Marvell Sata 6Gbs ports way too slow?

neverknowu · Aug 8, 2013

Hiya,
I have 2 SSDs that I wanted to RAID0, using the Marvell Ports on my Asus p9x79 deluxe mobo. Well, it seemed to be way too slow, so then I went back a step and just made the SSD's into simple standalone volumes, and they are way too slow... about half of what they should be (like 200mbs read/write with samsung 840 pros). I kept trying to noodle around with the Marvell config, thinking that it should be set to Raid0, but that didn't work either. It's supposed to be 6gbs... why am I not getting even close to that speed?

mauller07 · Aug 8, 2013

check that your sata ports are set to AHCI mode, those read and writes sound restricted and should be better.

neverknowu · Aug 8, 2013

mauller07 :

I just went into BIOS again to double check, yes it is on AHCI mode. I only see 6 Sata ports listed, not all 8 of them (the two that are missing are the ones marked 'marvell'.

mauller07 · Aug 8, 2013

double check that your samsungs are connected to the 6 other ports, i think they normally would be different colours to symbolise different controllers.

neverknowu · Aug 8, 2013

mauller07 :

Windows disk management sees them. But the BIOS does not have the ports listed. just the 2x 6gbs, 4x 3gbs, not the last 2x 6gbs which are the ones marked Marvell.

mauller07 · Aug 8, 2013

are your drives in the marvell ports? try them in the marvel ports and see if there is a difference if not.

neverknowu · Aug 8, 2013

mauller07 :

Yeah, that's what's going wrong. They are in the Marvell ports and running very slow. I first tried them in the non-Marvell ports and they were fine. What I'm thinking is that there's something I overlooked when installing drivers? Actually, I have no clue, which is why I'm on here. I tried updating Marvell... but basically I just want them to be 6gbs ports. I don't care about Marvell or what that does. I tired using it to set up a RAID0 system but it just saw both drives as one large drive, not the way RAID0 should work. Then I couldn't set it up in Disk Management as a striped drive. Which brought me to look to see how it would work with just one SSD plugged in, and it's giving me those very slow speeds.

mauller07 · Aug 8, 2013

when your computer starts there should be another screen beyond bios that says about marvel raid, its on this you need to setup the raid in hardware.

neverknowu · Aug 8, 2013

mauller07 :

Yes, tried that too and it's too slow for the raid0 setting, which actually is not reading the drives separately. Tried raid1 as well and again, too slow

mauller07 · Aug 8, 2013

did it ask you to setup the stripe size and partitions etc between the drives?

neverknowu · Aug 9, 2013

mauller07 :

Yes, I set it up as RAID0 and choose the large (64kb) stripe size. But as for the size of the raid, it just added the 2 drives together, and I know that's not how Raid0 is supposed to work... 2 drives the size of 1 drive.

mauller07 · Aug 9, 2013

oh no that is correct its raid 1 that is the size of a single drive but data is mirrored between two identical drives, with raid 0 its the combined size of the number of drives (usually best to be even) in the array and displayed to the O/S as a single drive of the capacity of all the drives, but when writes and reads are made the data is striped between the drives in the array.

neverknowu · Aug 9, 2013

mauller07 :

Okay, that's good to know, I wasn't going crazy there.

Still, the speed that I'm getting from the drive on read/write is entirely too slow. I would think I should get at least 600 read/write from having these two powerful SSDs striped together. Not the 170/200 write/read I'm getting now. Are the Marvell Ports not really 6gbs? What are my options?

P.S. After I made the RAID0 in the Marvell Utility, in Windows disk management I had to format the disk. The only option was as a 'new simple volume'.

mauller07 · Aug 9, 2013

it does seem like something is wrong, what speeds do you get from each drive individually? it could be that one is faulty.

saw a video of one guy getting 1Gb's reads from two in raid 0

a single drive should be getting 500MB's atleast in sequential reads and writes.

drop the array and just set it to JBOD and format each drive so its an individual drive then run AS-SSD on each drive.

neverknowu · Aug 9, 2013

mauller07 :

I dropped the array and I am getting slightly slower speeds than 170/200.

mauller07 · Aug 9, 2013

sounds like something wrong with the controller or the board, try the ssd's in the other 6Gb ports and check their speeds.

neverknowu · Aug 9, 2013

mauller07 :

I'm getting 500/520 write/read on my ssd with it plugged into my 6gbs 1 port.

mauller07 · Aug 9, 2013

is that with both of the ssd's?

sounds like something is up with the marvel ports, did you install the marvel drivers, it could be a driver issue for that controller.

try the other ssd in the port you tried the one that got 500/520 if you have not then check the drivers and try the marvel port with one of the ssd's again.

neverknowu · Aug 9, 2013

mauller07 :

I downloaded the marvell drivers from Asus, and it lead me to 'make disk', so I take a USB key and make the disk onto this? Then how do I install the drivers from there?

mauller07 · Aug 9, 2013

i dont think those are the right drivers, i think those are the drivers if your installing windows onto the raid volume.

mauller07 · Aug 9, 2013

try the asmedia controller driver under sata, the newer one of the two.

mauller07 · Aug 9, 2013

it might be worth updating the bios to the latest incase its a firmware issue, it should update the Marvell firmware as well.

neverknowu · Aug 9, 2013

mauller07 :

Does the Intel Rapid Storage Technology have any effect on this?

I did all the updates. No change.

Marvell Sata 6Gbs ports way too slow?

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