Corsair Force 3 SSD 120G Slow Speed

champ_evans · 1 Jan 2012 at 14:47

Been using ATTO to bench mark my ssd and even though my ssd is cabled in data 3 and latest marvel controller driver from asus I am gettting terrible read and write speeds
Read up to 380MB/s
writes below 250MB/s
bios recognises it as 6g connection and AHCI mode
Intel rapid storage controlller doesn't pick up the drive but windows drive manager does.
Asus Rampage 3 Extreme Motherboard
My SSD is connected to a 6 Gig sata port (Marvel)

Any help will be gratefully appreciated

Broken Hope · 1 Jan 2012 at 14:52

Marvell controller is horrible if you don't have an Intel 6Gb port then you're pretty much maxed out.

Surveyor · 1 Jan 2012 at 14:56

Hi and welcome to the forum.

As has been said the Marvell controller is the "problem".

They're not as good as native SATA 3 ports but, as you have an X58 chipset, you don't have any.

It's better than the Intel SATA 2 ports though as read speed would be limited to ~280MB/s on those.

Intel RST won't pick up the drive because you're not using an Intel SATA port.

champ_evans · 1 Jan 2012 at 15:13

My SSD is connected to a 6 Gig sata port (Marvel)

Surveyor · 1 Jan 2012 at 15:22

champ_evans said:
My SSD is connected to a 6 Gig sata port (Marvel)

I get that.

They don't work as well as Intel SATA 3 ports so you're not going to see the maximum speeds quoted by Corsair.

As you don't have any Intel SATA 3 ports the Marvell controller is the best you've got. It's faster than the Intel SATA 2 ports.

You've still got the main benefit of an SSD, near instantaneous access times.

I'm sure in normal use it doesn't feel slow.

drunkenmaster · 2 Jan 2012 at 10:00

Compare any ssd to a normal hdd.

Take sequential, hdd 150mb's max read writes, ssd best case now is somewhere around 450/350 read/write, so its maybe 2-3 times as fast.

Random 4kb read/writes, on an hdd you're looking at 0.8/1.5 read/writes, maximum. On an ssd you're looking at something along the lines of 25-30/25-60(depending on ssd) read/writes.

You're talking about 20-40times faster random performance. Sequential's are pointless, you will rarely if ever max them out, random's are where the biggest performance limit is in hdd's, and access time, the Marvell controller will have no issue getting most of that random performance or access time improvement out of an ssd.

Sequential is NOT the reason ssd's are so fast, its random performance and access time, those two things combined make up 99.9% of the difference people feel between an hdd and ssd. Sequential looks like a nice big number on benchmarks but real world is pretty much pointless. Don't worry about it, run AS SSD benchmark or crystal diskmark, it will give you sequential but also the FAR more important 512kb/4kb read/write numbers, and access times in as ssd. Now run those benchmarks on your ssd, and then you hdd, and see the ridiculous difference where the performance really matters, and be very happy with your drive.

RoEy · 2 Jan 2012 at 13:15

I think Overclockers and other retailers should put a warning about this because I think it's disgusting. The warning sould read:

****PLEASE NOTE - If you're running a Marvell Sata 3 Port then you will not get the full sata 3 speeds labelled. You need an Intel Sata 3 Port to maximise Sata 3 speed/bandwith. *******

It's false advertising from Marvells side of things. Marvell Sata 3 controller 6gbs..... more like Sata 2.5 :mad:

From what I've been reading, this has caught a lot of people out and it's wrong.

RoEy

Justintime · 2 Jan 2012 at 16:03

RoEy said:
I think Overclockers and other retailers should put a warning about this because I think it's disgusting. The warning sould read:

****PLEASE NOTE - If you're running a Marvell Sata 3 Port then you will not get the full sata 3 speeds labelled. You need an Intel Sata 3 Port to maximise Sata 3 speed/bandwith. *******

It's false advertising from Marvells side of things. Marvell Sata 3 controller 6gbs..... more like Sata 2.5

From what I've been reading, this has caught a lot of people out and it's wrong.

RoEy

Dosen't have to be Intel though, i've got an IBM M1015 SATA/SAS card thats pulling down 980/1008 mb/sec easily with 2 Agility 3 in Raid 0 atm, with a single agility 3 i've seen as good as Intel in benches, using that on an X58 P6T SE for fun really as i've got a Vertex 3 in my SB machine. Only problem i can see is the cost, though i got mine for 70.00 when you factor in the cables.

champ_evans · 5 Jan 2012 at 12:42

Been in touch with Overclockers today they say its common knowledge if you go on corsair site that Marvell will not give full read write speeds, so its not faulty. I say if you know this then warning should be placed in the marketting of the product and at the very least the specs. If a Motherboard as expensive as mine which staes sata 3, 6 Gig it should give what it says on the specs and to argue that its still faster than a hard drive is a fob off.

Ovr · 5 Jan 2012 at 15:48

The Marvell controller won't do TRIM either will it?

Justintime · 7 Jan 2012 at 04:39

No TRIM that i know of, not that important if the ssd has decent GC.

champ_evans said:
Been in touch with Overclockers today they say its common knowledge if you go on corsair site that Marvell will not give full read write speeds, so its not faulty. I say if you know this then warning should be placed in the marketting of the product and at the very least the specs. If a Motherboard as expensive as mine which staes sata 3, 6 Gig it should give what it says on the specs and to argue that its still faster than a hard drive is a fob off.

Well mate, to be fair its an older platform and there was no native chipset support for Sata 3 and will never be on the 1366 platform, hence why boards with the X58 chipset need a 3rd party Sata 3 controller, i daresay if they intergrated a 'proper' sata 3 controller it'd almost double the cost of the board.