P55A-UD3 supporting Vertex 3 120gb SSD?

[piopakk]

Hi all,

I am looking to buy a Vertex 3 SSD with 120GB, but am not sure if my motherboard (P55A-UD3 rev. 1.0) supports it truly.

The specifications tell that the mb supports: 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3_6, GSATA3_7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices on a Marvell 9128 chip.

But I have read that the Marvell 9128 chip is not so good together with a Vertex 3. Is that true?

Does the Vertex 3 perform 100% with full speed with my motherboard?

Thanks all

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Your motherboard as you have quite rightly said uses a Marvell 9128 contoller chip for the SATA3 6GB/s ports. This never worked as it was intended and just wouldn't take the full throughput of a fast drive like that.  In fact often the SATA2 ports ended up outpacing the SATA3 ports. You will still notice a huge improvement but probably not quite do full justice to the drives potential.

Not only that but the Marvell ports don't transfer the TRIM commands needed to keep the drive healthy in the long run.

[piopakk]

Hmm okay, sad to hear that.

So what chipsets are great for use with SSD's?
Is there any other SSD that would be good performance with my motherboard? Perhaps the Vertex 2?
And what you are saying about the TRIM commands, means that it would not be a great idea to buy a SSD with this motherboard?

Thanks!

[Dark Mantis]

Not at all. I have a X58A-UD7 that has a Corsair 256 GB SSD in but I have it on the SATA2 port controlled byt he Intel ICH10R southbridge chip. As I mentioned before this is actually faster then the Marvell and does support TRIM. Your board is basically the same as far as that goes so a SATA2 SSD would be fine.

[piopakk]

Okay, so a SSD that runs on my SATA2 port (3gb/s) will run perfectly? No disadvantages?

I think a Vertex 2 drive would be fine then, or would you perhaps suggest another one?

Thanks!

[Dark Mantis]

Any SATA2 SSD should be fine as long as it is on the Intel ports.  The best ones are the Intel SSDs or the Crucial C300s. The Crucial C300 drives are actually SATA3 but would still be fine on the SATA2 port. They are by far the fastest SSD at the moment but there are other starting to appear that are faster again.

[picard25]

I joined this forum to ask,nearly,the same question as the original poster - thank you Denmark

I have a GA-X58A-UD3R mobo so I reckon I will have to fit my,proposed, OCZ 120gb Vertex 3 ssd into the Intel Connector but,after doing much research on the net I find this problem with Marvell controllers has been around for at least 1 year.I am at a loss as to why they have not addressed the problem or is it because a bios upgrade is not possible?

Dark Mantis - It seems the Vertex 3 easily holds the C300's performance unless the C300 is in raid form.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes I would agree with you that the Vertex3 is as fast as least but not readilly avbailable everywhere yet as far as I know and that was the rerason for my answer being the C300.

This Marvell controller issue cannot be fixed with a BIOS update and it is only recently that there has even been a hardware fix  that would be able to do the job. At the time of manufacture it was the only option but failed to deliver. This not only affects Gigabyte boards but is across the industry.

[picard25]

Yes,I have been reading the same problem on the ASUS forum and others.

Thank you for,not only your reply,but for all the work you Moderators do in helping we of less knowledge & experience.

Cheers - away now to Amazon (best & cheapest) to order a 120gb Vertex 3 and await a supply to arrive (what's the point of having a China if it doesn't produce loads of everything?) 

[Dark Mantis]

Thank you for your kind words and I am only to happy to try and help.

[piopakk]

Yes thank you Dark Mantis for your help! Very appreciated!

I now have the vertex 2 in my pc and its running fast, nice. But I would like to test if the vertex 2 delivers 100% full performance on my machine. How can I test that?

Thanks!

[Dark Mantis]

Welll you could use a program like AS-SSD which is free and downloadable. This is a testing program that is well respected and thorough.

[piopakk]

Ok, I ran AS-SSD and here are the results: Please see the attached picture.

Isn't the read/write speeds a bit under performing..?

[Dark Mantis]

I must admit I would have expected more especially of the read speed and a bit more of the write. Off the cuff something like 220 read and 160 write.

What port is it on and have you set it up as AHCI ?

[piopakk]

its on sata2 port and not AHCI I think.. Should it be on AHCI?