P8Z68-V PRO which sata controller is the fastest

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guitarguy6

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Hi guys, I just picked up an Asus P8Z68-V Pro GEN 3 motherboard and am wondering which sata controller I should use. There are 2 X Sata 6GB's on the Z68 chipset, 4 X Sata 3GB's on the Z68 and 2 X Sata 6GB's on a Marvel controller. I will be installing an OCZ 60GB Vertex 2, 2 X 500GB's Seagate Sata-2 in Raid 0 and a Seagate 1TB for storage. Also is Intel RST any good? My initial thought was to instal OCZ on Z68 6GB, Raid 0 500GB's on Z68 Sata 3GB, and 1TB storage on Marvel. What would you guys suggest?

Thanks
 
I would put the SSD and the 1TB on the Intel 6GB ports, then put the RAID drives on the Intel 3GB ports, and don't use the Marvell ones at all. I'd go ahead and install the Intel RST as well.
 
The Intel 6 Gb/s are far superior to the Marvel. Put the SSD on one of those. I have the Marvell ports disabled on my P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3. They are of much use IMO, and they slow down the boot.

The RST drivers are the best for the Intel ports. The performance is best with RST vs. Microsoft drivers,
 
Awesome! Thanks for the info. For RST to work I need to install OS with raid selected in bios right?
 
You have sata 3G drives so there's no real benefit from putting them on 6G ports. I do recommend using the Z68 ports, but it won't make any difference if you connect your drives to the 6G or 3G ports.

I'm no expert on Linux (or other non-Windows OS's), but if you're installing Windows I recommend that you install with raid activated in bios since you plan to run those two drives in raid 0. If you install Windows with the sata controller set to ahci in bios you will have to do a bit of registry modding before you can activate your raid.
 
Raid can be loads of fun. You should really decide ahead of time what is going to control your RAID.

If you use the motherboards, that raid won't always work on another boards chipset (if recovery is necessary). If you use a cheap add-in card it can hammer your cpu, that can lead to slower than non-raid speeds.

For a multimedia nas I have linux software raid (I know its not windows or a boot drive but this is still relevant). It has changed hardware several times as the parts became more modern (p3 368MB, 500GB to 4core AMD 8GB, 16TB). The first move was a pain because I had used the onboard raid. I changed to software using an add-in card but DID NOT use the cards built-in raid mode, so when I moved that system to the AMD it was a simple addition to a system file and some grow commands for the linux raid software and it was done. No transitory external drive on the old machine, hoping it can limp along just a little longer or hoping I can find a backup mobo/chipset/add-in card in case of the worst.

Just some food for thought. Also RAID is not considered safe storage. It's used for high availability. That 16TB is really two RAID5s divided into 5.86TB each. One main, one archive. Two separate power supplies due to the backup being in an external sata bay.
 
Intel RST requires the controller to be in RAID mode during windows install or the feature will be disabled.
 
Sorry I was thinking SRT not RST. SRT requires RAID. SRT is a part of RST. Too many acronyms.
 
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