Sniper 5 with Marvell 88SE9230, can't use an SSD to cache drives?

[Rant6]

Hi, I just finished a complete new system build using the G1.Sniper 5 motherboard (see specs below).  It took me two weeks to build the box and get all of my apps and games reinstalled and restored on my boot drive.

I was excited about the Marvell RAID controller chip with its hardware based RAID controller and its ability to use an SSD drive to cache the HDDs, and so I took advantage of this chip during the initial build. The HDD's in this system were configured as follows:

-Boot drive: Two 2TB drives connected to two Marvell 88SE9230 SATA ports configured as a single RAID 1 virtual disk
-Data drives: Two 1.5TB drives connected to the Intel Z87 chipset SATA ports, each as a stand alone drive

A couple of weeks after I completed this build (and after my bank account recovered) I went out an bought a new 120GB SSD SATA drive to use as a fast drive cache for my 2TB boot drive.  I was really looking forward to improving drive performance because some of my games have very long load times.  The Marvell controller is supposed to support hardware based SSD drive caching via Marvell's HyperDuo technology, but I was surprised to find that the Marvell MSU HyperDuo setup utility will not recognize my RAID 1 virtual disk as a valid drive that can be paired with an SSD.  It seems like this should work, but there is little or no information out there about this particular configuration.  Alternatively, I tried using the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers to create a software based SSD drive cache, but the Intel software only recognizes the two data drives that are located on the Z87 SATA ports.  It does not see the drives that are located on the Marvell controller, and so I can not use that utility to create an SSD drive cache for my boot drive.  Does this mean that, because I chose to use a RAID 1 configuration on the Marvell controller for my boot drive, that I cannot create an SSD drive cache for my boot drive?  Do I have to choose between data safety with RAID 1 and data speed with HyperDuo? 

There is very little, if any, information on the web about the nuances of this chip, and so I have not been able to get any information about the different configuration possibilities.  I have opened a trouble ticket with Gigabyte, but I don't have much hope that that will bear fruit.

Does anyone know anything about this situation?

G1.Sniper M5(rev. 1.0) BIOS VerF5
Nvidia GTX 780 for graphics (3D Vision enabled)
Nvidia GTX 580 for Physx
Intel 4770k currently at 3.5Ghz water cooled
Windows 8
8 GB Corsair DDR3 1600 RAM
Thermaltake  850w Power Supply
2 DVD RW optical drives
7.5 TB internal storage

[ysw]

from the marvell spec http://www.marvell.com/storage/system-solutions/assets/Marvell-HyperDuo-Tech-Brief.pdf, you may use one hdd+ one SSD (up to 3 SSD)for performance, not raid mode.

[Rant6]

Thanks for the link YSW.  I did read that document, and it does say one HD and one or more SATA drives, but it is not entirely clear of the HD has to be a physical HD or a Virtual HD as in the case of a RAID array.  It seems like the code could easily be written to accommodate either.  I would have to say that the Marvell chip has limited usefulness if I have to choose between data safety with RAID, or data speed with SSD caching.  It just makes no sense to design the chip with that particular limitation, but I'm starting to get concerned that that may be the case.

Thanks.

[Dream]

If you look at the technical brief, and read it fully it informs you by way of a big picture of a green card with 2 SSD's and 2 HDD's capable of being connected to the 88SE9230 controller. A little further down in "feature highlights" it states that;

"- HyperDuo with RAID 0/1 on HDDs for capacity and data protection (e.g. 2 SSDs + RAID 0/1 on dual HDDs)"

From further reading around I found the controller requires at least 1 SSD per HDD connected. So for your configuration of 2 HDD's in RAID1 mode, you would need 2 SSD's connected also ... one for each of the HDD's. I would imagine this is to do with the way the controller chip accesses and moves data from/to HDD and SSD. A single data pipe from 1 device to 1 device makes things a lot simpler and faster than moving data from 2 devices to 1 device and vice versa.

As you probably already know, RAID1 is slightly slower on any interface, so if you're wanting that snappier system response, then maybe run HyperDuo on your SSD with 1 HDD for the convenience and the speed, and keep the other HDD for periodic backups, maybe using acronis software or whatever you prefer, for example. Just a thought.

Personally I run a card with this 88SE9230 controller using 2x 128GB Toshiba SSD's and 2x 3TB Toshiba HDD's all in RAID0 Capacity mode giving me 6TB (true 1024GB 6TB, not 1000GB 5.74TB, due to the extra 240GB from the SSD's) on an OC PCIe bus, and I get very impressive performance almost topping out the 10GB/s limit of the PCIe 2.0 x2 interface for the majority of the time. It works, and works well enough for me to be happy not having to install/uninstall software to a dedicated SSD boot drive all the time.

Hope this gives you some idea of how this card requires to be configured, and sorry your idea of 1 SSD and 2 HDD isn't going to work out as you originally expected it to, but it could work out for you just fine though still.

[Gloup_Gloup]

Hello,  

I searched on websites in English, global, us, fr and German Gigabyte.. drivers for Marvell 88SE9230.

I even have tried on some motherboard models with this storage connector, but it does not seem that drivers available.

Does someone has a solution, an idea where to get it?

I have just find here:
http://www.drivers-download.com/en/downloadlist.php?id=204

and a other member ''Topp'' on french forum here:
http://www.touslesdrivers.com/index.php?v_page=23&v_code=36810
http://antdriver.com/marvell-91xx-sata-6g-controller-drivers-v-1-2-0-1027whql/

But I am not sure, if are compatible for Windows 8-8.1 64 bit ...

EDIT:
1.2.0.1032 WHQL seem are compatible with a Windows 8 64  bit.
http://www.touslesdrivers.com/index.php?v_page=23&v_code=36810
http://fichiers.touslesdrivers.com/36810/Marvell_SATA3_88SE91xx_88SE92xx_1.2.0.1032.zip
Thank you for your contribution Topp.

[Gloup_Gloup]

Topp found a version of September 2013

Updated Version 1.2.0.1039 whql.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/t359rf441dgtfe4/Marvell_driver_1201039_64.exe
This is an update of 5 September 2013.

Install Version 1.2.0.1032.
Then do an update of drivers by the device manager by specifying the location of the file 1.2.0.1039.

Thank you again for your contribution Topp.

[Gloup_Gloup]

Other source by Topp:

http://waqiah.info/marvell-91xx92xx-sata-6g-controller-drivers-1-2-0-103/