Couple of Problems/Questions

Christopher Gonzalez · Dec 23, 2013

Hey Guys!

So, I have a few questions about just storage in general and some things gone wrong in my system:

When a drive says SATA 6 Gb/s in the title, such as on Newegg, does that mean that it will be bottlenecked by a SATA 3 Gb/s port/cable? Or does it just mean it will work with SATA 6 Gb/s cables/ports?

I just added 2 old WD Black drives, one at 250 GB and the other I believe is 500 GB... One (250 GB) was recognized off the bat, but the other (500 GB), when I tried to "Initialize" it, said it couldn't because of an I/O error. Now I'm trying to initialize it, but it is grayed out and I can't select it... Why is this and how can I fix it?

What is a Marvell SATA port? I have four "Marvell" 6 Gb/s SATA ports that aren't shown in the BIOS...?

siddharthmukul007 · Dec 23, 2013

unless you use an ssd...a sata 3gb/s port will not bottle neck a sata 6gb/s drive.

update your mobo bios and see if it works.

Marvell 6 Gb/s SATA ports are extra sata ports added by your motherboard maker to let you connect more drives

Christopher Gonzalez · Dec 23, 2013

siddharthmukul007 :

How can I get see the Marvell ports in the BIOS and get Windows to recognize them?

jnkweaver · Dec 23, 2013

Most SSDs don't use the full bandwidth so a 3Gb/s won't slow it significantly depending on how new and big the SSD is. Tom's did an article on this a while back.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-upgrade-sata-3gbps,3469.html

For the harddrive it could be a few things. Does the 500Gb show up and work if the 250Gb is unplugged? Are they both formatted with primary boot sector? Do they both show up in the Disk Partition program?

The Marvell Sata port is usually a second controller (Marvell makes the chip/SATA controller) to allow more SATA ports then the chipset will support. Make sure you intall the Marvell drivers from the motherboard disk. It depends on the BIOS on whether they show up there since they technically arent part of the chip controlled motherbaord but are considered an add-on even though they are hardwired to the motherboard. Hope that explanation is clear enough.

siddharthmukul007 · Dec 23, 2013

marvell ports should be visible in the bios right away....update your bios, that should help

Christopher Gonzalez · Dec 23, 2013

I've updated my BIOS and nothing has changed... I'll try unplugging the 250 GB drive. And I'll install the Marvell drivers.

Thanks!

siddharthmukul007 · Dec 23, 2013

what is your mobo???

popatim · Dec 23, 2013

Sata6Gb/s, also known as sata3, is the the protocol the drive is using to 'talk' to the motherboard controller. It is backwards compatible with sata 3Gb/s (sata2) and the original sata. A sata3 port on your motherbd is also backwards compatible with sata1 and sata2 drives.

Theres no such thing as as sata2 or sata3 cable. The sata cable specifications have not changed.

A sata2 port on your motherboard would not be the bottleneck for a mechanical harddrive as these can barely saturate a sata1 port. In fact most use of a hard drive or SSD is actually in random reads and writes and these speed are much slower then the high sequential speeds used in advertising the drives. Many new SSD's, however, are fast enough in sequential speeds to be bottlenecked by a sata2 port but they still perform well because, as mentioned, most of your data access is random in nature unless you have specific programs that read/write sequentially such as video editing.

A Marvell sata port is a sata port that connects to an aftermarket Marvell sata controller. You motherbds native ports attach to the controller integrated into the hub or southbridge chip. Motherbd makers often include these to give you more sata ports that what is supported by your motherbds chipset. The Marvell, unfortunately, is usually not capable of full sata3 speed due to its pciex1 connection and max's out at about 250MB/s sequentially. Other aftermarket sata3 chips you might see are Asmedia or JMicron/Gigabyte.

To see drives attached to these controller you would need to make sure they are enabled in the bios first but pleae keep in mind that some are for optical drives only. Check your motherbds manual.

As for your system, it sounds like you've received a non-functioning 500GB drive. Try another sata power and data cable set and if you still have issues then RMA it. (return it for another one)

Christopher Gonzalez · Dec 23, 2013

siddharthmukul007 :

I'm using the EVGA X79 Dark.

Christopher Gonzalez · Dec 23, 2013

popatim :

Sata6Gb/s, also known as sata3, is the the protocol the drive is using to 'talk' to the motherboard controller. It is backwards compatible with sata 3Gb/s (sata2) and the original sata. A sata3 port on your motherbd is also backwards compatible with sata1 and sata2 drives.

Theres no such thing as as sata2 or sata3 cable. The sata cable specifications have not changed.

A sata2 port on your motherboard would not be the bottleneck for a mechanical harddrive as these can barely saturate a sata1 port. In fact most use of a hard drive or SSD is actually in random reads and writes and these speed are much slower then the high sequential speeds used in advertising the drives. Many new SSD's, however, are fast enough in sequential speeds to be bottlenecked by a sata2 port but they still perform well because, as mentioned, most of your data access is random in nature unless you have specific programs that read/write sequentially such as video editing.

A Marvell sata port is a sata port that connects to an aftermarket Marvell sata controller. You motherbds native ports attach to the controller integrated into the hub or southbridge chip. Motherbd makers often include these to give you more sata ports that what is supported by your motherbds chipset. The Marvell, unfortunately, is usually not capable of full sata3 speed due to its pciex1 connection and max's out at about 250MB/s sequentially. Other aftermarket sata3 chips you might see are Asmedia or JMicron/Gigabyte.

To see drives attached to these controller you would need to make sure they are enabled in the bios first but pleae keep in mind that some are for optical drives only. Check your motherbds manual.

As for your system, it sounds like you've received a non-functioning 500GB drive. Try another sata power and data cable set and if you still have issues then RMA it. (return it for another one)

If the drive is bad, oh well. It was an old drive anyways, I just thought it'd be nice to have more internal storage space as opposed to using only my 120 GB SSD and NAS. At least I got 250 GB!

Thanks for the explanation!

siddharthmukul007 · Dec 23, 2013

use the intel sata ports...see if you can get your hdd to work.

or else your hdd might be damaged

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