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SSD SATA II or SATA III Selection for ICH10R or 9128?

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Help!

Currently looking to upgrade my setup. Am currently running Win 8 of a Crucial SATA II 128 SSD. The Crucial SSD is connected to a SATA 3.0/II Port.

Primary use of the system is for Music Studio work with a new Avid Pro Tools Software application....which is resource intensive...so looking to add some beef to the system without replacing CPU/Memory/MB.

Am considering putting some funds into a new SATA III SSD and have the following questions:

1. Are the new SATA III spec (6.0) GB SSD's required to connect to the 6.0 (9128) interface to take advantage of the Bandwith / Transfer rates? ---I've heard that ICH10R (SATA II) connectors are not really being saturated still by these new 3.0 drives.

2. I do not want to configure a RAID array as I believe sustained data transfer speeds are more important in the music applications than bursting speed. Thoughts? I was considering just connecting the new SATA III SSD to the 9128 6.0 Ports on the MB and not configure RAID.

System:

CPU: i7-990X Extreme at 3.40 GHZ
RAM: 24GB DDR 3 at 1600
MB: Asus P6X58-E WS
OS: Win 8 Pro
Drives:
1-Crucial SATA II SSD - 128 GB (Boot)
2-WD Velociraptor 600GB
3-Hitachi 2 and 3 TB Data Drives

Any help would be appreciated!

More about : ssd sata sata iii selection ich10r 9128

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Storage Expert

shedhi said:
1. Are the new SATA III spec (6.0) GB SSD's required to connect to the 6.0 (9128) interface to take advantage of the Bandwith / Transfer rates? ---I've heard that ICH10R (SATA II) connectors are not really being saturated still by these new 3.0 drives.


You need a native SATA III (6Gb/s) port to get the advertised speeds of any SATA III SSD.
If you use an Intel CPU the native ports are the Intel 6Gb/s ports. If you use an AMD CPU then the native ports are the AMD 6Gb/s ports.
Your motherboard does not have native 6Gb/s ports, only 3rd party Marvell.

The Marvell 9128 controller uses only 1 PCI lane at 5Gb/s (500MB/s), so you won't get the maximum advertised Read/Write speeds from any SATA III SSD you connect to the port; but the performance will still be better than connecting it to a SATA II port.

2. I do not want to configure a RAID array as I believe sustained data transfer speeds are more important in the music applications than bursting speed. Thoughts? I was considering just connecting the new SATA III SSD to the 9128 6.0 Ports on the MB and not configure RAID. said:
2. I do not want to configure a RAID array as I believe sustained data transfer speeds are more important in the music applications than bursting speed. Thoughts? I was considering just connecting the new SATA III SSD to the 9128 6.0 Ports on the MB and not configure RAID.


Correct, you don't need to create a RAID array. Just connect the SSD to one of the Marvell 6Gb/s ports and set the port to AHCI mode.

Thanks this helps me very much! I guess the best option will be to connect to a 9128 port in single drive (normal) mode. The MB manual states "connect two identical drives..." But I don't want a RAID configuration; and not certain what two SSD on the 9128 will do to my x16 Graphics card bandwidth.
Storage Expert

Yes, it's best (but not required) to use identical drives if you are creating a RAID array.

The bandwidth from your SATA controllers are separate from your PCIe slots, so you wouldn't suffer any performance problems with your graphics card.
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The Marvell 9128 is crap - many will tell you on X58 mobos to use the Intel controller even though its sataII - I'm in the same boat as you. I just have not grown tired of my computer yet - if you want 6G/s go for an Ivy/z77 mobo.
-Bruce
EDIT: No disrespect to the answers above but Marvel controllers were "fast-tracked into x58 mobos to advertise sataIII without thoroughly being tested/verified.

Thanks Dereck--its been so long (5 years) since I configured a RAID array off the Southbridge I couldn't remember what the implications were to the PCI bandwidth. You've been very helpful....!

@dish-moose: I appreciate your input...I may just try to bench the new SSD when it arrives on both controllers to see what works best...

Do a search for x58 and sata3 - I have . Even went as far as to get a pcie sata controller that I abandoned because it was pciex1 not pciex4 that you need for proper sata3 bandwidth. x58 systems still work very well with the new hardware - maybe Haswell will be my next platform unless AMD can pull something out of their A$$ - won't hold my breath. BTW have you bought a cooler for that cpu and OCed it?
-Bruce
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