PCIe SATA controller cards: Performance?

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Synomenon

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So I got one of the new Gigabyte Sandy Bridge boards. It has two SATA III ports and the rest are SATA II. Problem is, I have three hard drives and an optical drive.

I do have a free PCIe 4x slot. Do the SATA ports on PCIe SATA cards have slower / lower performance than the SATA ports built right into the motherboard?

I'm considering purchasing this card:
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=lGYmelQ8mJvPtYTv
 
Why would you want to buy a card when you have enough ports on the motherboard?
 
I'd like to avoid using the SATA II ports on the motherboard.

Anyone know anything re: performance of SATA on the card vs. on the motherboard?
 
IsLNdbOi said:
I'd like to avoid using the SATA II ports on the motherboard.

Anyone know anything re: performance of SATA on the card vs. on the motherboard?
Click to expand...

Are you using it for Flex or hardware RAID? If it is just being used as a basic controller, or used with software RAID, you probably won't see a difference.

With FlexRAID, you may see a bit of an improvement, but it depends on your chipset on your mobo. imo, the cost to do so wouldn't be worth it.

If it is hardware RAID, then you will see a difference in performance if RAID 5 or 6 is used, but there will be little to no difference if RAID 0 or 1 is used.

Why do you want to avoid using the mobo SATA ports?
 
Have you guys not read about the problem with the SATA II ports on the new Sandy Bridge boards?

Also, I have some SATA III SSDs I'd like to use, but I don't have enough SATA III ports on the motherboard.
 
You have hard drives. There aren't any that top SATA 2 speeds. That expansion card performs worse on top of that.
 
The Asus U3S6 performs worse than what?

Also, I've read that current SSDs can saturate SATA II.
 
The Intel chipset. There are only a couple SSDs that support SATA 3, but that's completely irrelevant as you're using hard drives. The best ones barely top SATA 1 speeds.
 
I meant hard drives AND SSDs. I have a 600GB VelociRaptor, a 160GB Intel G2, and two new Vertex 2s.
 
Doesn't make any difference. You have SATA 2 devices. Why would they perform better on a SATA 3 controller (they won't)?
 
No, you're completely wasting your money on it. The Intel chipset offers better performance and there is no reason to get the Asus card for your setup.
 
IsLNdbOi said:
Have you guys not read about the problem with the SATA II ports on the new Sandy Bridge boards?

Also, I have some SATA III SSDs I'd like to use, but I don't have enough SATA III ports on the motherboard.
Click to expand...

Well if the drives support SATA-III then great, but even SSDs barely saturate SATA-II, and HDDs as the others have said, barely saturate SATA-I speeds.

Having a SATA-III controller isn't going to give you any boost in performance with any of the drives you've listed, but since there is a serious flaw with the new Intel chipset, perhaps it would be a wise idea to invest in one, assuming you can't just get a different mobo for a similar price.
 
Blue Fox said:
No, you're completely wasting your money on it. The Intel chipset offers better performance and there is no reason to get the Asus card for your setup.
Click to expand...
I didn't ask for opinions on how I use my money.

Also, did you not read about the SATA II problem with the new Sandy Bridge motherboards?


Red Falcon said:
Well if the drives support SATA-III then great, but even SSDs barely saturate SATA-II, and HDDs as the others have said, barely saturate SATA-I speeds.

Having a SATA-III controller isn't going to give you any boost in performance with any of the drives you've listed, but since there is a serious flaw with the new Intel chipset, perhaps it would be a wise idea to invest in one, assuming you can't just get a different mobo for a similar price.
Click to expand...
What other motherboard would I get? This problem affects all P67/H67 boards currently available and I can't be without a working PC until April. I just wanted to know that my drives would not perform "worse" on a SATA III PCIe 4x card than they would on the motherboard's SATA III / II ports.
 
IsLNdbOi said:
What other motherboard would I get? This problem affects all P67/H67 boards currently available and I can't be without a working PC until April. I just wanted to know that my drives would not perform "worse" on a SATA III PCIe 4x card than they would on the motherboard's SATA III / II ports.
Click to expand...

I did not realize that another mobo would not be released until then.

You should have stated what you wanted sooner, haha. ;)

No, it won't perform worse, just make sure you set the firmware correctly on whether you want FlexRAID or just a controller, depending on the model you decide to get.
 
I think the Asus is the only card out right now that's got both USB 3.0 and SATA III. Can't find it in stock at any reputable places though.
 
IsLNdbOi said:
I think the Asus is the only card out right now that's got both USB 3.0 and SATA III. Can't find it in stock at any reputable places though.
Click to expand...

I never used my U3S6 in SATAII mode but SATA3 was horrible and much worse than Intel's SATAII ports.

I used the card one day and it's been sitting here ever since.
 
Wow, it's that bad? What's wrong with it that its SATA3 ports are worse than the motherboard's built in SATA2 ports?
 
IsLNdbOi said:
Wow, it's that bad? What's wrong with it that its SATA3 ports are worse than the motherboard's built in SATA2 ports?
Click to expand...

I never used it with a SATAII drive.......only my Crucial 256GB SATAIII drive.

My ASSsd final score went from @ 600 to @ 480.

The card has an older Marvell chipset and somekinda bridge chipset.

Pretty much useless.
 
Hmmm... Are there any other USB3.0 / SATA3 combo cards you can recommend?

Thanks.
 
I have a 600GB VelociRaptor, a 160GB Intel G2, and two new Vertex 2s.
Click to expand...
As been stated before, none of those drives have a SATAIII interface and you will not gain any speed by using a SATAIII card.

Just purchase one of those cheapo SATAII PCIe expansion cards and be done with it.
 
Blue Fox said:
No, you're completely wasting your money on it. The Intel chipset offers better performance and there is no reason to get the Asus card for your setup.
Click to expand...

Will you read? There is a problem with Intel 6X series chipsets that affects all SATA2 connectors on the boards. So, you get 2 x SATA3 connectors + any amount of other connectors from other controllers (marvell...whatever).

The OP doesn't have enough non-faulty connectors and thus asks for a SATA controller.

Is any of that seriously that hard to understand? Will you stop trolling?
 
Old Hippie said:
As been stated before, none of those drives have a SATAIII interface and you will not gain any speed by using a SATAIII card.

Just purchase one of those cheapo SATAII PCIe expansion cards and be done with it.
Click to expand...

what're you talking about?
The VelciRaptor 600GB is a SATAIII HDD...
 
DisrupTer911 said:
what're you talking about?
The VelciRaptor 600GB is a SATAIII HDD...
Click to expand...
I''m sorry, you're correct.

It won't go at SATAIII speeds but it does have a SATAIII interface.

BUT, it still won't matter. ;)

BTW...the SATAIII interface was added to mechanical drives for consumers that don't know the difference and think that a SATAII drive connected to a SATAIII port will increase the speed when the drive is only capable of SATAII speeds.
I'm sure you're not that stupid....
 
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prava said:
Will you read? There is a problem with Intel 6X series chipsets that affects all SATA2 connectors on the boards. So, you get 2 x SATA3 connectors + any amount of other connectors from other controllers (marvell...whatever).

The OP doesn't have enough non-faulty connectors and thus asks for a SATA controller.

Is any of that seriously that hard to understand? Will you stop trolling?
Click to expand...

I don't think Blue Fox was trolling.

Even I didn't understand what the issue was with the chipset until it was explained. ;)

OP, you might give something like this a try: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115077

If you want SATA-III, it's going to cost a bit more, but the SATA-II cards are are very cheap in price.
 
Replace the board for a fixed version as soon as you get your chance around it. The 6Gbps ports on Sandy Bridge should not be affected by the bug; only the 3Gbps ports.

I concur that your chipset SATA controller is the best controller you can have. Try to stick with it and don't use older shyteRAID chips on Windows platform (JMicron/Silicon Image/Promise/Marvell). LSI HBA would be reasonable, but probably overkill for your situation.
 
I have a Asus P8P67 Deluxe, an Asus u3s6, and two Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200RPM hard disk drives in my system. These are my results in CrystalDiskMark 2.2p:

This is attached to the intel SATA3 6.0 controller:
crystaldiskmark-drive_d-intelsata2.png


This is attached to the u3s6 Marvell SATA3 6.0 controller:
crystaldiskmark-drive_r-u3s6sata3.png
 
Could you try again with 1000MB, do you see the same speeds or do you see the Marvell scores drop as i expect?
 
PetrifiedAgent thanks for the info.. Could try again with 1000MB? Thanks.
 
I'm also using the same ASUS USB3 / SATA 6.0 combo card. I get decent performance out of it, but I think essentially it's just a PCIe 1x USB3 and PCIe 1x SATA 6.0 card put in a single slot using a bridge chip. As such you probably wont be breaking any speed barriers with SSDs, but if all you want is connection flexibility and/or ports for HDDs, it suits fine.

I think the important thing is to use the right drivers. Don't use whatever drivers ASUS is providing. For USB3, use the latest NEC Renesas firmware and driver using the process as described here. For SATA 6.0, use the latest MV-91xx driver listed here.

Edit: I see that they have firmware updates for the MV-91xx, but I haven't tried them myself. The change-log says "improved SATA 6.0 performance".
Edit2: Looking at the thread on station-drivers it looks like the firmware update for MV-91xx does NOT work on the U3S6 card. You can still update the driver, however.
 
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Using 1000MB, the drive on the intel chipset SATA3 6.0 port:
crystaldiskmark-drive_d-1000.png


Using 1000MG, the drive on the u3s6 Marvell SATA3 6.0 port:
crystaldiskmark-drive_r-1000.png
 
asus_p8p67_deluxe_4.jpg


Did you connect the drive to the white color ports? The dark-blue ones are Marvell 6Gbps controller. The white ones are Intel 6Gbps controller, the others are Intel 3Gbps.
 
PetrifiedAgent, thanks for doing all of that testing. I'm going to get myself one of those U3S6 cards now.
 
Yes drive D is connected to a white port; I also have a c300 (drive C, windows & boot) connected to a white port.

The other Samsung drive and a Hitachi 7200RPM 3TB are connected to the u3s6. I have 2 western digital caviar green 3tb drives connected to the dark blue ports. Temp directories, virtual memory and windows backup are all on the Hitachi. The only thing connected to the light blue ports is an optical drive.

The two Samsung drives are not completely identical, drive D is formatted MBR and drive R is formatted GPT. I had installed Windows on drive D and used it as a system drive before I received the c300.

Capture2.png


Capture.png
 
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