Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P SATA question

[sitheris]

I'm looking at the manual for my new DS3P and notice that there are two SATA controllers listed - the ICH9R which includes 6 SATAII ports, and the Gigabyte SATAII chip which includes 2 SATAII ports.

Is there any reason I would use one over the other when I hook up my hard drive? I only have one Seagate 7200.11 drive that I intend to use on this system.

Thanks

 

[Malatov]

The ICH9 ports will function under BIOS control, meaning no drivers are necessary for the Windows installer to see them -- they act just like legacy PATA ports.

The extra Gigabyte ports will almost certainly require a driver, meaning F6 and a driver disk during Windows install, unless Gigabyte has some special support built-in to their BIOS. Which if it's their SATA chip, I suppose that could be possible, but seems unlikely.

I'd suggest sticking with the ICH9 ports and disabling the Gigabyte controller in BIOS, at least until you need it for something. It's generally better to use the native chipset controllers when you can.

 

[Mr. K6]

In my experience, both are recognized fine, but it wouldnt be a bad idea to install drivers for any controller. I searched for the same answers online, generally it's better to use the ICH9 as its integrated into the chipset while the gigabyte chip can sometimes lag (especially with high performance arrays like RAID 0, but maybe it happens on a single drive as well).

 

[sitheris]

thanks a lot guys...waiting for my friend to get here to start the build

at least now I know which sata ports to use!