Tracking the degradation - how to check for bit error rates on the SATA link?

[arh2o]

How would I go about doing this? I plan on keeping my Sandy Bridge platform and hoping that my motherboard is one of the 85-95% that will not be affected. With that said, I'll be continuously monitoring my SATA performance over the next couple years - how would I best track & document any degradation that would occur? I would think that running a benchmark every couple weeks and comparing the results every month would work?

 

[Anomaly1964]

Great question, how can we tell?

Especially guys like me that just know enough to be dangerous?

 

[Ross Ridge]

How would I go about doing this? I plan on keeping my Sandy Bridge platform and hoping that my motherboard is one of the 85-95% that will not be affected. With that said, I'll be continuously monitoring my SATA performance over the next couple years - how would I best track & document any degradation that would occur? I would think that running a benchmark every couple weeks and comparing the results every month would work?

You can try checking the SMART status on any connected hard drive. It should show an UltraDMA CRC error count or something like that.

 

[Seven]

Just run some benchmarks. Here is mine and ain't looking good compared to my old rig.

Found some screenshots of the old Conroe system and HDD results are totally different!

Current on the P8P67.

 

[bankster55]

You have compared a trace made with a very old HDTune (2.55) against the current V 4.60 which has lots of problems with certain types drives. I wouldnt touch it until next vers comes out. You need to run ATTO bench or HDTach 3.0.4 in XP SP3 compat mode

First of all the "degradation" prob is only on the Intel southbridge, so you need to be in AHCI or RAID mode to even be on the chip at all.

Secondly, the ASUS guys here have repeatedly said you need the latest drivers for everything
When installing Win 7 it will install generic MS 2006 AHCI drivers
In Win 7 X64 it does not accept latest inf on USB stick - it will install MS 2006 generic AHCI
You have to run the cd.exe AFTER install
Intel RST 10.1.0.1008
Chipset 9.6.1021
Intel MEI plus update

So you are scaring the crap out of the people here
Heres my HDTune on a WDC 1TB FEAX

Now there is a problem, whereby my burst is lower on the SATA 3GB/s ports than I would expect, and when I have time I will move my drives over to the Intel SATA 6GB/s ports and see what happens

 

[Anomaly1964]

Ok, someone want to interpret these for me and let me know how they are doing connected to the Intel 6G Sata Ports?

Samsung HDD

OZ SDD

 

[bankster55]

the SAMSUNG is doing great
cant run SSD on HDtune 4.60 and get proper results
like I said

http://www.attotech.com/products/product.php?sku=Disk_Benchmark

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/CrystalDiskMark.shtml

One of my WDC 1TB FEAX black
Exactly as it should be

 

[Anomaly1964]

I can live with great...

So where do we get these?

Intel RST 10.1.0.1008
Chipset 9.6.1021
Intel MEI plus update

EDIT*

Got the new RST...

 

[jiffylube1024]

I can live with great...

So where do we get these?

Intel RST 10.1.0.1008
Chipset 9.6.1021
Intel MEI plus update

You get them directly from intel www.intel.com .

The first one is the "Rapid Storage Technology" driver - Intel's RAID/AHCI driver.

The second one is the latest version of the Intel Chipset Driver.

The third one I'm not familiar with but apparently it's the Intel "Management Engine Interface" driver, such as this one for the 5-series chipset:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?lang=eng&dwnldid=18532

 

[Anomaly1964]

This is with the newest RST:

 

[ViviTheMage]

This is my IP45 test with my old Q9550 (April 24th 2010) :

Current : P67 chips P8P67 PRO (Jan 31 2011) :

My numbers actually got remarkably better moving to this board (especially on the low end) ! It also has 9 months of ware on it too.

 

[bankster55]

the yet to be released 10.5 RST will make things even better

 

[ViviTheMage]

the yet to be released 10.5 RST will make things even better

RST?

 

[bankster55]

Rapid Storage Technology

For those that insist on using HDTune 4.6 on SSD drives and dont want to look at freaky graphs you can use the file bench instead

Also a good defrag can smooth out a graph

 

[bankster55]

And you can set your HDD to low noise or perf in HDTune
128 or 254, about the only thing its good for

 

[Arcadio]

I can't find any Chipset 9.6.1021 driver anywhere on the Intel Website....

I'm getting this with my Caviar Black and Asus p8p67 motherboard:

 

[bankster55]

oops, its 9.20.1021
my bad
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel%20chipset.htm
my brain is turning to jello with all these SB posts
you might try something like O&O defrag on that drive
Win 7 defrag is good (6 pass) but doesnt seem to smooth things out for some reason
you might turn off allow power saving in HDTune options
or better yet dont use it


SSD 10 second tweaker
http://elpamsoft.com/Downloads.aspx?Name=SSD Tweaker

 

[Anomaly1964]

Got the new chipset driver, (why is it on a french site and not Intel?), do I simply just go through set up and install?

 

[abaez]

You have compared a trace made with a very old HDTune (2.55) against the current V 4.60 which has lots of problems with certain types drives. I wouldnt touch it until next vers comes out. You need to run ATTO bench or HDTach 3.0.4 in XP SP3 compat mode

First of all the "degradation" prob is only on the Intel southbridge, so you need to be in AHCI or RAID mode to even be on the chip at all.

Secondly, the ASUS guys here have repeatedly said you need the latest drivers for everything
When installing Win 7 it will install generic MS 2006 AHCI drivers
In Win 7 X64 it does not accept latest inf on USB stick - it will install MS 2006 generic AHCI
You have to run the cd.exe AFTER install

When you say Win7 setup will not accept the latest inf on USB stick are you referring to the Intel RST drivers? I know I installed the old 9.6 RST drivers when I was installing win7 before with my SSD.

 

[bankster55]

When you say Win7 setup will not accept the latest inf on USB stick are you referring to the Intel RST drivers? I know I installed the old 9.6 RST drivers when I was installing win7 before with my SSD.

Yep, 9.6 goes from a USB stick
10.1.0.1008 on a USB stick does not
the install finds the right .inf but refuses to go further
it just sits there and I am not prepared to waste an hour to see if it happens
I have no idea why, tho it may be because its not signed - its too new

 

[bankster55]

Got the new chipset driver, (why is it on a french site and not Intel?), do I simply just go through set up and install?

Just do it

 

[Anomaly1964]

Just do it

That didn't hurt!

What about bios, if I am doing ok w/1253 is there any reason to go to 1204?

 

[Diogenes2]

I'm still on 1053..
If it ain't broke, don't fix it..

 

[Anomaly1964]

I'm still on 1053..
If it ain't broke, don't fix it..

LOL, yeah...good answer.

 

[bankster55]

Heres a little PDF from OCZ that explains why HDTune doesnt give accurate results with SSD. Its a bit old, before Win 7, but the benching probs are still valid today. Ignore the other stuff, Win 7 and Intel RST have solved a lot of SSD issues.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/res_old/images/Configuring-and-Setting-Up-SSDs.pdf

And fwiw ALL the latest driver links are on the "Official update" thread by Gary Key here (duh!)