Maximum PC

Hello
I just purchased a new Samsung 830 SSD 128GB and am not impressed by its performance. I have seen youtube videos of this thing booting windows insanely fast and Newegg even did a review where they ran AS-SSD and CrystalDisk benchmark. My benchmark results i am seeing do not compare to the other tests i have seen online for this model.
I contacted Samsung and they said it was due to my Marvell controller and it is a known issue. Samsung did not offer any troubleshooting tips and just gave me the 'it is what it is' answer. Im looking for some suggestions so improve my SSDs performance.
I am running with an EVGA x58 FTW3 board and an i7 950. The two 6Gbps SATA ports are controlled by a Marvell 88SE9128 chip which my SSD is plugged in to. It is set to AHCI mode.

Can anyone offer any suggestions to improve the performance?

Make sure that you have the latest drivers installed, from what I read on the EVGA forum that I linked to below, there is a nice boost in performance with the newer driver, but its hard to come by as marvel doesn't list it on their site. The first link is benchmark comparison of the marvel controller vs the ICH10. You might just be better off on it, as it seems faster in all instances.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=413&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=4

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=515774&mpage=1

Also, I'm not too sure about that particular marvel controller chip, but most of them that come as 3rd party chips along with the ICH10r actually run off the PCIe bus and maybe limited to the x1 pcie 2.0 speeds.

Thanks for all the tips, i will try installing different drivers from those links you provided. It just sucks that if this doesnt work, there is basically no work-around. The Intel controller only controls the SATA 3Gbps ports (i think). If i want 6Gb speeds, i need to use the crappy marvell.

Ill let you know my results after i get home tonight and tinker around.
Thanks

I updated the marvell 91xx driver to version 1.2.0.1016 which did not improve performance whatsoever. Another thing i was going to try is flashing the firmware but i read a few threads on the EVGA forums and people said it was dangerous and several people saw zero improvement with SSD performance.

Kinda seems like i am SOL. I either need a new mobo, or an expensive RAID card if i want to take advantage of the Samsung 830 speed. I sent an email to Marvell but i dont think they'll be helpful.

BTW, i found all the marvell software here: http://www.station-drivers.com/page/marvell.htm

Wait... the ICH10R doesn't offer two SATA3's? wtf? Why would EVGA do that?

Are you absolutely sure you have AHCI set up right? Both in BIOS as well as Windows 7? You may need to perform a small registry edit to make sure AHCI is functioning properly in Windows, then restart with your settings to AHCI in BIOS.

I just did it myself, out of question, and raised my HDD score in Windows by 0.8 points and I'm noticing gains as well. The last year I thought I had it set up right already and out of the blue voila!

Just a thought...

Guess not. Seems like my board doesnt have Intel integrated sata6gbps. it runs off the third party marvell chip.

Good idea, i did some googling and came across a few tutorials which mention a registry key setting. I checked out the key and it is set correctly. and i confirmed that my BIOS sata ports are set to AHCI.

here's something interesting though... my ssd and one other hard drive which is also connected to the Marvell 6Gbps SATA port say 'SCSI Disk Device' in Device Manager. SCSI? really? not sure if that stands out as a possible related cause/symptom.

Found this excerpt from benchmarkreviews.com which completely confirms my horrible situation:
Consumers don't like to trouble themselves with the technical minutiae that interests enthusiasts. But it's the little things that make all of the difference; most especially in regard to this Marvell SATA 6G SSD Performance vs Intel ICH10 article. For example, most consumers don't realize that the SATA controller they connect their storage device to actually rely on a portion of system memory to create a virtual RAM-drive buffer. In many cases, the Intel driver for the ICH9/10 Southbridge reserves a memory space for cache transactions. These memory allocations appear in the form of Cache Line Size and Prefetchable Memory Base, and enable faster transaction throughput. But Intel is not alone.

Marvell's SE91XX driver actually follows along the same principals, but with a lack of refinement the differences are quite clear. Benchmark Reviews has exposed a terrible flaw in the design, and only time will tell if SSD performance on the Marvell SATA 6Gb/s controller chips will improve to meet the level Intel's ICH10 Southbridge can deliver. Until then it appears that the marketing hype is simply that, and hopefully Benchmark Reviews has helped you avoid a costly mistake.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... mitstart=7


Looks like my only solution is to buy a new mobo/proc or a fancy RAID card lol.
I'll live. My SSD feels fast but the numbers sadly say it isnt. FU Marvell.

SCSI today isn't exactly the old parallel SCSI bus technology that was used during the 80's and 90's. It comes in the form of SAS or Serial Attached SCSI as a point-to-point serial protocol that uses the standard SCSI command set. SAS is backwards compatible with SATA devices and drives in use for commercial settings.

Since you only have one of these drives, why are you worried about RAID? Personally, I'd just go with a cheapo Sata 6 controller card and see what the difference in performance is.

I was looking at those cards as an alternative, i just wonder if they will give me the full 6gig performance. Like, how can i be guaranteed that i wont have the same problems as i am with the Marvell. Hell, i wonder if these raid cards utilize a marvell chip?? Although that is an option, i have a buddy at school who will sell me his RevoDrive 120gb for $150.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227578
I might jump on that. Thoughts? Thanks.

Why spend anymore money, you already know that the ICH10 controller is faster, why not just use that instead? I know you want to get the SATA III speed, but its clear that its not implemented correctly by marvel. You will never get SATA III speed on a marvel controller, and that is all that available for the LGA1366 socket.

I was zooming in on the pictures of most of those cards and seems 90% of them are using the Marvel SE9128 chip.

I just did a little experiment and ran AS SSD benchmark with my SSD on the 6gig marvell and then tested it again on the Intel 3gig connection. Results were interesting... All benchmark numbers were slightly lower on the SataII connection compared to the marvell SataIII connection. BUT the 4K-64THRD read result was 7k IOPS / 26MBps and 42k IOPS / 165MBps on the Marvell and Intel connections respectively. My overall benchmark score on the Intel chip was 466 versus the marvell at only 279.

This was surprising, but somehow expected. I guess it is probably better to stick with the SataII Intel controller. Boot times are identical it seems. Heck, if i disable the marvell, boot time will obviously be decreased due to the controller not having to POST.