SATA driver for SSD

[Russ_64]

What is the best driver to use in Windows 7 64bit for a SATA3 SSD - I have a new Vertex 4 (non-RAID)?

OCZ still advise to use Standard MSACHI driver (when flashing firmware it is required). On my other Intel 5500 chipset server I have 1 X25-M G2 80Gb SSD and I was using Intel RST 10.6, I ran a test and got 1072


I had to roll-back to std MSACHI to flash my Vertex, so I ran test again and got 1373. So, should I stick with MSACHI or try RST 11.x?

[Holy_COW]

try and post

[CrazyNutz]

The MS driver is just a bit faster benchmark wise on my machines. However i still install and use the intel driver, to me it seems like it's faster (perceived) in real apps, and games.

[Russ_64]

try and post

I plan to try RST 10.8 and 11.1 WHQL and 11.5 Beta on the Intel X25-M rig.

First I have to install my V4 into the X58 rig. Went for a new MB to get SATA3 only now I am reading that the Marvell 9128 chip is bad and I should use ICH10R instead......... anyone using 9128 for SATA3 with a single SSD (most info around is Raid)?

This MB has 3 controllers (ICH10R, Marvell and Gigabyte SATA2) - will test all 3. Maybe use the lowest one for DVDRW in IDE mode.

[Zaxx]

I plan to try RST 10.8 and 11.1 WHQL and 11.5 Beta on the Intel X25-M rig.

First I have to install my V4 into the X58 rig. Went for a new MB to get SATA3 only now I am reading that the Marvell 9128 chip is bad and I should use ICH10R instead......... anyone using 9128 for SATA3 with a single SSD (most info around is Raid)?

This MB has 3 controllers (ICH10R, Marvell and Gigabyte SATA2) - will test all 3. Maybe use the lowest one for DVDRW in IDE mode.

I went from 10.6 to 10.8 when I built my new rig...nothing special, then I went up to 11.1 and my 4k writes went up by ~20mb/s for some reason...but that's with a Z68.

The Marvell controller is considered weak when compared to native Intel 6gb/s sata3 (P67 and later), it'll still be muuch better than using intel sata2. I think you'll find that the gigaraid controller (usually a JMicron 36X chip) and will be the slowest but just fine for HDDs and optical drives. My previous build used the JM36X to run a pair of WD's in raid1 for my backup/archives...worked great just make sure you are running the latest driver from JM...the older ones were pretty shotty.

[Russ_64]

Okay, I have run all the tests so time for results:

On the ICH10 ports I ran benchmarks using, firstly standard Windows 7 x64 msachi drivers:



2nd, installed the Gigabyte current download of Intel RST 10.6:



3rd, upgraded the Intel RST driver to latest from Intel = 10.8:



For comparison, I moved the SSD onto the Gigabyte 2 controller port (using a JMicron controller but msachi driver):



Continued in next post......

[Russ_64]

Finally, moved the SSD onto the Marvell 9128 SATA3 port which seems to also run with the msachi driver:



Tried after turning Write Caching OFF on the controller:



I guess the speed gained on SATA3 is good even if write is a little slower. Was surprised by the ASU result on SATA3 - worse than I expected??

[Zaxx]

You may find using the latest Intel driver with cache on will help your low end writes...my old ich9 preferred it anyway...lol

[ProStreetCamaro]

You need to update the firmware. 1.5 is now official and in most cases it provides a speed increase and access time decrease. This was taken using intel rst 10.8