Runs slow after reinstall onto faster hard drive !

Hi guys brand new to the forums so my apologies if this question has already been answered elsewhere.

I was very happy with the speed and loading time of my DAI game ... but then (foolishly?) I installed a newer SSD drive than the one I currently have installed ....went from a Intel® SSD X25-M Series 80 GB ssd drive, apparently read speed of up to 250MB/s and a write speed of up to 100MB/s model is intel ssdsa2m080g2gc   ... to the Hyundai sapphire 120 GB SSD drive model  C2S3T120G read speed.. well never mind Hyundai's advertised read/write speeds, crystaldiskmark reports read 229 MB, write 211 MB and since the 80 GB hard drive is several years old assuming (hoping) the Hyundai would be an actual upgrade !  🙂 

So I basically uninstalled DAI from Origin on the 80 GB drive, formatted and removed old 80 GB hard drive from computer, installed and formatted 120 GB hard drive into computer, ran various tests on it (hddscan, seatools for windows, short and extended tests and butterfly test on hddscan) which all seem to indicate the hard drive is working properly... I did get an access violation error which appears to have gone away on it's own (hopefully?... not sure if it's still sticking around somewhere in the background) when the hard drive was installed, haven't seen that error pop up after making adjustments in permission for security for the hard drive.

I should point out that the 120 GB hard drive is not my primary  " C " hard drive I have Windows on... so basically I have a different SSD drive just for games alone.. this was the setup with the 80 GB SSD drive earlier  on so just continuing it with my new 120 GB hard drive.

Video card is the nvidia geoforce GTX 1060 which has served me faithfully with the 80 GB drive  with no issues.   Processor is FX8350, again no problems until I upgraded to the new hard drive.

I should point out that I am using mods to alter my character's (inquisitor's) appearance.... but even with the mods (which I have reinstalled onto the game, the mods that is) I was happy with the game's performance and speed with the 80 GB drive.

Now it's the strangest thing... the game still runs my previous saves, my character still looks the same which I'm told is a minor miracle since mods are involved :P ... but suddenly the load time (when the screen goes black and the green inquisitor logo flashes in the lower right hand corner) is maybe two to three times as long as before... even for something as simple as being in Skyhold and exiting say the Undercroft (where you go to have  new items made and generally speaking manage inventory for all characters, storage chest is there) to go back into Skyhold.. that used to happen in maybe 15 seconds at most, now it takes a good 30 seconds to 2  minutes or so with the new hard drive ... which I shouldn't complain about too much I guess :P, the game is still running after all.. but it's the strangest thing.

I've also turned off cloud saves for Origin hoping that would help but no luck there either.  I've deleted most of my saved games since I heard that can create lag too, didn't have any effect

Installed the latest driver for my video card, still no luck the game is definitely working but running slower than before as far as that lag time to get from location to location (I should point out that when the game loads no problem at all, gameplay runs smoothly whether during combat or not)... anyone have any insight as to what might be  going on ?

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and replies 🙂  ..