Official ASUS SSD – P8P67 Series Validation and Support – Including SATA6G SSD

[Masonw@ASUS]

Hello AnandTech Forum,

I am very happy to announce I recently finished some extended testing on Crucial’s C300 SATA 6G SSD. These tests were done to validate and ensure the functionality, performance and compatibility of our P8P67 Series of motherboards with this high performance SSD.

The purpose of this thread will be to provide our internal validation results as well as recommendations regarding SATA6G SSDs as well as other SSDs in general.
I will be initially starting this thread with screenshots of the C300 working correctly on the current 1253 UEFI Build. In addition to the benchmark results you will see below each system had 25 reboots along 2 passes of PC Mark Vantage. No issues were seen during testing.

Testing Notes -

1.UEFI was set to complete defaults.

2.Drive was cleaned prior to all testing via Diskpart / Clean All command ensuring best performance. In addition between switches to different board/testbed the drive was allowed sufficient time to run TRIM/Garbage Collection to regain performance. This generally at a minimum will be 1 Hour and 30 mins.

3. No OS Tweaks or adjustments or any other “optimizations were completed during our internal testing. In addition confirmation with our storage partners backs up these statments that these many adjustments cause issues or situations where users compromise the performance or integrity of the OS or drive by making unneeded changes. The operating system was fully updated via Windows Update with all available hotfixes/patches.

Configuration / Testbed is listed below.

CPU – 2600K D2
Ram - Corsair 1600 C8 (running at 1333 C9 due to UEFI defaults )
SSD - C300 with latest firmware 0006 ( on SATA6G Port Intel PCH Port 1 )
HD Controllers Used - Marvell controller used for connection with optical drive ( ASUS BC-08B1ST )
Graphics Card – GTX 560 Direct CU II TOP
Power Supply – Corsair HX850
OS – Windows 7 64Bit – all drivers installed specifics noted.

Drivers Used -

Intel INF - INF_allOS_9.2.0.1021_PV
Intel ME - MEI_allOS_7.0.3.1184_PV
Intel RST - STOR_allOS_10.1.0.1008_PV
Realtek Audio - Vista_Win7_R256
Bluetooth - 6.31.919.302
Nvidia Driver - 266.56_gtx560ti_win7_64bit_international
USB3 - renesas_2.0.32
SATA6G Marvell - marvell_91xx_1051
ESATA JMicron - R1.17.62.00_eSATA
Intel Lan - V15.8.1
Relatek Lan - Install_Win7_7037_01202011

Download Location for Core Intel Drivers are noted below.

Intel® ME: Management Engine Driver for Intel 6 Series Chipset-Based Desktop Boards
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...tProduct=Intel®+Desktop+Board+DP67BG&lang=eng

Chipset: Intel® Chipset Device Software for Intel® Desktop Boards
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...tProduct=Intel®+Desktop+Board+DP67BG&lang=eng

RAID: Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver for Intel Desktop Boards
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19632&lang=eng


Next up I will be also adding Raid 0 confirmation of 2 C300 Drives

Software used for benchmark purposes -

Aida64 Build 1230
CrystalDisk Mark Build 3.0.1

For users that communicate issues or performance concerns to ensure we can look into your problems or attempt duplication or resolution YOU MUST NOTE YOUR SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS.

Required Information is noted below

CPU –
Ram / Memory –
SSD with Firmware Revision, Part Number and MFG -
Controller used including port – ( list all drives connected )
Graphics Card –
Power Supply –
OS –
Note on UEFI options – Whether it is UEFI defaults or if you have specific adjustments


Below are screenshots for reference. I hope this helps; should you have any questions, concerns or inqueries please let me know. Please enjoy the rest of your day.

1. P8P67 ( Standard )

By illuminatidiasus at 2011-01-26

2. P8P67 PRO

By illuminatidiasus at 2011-01-26

3. P8P67 EVO

By illuminatidiasus at 2011-01-26

4. P8P67 Deluxe

By illuminatidiasus at 2011-01-26

 

[Haunty]

Yes, my C300 works fine on the 6Gb port on the Pro, it's only when an HDD was formatted with an allocation unit size of 512 bytes is when I had problems booting.

 

[Masonw@ASUS]

Yes, my C300 works fine on the 6Gb port on the Pro, it's only when an HDD was formatted with an allocation unit size of 512 bytes is when I had problems booting.

I assume you're formatting the drive from within Windows. Is this HDD your boot drive?

 

[Diogenes2]

P8P67 Pro BIOS 1053 Win7 64
I am using an OCZ Vertex 2 120GB as OS drive with no issues on an Intel SATA 2 port.
Model OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G

 

[Haunty]

I assume you're formatting the drive from within Windows. Is this HDD your boot drive?

Yes, formatted in Windows Disk Management. HDD is not the boot drive, the SSD is. But I don't think it matters, even when the HDD is the only drive attached it won't get through POST (before the 2nd logo display, or info screen showing memory, SATA devices, etc, it shows a garbled mess of pixels, and any key reboots). After deleting the volume and reformatting the HDD with default AU size, then everything was fine. I even confirmed it by reformatting with 512 again to see if the problem came back, and it did. I did not test any other AU sizes other than 512 and default, but I tested 2 different HDDs with the same result.

 

[rubenseven]

Great post, hope i don't have any issues when my C300 arrives.

 

[bankster55]

Yes, my C300 works fine on the 6Gb port on the Pro, it's only when an HDD was formatted with an allocation unit size of 512 bytes is when I had problems booting.

Nobody in their right mind would format any drive for a 512B "allocation". Normal clusters for Win 7 install are 8 sectots 512B X 8 or 4096B. In other words you are making a 1 sector cluster.

Even worse your SSD drive has no sectors or clusters - or heads or platters or anything related to a trad HDD. Its nothing but a bunch of flash chips with a controller chip. They use 4096K PAGES in and out of memory. If anything you should be partitioning your first partition offset to 2048K for better alignment.

That you would come here and bitch to the ASUS guy about your mobo is patently ridiculous.

Edit:
ooops 4096K should be 4096B

 

[Diogenes2]

I think Haunty may believe they are conserving drive space by setting to 512 ..
I wonder where someone suggested this is a good idea..
Even if it would work, it probably accomplishes little in the way of conserving space.

 

[Haunty]

Nobody in their right mind would format any drive for a 512B "allocation". Normal clusters for Win 7 install are 8 sectots 512B X 8 or 4096K. In other words you are making a 1 sector cluster.

Even worse your SSD drive has no sectors or clusters - or heads or platters or anything related to a trad HDD. Its nothing but a bunch of flash chips with a controller chip. They use 4096K PAGES in and out of memory. If anything you should be partitioning your first partition offset to 2048K for better alignment.

That you would come here and bitch to the ASUS guy about your mobo is patently ridiculous.

I was just informing ASUS, and others who might run into the same problem, that the 512 allocation on HDDs is causing problems with the board, and I originally thought it was an SSD problem, but I found out it has nothing to do with the SSD. Whether 512 allocation is a good idea or not is not the point and another topic entirely.

I don't know where you're getting the ridiculous idea that I was bitching to ASUS.

 

[Diogenes2]

I somehow feel that no one else is going to run into this problem, but it's good to know just in case..

 

[bankster55]

I was just informing ASUS, and others who might run into the same problem, that the 512 allocation on HDDs is causing problems with the board, and I originally thought it was an SSD problem, but I found out it has nothing to do with the SSD. Whether 512 allocation is a good idea or not is not the point and another topic entirely.

I don't know where you're getting the ridiculous idea that I was bitching to ASUS.

Um, did you notice the guy posting this thread is @asus - an ASUS employee?

 

[Haunty]

Um, did you notice the guy posting this thread is @asus - an ASUS employee?

Of course, but I wasn't "bitching"

 

[mv2devnull]

Nobody in their right mind would format any drive for a 512B "allocation". Normal clusters for Win 7 install are 8 sectots 512B X 8 or 4096K. In other words you are making a 1 sector cluster.

512B and 4K, right?

Side-note: WD "Advanced Format" HDD do have 4K physical sectors too (and 512B logical sectors to "allow" bad alignment).


But the real question in context is: "Who does look at the allocation block size?"

* With BIOS, BIOS reads the MBR (ignoring filesystems), and bootloader then reads the kernel. MS bootloader should be able to read MS filesystem, or does the BIOS dictate?

* With UEFI, UEFI reads the EFI System Partition. That is FAT, and IIRC the Windows installer does not let you choose how to format it. 4K? Funny note, I just saw a changelog of Linux EFI bootloader that had been recently fixed to allow booting from a 4K-based filesystem ...

 

[bankster55]

@mv2devnull

its not 4096K
its 512BYTES times 8 = 4096BYTES cluster
and AFT drives have 4096BYTE sectors hard wired into the platters. Then TWO controller chips emulate those 4096BYTE sectors to the O/S as 512B sectors. Win 7 never sees the 4096BYTE sectors
However Win 7 CAN see and deal with 4096BYTE sectors on NATIVE MODE HDD
No emulation
The prob is software is coded to 512BYTE sector HDD and your little ol' winrar wont run on a NATIVE 40096BYTE sectored drive
ALL the SW needs to be recoded
So dont hold your breath waiting for NATIVE 4096B drives anytime soon
As far as "UEFI" its just GPT formatted drives compatible
You can initialize a drive as GPT or MBR
After that Win 7 does all the work
UEFI cannot MAKE a GPT drive, only recognize and deal with it.
UEFI has the legacy MSDOS MBR capability, since less than .1% of people with P67 will make a GPT drive
When Win 7 installs to a GPT initialized drive it creates the three necessary partitions
EFI System
MSR reserved
GPT Data
The MSR contains the legacy MBR crap in a hidden FAT 32 partition
UEFI on ASUS is all about the graphics
MSDOS MBR and EFI GPT is trivial
The Gigabyte P67 mobo have no graphics and their current bios is still a puny 1.25MB
And only added >2.199TB drive capability in the V5 bios - kind of as an afterthought.

There are only 3 HDD currently sold over 2.19TB
Hitatchi Seiki, WDC and Seagate
All three are 3TB
There is NO reason for you to make a GPT HDD or use EFI capability unless you own one of these drives and plan to put an O/S on it
The WDC comes with a Highpoint Rocket HBA card, so you dont need it for that drive
The Seagate comes with its own "smartalign" in the controller, which means its an AFT drive, so you dont need it for that
Thusly, the ONLY drive sold today that needs EFI is the Hitatchi Seiki

 

[mv2devnull]

You did miss my point, which was that Haunty claimed a problem booting with 512B allocation blocks (of what?). Yes, I do know that way too much assumes 512B sectors, which makes Haunty's claim even more intriguing.

There is a reason to EFI and GPT without big disk: to develop and test the software (OS) support for such systems.


Note:
There are couple graphical artefacts (like underscore characters on text console) that do show in the screen during loading Windows (i.e. while screen is still black and while the Windows 7 animated logo is shown). This is only with GPT/UEFI-based boot and not with MBR/BIOS based load. P8P67 Pro, Nvidia GTX460, and Asus logo disabled in UEFI settings.