eSATA BadAxe2 Vista Marvell Driver

[GamingDaemon]

I bought an external enclosure for a backup SATA2 drive I have since my new rig comes with an external SATA port right on the top (go Enermax Chakra!)

This meant stretch the cable to fit into the red Marvell SATA port on the BadAxe2 mobo. It also meant enable the Marvell RAID ports in BIOS.

And ultimately, it meant installing the Vista drivers for Marvell on my PC. It works great. I can even turn on and off my external drive when I want, etc.

But, I have to have Apache and other unwanted items on my PC now because of Marvell. When asked to unblock the firewall for Apache, I said no, keep blocking. It is there just so I can get an HTML view of the SATA drives. Big deal. That's what the Vista OS is for.

Any way I can just have the driver without all the other junk???

Plus, why do my SATA and eSATA drives averag only 50 to 60 MB/s??

 

[GamingDaemon]

Well, I stopped using the Enermax Chakra's eSATA/SATA cable. When I used the bracket supplied by the external SATA enclosure and plugged its SATA cable into the black ports, it worked fine.

Hmmm....at least it works now without Marvell!

 

[Chucko]

I used the "f6" driver (whatever its called now w/ vista) and I didn't have to mess around with the Apache stuff.

 

[GamingDaemon]

So, how much faster HDTach speeds would I get if I moved to RAID 0?

 

[gramboh]

Originally posted by: GamingDaemon
Well, I stopped using the Enermax Chakra's eSATA/SATA cable. When I used the bracket supplied by the external SATA enclosure and plugged its SATA cable into the black ports, it worked fine.

Hmmm....at least it works now without Marvell!

A few points

1) eSATA and the SATA bracket are different. The bracket is just extending an internal port. eSATA supports extra features like hot swapping and a few others I can't remember right now (check Wikipedia).

2) 50-60mb/s total sustained read is normal. The interface limits of 150-300mb/s are only applicable in RAID/15,000rpm setups. Your drive might be able to burst 150-200mb/s.

 

[grooge]

To acheive RAID performance, you need at least 2 drive.. in stripe, which is not the best thing for external storage. the speed you get is normal for single drive.. thay simply don't match interface speed

 

[GamingDaemon]

Originally posted by: gramboh

Originally posted by: GamingDaemon
Well, I stopped using the Enermax Chakra's eSATA/SATA cable. When I used the bracket supplied by the external SATA enclosure and plugged its SATA cable into the black ports, it worked fine.

Hmmm....at least it works now without Marvell!

A few points

1) eSATA and the SATA bracket are different. The bracket is just extending an internal port. eSATA supports extra features like hot swapping and a few others I can't remember right now (check Wikipedia).

2) 50-60mb/s total sustained read is normal. The interface limits of 150-300mb/s are only applicable in RAID/15,000rpm setups. Your drive might be able to burst 150-200mb/s.

WRT to #1, I was not able to do hot-swapping with eSATA. Vista didn't like me turning my external drive on and off. But when I used the SATA bracket, Vista hiccups but handles it. And if I don't have to use Marvell, all the better.

And thank you gramboh and grooge for quelling my fears about drive speed. Looks like I'm right on target.

 

[Clem]

Gaming Daemon:

I was having a hard time setting up an ACHI configuration using a SATA drive off of the Intel Matix controller, when utilizing the Marvell controller also.

What set up do you have on your Intel Matrix controller - Just a SATA hard, RAID, ACHI ?
In BIOS, how is your Advanced , Drive Configuration optioned ?
Use Automatic Mode - Disable / Enable
Use Serial ATA - Disable/ Enable
ATA/IDE Mode - Native / Legacy
Configure Sata as - RAID / IDE / ACHI

Sorry about all the questions.

.......................................

Concerning the Marvell Apache program running in Windows, you can hit the uninstall
under Windows, Start, Programs, Marvell.
If your RAID does work after that, just reinstall the Marvell Controller Program.

Or you can take the easy way out and point to , Windows, Start, Run, type [msconfig],
Services, and uncheck Apache.

 

[Goi]

How are the access times on eSATA drives? I've seen some benchmarks where while the eSATA drives shows comparable throughput numbers, their access times are much higher than internal SATA/PATA drives, or heck, even USB/Firewire.

 

[GamingDaemon]

Originally posted by: Clem
Gaming Daemon:

I was having a hard time setting up an ACHI configuration using a SATA drive off of the Intel Matix controller, when utilizing the Marvell controller also.

What set up do you have on your Intel Matrix controller - Just a SATA hard, RAID, ACHI ?
In BIOS, how is your Advanced , Drive Configuration optioned ?
Use Automatic Mode - Disable / Enable
Use Serial ATA - Disable/ Enable
ATA/IDE Mode - Native / Legacy
Configure Sata as - RAID / IDE / ACHI

Sorry about all the questions.

.......................................

Concerning the Marvell Apache program running in Windows, you can hit the uninstall
under Windows, Start, Programs, Marvell.
If your RAID does work after that, just reinstall the Marvell Controller Program.

Or you can take the easy way out and point to , Windows, Start, Run, type [msconfig],
Services, and uncheck Apache.

Sorry I've taken so long to reply. I am using jsut the Intel Matrix, no Marvell. I have my 2 HD's and an external SATA using the SATA bracket on the black ports. I boot in BIOS with AHCI.

I use automatic mode, SATA enabled, ATI/IDE mode as Native and configured SATA as ACHI.

Does this help? I will be more responsive now...

 

[Clem]

Did you try the fix for Apache ?