Weird design choices seem to never go away don't they?

As for you questions

SATA:
1) I am not aware of a way to force specific transfer mode if the choice is not in the bios. Usually that is negotiated between device and controller.

2) That is possible I guess, I remember I had some early SATA cables that would not work with SATA II/II systems, so that could be a possibility.

2b) not sure but I can't say I'm surprised by this. Could depend on how backward compatibility is handled in the drives Firmware. If it is a fallback mode, more conservative specs make sense to avoid possible issues

3) generally yes, but also it depends. Assuming that the cable is not good enough to provide full SATA speed in the given form factor it does make sense since reliability trumps speed in mos circumstances. Still a bad design choice to use components that are sub par. Also consider, this is an older notebook from a time where SSDs where not quite so common and HDDs were standard. It could have been designed with the assumption that nobody would use SSDs in this device and then limiting to SATA II makes some sense since no HDD (even today) can saturate a SATA II link.

Edit since you split the topic

Koltoroc wrote:

Weird design choices seem to never go away don't they? […]
Show full quote

Weird design choices seem to never go away don't they?

As for you questions

SATA:
1) I am not aware of a way to force specific transfer mode if the choice is not in the bios. Usually that is negotiated between device and controller.

2) That is possible I guess, I remember I had some early SATA cables that would not work with SATA II/II systems, so that could be a possibility.

2b) not sure but I can't say I'm surprised by this. Could depend on how backward compatibility is handled in the drives Firmware. If it is a fallback mode, more conservative specs make sense to avoid possible issues

3) generally yes, but also it depends. Assuming that the cable is not good enough to provide full SATA speed in the given form factor it does make sense since reliability trumps speed in mos circumstances. Still a bad design choice to use components that are sub par. Also consider, this is an older notebook from a time where SSDs where not quite so common and HDDs were standard. It could have been designed with the assumption that nobody would use SSDs in this device and then limiting to SATA II makes some sense since no HDD (even today) can saturate a SATA II link.

Edit since you split the topic

Wow, thanks!!!
And I see your points.

Indeed, I'm practically running the SSD in compatibility mode, that might change its global behavior.

What do you think if I replace the almost garage-handmade-DIY scotch-tape-like thin cable they used with one of this:

https://www.amazon.ca/Silverstone-Tek-Low-Pro … lverstone+cp11b

It says 6G on the box and it seems pretty thin. It still looks bigger than mine (2 strands while mine is like only 1), but I could try to squeeze it in somewhere...

no idea. It could be a fixed setting in firmware assuming the sub standard cable will be the only option. But it could be worth a try. no guarantee it will work though.

Koltoroc wrote:

no idea. It could be a fixed setting in firmware assuming the sub standard cable will be the only option. But it could be worth a try. no guarantee it will work though.

ok thanks.

Finally, it seems to me the worst case scenario is if it's in the firmware.
Question: how do I crack the firmware?

Thanks

And guys can you imagine when I dealt with Samsung customer service let's say technicians?

I had to inform them that SSDs work in the product.
I had to inform them that above 8 GB ram work in the product.
I had to inform them of the SATA mode.

I tried to ask them how to get the SATA III 6G mode up and running... after some waiting the reply was it's not possible.

Imagine if a standard packaged technician of a standard manufacturer in a standard phone call occurring in a standard customer service setting were to tell me: Okay man, pull out your block notes and pen, I'll tell you how to hack the firmware to enable the Sata III 6G mode 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 Then I woke up all sweaty! 😁

What do you hope to gain by searching for a way to enable 6G? The manufacturer probably disabled it for a reason.
You will not feel the difference in real life.

Here are some numbers to calm you down. Your 4k numbers are quite ok (storagereview tested the 512GB one, yours should be slower - ssd speed depends a lot on the available parallel chips.
https://www.storagereview.com/samsung_ssd_840_pro_review

The Intel HM76 supports 4 SATA I/II ports, and 2 SATA III ports. The particular laptop you list appears to only have the SATA II ports connected to the chipset, from what I can find in a few specification documents and online reviews. This is actually pretty common to see in home/office/budget laptops since SATA III SSD's were priced far above the intended market at the time. Otherwise if I'm seeing it incorrectly and it actually is using a SATA III port, it could be a SATA controller driver issue within Windows.

These types of decisions can frequently be made to differentiate within the range (NP370R5E), so perhaps there's better specced ones that shipped with a 6G SSD (I'm guessing yours came originally with a 3G mech drive). If there's no default support for 6G and no way to turn it on in the bios then you're stuck with 3G, although the real world difference should be minimal / near zero.

Only other things I can think of are software related - have you downloaded the latest SamsungUpdate package in case there's a bios update for your specific laptop and are you running the latest version of Intel RST.

Also, any decent SATA cable can handle the max speed of a drive whether the cable says 3G / 6G or not, and the reverse is most likely true for crap ones.

It is possible samsung simply connected the internal drive to a SATA 2 port rather than a SATA 3 port.

Unsure why they would do that.

However, the difference in performance difference between a SATA-II connection and a SATA-III connection, in real world operation, isn't that great. The i3 CPU and the thermal limits of the laptop would be a greater bottleneck on performance than SATA II mode on a SATA III SSD.

aries-mu wrote:

What do you think if I replace the almost garage-handmade-DIY scotch-tape-like thin cable they used with one of this: ...

That cable provides data, but not power, whereas the OEM cable necessarily provides both... it won't work, assuming you could cram the thing in there to begin with (I highly doubt you could).

Besides, as other posters have suggested, it is possible Samsung hooked the 2.5" bay's SATA connection to a 3Gbps port from the chipset... at which point nothing you could do would enable a 6Gbps link to your SSD.

THANK YOU ALL GUYS!

elod wrote:

What do you hope to gain by searching for a way to enable 6G? The manufacturer probably disabled it for a reason. You will not f […]
Show full quote

What do you hope to gain by searching for a way to enable 6G? The manufacturer probably disabled it for a reason.
You will not feel the difference in real life.

Here are some numbers to calm you down. Your 4k numbers are quite ok (storagereview tested the 512GB one, yours should be slower - ssd speed depends a lot on the available parallel chips.
https://www.storagereview.com/samsung_ssd_840_pro_review

Thanks for the data!

wiretap wrote:

The Intel HM76 supports 4 SATA I/II ports, and 2 SATA III ports. The particular laptop you list appears to only have the SATA II ports connected to the chipset, from what I can find in a few specification documents and online reviews. This is actually pretty common to see in home/office/budget laptops since SATA III SSD's were priced far above the intended market at the time. Otherwise if I'm seeing it incorrectly and it actually is using a SATA III port, it could be a SATA controller driver issue within Windows.

Thanks!
However, the SiSandra software tells me the port to which my drive is connected is a SATA III port (see above and below), just the “mode” is down to SATA II for some reasons.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

These types of decisions can frequently be made to differentiate within the range (NP370R5E), so perhaps there's better specced ones that shipped with a 6G SSD (I'm guessing yours came originally with a 3G mech drive). If there's no default support for 6G and no way to turn it on in the bios then you're stuck with 3G, although the real world difference should be minimal / near zero.
Only other things I can think of are software related - have you downloaded the latest SamsungUpdate package in case there's a bios update for your specific laptop and are you running the latest version of Intel RST.
Also, any decent SATA cable can handle the max speed of a drive whether the cable says 3G / 6G or not, and the reverse is most likely true for crap ones.

• I don’t think it’s a commercial strategy, as (at least at that time) Samsung didn’t seem to advertise at all any special “SATA 6G controller mode” feature on any higher end laptops. When I talked with their tech support (several times) they didn’t even know what I was talking about. Probably only their main engineering guy knows what’s going on with these SATA controller modes, and nobody else, neither technicians, nor marketing or sales support.
• Are you sure minimal / near zero difference? With an SSD that is able to provide 500 MB/sec and is used at 250 MB/sec, it seems to me a big difference (at least for those applications and tasks that fall within that range of performance).
• Well, that happened several years ago. I didn’t run any update recently, but I updated it every single time an update was released for about 3 years, and nothing ever changed.
• About the cable, I’ll take a photo when I have time, but, believe me, it’s so thin and scotch-taped that, if there is the worst SATA cable ever on our planet, it’s that one!

canthearu wrote:

It is possible samsung simply connected the internal drive to a SATA 2 port rather than a SATA 3 port.
Unsure why they would do that.
However, the difference in performance difference between a SATA-II connection and a SATA-III connection, in real world operation, isn't that great. The i3 CPU and the thermal limits of the laptop would be a greater bottleneck on performance than SATA II mode on a SATA III SSD.

Well, the SiSandra software (see above and below) says it is connected to a SATA-III port, but is working in SATA-II mode.
Oh gosh, I never thought about heat as a bottleneck! Heat causes the CPU to downclock!!

SW-SSG wrote:

aries-mu wrote:

What do you think if I replace the almost garage-handmade-DIY scotch-tape-like thin cable they used with one of this: ...

That cable provides data, but not power, whereas the OEM cable necessarily provides both... it won't work, assuming you could cram the thing in there to begin with (I highly doubt you could).

Besides, as other posters have suggested, it is possible Samsung hooked the 2.5" bay's SATA connection to a 3Gbps port from the chipset... at which point nothing you could do would enable a 6Gbps link to your SSD.

Thanks.
Right! The power!!! Oh gosh. I’ll have to look at it…

The utility tells me it is connected to a SATA III (600) port:

SiSoftware Sandra
...
...
Disk Controller
Model : Samsung Panther Point Mobile 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
Peripheral name (OEM) : Intel Panther Point Mobile 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
Interface : SATA
Revision : A5
Specification : 1.10
SATA Mode Supported : G2 / SATA300 ←←←
Channels : 1
Used channels : 1, 100%
Port : G3 / SATA600 ←←←

I think you're mis-interpreting what SiSoft Sandra is telling you. This is the way I understand it when I read the information you posted:

aries-mu wrote:

... SATA Mode Supported : G2 / SATA300 [/color] ←←← Channels : 1 Used channels : 1, 100% Port : G3 / SATA600 ←←← […]
Show full quote

...
SATA Mode Supported : G2 / SATA300 [/color] ←←←
Channels : 1
Used channels : 1, 100%
Port : G3 / SATA600 ←←←

"SATA Mode Supported" - I understand this as being the absolute fastest speed the chipset is capable of providing, regardless of what type of drive is connected to it. The key word here is "supported".

"Channels: 1" - Your SATA controller has a single SATA port, which makes sense in a laptop that lacks an optical drive (per your statement from your thread about the SD card reader).

"Used channels : 1, 100%" - The single SATA port (thus 100% of the SATA ports) in your computer is being used, which again makes sense due to the lack of an optical drive.

"Port: G3 / SATA600" - The DRIVE connected to this port supports SATA 3, but this doesn't mean that the PORT or the CONTROLLER supports it. Again, remember "SATA Mode Supported" above? This is just telling you the capability of the device connected to that port.

Further evidence of this is in the following except from running Sandra on my own computer:

Maximum SATA Mode : G2 / SATA300

This is the same line as "SATA Mode Supported" in your entry, I'm presuming the wording is different because you're probably using an older version (I'm running version 2018.8.28.26) or a different language (I noticed your CrystalDiskMark report header was in Italian, and the model of laptop in question is also Italian).

So, the way I see it, the drive may support SATA 3, but it's only running in SATA 2 mode because that's the maximum your computer supports.

Here's a bit more reading on the fallacy that is SATA 6G specific cables

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/SA … e-Revisited-183

https://web.archive.org/web/20111116160643/ht … pc_investigates

However, none of that really helps your original issue but whilst searching for something else I stumbled across something which might. It looks as if Samsung may have intentionally gimped the bios on your laptop series (and a number of others) to only support 3G, even though the chipset is 6G-enabled. The link below is for an unofficial bios mod which alters amongst other things:

1. CPU Microcode Updated to Rev 1C
2. Boot Logo Updated
3. SATA Gen 3 (6gbps) Enabled (note that one reply says their samsung 850 evo went from 279mbs to 551mbs)
4. OSX PowerManagement Patch (Native Speedstep)
5. All Advanced Options Unlocked
6. Unused Modules Removed for Optimization
7. USB Charge in Sleep Mode
8. Updated Various OPROMs

https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Samsun … SATA-3-DOWNLOAD

Obviously use at your own risk.

torindkflt wrote:

I think you're mis-interpreting what SiSoft Sandra is telling you. This is the way I understand it when I read the information y […]
Show full quote

I think you're mis-interpreting what SiSoft Sandra is telling you. This is the way I understand it when I read the information you posted:

aries-mu wrote:

... SATA Mode Supported : G2 / SATA300 [/color] ←←← Channels : 1 Used channels : 1, 100% Port : G3 / SATA600 ←←← […]
Show full quote

...
SATA Mode Supported : G2 / SATA300 [/color] ←←←
Channels : 1
Used channels : 1, 100%
Port : G3 / SATA600 ←←←

"SATA Mode Supported" - I understand this as being the absolute fastest speed the chipset is capable of providing, regardless of what type of drive is connected to it. The key word here is "supported".

"Channels: 1" - Your SATA controller has a single SATA port, which makes sense in a laptop that lacks an optical drive (per your statement from your thread about the SD card reader).

"Used channels : 1, 100%" - The single SATA port (thus 100% of the SATA ports) in your computer is being used, which again makes sense due to the lack of an optical drive.

"Port: G3 / SATA600" - The DRIVE connected to this port supports SATA 3, but this doesn't mean that the PORT or the CONTROLLER supports it. Again, remember "SATA Mode Supported" above? This is just telling you the capability of the device connected to that port.

Further evidence of this is in the following except from running Sandra on my own computer:

Maximum SATA Mode : G2 / SATA300

This is the same line as "SATA Mode Supported" in your entry, I'm presuming the wording is different because you're probably using an older version (I'm running version 2018.8.28.26) or a different language (I noticed your CrystalDiskMark report header was in Italian, and the model of laptop in question is also Italian).

So, the way I see it, the drive may support SATA 3, but it's only running in SATA 2 mode because that's the maximum your computer supports.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW MAN!!!! Speaking of attention to details!!! If I was a business owner, I'd have hired you!! (y)

Even your diagnosis about my SiSandra software is correct! It's because mine is in Italian, so I DIY translated its report for the forum here, wow!

Thanks so much for the generous commitment!

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

Here's a bit more reading on the fallacy that is SATA 6G specific cables […]
Show full quote

Here's a bit more reading on the fallacy that is SATA 6G specific cables

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/SA … e-Revisited-183

https://web.archive.org/web/20111116160643/ht … pc_investigates

However, none of that really helps your original issue but whilst searching for something else I stumbled across something which might. It looks as if Samsung may have intentionally gimped the bios on your laptop series (and a number of others) to only support 3G, even though the chipset is 6G-enabled. The link below is for an unofficial bios mod which alters amongst other things:

1. CPU Microcode Updated to Rev 1C
2. Boot Logo Updated
3. SATA Gen 3 (6gbps) Enabled (note that one reply says their samsung 850 evo went from 279mbs to 551mbs)
4. OSX PowerManagement Patch (Native Speedstep)
5. All Advanced Options Unlocked
6. Unused Modules Removed for Optimization
7. USB Charge in Sleep Mode
8. Updated Various OPROMs

https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Samsun … SATA-3-DOWNLOAD

Obviously use at your own risk.

You too! Thanks so much for such a generous and thorough research.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW that bios MOD seems FANTASTIC!!!!!

Now I'm terribly tempted to flash it....

Guys, what should I do??

TO FLASH OR NOT TO FLASH? This is the problem!!

The guy who posted it says flash at your own risk.

If for any reasons the modded bios is incompatible with my Italian version of the laptop (even though the series is the same!), would I be able to re-flash its original bios or would it simply crash my laptop like forever?

THANKS!!!!

I would not flash it without 99% certainty that it's the correct BIOS. Recovering a laptop is a pita.

The biggest speed boost of an SSD in real life scenarios comes from it's very low time to access data and it's capability to do that in random access mode. Top reading speed can be useful when sequentially copying the contents. Top write speeds usually cannot be sustained for long (it will drop off after a couple of GB of sequential writes.

elod wrote:

I would not flash it without 99% certainty that it's the correct BIOS. Recovering a laptop is a pita.

The biggest speed boost of an SSD in real life scenarios comes from it's very low time to access data and it's capability to do that in random access mode. Top reading speed can be useful when sequentially copying the contents. Top write speeds usually cannot be sustained for long (it will drop off after a couple of GB of sequential writes.

Thanks so much elod, you might have saved my laptop: I'm X% sure, where X is unknown 🤣!
Also very thanks for the details about the useful speeds.
😀