Best WD Caviar Black BIOS setup

[ERIKLS2]

I just assembled my first system in about 7 years and need a bit of advice on setting up the HDD

MB is a P7P55D-E Pro and HDD is a WD Caviar Black 1TB 6.0 Gb/s WD1002FAEX
Will be installing Windows 7 Pro on this drive.

I have initially connected the HDD to the gray Sata III 6.0 Gb/s on the MB using
a Marvell controller.

POST is fine and it shows the HDD on the 2nd screen as 6.0 gb/s but not on the list of IDE devices.

I have read a few things about the Marvell controller on a system drive not working right possibly?

Is there a noticeable benefit to connecting this drive to the 6.0 port on the MB
and if so should it be setup as AHCI or IDE or RAID? Any other tips to doing this?
The WD website shows this drive as 126 mb/s max.

As I've been out of the game for a while, any other feedback related to this is welcome.

Thanks,
Erik

 

[Hawkeye22]

You shouldn't see a performance problem hooking it up to a 3Gb/s sata port. Most mechanical drives can't hit that speed. 6Gb/s is more for SSD's or very fast RAIDS.

For Win7, use AHCI as this will allow NCQ and some other features of the drive to be active.

 

[ERIKLS2]

Thanks for the reply. I just wonder why they list this drive as a 6 gb/s when even their website reports it to max out at 126mb/s? Seems like false advertising. Not a big deal as I didn't really pay much more for this drive, just not making sense to me.

Still considering an SSD for OS. In that case I assume this should still go on the 3 gb port?

 

[Hawkeye22]

I'd put the SSD on the 6gb/s port if the controller allows booting from it. You can place the WD drive on either port, but like I said, you won't see much of a performance difference and you'll have an open 6Gb/s port available if you decide to get another SSD down the road.

 

[popatim]

install windows with just the ssd installed first then go back and install the WD and let windows find it when it boots up otherwise you will have issues with drive lettering, boot problemsif you remove the wd (or it fails). This is because windows assigns C: to chipset sata/ide drives first and then must go back and force the ssd to be c: when it loads.

 

[Hawkeye22]

^I always install the OS with just a single drive attached to the system regardless of being an SSD or HDD just for this reason.

 

[ERIKLS2]

Best answer selected by erikls2.