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Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with AMD processors => Topic started by: bw on August 01, 2011, 11:08:14 am

Title: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: bw on August 01, 2011, 11:08:14 am

Hello,
I'm using 2x Crucial M4 64GB in RAID0 on 990FXA-UD5 board / AMD ports. Problem is with max transfers in RAID 0. Single drive can make up to 430MB/s read while 2 the same ssd in RAID0 are making no more than 460-500MB/s ( depends what cache options I choose ). No matter what stripe I set ( 64/128/256) , cache options ( write through/back ) I can't make it better but write transfers are almost exactly 2x higher in RAID.
I saw some topics about the same problems on other 990FX boards and I'm curious if there is any bios to fix this issue on UD5 or if anyone is working on it.
I'm using latest RAID drivers, fresh system install ( installed couple of times with different RAID/stripe options ), checked SATA cables etc. Bios F5b as it fixed some freeze issues.
No matter if it's overclocked or not, all is working the same ( core unlocking is not working for me on this board and fix for this could be nice too ;) ).

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: absic on August 01, 2011, 11:16:21 am

Hi there,

I don't have any SSD's to check things for you but do you get the same speeds on the Marvell 9172 (Grey) SATA Ports?

You could try the F5c BETA BIOS that I am currently running and, if you want to test it you can download it from here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/upload/files/BIOS_990FXA-UD5_F5c.zip

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: bw on August 01, 2011, 11:39:48 am

I didn't check Marvell as these controllers have problems to pass ~350MB/s on single ports and other transfers are much lower than on AMD/Intel ( I had P67 board some time ago and my bro has X58 ). Thanks for bios, I will try it for sure when I back from work :) ... and if it won't help then I check Marvell ports.

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: absic on August 01, 2011, 11:45:08 am

I know what you mean about Marvell Ports but I was surprised when I tested with SATA3 HDD's at how much better they were than the previous 9127 version.

If you check here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,5704.msg45818.html#msg45818 I go through setting up a RAID0 Array on the Marvell Controller and you can see that I actually got better figures than I did with the same set-up on the AMD Controller.

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: bw on August 02, 2011, 07:49:08 am

Is there any changes log for F5c ? I didn't have much time yesterday but in a bit more than 1h I haven't seen any difference comparing to F5b. Still can't unlock cpu cores, raid performance is the same but system is loading some seconds longer. I can't just move my raid from amd controller to marvell so I will check it later with fresh install ( maybe during weekend ).

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: toysoldier on August 02, 2011, 08:45:04 am

I also noticed a longer boot up time with the F5c BIOS. Another thing I noticed was my overclock not being stable anymore .. so I'm back with the F5b BIOS.
 ::)

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: bw on August 22, 2011, 10:24:34 am

Finally I found how to solve problems with performance for SSD RAID. There is option to enable or disable RAID 5 in BIOS. Weird that it's called like that because what I noticed is that it's limiting max transfers to what you can achieve on SATA2. So this option has to be enabled.
Other thing is while setting Read Cache you have to enable system cache and while setting Read Ahead, system cache has to be disabled or transfers will drop.
Here is one funny thing that I have hope someone will fix. When you enable system cache while running Read Ahead then transfers are better till you restart system. After restart, small file transfers are dropping.
Benchmark results are best for me on 128K stripe, Read Ahead, system cache off and of course RAID5 option enabled in BIOS ( running version F5c ).
In attachments screen shot that I already posted on Crucial forums.

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: absic on August 22, 2011, 10:43:58 am

Thanks for the update bw, it's much appreciated and I, for one, wasn't aware of the need to enable RAID5 to improve things.

As a matter of interest, I noticed that new Marvell AHCI and RAID drivers were released last week, have you or anyone else tired these yet?

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: bw on August 22, 2011, 10:59:52 am

I was trying once but I couldn't even install system on Marvell controller , some weird errors while format ... so I didn't test it and spent some days checking all options for AMD controller/drivers ;) I can only say that new and older AMD drivers are working the same.

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: agulerer on September 02, 2011, 05:44:02 pm

Where can I download new marvell drivers for 990fx?

Title: Re: 990FXA-UD5 SATA3/RAID0 performance
Post by: absic on September 03, 2011, 08:37:37 am

Quote from: agulerer on September 02, 2011, 05:44:02 pm

Where can I download new marvell drivers for 990fx?

I have answered your question here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,6679.0.html

Please do not double post as it can make things confusing.