Samsung 850 EVO 1TB terrible benchmarks - Marvell 9128 problem?

[Damien8]

Hi,

I recently bought Samsung 850 EVO 1TB and I'm getting some seriously bad benchmarks when I connect it via SATA 3. I ran various benchmark tests besides the Samsung Magician (AS SSD Benchmark, ATTO, PassMark ...), all results were under 420 MB/s read and under 300 MB/s write.

My motherboard is: ASUS P6X58-E WS
It has 6 SATA2 and 2 SATA3 ports using Marvell® 9128 PCIe SATA6Gb/s controller. I noticed people mentioning that this Marvell controller can cause problems.

While connected via SATA2, read is 280 and write is 265, but overall it appears stable. Computer seemed to freeze occasionally while connected to SATA3!?!?

Is there anything that can be done to improve this?

What about those PCIe SATA3 controllers? MOBO has lots of slots:
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (@ x16)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (@ x16 or x8)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (@ x8)
1 x PCIe x1

First I thought there's a problem with the drive. But that's probably not the case, right?

Thanks!
Regards,
Damien

 

[Darkbreeze]

Update the storage controller and chipset drivers, if you haven't already.

What is your windows version?

 

[Damien8]

I installed the latest drivers published on ASUS motherboard site. They're from 2011, though.

Windows 7, 64-bit.

The more I google for this, the more I see that this Marvell controller seems to be dreaded. 🙁

 

[Darkbreeze]

It IS terrible. A new motherboard would be the best solution, but I'm guessing that isn't likely since the speeds you're getting are probably tolerable until such time as you DO decide to upgrade. I'm looking for some newer drivers in the hopes it might offer at least SOME benefit over those 2011 versions.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Do you have AHCI enabled in the BIOS? Have you checked for firmware updates for the SSD?

Neither of those will resolve the controller issue, just trying to minimize the impact hopefully.

I'd personally use the native Intel controllers with the SSD, even with the slower speeds, simply for the increased stability. I'd also enable RAPID and do the overprovisioning of the drive as well.

I can't find any other newer drivers. Seems a lot of windows 8 folks have been in the same boat, and it doesn't look like newer drivers than those you already have were ever released.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Also, make sure you're BIOS is on the latest version. I've definitely seen some BIOS versions that seriously affected SSD performance.

 

[rhysiam]

Just as an FYI, the main benefit of an SSD is the random IO performance, not the sequential transfers. If you move it to the SATA2 ports, of course you'll be limited to a little over 250MBps sequential, but it'll make hardly any difference at all for the random performance (things like booting, program loads, installing software, windows updates, etc etc... i.e., all the main reasons you buy an SSD in the first place).

Remember that to make the most of sequential transfer rates you need to be copying from or to a source that can keep up with the SSD... which really only means another SSD. Even a HDD can saturate a Gbps network connection... so the SSD offers nothing there and SATA2 vs 3 makes no difference whatsoever.

Is it ideal? Nope. But it'll still be much, much faster than any HDD and I don't think it's too much to worry about.

Given you've got the LGA1366 chipset with a heap of PCIe lanes, you could get a SATA3 card.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Except that it's HIGHLY recommended to not install OS drives on add in cards controllers. I agree with the first assessment, as I said above, the native Intel SATA II headers are probably the better option.

 

[rhysiam]

Except that it's HIGHLY recommended to not install OS drives on add in cards controllers. I agree with the first assessment, as I said above, the native Intel SATA II headers are probably the better option.

Yeah, good call.

Intel SATA2 is the way to go. As I said above, I don't actually think it's a big deal at all, and would probably only be noticed if you're regularly shifting large files around between SSDs.

 

[Damien8]

Yeah, looks like you're both correct regarding going back to Intel SATA 2. Ever since I switched back yesterday, everything is running much smoother. Looks like the Marvell controller really was freezing my system, every-time it was under heavy load (running benchmarks, for example).

The problem is that I work with databases, so I would probably greatly benefit from higher speeds. However, random reads should be the most important, so that's positive. 4K numbers aren't down at all, 4K-64thrd are, though (like half of what others are achieving). I'm trying to determine how much they matter.

@darkbreeze: ACHI is enabled. Firmware updated. Latest BIOS version.

Btw., so getting a PCIe controller wouldn't be wise? I also read elsewhere that it's not really recommended.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes, bad idea. Terrible idea. Stay with the current setup and maybe consider expediting the process of upgrading to a more current chipset and controller if these are work related mission critical tasks you're dealing with.