmesg indicating corrupt packets over sata?

Can you swap the drive to the port that you know works?  With same cable?

----------

## Dieselist

Hi eccerr0r! Thank you for your reply.

 *eccerr0r wrote:*   

> No, the SSD should work as is at full speed as long as the motherboard's SATA ports are fully supported.  I didn't need any extra drivers for my SSD 520.
> 
> Are you getting errors in dmesg indicating corrupt packets over sata?

 

No, no errors at all. That's all what I have regarding my SSD:

```
[    1.105304] ahci 0000:00:11.0: version 3.0

[    1.105454] ahci 0000:00:11.0: irq 42 for MSI/MSI-X

[    1.105552] ahci 0000:00:11.0: AHCI 0001.0200 32 slots 6 ports 6 Gbps 0x3f impl SATA mode

[    1.105762] ahci 0000:00:11.0: flags: 64bit ncq sntf ilck pm led clo pmp pio slum part 

[    1.106613] scsi0 : ahci

[    1.106843] scsi1 : ahci

[    1.107022] scsi2 : ahci

[    1.107180] scsi3 : ahci

[    1.107342] scsi4 : ahci

[    1.107509] scsi5 : ahci

[    1.107603] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe6ffc00 port 0xfe6ffd00 irq 42

[    1.107789] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe6ffc00 port 0xfe6ffd80 irq 42

[    1.107973] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe6ffc00 port 0xfe6ffe00 irq 42

[    1.108158] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe6ffc00 port 0xfe6ffe80 irq 42

[    1.108342] ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe6ffc00 port 0xfe6fff00 irq 42

[    1.108527] ata6: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe6ffc00 port 0xfe6fff80 irq 42

...

[    1.452067] ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

[    1.452255] ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

[    1.452476] ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

[    1.452693] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

[    1.651947] ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)

[    1.669092] ata1.00: ATA-9: INTEL SSDSC2CT060A3, 300i, max UDMA/133

[    1.675153] ata1.00: 117231408 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA

[    1.689041] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133

[    1.695285] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      INTEL SSDSC2CT06 300i PQ: 0 ANSI: 5

[    1.701679] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 117231408 512-byte logical blocks: (60.0 GB/55.8 GiB)

[    1.708328] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
```

 *eccerr0r wrote:*   

> Can you swap the drive to the port that you know works?  With same cable?

 

Yes, I tried this several times - changed ports, cables with no effect.

----------

## frostschutz

Some SATA3 drives have jumpers to lock them into lower SATA modes for backward compatibility reasons. I don't have an Intel SSD but it might be worth a check.

Does the BIOS show the SATA speed, does it work on a Live CD?

Firmware updates for the BIOS and/or drive?

Disabling NCQ helped performance a lot for me, but that's unrelated to SATA speeds.

----------

## Dieselist

 *frostschutz wrote:*   

> Some SATA3 drives have jumpers to lock them into lower SATA modes for backward compatibility reasons. I don't have an Intel SSD but it might be worth a check.

 

Just checked - disk doesn't have any jumpers

 *frostschutz wrote:*   

> Does the BIOS show the SATA speed, does it work on a Live CD?

 

Surprisingly BIOS doesn't show hard drives at all, I see them only via "boot sequence". And with Live CD (I checked Gentoo && recent Ubuntu) I have the same picture. 

 *frostschutz wrote:*   

> Firmware updates for the BIOS and/or drive?

 

Yep, I have latest BIOS and SSD firmware. Finally I think that problem can be in the SATA controller/SSD compatibility reasons, and going to check disk on the another PC. 

 *frostschutz wrote:*   

> Disabling NCQ helped performance a lot for me, but that's unrelated to SATA speeds.

 

Yes, it really helps but speed increase not so huge, up to several mbits.

----------

