How to improve my hard disk performance..

[speedracer]

Just completed installing an 890FXA-UD5 mb with 8 megs of DDR3 1333 memory. I am running a Phenom 965 x4 Processor. I am running Windows 7 and when I ran the Windows Experience Index I was o.k. with all but the "DISK". It states my primary drive = 5.9. I am running a WD 320 gig SATA6 drive connected to one of the 6 internal SATA6 ports. I am running with the setting in bios set to SATA and AHC. Per previous recommendation I am also running the windows AHCI drivers. I would have hoped that doing all of this my index would have been higher. Are there any settings (none jumpered on the back of the drive) either on the drive or in bios that I need to change to increase this number? Just so you will know my CPU and MEMORY were both 7.5 - no complaints with this number.. Any help provided will be appreciated.  THANKS..

[Dark Mantis]

WEI is a joke I'm afraid. You are getting the top score it is able to give for a magnetic disk. To get any more that 5.9 you have to be running a SSD. I even tried with Western Digital Blacks SATA3 6GB/s in a RAID0 array and it still only gives 5.9.

Actually are you sure that your drive is a SATA3(SATA6) drive as I wasn't aware that WD made a 320 GB version?

[speedracer]

Thanks for replying. Yes, I am sure as I checked it out on the WD website before purchasing just to MAKE SURE.... I didn't want to spend money on a drive that couldn't take advantage of all this board (sata6) has to offer. THey also make a 1tb black drive that is sata6 which I am also using as a data drive. Was just hoping to tweak the system ever so slightly to improve the overall performance.. THANKS AGAIN..

[Dark Mantis]

Yes you are quite right they do make a 320GB but only in the "Blue" version. The lowest "Black" is 640GB.

[absic]

Hi there,

If you check through the build review for this Mobo here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,3619.0.html you will see the kind of transfer speeds I am getting from a WD SATA3 640 GB Caviar Black HDD. (scroll to page 13)

The WE rating didn't change even when I set up a RAID 0 using two SATA3 drives so don't stress over that figure of 5.9 as it is totally misleading. I have to copy and transfer a lot of large files between HDD's and the speed difference between the SATA3 controller and the SATA2 controller is really noticeable and using SATA3 with SATA3 HDD's saves a lot of time.