Increased RAM but speed didn't change much

[starvinmarvin]

HD Tune may show that the 320GB disk is 2 times as fast as the 80GB disk but it is just a benchmark tool that may or may not be applicable. You should look at multiple benchmark results to get a better picture (hopefully).

Of course it's applicable. A hard drive that benchmarks twice as fast as another (slower) hard drive will boot up to the desktop ready to use faster, and it will open/launch large applications and games faster, and it will retrieve wanted data faster. On the other hand, it's a pleasant and scenic drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles, so who wants to drive fast?

[starvinmarvin]

I find that a rather surprising comment as the Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives have an excellent reputation when it comes to speed.

When I replaced a Maxtor (Seagate) drive in my PC with a Samsung there was a noticeable improvement in performance. You can see below the speeds reported by HDTune...

Mmm, yes you are correct. I was actually referring to earlier Samsung models which did not achieve the same good performance as the Spinpoint F3s can muster. But, the big differences are really between hard drives of, say, 2000 to 2002 vintage versus the more modern designs which all seem to manage higher performance.

[starvinmarvin]

Well, I guess my complaint is another example.
Great
I've uninstalled and reinstalled MSE several times, hoping that something would change. Thanks for your input.

Why not uninstall MSE and try another good, free anti-virus/malware program instead? AVG Free is very good, and the fastest one we've found for our PCs is Avast free edition. Good protection, small footprint, etc. Worth a try!