SATA III SSD, No AHCI option.

[mchip86]

Hello,

I have an older motherboard (MSI RD480 Neo2 (MS-7194)) that has SATA I. I did some research into the south bridge chipset (ULi 1573) and found that is NCQ capable. There is no AHCI enable option in the BIOS, only SATA enable/disable and [software] RAID enable/disable. I purchased a PNY C1311 SSD in which the literature says that it is only backwards compatible to SATA II. My other research mostly indicates complete backwards compatibility (I / II / III) with SATA drives, however I notice some people do have issues with SSDs and lack of AHCI mode and have to put them in IDE force mode if it is available, something I do not believe my PNY drive will have.

My question is that since my ULi 1573 chipset is NCQ capable, which seems to me to be the most significant aspect of AHCI, should I expect to experience any issues with the drive? The drive has not yet arrived.

Furthermore, if the motherboard does not support the drive will I have any issues running it off a 3rd party SATA III PCIe card? http://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Components-SI-PEX40057/dp/B00AZ9T264/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1462545572&sr=8-7&keywords=sata+III+card

Some of the reviews I have read about these cards, the owners mention having to enable AHCI in the motherboard BIOS. I do not understand why would be necessary with a 3rd party controller since the communication is through the PCIe bus and does not use the onboard SATA controller.

Thanks!

 

[navalweaponsofficer]

Quite the conundrum. You should be able to use the SSD as is on the SATA 1 port however you will not see large sustained transfer speed gains but your random read write will be much faster. to get the full capability of the card you will want to use a SATA card. however your motherboard is PCIe 1.0 and their is not enough bandwidth available in PCI or PCIe 1X. Assuming you are using only one video card you will need a multi lane PCIe card to increase bandwidth to the add on card and its SATA ports you will plug this multilane card into your open video card slot.

something like this will provide you much more bandwidth than the SATA 1.0 Port http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115114&cm_re=SATA_CARD-_-16-115-114-_-Product

 

[mchip86]

Quite the conundrum. You should be able to use the SSD as is on the SATA 1 port however you will not see large sustained transfer speed gains but your random read write will be much faster. to get the full capability of the card you will want to use a SATA card. however your motherboard is PCIe 1.0 and their is not enough bandwidth available in PCI or PCIe 1X. Assuming you are using only one video card you will need a multi lane PCIe card to increase bandwidth to the add on card and its SATA ports you will plug this multilane card into your open video card slot.

something like this will provide you much more bandwidth than the SATA 1.0 Port http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115114&cm_re=SATA_CARD-_-16-115-114-_-Product

The card you linked is PCIe X4, I only have a x16 (occupied by a graphics card) and a couple PCIe X1 slots. I am not sure that I understand your comment on needing a multi lane SATA card, do you mean this in terms of providing maximum SSD speed capability? My priority is to simply have the drive operational since I will transfer this drive into a more modern configuration in the future. In the mean time, if it does work with the integrated SATA I controller, I will have up to 150MB/s capability. With the card, I am PCIe 1.0 X1 limited to 250MB/s which is still a significant gain over the integrated chipset.

I posted a link to the incorrect card, it would appear that this one would be an option, would you agree?:

http://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1462555487&sr=1-1&keywords=io+crest+sata+iii

 

[navalweaponsofficer]

The picture i saw of your board showed it having two pcie x16 slots. Do you have one or two x16 slots? If you have two slots you can use an x4, x6 or x8 card in that slot.

If you are going to replace the computer soon i wouldent evein bother with a SATA card and just use the knboard SATA. The big gains are OI anyways

 

[mchip86]

The picture i saw of your board showed it having two pcie x16 slots. Do you have one or two x16 slots? If you have two slots you can use an x4, x6 or x8 card in that slot.

If you are going to replace the computer soon i wouldent evein bother with a SATA card and just use the knboard SATA. The big gains are OI anyways

You are correct, there are two x16 slots, however they are both reserved for graphics cards. The board is capable of dual card, crossfire mode. When operating in single card mode the slave x16 must be affixed with a switching card.

I would not say I would be upgrading soon, probably a year or more, so a $30 investment in a SATA card that I can always put to use in another system is acceptable to me. Do you see any potential conflicts using the card? Actually, I have a question regarding the sata card: If I perform my OS installs using the integrated controller, can I simply unplug from that and into the SATA card if I get it at a later date? I have drivers for the OSes being used for both types of controllers.

 

[navalweaponsofficer]

The x16 slot is not only for graphics can be used for anything. But i do not know how your pcie lanes are divided. On some boards when dual cards are used they are x16 and x8. Some go x8 x8 some can pull a 32 lanes.

No conflicts in using a x1 card

Yes you can move it later however it will need to stay IDE. You cannot swithc it from ied to ahci during the switch. Caveat their are ways to do it but you have to be careful.

For install on board controller then shift you would want to do the install then install the card, turn on the computer go into the cards settings (not in windows) and ensure AHCI if off and IDE is on. Boot to windows and install the drivers, shutdown and switch cable, go into bios and change boot order you would then boot from the card.

You could then change it to ahci

To do that you have to edit the registary then reboot and change the card to AHCI. Their are spacific instructions avilable on the web on how to do the IDE to AHCI change.