Questions about C300 and Marvel 9128 Controller...?

[Cannyone]

I have a Rampage III Formula motherboard with secondary SATA III controller by Marvel. And I just got a Crucial C300 SSD. Initially I connected the C300 (256 GB) in place of the Seagate Momentus XT drive I was using for my boot drive, and restored a disk image of the OS. It works fine! And I was frankly startled by how fast it loaded Windows the first time.

This setup is connecting the C300 to the Intel ICH10R, in AHCI mode, and even uses a SATA II cable. Now I'd like to connect it to the Marvel 9128 controller built into this motherboard, and use a SATA III cable that came with the same. But I'm hearing rumors, on Newegg, that these drives have issues with the Marvel controller, with symptoms like erratic performance and BSODs.

What I'm asking for is Feedback!?! I don't always trust the "reviews" on Newegg. And I'm not disappointed in any way the this drive's performance as it's currently connected. Still I naturally want to try to maximize my performance... Yet I don't want to waste my time doing so.

So I'm asking for your help. If you have any experience, either with Crucial's C300 line of SSDs, or SSDs connected to a Marvel SATA III controller, please share it with me. And Thanks in advance! I really appreciate it.

 

[groberts101]

while I can't say anything towards the compatibility issue(check Crucials forum and even ask there)... I can say without doubt that the Intels caching to ram algorithms are far superior.

You will definately lose read speed on the Intel sata2 port but will be made up for all around and especially on the writes and random small files.

To give a bit more perspective here, I just recently tested a Vertex 3 240GB on the Marvell 9128 and the drive was nearly the same in overall feel and transfer performance(boots too) while connected to the Intel chip despite losing more than 100MB/s in read speed over the Marvell. Here's some screens to compare the 2 chips.



The underlying problem with the Marvell is weaker drivers and the PCI-e x1 speed bottleneck. Although with just 1 drive the bottleneck shouldn't really affect you too much. Hope that helped a bit. Good Luck with it.

 

[Cannyone]

...<snip>...
The underlying problem with the Marvell is weaker drivers and the PCI-e x1 speed bottleneck. Although with just 1 drive the bottleneck shouldn't really affect you too much. Hope that helped a bit. Good Luck with it.

Actually, your comments are a great help. And a perfect example of why I wanted to ask my questions here instead of on the Cruicial Support Forums. See, when I heard that people were getting BSODs when they connected a C300 to a Marvel controller, I automatically suspected the Marvel drivers. But you've explained part of the difference and confirmed my suspicions. Thank you very much!