Two extra hard drives as SCSI. Why?

[msimon7]

Hello.
I'm building a new HTPC. I've added all the hardware and loaded Windows 7 home premium, drivers, and windows updates.
Relevant hardware:
motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB
OS Drive: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" SSD
Two Storage Drives: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM
DVD Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray

I have the SSD connected to SATA3 6gb Port 0. The two Seagates connected to SATA3 6gb ports 6 and 7. DVD drive connected to SATA2 3gb port 2.

In the bios interface they display as
P0: <<ssd drive>>
P1: empty
P2: <<dvd drive>>
P3: empty
P4: empty
P5: empty

No listing of port 6 and 7 on bios screen interestingly. Note that the bios is up to date.

In windows device manager, the two drives are listed as
seagate 3TB SCSI Disk Device.

They are also "selectable" as a removable device, as if they were externally connected drives.

I did not set them up as RAID or anything. Do not understand why they are listed as SCSI and/or removable. They are both partitioned as GBT for full size access. Initially I had the connections going to the wrong ports: the SSD was on port 6 and one 3TB on port 7, and at that point the SSD and the one 3TB drive were both listed as SCSI in windows. So it seems to have something to do with being connected to ports 6 an 7?

The system seems to be acting normal, but I'm concerned I may have done (or missed) something with the setup.

Any insight would be appreciated.

thanks!

 

[cball1311]

Ports 6 and 7, on your board, are Marvell SATA controller ports and there is something with Marvell that will always show them as SCSI. Don't know why, they just do.

You could put the drives on the SATAII ports, if you want them to be shown as not AHCI, as traditional HDDs will not even utilize the bandwidth of SATAIII. They will still perform as AHCI (for NCQ benefits) but will be shown as removable. The only difference is burst speed which only effect the first few seconds of reads and writes.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282717-32-sata-sata

 

[msimon7]

Thank you for your reply and the detail.
So if I leave them as is, I can get a little bit of initial burst speed. Which sounds like a good thing. Other than that, no harm leaving as is?
Since the drives are 6gb/s drive, I assumed I should pair them with 6gb ports to get the most out of them.

I could move one to port 1 (unused 6gb port) and put the other on port 3 (3gb SATA2 port), that 2nd drive will be just for storing movies and media for playback. The first is intended for games.

Which layout would you recommend? Leave as is or shift around as above?

thanks for the help and the link you provided - some say 6gb HDD is a waste on that thread.
I'd prefer to leave as is, if for nothing else I don't want to deal with taking PC apart again, tough working in a htpc case but have no issue moving things around if it is for the better.

 

[cball1311]

Thank you for your reply and the detail.
So if I leave them as is, I can get a little bit of initial burst speed. Which sounds like a good thing. Other than that, no harm leaving as is?
Since the drives are 6gb/s drive, I assumed I should pair them with 6gb ports to get the most out of them.

I could move one to port 1 (unused 6gb port) and put the other on port 3 (3gb SATA2 port), that 2nd drive will be just for storing movies and media for playback. The first is intended for games.

Which layout would you recommend? Leave as is or shift around as above?

thanks for the help and the link you provided - some say 6gb HDD is a waste on that thread.
I'd prefer to leave as is, if for nothing else I don't want to deal with taking PC apart again, tough working in a htpc case but have no issue moving things around if it is for the better.

Yep. They have it spot on. SATAIII can really only be utilized with SSD as they have the capacity to utilize bandwith in the SATAIII range. You average HDD will only get about 100MB/s no matter what, just because they are spindle drives. My two SSDs (RAID0) are utilizing close to 1GB/s read/writes.

You can leave your setup just the way it is as there is no harm. The Marvell controllers are not as fast as Intel controllers but it might not be a significant improvement (visible to the eye).
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/279882-32-marvell-sata-controller-faster-intel-controller

You can try any way that you please. Since all ports are utilizing AHCI, I would have everything on ports 0-5, but thats just me. Leaving the SSD on Port 0 for SATAIII bandwidth.

 

[msimon7]

Thank you for the reply. You sold me
I'm going to put one on port 1 and one on port 3.
port 6&7 will be left open, as well as post 3&4 will be open for now.

Thank you for helping me better understand.

happy holidays!

 

[msimon7]

Best answer selected by msimon7.

 

[cball1311]

Same to you, glad I could shed some light on the situation for your. Happy Holidays.