Which SATA port to use?

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Hello guys. :)

Managed to get a Corsair Force 3 GT 240gb for a good price recently.
I have a Asus p7p55d-e motherboard, and it has two "Marvell SATA 6Gb/s". I've read nothing but bad things about this Marvell thing.

I tried running AS SSD to test.

On Marvell
as-ssd-benchCorsairForceGT27-Jun-121-37-34AM.png


On Intel
as-ssd-benchCorsairForceGT27-Jun-122-18-38AM.png


The Marvell (with 'IO Levelup' feature turned on) seems to be faster. Some of the search results I've found so far advised to stick to the Intel SATA ports. Is there anything that I've missed, like unwanted side effects of 'IO level up' or the Marvell SATA ports?

Thank you for reading.
 
Use the Intel SATA ports. Marvell 6Gbps will beat Intel 3Gbps in sequential transfers, but even the 3Gbps Intel controller will be better with the random stuff, which is more important for most workloads (especially for stuff you'd use a SSD for - i.e. NOT data storage for the most part)

I believe it is also correct to say that Marvell doesn't support TRIM.
 
dandragonrage said:
Use the Intel SATA ports. Marvell 6Gbps will beat Intel 3Gbps in sequential transfers, but even the 3Gbps Intel controller will be better with the random stuff, which is more important for most workloads (especially for stuff you'd use a SSD for - i.e. NOT data storage for the most part)

I believe it is also correct to say that Marvell doesn't support TRIM.
Click to expand...

What you are saying is usually stated as correct, but his benchmarks seem to show faster 4K (and 4K deep queue) performance on the Marvell... weird, maybe try more benchmarks?
 
Thank you for mentioning RAIDFix. I used RAIDFix and am now able to boot while in RAID mode without setting up any RAID configurations.

Results seems to be similar to ACHI.

Test on Intel RAID mode
as-ssd-benchCorsairForceGT27-Jun-121-10-09PM.png
 
You don't need RAID mode.

Please make sure the Intel drivers are the latest version which looks to be 10.8.0.1003

If not, please update and test again.
 
Old Hippie said:
You don't need RAID mode.
Click to expand...

I suggested it because it is generally suggested for best performance, though the results in this case do not seem to reflect that. I think it was worth a shot, though. And I don't see a downside to it. It's not like it writes headers to the drive when not in an array. And BTW, the 10.8 drivers are not the latest, even if you're only considering WHQL drivers. http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel raid.htm. You may use a driver that is newer than your OROM (but you should try to avoid drivers older than your OROM - not that that's the case here).
 
And BTW, the 10.8 drivers are not the latest,
Click to expand...
Those seem to be the latest on Intel's download site and that's as far as I went.

I suggested it because it is generally suggested for best performance
Click to expand...
I have no idea why you think that but it's not true.

The AHCI drivers included in the RAID package are the same as all the others.

I'd definately like to see a link supporting your belief.
 
I have updated the drivers to 11.2.0.1006 WHQL, and get similar results still on the intel.

I think I will be sticking to the intel SATA2 port. With Marvell + "IO LEVEL UP" there is a penalty in graphic card bandwidth.

[SATA 6G] Set SATA 6G ports to the maximum bandwith. When enabled, the maximum bandwidth of onboard SATA 6G connectors is up to Gen. 2 speed while the blue PCIex16_1 slot operates at x8 mode.
Click to expand...
 
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