SSD SATA and Marvell setup help pls

[k@rt]

Hi All,

I have a question about my SSD drives and the way they are showing up on my system. In my PC I have 3 Hard Drives. I have 2 SSDs, one is the C:/ drive running the system, the other is the F:/ drive used exclusivly for gaming. My 3rd drive is a normal WD HDD 500Gb for data.

My mainboard is a GIGABYTE Z68X-UD4-B3. It has 8 SATA sockets (0-7) with this information 0 & 1 are SATA_3 6GB/s sockets. 2,3,4 & 5 are SATA_2 3GB/s sockets. 6 & 7 it says are Marvel 88SE9172 chips @ 6Gb/s

My disks are hooked up like this. The C:/ drive (SSD#1) is in soc 0, the D:/ drive (HDD) is in soc 1, the E:/ (DVD) is in 4 or 5 and the F:/ drive (SSD#2) is in 6.

In my bios all the SATA type are set to AHCI.

What I dont understand is this, during startup (and in my bios) the F:/ SSD#2 drive shows up as being in IDE channel master 4. All the rest show up on the second startup screen, Port-00 = Hard Drive m4-ct128m4ssd2, Port-01 = Hard Drive WDC etc.

So the question is why is the second SSD drive not listed with the rest? Is it something to do with the Marvell system? Is it because I may not have the right Marvell drivers installed? (Where can I find it listed in win7 if the Marvell drivers are there?) Or is it simply that my SSD drives doesnt work with Marvell? I have two Crucial M4 2.5" 128 GB SSDs

Should I move the drives so that the SSD#2 is in socket 1 and move the HDD to socket 2 or 3?

Does all this point to some underlying problem?

Any orientation would be a great help, thanks in advance.

 

[k@rt]

Sry about all the smileys... I was typing C: / for the drives without thinking.

Ive tried 3 times to edit it and it keeps refusing to let me save the changes so Im sorry but I cant fix it.

 

[acyuta]

From the mobo spec, the first 2 ports are native Intel SATA 3 ports. I would suggest moving both your SSD to these ports. This requires for you moving 1 SSD from Marvell port (SSD 2, port 6) to the first two ports.

You really do not need to attach HDD to SATA 3 ports if you can attach a SSD instead. Attach HDD to SATA 3 only if you have spare ports. I suggest first 2 ports (SATA 3) for SSDs, then next four ports (SATA 2) for HDD, dvds, etc. Only when you run out of ports, attach anything to Marvell port.

 

[ShadyHamster]

if it was my pc i would move the 2nd SSD to port 1 and have the HD and DVD drives on port 2 and 3.

the drive letters shouldn't change but if they do simply change them in disk management.

as for the 2nd SSD drive showing up as being on an IDE channel, there should be a 2nd AHCI setting for the marvel controller in the bios, at least thats how it works on my current amd pc.

 

[k@rt]

Hey guys,

Thanks for your answers. Its true i think swapping the drives they way suggested would be the easiest for now. But if ever I get another SSD then it would be nice to know if I can run it correctly onto the other faster sockets.

Ill check my bios again and see if I can see any setting relating to marvell. I thought my PC bios had 3 SATA things I could change and they are all in AHCI.