You can use the -dbcache=<n> startup option to increase the speed. IIRC the default is 300 mb, but you can set it to much higher so the reindex will go much quicker if you allocate it more RAM with that option.
gave it dbcache a value of 48000, disc queue value went from 1 to 5 on the blockchain ssd and read speed went way up. so it definitely seems to be doing something.
thanks!