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SATA III drive

S

SFR229

n00b
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
17
Hi,

I remember when using my old pc I used to plug the extra HDDs and just turn on the machine and that's all.

If I have a second drive now that is SATA III capable, do I need to do something else beside plugging it to SATA III port and running windows like normal? it will run immediately on that speed (if nothing else is wrong) or I need more steps to get it running?

Thank you
 
There is nothing you have to do. Also it does not matter for hard drives what port you plug it in since no hard drive made today can use the bandwith that 600 MB/s SATA III provides. Hard drives have just begun to need SATA II since newer models with 750GB or greater platters can transfer at > 150MB/s that SATA I provides..
 
Now if you are talking about an SSD make sure you set your bios to use AHCI or RAID instead of IDE emulation mode.
 
I just want to understand the setup part of SATA III, suppose this drive was SATA III capable 100%, will it work at SATA III speeds without any setup? did you base your answer on your knowledge that it won't need SATA III or still it won't need setup even there was a SATA III drive?
 
SFR229 said:
I just want to understand the setup part of SATA III, suppose this drive was SATA III capable 100%, will it work at SATA III speeds without any setup? did you base your answer on your knowledge that it won't need SATA III or still it won't need setup even there was a SATA III drive?
Click to expand...

There is no extra setup just plug the drive in the port using any SATA cable (even one from SATA I).
 
So SATA III itself has no setup, the setup is needed for the relation between windows and the drive.

For SSD AHCI is the default, and RAID is when you want to RAID but that will make an SSD work.

HDD uses IDE no matter what is the port but it won't reach much.

what about hybrid drives (SSD cache) ?
 
what about hybrid drives (SSD cache) ?
Click to expand...

So far hybrid drives are not faster at STR than regular drives so they do not use SATA III either. The big reason is current hybrids are more of a USB stick / hard drive hybrid than a real SSD / hard drive hybrid. They do not make use of multiple NAND chips in parallel to gain performance.
 
I see,

so how does windows handles a hybrid, through IDE too, like a normal HDD ?


I first started asking about SATA III alone because I have a motherboard that uses a separate hardware controller from marvell to handle SATA III so I thought that means using SATA III needs special setup (using this controller setup). this part is what makes things harder to understand.

So based on what you said. in my case if I want to use SATA III, I don't need to use this controller setup unless I want to use AHCI or RAID? (like in normal bios). If I want to use IDE for SATA III I would just plug the drive and no need to use the marvell setup screen, marvell will work on IDE in this case, did I get the picture right here?

Sorry for all these questions :)
 
SFR229 said:
I see,

so how does windows handles a hybrid, through IDE too, like a normal HDD ?


I first started asking about SATA III alone because I have a motherboard that uses a separate hardware controller from marvell to handle SATA III so I thought that means using SATA III needs special setup (using this controller setup). this part is what makes things harder to understand.

So based on what you said. in my case if I want to use SATA III, I don't need to use this controller setup unless I want to use AHCI or RAID? (like in normal bios). If I want to use IDE for SATA III I would just plug the drive and no need to use the marvell setup screen, marvell will work on IDE in this case, did I get the picture right here?

Sorry for all these questions :)
Click to expand...

Edit: Some quick googling I have found that Sata II with intel's controller can be faster than Sata III with Marvel

Marvell wont give you great Sata 3 speeds fyi.
I run my sata 3 ssd off of the intel Sata 2 controller on my board till whenever I decide to upgrade.
Saves initialising a separate controller at boot as well as avoiding any apparent issues I have heard(no real hard evidence) that the marvel controller is unstable.

Edit: Some quick research seems to show that the marvell controller is slower than intel sata II. Google: Intel Sata 2 vs Marvell Sata 3 for the general consensus.
 
So based on what you said. in my case if I want to use SATA III, I don't need to use this controller setup unless I want to use AHCI or RAID?
Click to expand...

You do not need a SATA III controller (even with RAID) unless you use a SSD. A hybrid or regular hard drive will not be any faster if you plug it into a SATA III port instead of a SATA II port.

Edit: Some quick research seems to show that the marvell controller is slower than intel sata II. Google: Intel Sata 2 vs Marvell Sata 3 for the general consensus.
Click to expand...

Yes the marvel controller has higher latency than the Intel SATA II controller and is slower in a lot of real world applications.
 
drescherjm said:
The marvel controller has higher latency than the Intel SATA II controller which makes it undesirable.
Click to expand...

Isn't it also bad off the get go because it splits a pcie 1x bandwidth?

I also hear Marvel doesn't(didn't?) support trim.
 
Guys I just need to understand how things works not what is better or what is happening in reality, what you are speaking about is really important but only after I get the basics, please tolerate me...

1. a hybrid uses IDE like a normal HDD or needs different mode?

2. If hybrid uses IDE and I still want to run it on SATA III which in my case has it's own controller and it's own screen, I would just plug it on SATA III and it will run on IDE on SATA III marvell port with not setup ? and the only case I would need this marvell screen is when trying to setup an AHCI mode for an SSD drive? correct?
 
I have a motherboard that uses a separate hardware controller from marvell to handle SATA III so I thought that means using SATA III needs special setup (using this controller setup). this part is what makes things harder to understand.
Click to expand...

If windows does not have the correct driver for your Marvell controller then yes you would need to install a separate driver for that otherwise it could fall back into using a generic card driver that may be slower. This really is not a SATA III specific issue it can and will happen with any other hardware device.
 
SFR229 said:
Guys I just need to understand how things works not what is better or what is happening in reality, what you are speaking about is really important but only after I get the basics, please tolerate me...

1. a hybrid uses IDE like a normal HDD or needs different mode?

2. If hybrid uses IDE and I still want to run it on SATA III which in my case has it's own controller and it's own screen, I would just plug it on SATA III and it will run on IDE on SATA III marvell port with not setup ? and the only case I would need this marvell screen is when trying to setup an AHCI mode for an SSD drive? correct?
Click to expand...

Run your ssd/hybrid off of Sata 2 with AHCI or Raid set in the Bios.

Edit: I may be wrong about the AHCI or Raid thing with hybrid drives. I'll get back to you.
Still go sata 2 though

Edit2: Go AHCI in bios with the Intel Sata II ports
 
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They will use AHCI, just like any HDD/SSD, unless you set it to IDE. There is really no reason to do so unless your board does not support AHCI.

As far as the Marvell screen, check your mobo manual. I would hazard to guess that you are not required to do anything. Just plug and play.
 
SFR229 said:
Guys I just need to understand how things works not what is better or what is happening in reality, what you are speaking about is really important but only after I get the basics, please tolerate me...

1. a hybrid uses IDE like a normal HDD or needs different mode?

2. If hybrid uses IDE and I still want to run it on SATA III which in my case has it's own controller and it's own screen, I would just plug it on SATA III and it will run on IDE on SATA III marvell port with not setup ? and the only case I would need this marvell screen is when trying to setup an AHCI mode for an SSD drive? correct?
Click to expand...

Don't worry about Bios Settings. Just plug the hard drive into any Sata port II or III doesn't matter cause the bandwidth of sata 2 is already to much for your drive to saturate. Its all about bottlenecks. Its as if your hard drive is capable of producing a garden hose amount of water and your are worried about which fire hose to hook it up to. Doesn't matter no extra setup required just plug and play. easy!

Also If you are setting up this drive as the primary drive I would probably set AHCI in the bios but not a big deal either way performance wise.
 
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Yes I know I need a driver for Marvell to work but I meant what kind of setup in bios or marvell screen. Also the manual of the hybrid drive has no word about AHCI or even IDE.


Regarding using the hybrid in SATA II and keeping the samsung as storage:

I searched again and read the manual again and went to bios to see my settings, this is what I found.


1) The motherboard supports AHCI, under the intel chipset it says :Integrated AHCI controller.

2) In Bios, under Integrated peripherals, there is "SATA 6 GB/s controller", set as IDE (options are Disabled/IDE/RAID)

3) The CD-ROM was set up to work on SATA III port as when I disabled the "SATA 6 GB/s Controller" Marvell info stopped coming up on boot and CD-ROM disappeared from "my computer".

4) The second place in the bios were AHCI is mentioned is also in Integrated peripherals, under "On-chip ATA devices", under "RAID mode", you can choose IDE/RAID/AHCI

4) In bios (AMI) under SATA II ports, port 6 is used for Samsung drive, in info it says: here IDE devices are auto detected, but I see no option to set it as AHCI

5) I found out that I can't clone a windows setup on IDE to work in AHCI mode, so I can't clone Samsung, fresh install is needed.

6) I found that the difference in IDE and AHCI is not speed or at least it is a debatable issue but it is seems needed to for the SDD cache part in the hybrid drive although not that agreeable. some said just use it like a normal HDD.


So first how do I set AHCI in SATA II? I see no place for that in SATA II ports menu in bios.

Second question can I run Samsung HDD on IDE and run the Hybrid drive on AHCI at the same time? or everything has to be AHCI ?

and why did they use SATA III to attach the CD-ROM ? they have 5 empty SATA II ports.

Here is a picture of my boot booting:

xEfkO.jpg
 
"The second place in the bios were AHCI is mentioned is also in Integrated peripherals, under "On-chip ATA devices", under "RAID mode", you can choose IDE/RAID/AHCI"

This is where you would want AHCI, I think.

You can do the clone if you want. First put your current system HDD on the other Marvell SATA port. It will work since the drivers are already installed. You can then put the Intel controller in AHCI, with no drive on it. Boot in Windows, it will install drivers (you may want to download the Intel ones and install them, but it's not mandatory). Now you can put the system drive back on the intel controller, the new drive too, and clone. Let the DVD-ROM on the marvell as often they don't like AHCI.
 
With this trick you don't need registry changes and won't get blue screens?
I keep reading that you either do fresh install or do some file changing inside windows ?

I don't get this part...

"Boot in Windows, it will install drivers (you may want to download the Intel ones and install them, but it's not mandatory"

Boot the HDD in marvell (IDE) and download what? any of these you mean? (found them on company sites)


1. Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver (Intel Rapid Storage Technology for SATA RAID and AHCI mode.) 2011-11-21

2. Intel Rapid Storage Technology Floppy Driver (F6) (Intel Rapid Storage Technology for SATA RAID and AHCI mode.) 2011-08-22

3. Intel P55 AHCI / RAID Drivers (On-Board PIDE/SATA Drivers) 2009-07-24

4. Intel P55 SATA RAID Driver (For floppy driver) (On-Board PIDE/SATA Drivers) 2009-07-24
 
Yes, no need to touch the registry and no blue screen. The microsoft AHCI driver should be installed automatically. You can install Intel RST (the number 1).
 
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