Marvell ??

[solarissf]

Hi guys,

Can someone please explain to me (in layman's terms), what a marvell controller is for on my new AsusP67Pro mobo?

From what I understand it has something to do with a SDD or HDD drive?

new to this.. thank you

 

[smakme7757]

On your motherboard you have SATA ports. You connect SATA devices to these ports e.g. DVD Drive, HDD, SSD.

Connected to the SATA ports is a controller which will support certain functions and have a certain amount of throughput. SATA 2 (3Gbps) or SATA 3 (6Gbps), NCQ (Native Command Queueing) and hot plug and so on.

On your board you have the following controllers:

Intel&#174; P67 Express Chipset <<<----- Controller
2 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s ports (gray)
4 xSATA 3.0 Gb/s ports (blue)

Marvell&#174; 9120 controller <<<--------Controller
2 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s ports (navy blue)*

Intel can only support so many SATA ports on its controller so in order for the motherboard manufacturer to add more SATA ports they need to implement another controller to 'control' them. That's why you have a Marvell chip on your motherboard. To give you an extra 2x SATA 3 (6Gbps) SATA ports.

Controllers are not limited to SATA though; you will also notice you have a Jmicron controller for the external ESATA ports on your board, as well as a NEC controller to 'control' the USB 3.0 usb ports.

A controller is essentially a hardware driver that makes the port do its function. Most controllers have a limit of how many ports/functions it can provide so more controllers are needed to expand the available ports/attachements the motherboard manufactureres can implelemt on a motherboard.

I hope that helps.

 

[solarissf]

thanks, so a marvell port is there just to add more ports on the motherboard? So technically there is no difference if I plug a 6.0HDD into the 6.0sata controller, or if I plug it into the 6.0marvell controller? sorry.. just want to make sure I fully understand it

 

[smakme7757]

It doesn't matter which port you use as the drives are backwards compatible. Although i've found the Intel controller to yield better wirte speeds than the Marvell controller.

 

[solarissf]

awesome... thanks for the explanation!

 

[pjkenned]

My advice would be to put primary drives or SSDs on the two Intel SATA III 6.0gbps ports. Put optical drive on the potentially failure prone four Intel 3.0gbps ports. Additional hard drives you may want to put on the Marvell controller. If you are not overly concerned about the possibility of the Cougar Point bug occurring at a poor time, you can fill ports at will (although I would still suggest the Intel 6.0gbps ports for primary drives/ SSDs).

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Marvell Comics ------> Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Flash etc etc

 

[Dadofamunky]

My advice would be to put primary drives or SSDs on the two Intel SATA III 6.0gbps ports. Put optical drive on the potentially failure prone four Intel 3.0gbps ports. Additional hard drives you may want to put on the Marvell controller. If you are not overly concerned about the possibility of the Cougar Point bug occurring at a poor time, you can fill ports at will (although I would still suggest the Intel 6.0gbps ports for primary drives/ SSDs).

Yep, that's basically what I did. My SSD does happen to be on the Marvell controller and honestly I don't think it matters. My RAID set is on the Intel SATA-3 6gps ports and my optical is on the SATA 2 controller. I have a Marvell SATA-3 port available if I decide 2 TB just isn't enough.

 

[solarissf]

regarding RAID setup... how much of a noticable difference is their when you set 2 harddrives in RAID for performance, rather than for backup reasons? forget off the top of my head which setup that is

 

[Dadofamunky]

Plain ol' RAID 0 actually makes a significant difference, at least to me. Disk striping means two HDs get to do the work of one, distributing the work between them, and I swear by it. My Core 2 Duo is still a very peppy system, partly because the disk throughput is acceptable. I won't RAID my SSD though, because I lose TRIM garbage collection, which from what I understand can extend the life of your drive.

 

[BoomerD]

Marvell Comics ------> Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Flash etc etc

Wrong...sort of. Superman, Batman, & Flash are from Action Comics.

Spiderman, X-Men, Fantastic 4 and others are from Marvel.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Wrong...sort of. Superman, Batman, & Flash are from Action Comics.

Spiderman, X-Men, Fantastic 4 and others are from Marvel.

HA! Got ya ya NERD!

 

[pjkenned]

Plain ol' RAID 0 actually makes a significant difference, at least to me. Disk striping means two HDs get to do the work of one, distributing the work between them, and I swear by it. My Core 2 Duo is still a very peppy system, partly because the disk throughput is acceptable. I won't RAID my SSD though, because I lose TRIM garbage collection, which from what I understand can extend the life of your drive.

Garbage collection works in RAID, and that is what mitigates the need for TRIM.

The big difference between RAID 0 traditional drives and RAID 0 SSDs are that you may notice a difference with spinning disks, but RAID 0 SSDs will likely be most noticible in two areas, total volume size and benchmark speeds.

 

[faxon]

Just btw, Marvel is the name of the company that makes this specific SATA controller all mobo manufacturers are using right now, not the name of a port or something

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvell_Technology_Group?wasRedirected=true

Seemed like some may be confused on that point