Speed difference between Sata II and Sata III cables

[Paulieg]

I just bought a Corsair Force GT 120gb SSD to replace my first generation Sandforce drive. Corsair claims up to a 550 mb/s read. Reviews have also shown this to be true. However, I'm not getting close to this. I'm only hitting about 390. The motherboard has Sata III ports, so I'm not sure why I'm not getting a faster read. I've read conflicting information regarding cables. Some say that using Sata II cables makes no difference. Others argue that you need Sata III cables to max out speeds. I'm currently using Sata II cables. Does anyone know for sure if the cables can really make that much of a difference?

[DanTheBanjoman]

Marvell controller?

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by DanTheBanjoman

Marvell controller?

Yes, it's a Marvell controller. The board is a Asrock Extreme4 Gen3. Funny thing is, the thing is so damn fast already, I'm not sure it really matters for real world computing. It's just a matter of getting the drive to do what it is capable of. Think the Marvell controller is to blame?

[DanTheBanjoman]

Google the exact type, the first one was a pos. Not sure if they made new ones and how those perform.

[50eurouser]

Dude stop using marvell controller, just plug it in Z68 SATA3 ports and you 'll be fine. What a waste to use that crappy controller when you have the best sata3.

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by 50eurouser

Dude stop using marvell controller, just plug it in Z68 SATA3 ports and you 'll be fine. What a waste to use that crappy controller when you have the best sata3.

Thing is, before I installed the Marvell, I was gwtting just 315 mb/s.

Any thoughts on the cables?

[50eurouser]

Originally Posted by Paulieg

Thing is, before I installed the Marvell, I was gwtting just 315 mb/s.

Any thoughts on the cables?

Corsair Max Values ~550MB Read/Write attainable with ATTO benchmark. Make sure u use AHCI mode and TRIM is on.

[CJCerny]

I could be wrong, but since you are already getting transfer rates above the maximum theoretical limit of SATA2 (3.0gbs or 375mBs), I would have to say that the cable is not your issue.

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by 50eurouser

Corsair Max Values ~550MB Read/Write attainable with ATTO benchmark. Make sure u use AHCI mode and TRIM is on.

I'm in AHCI mode already, and TRIMS is on. I haven't tried ATTO yet. Just going by HD Tune. I'll run ATTO tonight.

[INSTG8R]

Yeah get off the Marvell controller it's poor compared to the Intel. As for the cables I dunno about that one either. I know the "SATA III" cables that came with my MoBo are definitely beefier than the "SATA II" Cables. Does it make a difference? dunno your the one with the fast ass SSD you would have to test it with both cables.

[50eurouser]

Originally Posted by Paulieg

I'm in AHCI mode already, and TRIMS is on. I haven't tried ATTO yet. Just going by HD Tune. I'll run ATTO tonight.

Post some benchmarks from hdtune.

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by INSTG8R

Yeah get off the Marvell controller it's poor compared to the Intel. As for the cables I dunno about that one either. I know the "SATA III" cables that came with my MoBo are definitely beefier than the "SATA II" Cables. Does it make a difference? dunno your the one with the fast ass SSD you would have to test it with both cables.

I looked to see if I missed SATA 3 cables in the box. Nope. Looks like Asrock just includes the SATA2, or I managed to misplace them. I have so many cables lying around, I'm bound to lose some. I'd have my own answer if I had a Sata 3 cable lying around. . As I mentioned above, I had a worse read before I had the Marvell installed, which I thought was odd. I dunno.

Originally Posted by 50eurouser

Post some benchmarks from hdtune.

Will do, after I get home from work this evening.

[scaminatrix]

At the risk of basically calling you a noob - BIOS settings? Make sure that the controller is set to SATA 3 in BIOS and not Auto or something similarly gay.

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by scaminatrix

At the risk of basically calling you a noob - BIOS settings? Make sure that the controller is set to SATA 3 in BIOS and not Auto or something similarly gay.

LOL. Not offended, but yes, all bios settings are as they should be.

[mrw1986]

It's the Marvell controller. I have the P67 version of that board and both use the same controllers. Go on the Intel controller and the difference will be huge. There's reviews about it all over ther web.

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by mrw1986

It's the Marvell controller. I have the P67 version of that board and both use the same controllers. Go on the Intel controller and the difference will be huge. There's reviews about it all over ther web.

That's what I would have thought, but as I mentioned above, my reads were worse before I installed the Marvell controller. Maybe it was just a freak thing, being the first time I benchmarked the drive. I'll switch back to the Intel controller tonight, and see what happens.

[LAN_deRf_HA]

According to Asus Marvel SATA 6 controllers are meant for data drives and that you should only use the P67 SATA 6 for boot drives. In fact I think they disabled booting on the marvel controller in the bios. Surprised Asrock hasn't done the same.

[Mussels]

not sure about your board, but dont most of the intel boards only have two of the 6Gb ports, and the rest 3Gb? maybe you just connected it to the wrong ports initially.


but yes i'm with everyone else, get the hell off the marvel POS. they're always horribly slow.

[mrw1986]

This board has 4 6gb ports. 2 provided by Intel and 2 provided by Marvell. Same as my P67 version.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by mrw1986

This board has 4 6gb ports. 2 provided by Intel and 2 provided by Marvell. Same as my P67 version.

thanks. thats what i was thinking then, he needs to make sure he uses one of the two intel 6Gb ports.

[mrw1986]

Also, it would have helped if you bought that C300 off me Paulie :P

[Paulieg]

I'll play around with things tonight. Admittedly, I was tired last night, and did the install in a hurry, so I may have missed something that I usually wouldn't.

[EarthDog]

Marvell controller + not using ATTO = the problem here. Get on the Intel controller and run ATTO to see listed specifications of the drive as that application is how MFG get their specs in the first place.

I believe that the cables do matter, but not certain (a little google bird told me that). I have always used S3 cables w S3 drives.

EDIT: Dont run HDTune... lets say what the first letters mean in HDTune... Hard Drive. ATTO to show specs with compressible data, ASS SSD to show uncompressible data speeds. HDTune and HDtach are made for HDD's. And unless they updated them REALLY recently to change the way they measure, these results should not be used as the Gospel due to the way they get their results.

[TheOne]

As everyone has said ditch the Marvell controller, the one on your board cannot reach SATAIII speeds and is capped at a max theoretical of 5Gb/s since it is tied to a single PCIE 2.0 lane.

Cables shouldn't matter, HDTune just gives more realistic scores than ATTO, if your scores are still low then maybe try switching out some drivers, RST to MSAHCI or vice versa, you could switch out the cable, but it probably won't make a difference.

Make sure you use the second set of gray ports as those are your Intel SATAIII.

[EarthDog]

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...&limitstart=11

Sequential test tools such as ATTO Disk Benchmark, HD-Tach, HD-Tune, Passmark PerformaceTest , CrystalDiskMark, and AS-SSD are all usable benchmarks, but occasionally report performance inconsistencies because of buffered spot sampling and NAND condition. Additionally, CrystalDiskMark and AS-SSD often report much lower sequential read and write bandwidth speeds compared to HD-Tach and HD-Tune, while ATTO Disk Benchmark relies on file size chucks to report bandwidth. The sequential bandwidth speeds reported by CrystalDiskMark and AS-SSD are so low they become questionable, while Passmark PerformaceTest, HD-Tach, and HD-Tune reveal very little information about buffer saturation and are prone to NAND condition impacting performance results.

Of the sequential tools, ATTO Disk Benchmark is most preferred because it illustrates bandwidth speed results at varying file size transfers. From my testing for this article and in other projects, along with the results I've seen from the software tools used, I can conclude that ATTO Disk Benchmark has proven itself consistent in recording SSD bandwidth results and doesn't seem to have a preference for faster SSD DRAM cache mechanisms found in some SSDs. The variety of file size chunks that it tests does give a broad picture of bandwidth performance at each level. Although ATTO is not perfect and still uses spot-testing, it's less imperfect for SSD testing than many of the other alternatives...

...AS-SSD and CrystalDiskMark (3.0 and later) all offer IOPS performance at deep queue depth, and express their results in MB/s rather then the Input/Output Per Second result. These are also very helpful at illustrating SSD performance, and useful in comparison. While HD-Tune does offer IOPS performance, this tool is limited to a single queue depth and is meaningless to SSDs.