what are X58A-UD3R Rev2 SATA connections for 1TB Sata III Caviar Black and SSD?

[bgarrant]

I am trying to figure out what is best SATA ports to use for my setup.  I know there are SATA2, GSATA2 and GSATA3 ports on the board. 

I have one Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive and
one G.SKILL Phoenix Pro Series FM-25S2S-120GBP2 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD).

I currently have the OS SSD in the SATA2_0 (1CH10R) and the HDD plugged into the GSATA3_6 (Marvell).  SInce my Caviar HDD is Sata III should I have it in the  GSATA3_6 6GB/s port?  I assume if I use a SATA2 or GSATA2 port I will not get full speed. 

Also, since the board only comes with SATA2 cables, what cable is best to use with the HDD?

Thanks in advance.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Firstly let me explain about the SATA3 ports. They are controlled by the Marvell 9128 controller chip and although they are supposed to be SATA3 which is 6GBs the Marvell chip failed to perform as it should have done and the ports actually perfform at around the same rate as the SATA2 ports (3GBs).
Also the Intel ICH10R Southbridge ports are better and more reliable in my view and have the added bonus if you are running an SSD that they transmit the TRIM commands that the Marvell fails to do.

So basically the best place for your SSD is where you have it on the SATA2_0 port

The WD Black is also best on the SATA2 ports but not by very much so it is up to you whether you want to move it or not.

There is no difference between SATA2 and SATA3 cables.

[bgarrant]

SO even though the WD HDD is SATA3 (6GB/s) the SATA2 iCH10R woudl perform better than the SATA3 Marvell?

[Dark Mantis]

Yes, from my tests the difference is negligable but slightly better. You can easilly test it for yourself and see which gives you better throughput.

[bgarrant]

What is best way to test it? Any free tools I can use?  I just changed it back to Intel iCH10R.

[Dark Mantis]

Try CrystalDiskMark 3.0 it is free and very good. We tend to use it as a standard tool on here.

http://crystalmark.info/software/index-e.html

[bgarrant]

I just ran test and these number look nothing like advertised. This is a brand new build so I do not understand.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   129.726 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   122.169 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :    51.142 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :    68.818 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     0.700 MB/s [   170.8 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     1.097 MB/s [   267.9 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     0.607 MB/s [   148.3 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     1.092 MB/s [   266.6 IOPS]

  Test : 1000 MB [D: 2.7% (25.0/931.5 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2010/12/08 15:43:15
    OS : Windows 7  [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
 

[Dark Mantis]

To be honest they look fairly average for a single magnetic disk. The problem is it doesn't live up to the hype.

I know as I bought two WD Black SATA3s to configure in a RAID0 array on the Marvell SATA3 ports....and then reality struck! But I wasn't the only one, many people have been caught out on this one and it is not just a Gigabyte problem. All manufacturers that incorporated SATA3 options on their boards had no choice but to us ethe Marvell chip and so were in the same boat. The Marvell chip won't support RAID well either.

[bgarrant]

My SSD is also under specs it seems.  How do these look?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   165.573 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   136.179 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   164.789 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   136.179 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    21.755 MB/s [  5311.2 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    66.693 MB/s [ 16282.5 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :    25.615 MB/s [  6253.6 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :    91.947 MB/s [ 22447.9 IOPS]

  Test : 500 MB [C: 43.9% (49.0/111.7 GB)] (x3)
  Date : 2010/12/08 16:03:38
    OS : Windows 7  [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
 

[Dark Mantis]

I would have thought that you should be getting better read speeds certainly from your SSD. I don't have any experience with this particular drive but even though your write speeds are not going to be blazingly fast because it isn't a very big drive I would have expected a bit more from the read side. I don't know what figures they advertise for the G.SKILL Phoenix Pro but I would guess more than that.

Have you got the port set for AHCI for this drive? Because you will see a speed increase over IDE mode for SSDs. The only thing is you will have to do a registry hack if you already have the OS set up on it.

[bgarrant]

How do I tell if it is IDE or AHCI?  And how do I change without reformatting drive as I have many programs installed.

[Dark Mantis]

Well you have to make the change in the BIOS.
Follow this guide for changing the registry.

1.Exit all Windows-based programs.

2.Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

3.If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.

4.Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesMsahci

5.In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.

6.In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.

7.On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.

After this you’ll have to restart your computer, go to BIOS and enable AHCI. When you log in to Windows again, you’ll notice the installation of drivers for AHCI. Another restart will be required to finish the driver installation.

[bgarrant]

Is there a big difference in AHCI mode?  I am cautious as I afreaid I may not be able to boot back into Windows.  Also, can the HDD I have also be pkugged into an AHCI SATA port as it appear ports 1 - 4 will be changed?  Any other issue I need to be aware of with AHCI before I make the change as this is a work PC and I really do not want any downtime.

[Dark Mantis]

You should see a fair improvement on the SSD speed in AHCI mode but apart from that there would be no other benefits for you. As fopr the other drive you can run that under AHCI or IDE it really won't make that much difference. The change to the registry works alright as long as you follow it closely but I quite understand if you would rather not take the chance.

[bgarrant]

would I need to do this as well since using WIndows 7 64 after changing to SSD?

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=7056&highlight=AHCI