GA-X58A-UD3R AHCI/IDE/RAID Modes

[Atomic_Sheep]

Hi,

This Mobo is old (here's a link http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-x58a-ud3r_v2.0_e.pdf) but I never learned how to set it up properly. Re-installing my computer, so decided to delve into setting it up properly.

I'm trying to figure out how to get the most hard drive performance out of it.

The MB has x6 sky blue SATA 3Gb/s ports which I presume are simply called SATA3 in BIOS?
x2 eSATA 3GB/s ports through the jmicron JMB362 chip which is obviously eSATA in BIOS (the plugs for these appear to be next to the USB ports and I don't use them. Not sure what they are for to be honest.
x2 SATA 6GB/s through the Marvell 9128 chip. I'm guessing these are GSATA3_7&8?
x2 SATA 3Gb/s through the gigabyte SATA2 chip. I'm guessing these are GSATA2_8&9?

I have 1 SSD which I use to boot W7 from and x4 7200RPM HDD in RAID10 for data on a separate drive.

How should I be connecting them up to the motherboard for maximum performance? Also what settings do I need in BIOS?

At the moment, I have my SSD and 7200RPM HDDs all plugged into the sky blue ports. But now that I look at it, there are also 6Gb/s Marvell SATA ports. But since there's only two of those, I'm only going to be able to connect an SSD to it.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,
You have identified the SATA controllers function on the board correctly. 

In regards to the JMicon controller, it supports eSATA disks (1-2) as single SATA or RAID 0~1

The ICH10R is the only controller that supports RAID10

The Marvell 9128 is the only controller that supports SATA6, but there are only 2 ports.

All of the controllers except the intel have 1 PCIe lane.  So when one drive is connected to any of them except the Marvell, you will see up to 3Gbps performance (and up to 6Gbps) on the Marvel.  When two disks are connected, each channel is capable of 1.5Gbps or 3.0 (Marvell).  This is a standard marketing selling point used by all motherboard manufacturers.

If your boot drive is SATA6, it will run the fastest on the Marvel controller.  You should be able to select this as a primary boot device in the boot order.  The controller operate mode should be set to AHCI.  Try it.

You must have the ICH10R set to RAID mode correctly if its currently hosting your 0+1 arrays.

I would disable any of the controllers you don't have devices connected to as this will speed up boot time.

[Atomic_Sheep]

Thanks, got everything working. However, this thread suggests switching over to Marvell was a bad idea:

https://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=10005.0

I did a benchmark, results are attached. Probably should have saved the old system image and did a back to back test comparing ICH10R chip to the Marvell, but I think I will live with it. Have been playing around with my computer for over a week now, really need to get things finalised.

I'm only using C drive for booting and those speeds seem fast enough for reads, not quite at the 750mb/s mark but I have a feeling the reads are faster than they were before. I ran this test years ago through the ICH10R chip. But I don't remember for sure.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,
Not sure why the gentlemen in the post from 2012 suggests you will have "long term problems" connecting your boot drive to the 9128 controller.  His claim is unsubstantiated and vague.  That said, searching google shows a mixed bag of reviews for the controller.

What is the brand and model of your SSD? 

For comparison (example)

Samsung 850 EVO 512GB 550/520 max R/W
Samsung 850 Pro 512GB 550/520 max R/W

There is always some overhead.

Suggest you do the following:

Do 3 or more consecutive tests with Crystal Disk Mark.  Take the results off all tests and divide by 4.  Use that as a baseline for the Marvel controller.

Try one other test.  Use the largest file you have and copy it back and forth between the SSD and array.  Note the time and throughput. 

Now move the SSD to the Intel controller.  It should operate as standalone SATA in AHCI mode, even with the operate mode set to RAID.  You might have to use a certain port (refer to your manual) don't recall.

Perform another round of benchmarking and see which is better.  Overall R/W. 

Then test the file copy operation I mentioned above and compare.  Just curious to see the disk I/O between different controller and with the disks on the same controller.     

This won't hurt anything and you can move the SSD back depending on the results.

One other important thing to note.  Are you using microsoft's SATA driver for the Marvell Controller or the Marvell driver?  Marvell's driver might be better.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-X58A-UD3R-rev-20#support-dl

Note: You can use System Restore to test the various drivers without any negative impact to your system. 

Also, please be sure to install Intel chipset .inf drivers as this can also improve overall system performance. 

Please report your findings.  I don't need images of the benchmarking results, just your written findings what worked best.

 **Edit, just watched a few youtube videos from 2012, consensus seems to be the slower Intel controller out performs the Marvell, but I would do my own testing to confirm.   

[Atomic_Sheep]

Yep, that discussion was largely hearsay.

The specs of my HDD are:

Sequential Read (up to) 550 MB/s
Sequential Write (up to) 500 MB/s

So it should be writing faster, but oh well.

I'm using the driver that you provided in your link, not the one windows finds. Windows wasn't able to find the driver for Marvell, had a little exclamation mark on it.

Would love to do testing in comparison to the intel chip, but I think I'll stick with Marvell. When I swapped from Intel to Marvell, I had to re-install windows because it stopped working. I'm hearing that when windows gets installed, it gets installed based on your current hardware config. Swapping to a different controller doesn't sound like it's going to change anything software wise, but it does. My keyboard and mouse stopped responding, so USB got stuffed up and then eventually it stopped booting completely while I was trying to solve the keyboard mouse problem.

The read is the main one that really affects me, so I'll just live with it. I'm 90% positive that I never had such good reads before. My writes on the intel chip I think were better but maybe 50mb/s better. I just remember being slightly faster than another computer that I ran the benchmark on. But it wasn't much faster. So it seems read is much faster on Marvell, but write is a little slower than intel, at least based on memory.

[dmdilks]

So it seems read is much faster on Marvell, but write is a little slower than intel, at least based on memory.

The thing is that none of the MB companies really got the Marvell chip to work right. Yes it is nice to have that controller, but is a shell game on what one is really better in those older boards.

What is it do you find a SSD 2 drive that might have better performance. That would be the right drive for the board. Or just flip a coin and use the SSD 3 drive. Or you could look a expansion Card that would support sata 3/6gb's.

There are some threads on this that people use expansion cards with M2 sata drives on them on these boards.

[shadowsports]

dmdilks,
Glad to see you back.  Happy New Year!

[dmdilks]

dmdilks,
Glad to see you back.  Happy New Year!

You too and how is the new job doing?