Crucial mx100 256gb not performing in SATA 3(Mervell)

[Kungmagnus]

Current system:

Motherboard: Gigabyte P55A-UD3
HD : Samsung spinpoint
OS: Windows 7 64-bit home premium

Planned addition:
SSD : Crucial MX100 256gb

I’m currently running a system with a Gigabyte P55A-UD3 motherboard windows 7 and a regular HDD in IDE mode. I just bought a Crucial MX100 256gb with the intention to format everything and have my OS+programs on my SSD then use the HDD for regular storage.

My motherboard is quite old and features six sata 2(intel) ports and two sata 3 Marvell 9128 ports(aka ”gsata”). Before I formatted everything I figured I might as well test my SSD a bit to see how it’s performing using the AS SSD benchmark tool. (I had to run my OS in safe mode to bench using my sata 2 ports since my OS won’t load in ahci mode cause it’s installed in IDE mode). I used this youtube clip as a reference point for perfomance: http://youtu.be/584z8Wkjqx4?t=4m9s .

Unfortunately I got way less performance than in the video and surprisingly I got similiar or even better performance from my intel sata 2 ports than my marvel sata 3 ports. After searching some on the Internet it seems to be a common problem (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/277988-32-mushkin-marvell-9128-sata-controller-sata-speeds , http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-S...A-UD-3-Crucial-M4-SSD-Hardware-and/td-p/68525 , http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=6585.0 )

Screenshot sata 3:

Screenshot sata 2:

Can I do anything about my sata 3 performance or should I just stick to sata 2? Can I update some drivers or something, and how and when should I do that if I reformat? Also, do the SSD at least perform as expected on the sata 2 ports?

Other tips and tricks before i reformat and install w7 on my SDD using a USB-stick with windows on it would also be appreciated I guess. Not sure which drivers I should download, link to my motherboards drivers can be found here: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3242#dl . Just choose windows 7 64-bit and drivers.

 

[denis280]

this one.Marvell RAID Preinstall Driver (SATA3) for AHCI Mode.and do you have it set as ahci in your bios??

 

[Ketchup]

On my last board I mistakenly installed my SSD on one of the two Marvel ports and realized it very quickly when the machine started freezing for no apparent reason. Use the Intel ports, ignore the numbers, and enjoy your fast new drive. As denis280 mentioned, make sure you are using AHCI, and make sure you have Intel rapid store technology installed. Move to SATA 3 with your next upgrade. I have those drives in one of our laptops as well as the desktop, and the drive is not noticeably faster in the desktop (the laptop has a SATA2 port) for what we do with it.

 

[Kungmagnus]

this one.Marvell RAID Preinstall Driver (SATA3) for AHCI Mode.and do you have it set as ahci in your bios??

So you're suggesting i go with my sata 3 ports? Cause my sata 2 ports are not marvell, they're intel. Yes i did change it to ahci while running the tests, had to run windows in safe mode for the sata 2 tests because my regular HDD(with the OS) was installed in ide mode and the OS won't load if i change to ahci without going safe-mode.

 

[Charlie98]

So you're suggesting i go with my sata 3 ports? Cause my sata 2 ports are not marvell, they're intel.

Use the Intel ports, ignore the numbers, and enjoy your fast new drive.

I have those drives in one of our laptops as well as the desktop, and the drive is not noticeably faster in the desktop (the laptop has a SATA2 port) for what we do with it.

I have an M500 in my old Dell laptop, even at SATA2 it makes the old thing fly!

 

[Kungmagnus]

Think I've decided to let my ssd run on sata 2. But what drivers should i download? There is a list of drivers for my mobo here: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3242#dl choose windows 7 64-bit too see the selection. The Intel® Rapid Storage Technology driver seems a bit outdated, should I go with a newer one from intels website?

 

[Ketchup]

Think I've decided to let my ssd run on sata 2. But what drivers should i download? There is a list of drivers for my mobo here: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3242#dl choose windows 7 64-bit too see the selection. The Intel® Rapid Storage Technology driver seems a bit outdated, should I go with a newer one from intels website?

You can try both, but I doubt newer drivers would be any better. The GUI may be newer, but the chipset is still the same, and Intel has newer hardware to be optimizing drivers for.

 

[Kungmagnus]

Do you guys think I should install Intel SATA Preinstall driver (For AHCI / RAID Mode)? And what does preinstall mean? Am I suppose to install it before I install my windows? (it's listed in my motherboards driver files that I linked in my first post)

 

[Ketchup]

That is only if windows setup cannot find your hard drive. However, windows 7 comes with drivers that will recognize that intel hard drive controller.

 

[Kungmagnus]

Ok cool, ty

 

[Kungmagnus]

So i successfully installed my new SSD as the only drive while having completely disconnected my old HDD but when I connected my old drive back into the system(which has the old OS on it) and all of a sudden I got a 100 mb "reserved by system" disk when I click my computer. What is this? I was thinking of reformating my old HDD to get rid of all the old user stuff to get a clean slate. Can i remove this partition and how?

Edit: Nvm just removed both the volumes and reformated the drive. worked like a charm.

 

[Cerb]

So i successfully installed my new SSD as the only drive while having completely disconnected my old HDD but when I connected my old drive back into the system(which has the old OS on it) and all of a sudden I got a 100 mb "reserved by system" disk when I click my computer. What is this? I was thinking of reformating my old HDD to get rid of all the old user stuff to get a clean slate. Can i remove this partition and how?

Edit: Nvm just removed both the volumes and reformated the drive. worked like a charm.

For reference: if you want to keep its data, but have that not show up, you can remove the partition's drive letter assignment in Disk Management.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Wasn't this (Intel SATA-2 faster than Marvell SATA-3) a pretty common problem/observation with first gen SATA-3 controllers and 5-series Intel Motherboards?

 

[Cerb]

Wasn't this (Intel SATA-2 faster than Marvell SATA-3) a pretty common problem/observation with first gen SATA-3 controllers and 5-series Intel Motherboards?

Yes. On some boards, Marvell would get faster sequential, but app benches were either the same or worse, and many onboard implementations were buggy. The drivers and firmware have improved, along with PCIe available, so later cards based on the same chips have not been bad at all, but most mobos never got updates, and/or didn't offer the chip enough bandwidth in the first place.

 

[Ketchup]

Wasn't this (Intel SATA-2 faster than Marvell SATA-3) a pretty common problem/observation with first gen SATA-3 controllers and 5-series Intel Motherboards?

It was. Usually included because a) Intel didn't have SATA3 on their chipset yet, or b) the intel controller didn't have enough SATA3 ports.

There is another issue here as well. If you read the manual, it will say that the Marvell controller is there for storage, not for the OS to be placed on.